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|Abstracts on Global Climate Change|
Decomposition of soil and plant carbon from pasture systems after 9 years of exposure to elevated CO2: impact on C cycling and modeling
de Graaff, MA Six, J Harris, D Blum, H van Kessel, C
GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY 10:11 1922-1935
Elevated atmospheric CO2 may alter decomposition rates through changes in plant material quality and through its impact on soil microbial activity. This study examines whether plant material produced under elevated CO2 decomposes differently from plant material produced under ambient CO2. Moreover, a long-term experiment offered a unique opportunity to evaluate assumptions about C cycling under elevated CO2 made in coupled climate-soil organic matter (SOM) models. Trifolium repens and Lolium perenne plant materials, produced under elevated (60 Pa) and ambient CO2 at two levels of N fertilizer (140 vs. 560 kg ha(-1) yr(-1)), were incubated in soil for 90 days. Soils and plant materials used for the incubation had been exposed to ambient and elevated CO2 under free air carbon dioxide enrichment conditions and had received the N fertilizer for 9 years. The rate of decomposition of L. perenne and T. repens plant materials was unaffected by elevated atmospheric CO2 and rate of N fertilization. Increases in L. perenne plant material C : N ratio under elevated CO2 did not affect decomposition rates of the plant material. If under prolonged elevated CO2 changes in soil microbial dynamics had occurred, they were not reflected in the rate of decomposition of the plant material. Only soil respiration under L. perenne, with or without incorporation of plant material, from the low-N fertilization treatment was enhanced after exposure to elevated CO2. This increase in soil respiration was not reflected in an increase in the microbial biomass of the L. perenne soil. The contribution of old and newly sequestered C to soil respiration, as revealed by the C-13-CO2 signature, reflected the turnover times of SOM-C pools as described by multipool SOM models. The results do not confirm the assumption of a negative feedback induced in the C cycle following an increase in CO2, as used in coupled climate-SOM models. Moreover, this study showed no evidence for a positive feedback in the C cycle following additional N fertilization. | <urn:uuid:0cb253ad-efe7-49d7-ab63-2b89ba59c068> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/clim/unclassified/todo/2004/11/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936963 | 496 | 2.125 | 2 |
How deep is your love for this song? Go deeper.
We can pretty much encapsulate "Love the Way You Lie" in just one four-letter word.
And that four-letter word is WHOA.
The song feels like a big deal. It feels intense, meaningful, chilling, frightening, deep, and sometimes worrisome. It feels emotional. And to many, it feels real.
Why all the feelings? It's not like people haven't heard Eminem rap about violence or Rihanna sing about love
. The beats underlying the vocals aren't doing much that's particularly original, and the melody of Rihanna's hook doesn't do much to break new ground, either.
But the words! The song's intense depiction of a violent relationship raises questions powerful enough to attract interest not just from Eminem fans, but also from educators
, domestic violence activists
, feminist bloggers
, and an unusually broad slew of commentators
concerned about Eminem's influence on teenagers and about his seemingly unguarded misogyny
Ever since he made his controversial debut more than a decade ago, Eminem's M.O. has been to deny that his more violent songs are meant to send a message. But "Love the Way You Lie" was tagged as a "message song" about the real problem of domestic violence by none other than Rihanna herself, who said this about it
in July 2010: "It's something that, you know, we've both experienced… on different sides, different ends of the table. He (Eminem) pretty much just broke down the cycle of domestic violence and it's something that people don't have a lot of insight on… It's something that I understood, something I connected with."
Far from distancing her own personal life from the song, then, Rihanna gave listeners a certain degree of license to speculate about the connections between the song and both performers' own troubled histories – Rihanna as a victim of domestic violence, Eminem as a perpetrator. "It was authentic, it was real," Rihanna added. And for millions of people, the subject matter is
real—not just because they've seen news reports about Rihanna's abuse by Chris Brown, but because millions of people experience violence
in their own relationships. Unlike some of the previous angry warnings
against abuse found in popular songs, this one has an edge of highly personal knowledge. And unlike more than a few popular revenge ballads
, so extreme that they can almost be taken lightly, "Love the Way You Lie" is clearly not a joke.
So what's the world's most notorious woman-bashing hip-hop jokester doing making a serious song about violence against women?
To begin with, the facts: Although some have excused Eminem's violent lyrics by saying that they represent nothing more than a shocking brand of comedy, the rapper has always been more than just a jokester. In the process of bashing everybody from Hilary Clinton to Michael Jackson to ex-wife Kim Scott, he's been accused of hating women, gay people, his mother, himself, his past, and society at large. He's also been defended on the basis that he offers a voice for the voiceless who speaks openly about working-class male rage and his own feelings of powerlessness.
It's true that Marshall Mathers – that's Eminem's nom de
reality – has always had his reasons to be angry. The rapper grew up poor, was bullied as a kid, and flunked ninth grade three times before dropping out of high school in Detroit. His drug-addicted mom was physically and emotionally abusive, and his dad was absent. His best friend Proof compared Mathers' childhood home life to the 1996 Valu-Jet plane crash
to illustrate the level of chaos and violence he saw there. When Mathers put out his first album in 1996, he was working as a line cook in Detroit and struggling with his then-girlfriend Kim Scott (later Kim Mathers) to support their young daughter Hailie.
Rap legend Dr. Dre discovered Eminem in 1997, and the Slim Shady LP
released the same year led the young rapper to overnight fame. Hot on the tail of fame came controversy. Eminem's early songs included graphic descriptions of the brutal rape and murder of women, and he uses every derogatory name in the book to refer to almost everybody—but especially his own wife and mother. And rather than discount accusations of misogyny or homophobia, he actually talked about his early music as a sort of raw, un-edited version of the person that he really is. "If you're sick enough to think it, then you're sick enough to say it," he told SPIN Magazine
in 2000. "I don't think there's really a limit to what I would or wouldn't say."
How does Eminem's propensity for saying whatever comes into his head relate to his real behavior and attitudes? In other words, is he really as creepy as his rap persona sometimes suggests, or does he merely articulate creepy-seeming (but mostly harmless) thoughts? Where is the line between the two?
Here's one perspective: Eminem has a tattoo of his daughter, Hailie, on his right arm. Embedded in the tattoo are the words "Bonnie and Clyde," the title of Eminem's song on the Slim Shady LP
that describes murdering the girl's mother and shoving her body off the end of a pier while his daughter watches, screaming. Our creep alarm is definitely going off here.
Still, it could maybe, just maybe, be all fun and games... if Mathers hadn't actually verbally harassed his ex-wife to the point that she nearly killed herself in 2000 before suing Mathers for defamation. Was Kim Mathers overreacting to a little song and dance? Not exactly. The Marshall Mathers LP
featured a single called "Kim" that unleashes an alarming slew of verbal violence against this woman, by name, before describing how she would be murdered. To make matters worse, Eminem has openly stated that his scary fantasies on that track were based on real feelings
he had at the time. Taking it even a step further, Eminem's performance during his tour at the time including beating up a mock-up doll that resembled Kim Mathers. It was after seeing a performance of this in which she says people were "cheering, singing the words and laughing,"
that she attempted to take her own life by slitting her wrists.
On top of this disturbing series of events, Eminem was arrested twice
in the same year, the first time on assault and weapons charges for pistol-whipping a man he saw kissing his then-wife outside a bar (the pair divorced later that year).
Both violent jealousy and public insults to a partner are known signs of relationship abuse
. One review called "Kim" a "shout-rapped enactment of domestic violence so real it chills.
" And when Christina Aguilera, herself a survivor of domestic violence
in her childhood home, criticized Eminem for the song as a part of their ongoing feud
, he lashed out
at her with barely-controlled rage.
So Eminem may well be as creepy in real life as he seems on his songs. But he still ended up getting real, real popular as each of his first four major-label albums was showered with critical acclaim, high sales, and multiple awards. Young people loved his off-the-wall lyrics, and critics loved his raw talent. Ongoing criticism of his songs' messages
could not hold back the avalanche of record sales or frequent impassioned defenses of his character.
But the rapper rose to the top on a shaky personal foundation, leading him to take a sudden musical hiatus in 2005. During this time, the real Marshall Mathers went into recovery and went sober. He also re-married and re-divorced Kim Scott, and mourned the violent death
of his best friend Proof. He said in a 2009 interview
that he came close to death during this period, and chose to turn his life around in order to survive.
The rapper also came close to losing his corner of the pop-rap market. His 2009 release, Relapse
, was a flop of a comeback album
. Over ten years since the Slim Shady LP
hit the market, audiences seemed to be strangely desensitized to Eminem's shady scary stuff, too prevalent on Relapse
for the album to feel original. The people that didn't like it didn't feel it was worth continuing to pay attention to, and the people that loved Slim Shady were just less impressed. Eminem seemed to have lost his controversy-driven glow.
So in 2010, Eminem left behind a lot of his old antics to produce a more serious album, Recovery
. Rolling Stone's review
points out that, although the rapper still tosses in some rage against Mariah Carey, "Em is finding ways to make therapy fun, including mocking his own penchant for navel-gazing melodrama." And indeed, "Love the Way You Lie," Recovery
's biggest hit, is all about the side of Eminem who is in recovery
from, rather than enthralled to, his own violent and disturbed past.
For some reason (most likely self-promotional genius), Eminem had the idea to call up Rihanna to sing the hook on this one. The young Barbadian woman's history in the public eye is a little shorter and a lot more straightforward than Eminem's. Her first big hit came in 2005 when she was only 18, and her most successful album to date is the 2007 release Good Girl Gone Bad
, the effort of a baby-faced star to start transforming her reputation to something a little more grown up. With Good Girl Gone Bad
, Rihanna became one of the hottest stars in pop.
In early 2009, a violent incident
with then-boyfriend Chris Brown put Rihanna in the spotlight in a far less consensual way than her many hit singles had. Photos of Rihanna's battered face were leaked to the media, preventing Rihanna from maintaining any privacy in the matter. Brown soon pled guilty to felony assault and begged fans for forgiveness
, while Rihanna unwittingly became a public advocate on issues of domestic violence.
Later that year, Rihanna spoke out
about what happened with Brown. She told ABC News that she was "embarrassed" that she'd gone back to Chris Brown in the weeks following the assault, and recommended that young girls in her situation "don't react off of love. F love. Come out of the situation and look at it in the third person and for what it really is."
With her whole life story laid bare before the mass media, Rihanna has been confronted and even attacked with some of the worst stereotypes
about survivors of domestic violence—one of which is that domestic violence can't happen to strong, independent women. "I am strong," Rihanna told ABC. "This happened to me. It could happen to anybody."
Naturally, some have speculated that "Love the Way You Lie" serves as a sort of catharsis
for the singer. But others have accused "Love the Way You Lie," particularly the music video, of reinforcing some of the same myths that Rihanna and others have worked to break down.
In the music video, actors Megan Fox and Dominic Monaghan are shown fighting, making up, making out, and fighting again. Fox goes out with another man, and Monaghan attacks him in a bar (reminiscent of Eminem's own 2000 attack); Fox tries to leave, and Monaghan begs her to stay and punches a hole in the wall. The video may reinforce the idea that abuse is partially the fault of the victim
because he or she is unfaithful or picks a fight. It could also suggest that people who are violent are merely losing control or losing their tempers (as opposed to a more deliberate pattern of coercion
), or that those who don't leave are to blame. One blogger criticizes the song
for speaking only from the perspective of the perpetrator, and another says
that the video "teaches the same bulls**t lessons about destructive, abusive relationships being 'passionate.'"
On the flip side, though, the video may pressure the public to confront one of the hardest realities about abusive relationships—that people can feel passion, love, and sexual attraction, even with partners who abuse and control them. What's more, for people who stay in these relationships, love or attraction can be a part of the reason why people stay
. So can financial constraints, threats and the fear of heightened violence, or a belief that the abuser really is going to change. A blogger with a totally different perspective
defends the video on the basis that it depicts some of the realities of poverty, addiction, and rage that are an unavoidable part of life for some people from similar backgrounds to Eminem's. Poverty, she says, is a form of violence too. The blogger, who writes as BrownFemiPower, also points out that, rather than reinforcing a myth about "mutual abuse," the video might reflect the truth that some women do fight back—and there's no use in claiming that the only real victims are those who would never throw a punch themselves.
The whole debate about the song's message raises a question that goes beyond the domestic violence debate alone: Are artists responsible for what people make of their art? What responsibility should Eminem and Rihanna take for the influence their song may have, positive or negative? When it comes to a subject so dangerous and so prevalent, can hit-makers like these two avoid liability? The broader question here is whether hit music about a topic like violence can be descriptive without being prescriptive. In other words, can Eminem and Rihanna describe their own experiences without also appearing to tell others what is okay and not okay? These questions do not have easy answers.
Let's be real. Eminem is still Eminem, and he insists that the song and video are personal stories
, not public service announcements. And Rihanna, who has bravely revealed so much of her own story
in order to advocate for other young women, cannot be expected to be the resident pop expert on dating violence for all eternity. Whether we take it as a serious warning, a source of identification, or a sorry series of excuses, or even just a catchy pop tune, "Love the Way You Lie" is ultimately going to be what listeners make of it. | <urn:uuid:876c527c-96ac-4d2c-a5f5-bde502bf6c41> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shmoop.com/love-the-way-you-lie/meaning.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976987 | 2,981 | 1.664063 | 2 |
(a) A private person who has been directed by a person he reasonably believes to be a law enforcement officer to assist that officer to effect an arrest or to prevent escape from custody may, subject to the limitations of subsection (c), use physical force when and to the extent that he reasonably believes it to be necessary to carry out that officer's direction unless he knows or believes that, the arrest or prospective arrest is not or was not authorized.
(b) A private person acting on his own account may, subject to the limitations of subsection (c), use physical force to effect arrest or prevent escape only when and to the extent it is immediately necessary to effect the arrest, or to prevent escape from custody, of a person whom he reasonably believes to have committed a crime.
(c) A private person in effecting an arrest or in preventing escape from custody is justified in using deadly force only:
(1) when it is authorized under other sections of this chapter;
(2) when he reasonably believes it to be authorized under the circumstances and he is directed or authorized by a law enforcement officer to use deadly force; or
(3) when he reasonably believes the use of deadly force is immediately necessary to effect the arrest of a person who at that time and in his presence:
(A) committed or attempted to commit a class A felony or murder; or
(B) is attempting to escape by use of a deadly weapon.
(d) The defendant has the burden of injecting the issue of justification under this section.History: 1979, PL 1643 § 2.
Research Guide: MCC 563.051. | <urn:uuid:7e4a6de1-fc53-45f1-b4c3-32df95d01db4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://asbar.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7305:46.3309-Private-person's-use-of-force-in-making-an-arrest.&catid=747&Itemid=172 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958418 | 334 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Kelly de la Rocha
Vaginal bleeding during the first trimester of pregnancy is common. It is often nothing to worry about. Bleeding during the second or third trimester can mean there is a significant complication.
If you have vaginal bleeding at any point during pregnancy, call your doctor.
Vaginal bleeding in pregnancy has many causes. The effect on the pregnancy depends on which phase the bleeding occurs in. Some common causes include:
Risk factors that increase your chance of having bleeding during pregnancy include:
The amount of bleeding will be different for each cause. Wear a pad so you can tell how much you are bleeding. The blood may also appear different for different causes. Make note of how heavy the bleeding is and how the blood appears so you can tell your doctor.
Your doctor will ask about your symptoms and medical history. A physical exam will be done. A pelvic exam may also be done.
Your doctor may need to assess blood loss or determine blood type. This can be done through blood tests.
Your doctor may need pictures of your vagina and/or abdomen. This can be done with:
Treatment depends on the cause of the bleeding and the severity of the condition. Treatments include:
To help reduce your chance of experiencing vaginal bleeding during pregnancy, take the following steps:
The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
American Pregnancy Association
The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada
Womens Health Matters
Bleeding during pregnancy. American Pregnancy Association website. Available at:
http://www.americanpregnancy.org/pregnancycomplications/bleedingduringpreg.html. Updated October 2008. Accessed December 19, 2012.
Gestational trophoblastic disease. American Cancer Society website. Available at:
http://www.cancer.org/cancer/gestationaltrophoblasticdisease/detailedguide/index. Accessed December 19, 2012.
Pregnancy complications. Available at:
http://www.womenshealth.gov/pregnancy/you-are-pregnant/pregnancy-complications.html. Updated September 27, 2010. Accessed December 19, 2012.
Last reviewed March 2013 by Andrea Chisholm
Please be aware that this information is provided to supplement the care provided by your physician. It is neither intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. CALL YOUR HEALTHCARE PROVIDER IMMEDIATELY IF YOU THINK YOU MAY HAVE A MEDICAL EMERGENCY. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider prior to starting any new treatment or with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
Copyright © EBSCO Publishing. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:55d2d4a3-0eee-458d-ab83-36ea622fb62b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wkhs.com/Obstetrics/Library.aspx?chunkiid=101302 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904704 | 572 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Alverno’s curriculum is based on eight core abilities that every student must acquire for graduation from Alverno. The mastery of the eight abilities is not only essential to becoming a successful student at Alverno, but the abilities become central to an individual’s success as they move beyond the classroom and school.
The eight areas of what was then called "competence" first outlined in Alverno’s early Competence-Based Learning or CBL program were: effective communication; analytical capability; problem-solving ability; facility in forming value judgments; effective social interaction; understanding of individual/environment relationships; understanding the contemporary world; and educated responsiveness to the arts and humanities.
As the curriculum has evolved over the past thirty-five plus years, the identification of Alverno’s abilities has been honed and refined. Below, is a page from the May 1992 issue of Alverno Magazine which highlights the Alverno abilities as they were known at that time.
Early in the 1970-1971 school year, then president, Sister Joel Read, challenged the faculty with five critical questions. These questions are summarized in the memo (below) sent to faculty from then Academic Dean, Sister Bernarda Handrup:
For the rest of that year, faculty met regularly in order to hear each department explain and explore its contribution to undergraduate education. As a result of these sessions came a major question, "What are the outcomes for the student, rather than the input by the faculty?" This became the focus for the year-end faculty institute. As a result of the discussions at that faculty institute, four broad outcomes were defined: communication, valuing, problem solving, and involvement. The curriculum committee was charged in the following year with breaking these broad outcomes into a more detailed system.
By the third year, an expanded list of "competences," now known as "abilities" was given to an academic task force for shaping into a curriculum. Here is a photo of members of the Academic Task Force with the then Academic Dean,
Sister Bernarda Handrup:
Back row Left to Right: Sister Georgine Loacker, Sister Austin Doherty, Jack Cooper.
Front row Left to Right: Brian Nedwek, Sister Bernarda Handrup
At the same time, one section of a required freshman course in each discipline was used as a laboratory for developing the means to teach and assess selected abilities. The task force's January 1973 report further broke down each of the eight abilities into six developmental levels. The curriculum was implemented in Fall 1973.
The “Green Bible” (the first listing of ability statements and developmental levels for all eight abilities, printed on green paper) was published in August 1973.
Over time the statements for Alverno's eight abilities have evolved and changed. Below are links to ability statements
(the "4-pagers") used from 1973 to the present:
Snapshots of the Abilities
Competence Based Learning Brochure, 1974
The Eight Abilities listed in the 1976 edition of Liberal Learning at Alverno College
Alverno's Abilities described in the Winter 1984 issue of Alverno Magazine
The Eight Abilities listed in the 1985 edition of Liberal Learning at Alverno College
Alverno's Abilities described in the May 1991 issue of Alverno Magazine
Alverno's Abilities described in the Winter 1996 issue of Alverno Magazine
Alverno's Abilities outlined in the 2002-2004 Alverno College Bulletin
Alverno's Abilities outlined in the 2010-2012 Weekday Alverno College Bulletin | <urn:uuid:97a083cb-820e-4ca3-8b8f-c7873de6c64f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://depts.alverno.edu/archives/alphistory/8abilities.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957333 | 737 | 2.90625 | 3 |
By Jack Adam Weber
Dear Fellow Sane Human Beings,
Greetings. It’s a pleasure to write to you again.
By now you likely have plenty of information and encouragement for why not to purchase GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms). What we need now is to band together and take action. So below I have outlined “How” to do this.
If you need more information on GMOs or GM Foods, please search this site for “GMO” or see my articles.
GEM stands for “GMO Eradication Movement.” It of course also refers to our beautiful planet. So to “Grow the GEM” means eradicating GMOs to beautify our world. The 11 Steps for Growing the GEM are divided among three levels of participation. An overview of the three levels for being a GEM (GMO Eradication Mover) are:
Level I: Learning how to identify GMO products and not to buy them.
Level II: Includes Level I knowledge and action and shares it with others: friends, businesses, restaurants, grocery stores, etc.
Level III: Includes Level I & II, and implements public outreach to masses of people, and puts their hands in the soil.
I have also set up a GEM Facebook Page. This will be a crucial resource for us as we go forward, and your participation will help us all. So please join us here to meet and join forces.
As we learn more, the list below will be amended and updated. Please help us “Grow the GEM” by passing on this information. We absolutely need all of us now workingtogether. Time is urgent. We cannot procrastinate.
Feel free to copy and share the 11 Steps and please cite the source provided at the end of the list.
These Steps are the heart of GMO Eradication. Please consider them carefully and implement them as soon as possible. We all have to get down to business and be disciplined about this if we hope to win this thing. We have to do it together; please be a leader.
LEVEL I (ELIMINATE)
1) Learn which foods are GMO and do not buy them (unless organic). The current GM food crops are:
- Corn (includes “sweet corn”)
- Soy (includes lecithin)
- Sugar beets
- Honey (via GMO crops’ pollen)
- Cotton (including cottonseed oil)
- Canola (including canola oil)
- Hawaiian papaya
- Yellow crookneck and zucchini squash,
- Dairy Products (tainted with rBGH and from animals fed GM food)
- Meat (all kinds, from animals fed GM food)
- Salmon (the actual animal is slated to be GMO)
- (Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein), TVP (Textured Vegetable Protein), xanthan gum, vanillin, sucrose, lactose, dextrose, lactic acid, maltodextrin, Vitamins A, B2, B6, B12, C, D, E, K may be from GMO.
2) Print out the list and carry it with you; memorize it if you can.
3) Check food labels for GMO ingredients; if they are not listed as organic, they are likely GMO. Don’t buy it. Exceptions are products that bear the “NON GMO Project” label.
a) Example 1: Canola is a GMO crop. If a product contains canola oil and does not specify it is organic, it is likely GMO. Don’t buy it.
b) Example 2: Soy is a GMO crop. Tofu, tempeh, and soy yogurt are all made from soy. Also check for soy in veggie burgers and veggie sausages. If it is not organic don’t buy it.
4) Buy as little commercially farmed processed food and as much organic food as possible. Processed foods are more likely to have GMOs as well as hidden GMO ingredients.
a) Example 1: Corn is a GMO crop. Corn syrup, vitamin E, citric acid, polysorbate 80 and sodium citrate all can be derived from corn, and likely from GMO corn.
b) Example 2: Commercial beef, chicken, and turkey are almost always fed GM food. Only buy organic meat. “Free Range” meat is not necessarily organic.
5) Avoid commercial restaurants. Restaurants that are not specifically organic (far and few between), often use cheap food, which is often GMO and non-organic.
LEVEL II (OUTREACH)
6) Share information about the dangers of GMO foods with everyone you can. Share with them any of my articles, Jeffrey Smith’s video(s), or just Google it.
7) Ask grocery stores and restaurants, family and friends, not to deal in GM foods. Talk to your children’s’ food director/organizer at school. Everywhere you go, let food-related organizations and people know: NO GMO.
8.) Call or email food companies that do not specify suspect ingredients as GMO and ask if they are GMO.
a) Example 1: Soy lecithin is often GMO. Call companies that make foods with soy lecithin and ask if it is from GMO soybeans. As them to send you verification in writing by email.
b) Example 2: If a label says “sugar” it may come from sugar beets, which are a GMO crop. Call the label’s company and proceed as with lecithin example.
c) Example 3: I recently called Twinlab, Kal, and Lessaffre (makers of Red Star Yeast) companies, all manufacturers of nutritional yeast products. Only one, Kal Brand, told me they guarantee both the yeast and the culture medium for the yeast (often corn and beet, both GMO crops) to be non-GMO. I told the others I would not buy their products until they guarantee non-GMO on the label.
9) Encourage anyone you know not to use Roundup because it is integral to GM food production, much more toxic than once suspected, and buying it supports Monsanto
LEVEL III (COMMUNITY)
10) Organize rallies, protests, donate to and support organic groups, create and circulate petitions, set up information booths, and begin a public outreach to masses of people to denounce GMOs and support organics.
Additional actions: pass out GMO warning flyers, write articles, post notes at work, go to protests, Google GMO articles and videos. Host movie nights.
11) Plant that organic garden already! And get your family and community involved.
Source: GMO Eradication Movement – GEM (Facebook Page)
In sum, the overall safest, healthiest, and most economical way to empower our GMO Eradication Movement is to buy whole organic foods, grow you own, prepare your own meals, and buy from as many local organic farmers as possible.
If a food is organic it is not GMO. Knowing GM food crops will tell you which foods to look out for in their non-organic form. If not organic, a food may still be non-GMO, but this is becoming more and more unlikely. For example, sugar beets come organic, GMO, and conventionally grown (often grown with pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, but not necessarily GMO). Organic sugar beets are non-GMO. Conventionally grown sugar beets might be GMO (you have to ask), but best to avoid because they are likely laden with pesticides.
If a food ingredient contains “sugar,” it is likely GMO because a lot of sugar comes from GMO sugar beets! If the label reads “cane sugar” it likely has pesticide residues but at this point in time is not GMO. Health tip: stay away from “sugar” for good physical and emotional health and to be a GEM!
* Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) can be made from GMO corn
* Vitamin D and vitamin K may have “carriers” derived from GMO corn (such as glucose, sugar, starch, and maltodextrin)
* Vitamin E is often made from soy
* Vitamins A, B2, B6, and B12 may be derived from GMO sources
Remember “All Natural” and “Natural” labels don’t mean squat. These foods can still be GMO.
Thank you for becoming a GEM, not a GMO! The 11 Steps can be downloaded here on one convenient page, though without the “examples” mentioned in the 11 steps above. Please share the 11 Steps everywhere you can and join us on Facebook.
Here is a list of our links. | <urn:uuid:b3fb8e1b-98f5-4a74-9a48-5fcc559be861> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://docakilah.wordpress.com/category/gmo-genetically-modified-organisms/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929725 | 1,861 | 2.140625 | 2 |
THE Privacy Commissioner of Canada is planning an audit of the government's use of full-body scanners at airports. Although Jennifer Stoddart, reappointed recently for a three-year term, says much of her office's attention will be on the online world, she will also continue to look at the "potentially grave privacy implications of national security and law enforcement measures".
Full-body scanners certainly have the potential to intrude on someone's privacy, given what they reveal. But governments claim they are needed to detect ceramic weapons, liquid or plastic explosives, and drug packages that can pass through conventional metal detectors. However, the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority promised to minimise privacy intrusions when it introduced the scanners across the country at the start of 2010 by agreeing that image records and any personal information such as the passenger's name or passport number associated with those images would not be kept. The audit will also look at how surveillance cameras are used at airports, and how personal information, such as the bar codes on boarding passes, is being managed.
The privacy commissioner's office has been scrutinising the privacy implications of the scanners since the first one was tested in 2008 at an airport in British Columbia. It is also studying the government's proposal to give officers from the Canada Border Services Agency more powers to strip-search airport and port employees as part of a bid to crack down on drug smuggling. | <urn:uuid:495945fd-63da-4415-8271-0c2f1ed3bbd8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2010/12/aviation_security_canada | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965094 | 280 | 2 | 2 |
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Litchfieldite and the Litchfield Sodalite Locality
The first known mention of the deposits occurs in the proceedings of the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists, held in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1845, where C.T. Jackson (who had just completed the first survey of the geology of Maine in 1837-39) described the minerals and provided chemical analyses of the sodalite (which he unfortunately misidentified as cancrinite) and cancrinite (which he unfortunately misidentified as nepheline) (see King and Foord, 1994, p. 324) (Jackson, 1846).
These unusual minerals and the rock that hosted them continued to attract the attention of collectors and chemists through the latter half of the 19th century, but it was left to W. S. Bayley, in 1892, to present the first discussion of the distribution and origin of the "eleolite-syenite of Litchfield and other localties in Maine." (Bayley, 1892). In this work he named the rock variety at present known as litchfieldite:
"....Consequently, in spite of the great predominance of albite over orthoclase, we are quite justified in calling our rock an eleolite-syenite [or in more current terminology, a nepheline syenite, as eleolite is a synonym for nepheline, used to describe a massive to coarsely crystalline variety of the mineral - the author] . Its large percentage of albite, however, and its possession of but one bisilicate constituent, and that a biotite (lepidomelane), seem to distinguish it as a very well defined variety of eleolite-syenite, as well characterized in the hand-specimen as in the thin section. Its peculiarities are so strongly marked that the rock seems worthy of a distinctive varietal name, for which no more appropriate one can be found than litchfieldite, derived from the familiar locality - Litchfield - whence nearly all the specimens in museums were obtained."
A more thorough investigation of the "field relations of litchfieldite and soda-syenites of Litchfield, Maine" was left until the field seasons of 1916 and 1917, when R.A. Daly visited the district (Daly, 1918).
Half a century later, a modern petrologic investigation of the alkalic rocks at Litchfield, Maine, was undertaken by D. S. Barker (1965). Barker identified a suite of rocks ranging in relative age from an older leucosyenite (a rock composed of more than 95-percent alkali feldpar with scant dark minerals - primarily sodic pyroxene and amphibole), through nepheline-free biotite syenite, to a younger nepheline syenite (including the type litchfieldite), and minor younger mafic syenite and albitite pegmatite dikes.
Barker, Daniel S., 1965, Alkalic rocks at Litchfield, Maine: Journal of Petrology, v. 6, part 1, p. 1-27.
Bayley, William S., 1892, Eleolite-syenite of Litchfield, Maine, and Hawes' hornblende syenite from Red Hill, New Hampshire: Geological Society of America, Bulletin, v. 3, p. 231-252.
Daly, Reginald A., 1918, Field relations of litchfieldite and soda syenites of Litchfield, Maine: Geological Society of America, Bulletin, v. 29, p. 463-470.
Jackson, Charles T., 1845, On cancrenite, nepheline, elaolite, and zircon from Litchfield, Maine: Association of American Geologists and Naturalists, Proceedings, v. 6, p. 44-49.
King, Vandall T., and Foord, Eugene E., 1994, Mineralogy of Maine Volume 1: Descriptive Mineralogy: Maine Geological Survey (Department of Conservation), 418 p.
Text and photos by Marc Loiselle.
Originally published on the web as the December 2005 Site of the Month.
Last updated on March 31, 2006
|Copyright © 2005 All rights reserved.| | <urn:uuid:5e0e46ec-7dd2-4d1b-b4fa-0f4cd7c39a7f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://maine.gov/doc/nrimc/mgs/explore/minerals/sites/dec05.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913152 | 935 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Waisman Center: Celebrating 40 years of advancing knowledge about developmental disabilities
Jan. 24, 2013
From her perch as director of the Waisman Center, and with an insider’s knowledge of its work to advance our understanding of developmental disability and the people it affects, Marsha Mailick sees a hopeful microcosm of the best attributes of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Although its roots are deeper, going back to its earliest iteration as the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Memorial Laboratories in the early 1960s, the Waisman Center this year celebrates 40 years of research, teaching and outreach in the interest of developmental disabilities. Exploring the range of disabilities, the Waisman Center community has helped gather new knowledge on the basic biology, developmental course, prevention, treatment and social context of a highly complex set of human conditions.
This is no small thing. Developmental disability, which can be cognitive or physical, is estimated by the Centers for Disease Control to affect as many as 1 in 6 children under the age of 17 in the United States. Such conditions run the gamut from autism and Down syndrome to the kinds of intellectual deficits once referred to as mental retardation. Generally, such conditions are expected to last a lifetime.
“Developmental disability and our understanding of its causes is one of the great research quests of our day,” explains Mailick. “We know we have had an impact on the health and quality of life of many thousands of people over the course of our existence. Our hope and intent is to continue that tradition, helping children and adults with developmental disabilities and their families live full, healthy and meaningful lives and to seek new knowledge about the causes, consequences, and treatments for these conditions.”
Those helped by the Waisman Center, such as Claire Bible, who has a mild form of Down syndrome (mosaic), knows the difference that the center's work can make. She recently donated a skin sample to be used in research by Waisman scientist Anita Bhattacharyya, to develop a Down syndrome induced pluripotent stem cell line.
“There are many ‘what ifs’ in the world," Bible says. "I wondered how did I come into the world with mosaic Down syndrome? I began thinking about the role of environment and genetics. I hoped that by donating a skin sample, I could help answer some of the ‘what ifs’ about mosaic Down syndrome for future generations.”
The center is named after Harry Waisman, the pioneering Wisconsin pediatrician and biochemist whose work helped inform our understanding of Phenylketonuria or PKU, an inherited form of mental retardation, and its prevention. Like Waisman’s early work, the basic science conducted at the center has helped identify key risk factors for developmental disability as well as treatments, and has also shed light about the genetic and environmental causes that give rise to such conditions.
Waisman’s scientific passion and advocacy for those with developmental disorders, notes Mailick, is the archetype for what has become one of the world’s leading centers of research, education and outreach on developmental disabilities and neurodegenerative diseases.
Forty-plus years of discovery, education and patient outreach are impossible to catalog in any simple account of the center. But for starters, we share 10 signature accomplishments that have made the world better and serve as examples of what lies ahead.
More Effective Treatment for PKU
Mandatory screening for and treating Phenylketonuria was one of Harry Waisman’s signature missions in life. Untreated, PKU leads to profound mental retardation. If the condition is identified at birth, it can be effectively treated through a special diet that helps patients mitigate the toxic effects of an amino acid that those with PKU are unable to metabolize. But the diet, explains Mailick, leaves much to be desired as it is unappetizing and does not satisfy hunger. The diet is a lifelong exercise to keep PKU at bay and pregnant women with PKU must conform to the diet to prevent their babies from having the condition.
Enter Waisman researchers Denise Ney, professor of nutritional science, and Sandra van Calcar, assistant professor of pediatrics, as well as Mark Etzel. Etzel, a professor of food science at UW-Madison, developed a new, more appetizing food for PKU patients, which is now in clinical trials at the Waisman Center and at the Harvard affiliated Children’s Hospital in Boston.
“Denise’s research carries forth the legacy of Harry Waisman through prevention of disability via screening, early identification and dietary treatment,” says Mailick. “Indeed, PKU is the only genetic disorder that can be fully treated.”
The Genetic Roots of Developmental Disability
Professor Albee Messing, left, discovered the gene that causes a rare condition in young children and later devised a test for the disease.
Photo: Jeff Miller
Since Waisman’s death in 1971, there has been “a surge of discovery” in genetic research with well more than six thousand single-gene disorders identified as the root cause of human disease, including many that cause developmental disabilities, according to Mailick. Emblematic of such research is Waisman scientist Albee Messing’s discovery of the gene that causes Alexander disease, a rare but fatal condition that mainly affects young children. Messing, a professor of comparative biosciences in the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, has since devised a genetic test for the disease and begun teasing out the molecular mechanisms that cause symptoms and death in Alexander patients. He is currently screening existing drugs already approved for human use that may help ease the manifestations of this currently untreatable disease.
A condition involving changes in the X chromosome, fragile X is the most prevalent inherited developmental disability. It is caused by changes in a gene known as FMR1 where a small part of the gene’s amino acid sequence repeats more often than normal. In most people, the segment repeats between 5 and 40 times. Increased repetition of the sequence is associated with impaired cognitive and reproductive functions. While 200 repeats is considered a full mutation of the FMR1 gene, anything between 41 and 54 repeats, just above normal expression, falls into what researchers call the “gray zone” where there is a borderline risk of neurological symptoms. Between 55 and 200 repeats is considered a “premutation.” Mailick conducted the first U.S. survey of the prevalence of both the fragile X gray zone and premutation and found a surprisingly high prevalence of both, with the gray zone occurring in one of every 12 females and one of every 21 males, suggesting that the genetic preconditions for clinical fragile X are widespread.
UW-Madison work with stem cells is leading to an understanding of what can go wrong at the level of a cell to cause conditions such as Down, fragile X and Rett syndromes.
Photo: Su-Chun Zhang
First tamed in 1998, embryonic stem cells – the blank slate cells that arise in early development and go on to form all of the 220 tissues in the human body – have since been directed in the lab dish by Waisman Center scientist and Professor of neuroscience Su-Chun Zhang to become some of the most fundamental building blocks of the brain. Scientists can now make neurons and astrocytes with relative ease and they’re hard at work exploring the intricate workings of those cells and how they might be used clinically to alleviate conditions like Parkinson’s and Lou Gehrig’s disease. What’s more, embryonic and now induced pluripotent stem cells are being used by Waisman scientists to create models of diseases like Down, fragile X and Rett syndromes as well as disorders that cause blindness and deafness. Such work promises a fundamental understanding of what goes wrong at the level of the cell to cause those conditions and may one day lead to their prevention.
The Epidemiology of Autism
Since it was first described scientifically in 1943, autism has become recognized as one of the most widespread developmental disorders in the United States and beyond. At the time the Waisman Center was founded, the first epidemiologic study of autism in the United States was underway in Wisconsin under the directorship of Darold Treffert. That study found many children with autism to be institutionalized and without access to public education in the least restrictive environment. It also found the prevalence of autism to be just 3.1 per 10,000 or 1 in 3,225 children.
Collaborative studies now underway at the Waisman Center find the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders in Wisconsin today to be about 7.6 per 1,000 children (1 in 131), or more than 20 times more common than it was found to be in the 1960s.
While the causes of autism and its rising prevalence are the subjects of debate, a number of notable facts and clues to the etiology of the condition have come to light through the work of Waisman Center researcher and professor of population health sciences Maureen Durkin. In carrying out epidemiological investigations of autism prevalence, Durkin and her colleagues identified higher socioeconomic status as a risk factor, whereas the risk of developmental disabilities overall tends to be associated with lower socioeconomic status. Other risk factors for autism identified by Durkin and her colleagues include advanced maternal and paternal ages, and earlier birth order. Much additional research is needed to translate these epidemiological studies into clinical treatments, but understanding the population trends in a necessary first step.
Seeing the Autistic Brain
A technician reviews computer displays following an imaging test at the Waisman Center to measure a subject’s brain activity.
Photo: Jeff Miller
Although a prevalent condition, autism remains a mystery on many levels. Waisman Center researcher and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry Richard Davidson, using sophisticated brain imaging techniques, has helped resolve a little bit of that mystery by identifying in the amygdala, an almond-sized mass deep in the brain, abnormalities characteristic of autism. Associate Professor of medical physics and psychiatry and Waisman Center researcher Andrew Alexander and his newly-arrived colleague Professor Janet Lainhart of the department of Psychiatry, have shown that a sophisticated form of magnetic resonance imaging can be used to differentiate the brains of individuals with autism and controls with 94 percent accuracy.
Language as Child’s Play
Professor Jenny Saffran’s research is exploring how infants develop language skills.
Photo: Jeff Miller
How infants develop language skills has been the subject of intellectual dogfights for decades. Are we hard wired at birth to acquire language or is language something the brain must soak up from our environment? Psychology Professor Jenny Saffran, who directs the Waisman Center’s Infant Learning Laboratory, waded into the infant language wars as a graduate student and her work then helped show that the language skills of very young humans is, in part at least, due to sophisticated learning strategies that play out in the first year of life. Infants, Saffran found, could sort out and focus on new words embedded in strings of nonsensical language. In the Infant Learning Lab, Saffran and her team continue to divine the mysteries of how we acquire language skills early on and how, as infants, we might become better processors of language.
Speaking Through Computers
Computers help us do many things, but they have become an essential communication lifeline for many children and others with developmental disabilities. Established at the Waisman Center in 1971 to address the needs of people with disabilities who have speech and mobility limitations,, the Trace Center became an innovative player in the emerging field of “augmentative communication.” With the advent of personal computers, the Trace Center helped devise, test and gain industry acceptance of many of the accessibility features that are now standard in the machines we use in our everyday lives. The Trace Center, now a part of the College of Engineering, continues to provide services through the Communication Aids and Systems Clinic at Waisman. The clinic is led by Associate Professor of communicative disorders Katie Hustad.
Growing Old with Down Syndrome
Eighty years ago, people with Down syndrome lived, on average, to 9 years of age. Today, they live into their 50s and 60s thanks to advances in medicine. However, people with Down syndrome tend to exhibit premature aging and dementia. Alzheimer’s, in particular, commonly begins to manifest itself by the fourth decade of life, although many do not show the changes in behavior associated with the big changes taking place in the brain. To better forecast the possibility of dementia, Waisman researcher and Associate Professor of medical physics and psychiatry Bradley Christian is using MRI and PET scanning techniques to identify changes in the brain that can predict which adults with Down syndrome are susceptible to dementia. Although dementia is a high risk for many with Down syndrome, Waisman Center researcher and Assistant Professor of human development and family studies Sigan Hartley is working with Christian to document the neuropsychological changes that are associated with the changes in the brain documented by the MRI and PET scans. Together these two researchers are helping to identify pathways to healthy aging in people with Down syndrome.
Taking scientific discovery to the clinic is no small task. Among the many hurdles any new therapy must clear is devising a way to manufacture agents – drugs, vaccines, vectors, cells – for clinical trials in a way that meets strict FDA standards. In 2001, Waisman Biomanufacturing was set in motion under the direction of Derek Hei and over the past decade has developed a portfolio of clinical products, including some of the first therapeutic human embryonic stem cells as well as vaccines, recombinant proteins and products for gene therapy. With seven cleanroom areas capable of clinical-quality production of a suite of biological therapeutic agents, the Waisman Center has partnered widely with companies in Wisconsin, the United States and abroad, as well as with academic research centers to provide novel agents used in medical trials. | <urn:uuid:28a8ae73-d592-49dd-8827-77b7babbd7d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.news.wisc.edu/21439 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950462 | 2,893 | 2.765625 | 3 |
- How one approaches Keats's ode in the classroom will depend, of course,
on the kind of classroom and the nature of the class. The hypercanonicity
of "Ode on a Grecian Urn" stems in part from its usefulness in various
pedagogical settings, from the British Romanticism survey to the Introduction
to Poetry class to the course on literary criticism. Like Wordsworth's
"Lucy" poems, "Grecian Urn" is a target text for exemplifying major
issues and ideas in British Romanticism, for studying the genre of the
lyric, and for illustrating various critical and theoretical approaches.
As James O'Rourke's recent Keats's Odes and Contemporary Criticism
has ably demonstrated, the poem is especially well suited to foregrounding
the debate between formalist, deconstructionist, historicist, and feminist
ways of reading and teaching.
- My own pedagogy, while eclectic, is biased toward formalism for several
reasons, including, inescapably, my early training in the New Criticism
and my reservations concerning the extra-literary direction of literary
studies over the last several decades. More importantly, however, one
tries to identify students' needs, and in my experience, students—and
I am not referring to ESL studentshave never been more in need
of learning how to read. I mean by "read" not just the ability to respond
with comprehension and sensitivity to what used to be called "poetic"
as opposed to "scientific" or "discursive" writing. I mean also the
ability to decode even mildly complex uses of grammar, syntax, and vocabulary
and thus to analyze and understand a written text on a paraphrastic,
much less a fully "literary," level.
- It will come as no surprise, then, that I spend a lot of class time
on "close reading," although I do not delimit that methodology in the
ways that Cleanth Brooks, Robert Penn Warren, and other New Critics
tended to do. I like to teach Keats's "Urn" in conjunction with "Ode
to a Nightingale," often assigning a preliminary writing assignment
(formal or informal) in which I ask students to discuss the two poems
with special attention to the endings of each. I focus on the endings
for some obvious reasons. For one thing, the notorious "who says what
to whom" problem in the "Urn"'s last lines still catches students—even
advanced students—by surprise. Many simply do not see the various
grammatical and syntactical possibilities for meaning at a first (or
even third) reading, nor have most ever thought about the material nature
of a text, the determinant role of editing, or the importance of publication
history. (The major Romantic anthologies all include commentary on the
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty" crux, although many undergraduates seem
opposed on principle to reading footnotes.) The "Urn" is an excellent
vehicle for introducing such things and for forcing students to pause,
in their headlong gallop toward subjective response or ideological pronouncement,
to ponder the grammatical and semantic relations between pronouns and
antecedents in the English language.
- Attention to the concept of closure implicates the concept of form
or structure, which opens up discussion of theme, tone, persona, diction,
and other formalist preoccupations. The anthology I use most often for
Introduction to Literary Study I, a foundation course for English majors,
includes the "Urn" in the chapter on "Word Choice, Word Order, and Tone."
My teaching points are not particularly original and are indebted to,
among others, M. H. Abrams's classic statement on "the greater Romantic
lyric." I tend to present the structure of the ode as processive, that
is, as revealing the persona's dynamic processes of thought and feeling
as they develop, line by line, from stanza one through stanza five.
I ask students to identify what they take to be definitive shifts in
the speaker's responses and thus in the argument and structure of the
poem. We usually agree, as do most critics, that stanza four marks a
fundamental formal and thematic turning point. The persistent questioning
of stanza one reappears, but directed now to a very different scene
with very different implications. Instead of a timeless and erotic Hellenic
pastoral in which the disparity between "deities" and "mortals" is inconsequential,
the speaker interrogates a religious sacrifice with its intrinsic reminders
of human mortality and limitation. The scene provokes him to imagine
a "desolat[ion]" beyond the capacity of the urn to picture or explain
and thus initiates the highly-wrought ambiguities of the closing stanza.
- Comparing/contrasting poetic texts is a good way to teach reading
skills, and juxtaposing the "Nightingale" and the "Urn" encourages students
to make precise discriminations involving tone and theme. That one poem
ends in a question, the other in a declarative statement is a starting
point, and students usually identify the "Nightingale" as the more obviously
skeptical and "emotional" of the two poems. They come to a better appreciation
of the ambiguity and feeling in the "Urn," however, as we examine the
various tonal ironies of "brede," "overwrought," and "Cold Pastoral"
and the deceptive assurance of the "Beauty is truth, truth beauty" pronouncement
in stanza five. We then move back to the paradoxical portrayal of artistic
transcendence in stanzas two and three. Students rarely seem to notice
without prodding the problematic effects of the double negatives and
repeated "happy"'s in those stanzas but are eager to interpret them
when they are pointed out.
- An attempt to define as specifically as possible the tone of Keats's
"Urn" affords an opportunity to introduce the December, 1817 "Negative
Capability" letter. The letter as a whole, with its references to the
visual arts, its celebration of artistic "intensity," and its use of
the phrase "Beauty & Truth," makes a useful commentary on the poem
and moves students beyond a reductively formalistic preoccupation with
the "words on the page." I ask students to apply Keats's ideas on Negative
Capability to the "Urn." Compared to the "Nightingale" (or "To Autumn"),
for example, does the poem "remain (sic) content with half knowledge"?
Does it achieve an aesthetic form, a "sense of Beauty," capable of "overcoming"
or "obliterating" its implicit "uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts"? I
also often introduce Coleridge's organicist view of "the balance or
reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities" in chapter fourteen
of Biographia Literaria as another relevant theoretical statement.
We generally agree that the "Urn" achieves a degree of "negative capability"
or "balance" or what Brooks called "dramatic wholeness" greater than
that achieved in the "Nightingale" but less than that achieved in "To
Autumn." The point, of course, is not to construct an evaluative hierarchy
or come to absolute conclusions but to get students thinking carefully
about tone, context, and diction, and about their own critical and aesthetic
- In upper-division and graduate classes on Romanticism, I teach Keats
as a second-generation Romantic and foreground the skeptical idealism
that characterizes that belated generation. In such classes, I tend
to adopt a quasi-deconstructive critical stance, approaching the "Urn"
as a meta-text that comments self-reflexively on Romantic idealist aesthetics
and metaphysics. Using familiar deconstructive moves, I push students
beyond the more or less "balanced" ambiguity of a formalist reading
towards a more radically ambivalent interpretation that foregrounds
the unresolved (and presumably irresolvable) relationship between transcendent
meaning and material form. As a way of reading, deconstruction is particularly
well-suited, I think, to illuminate the textual complexities, if not
to evaluate the metaphysical, aesthetic, and emotional commitments,
of a Romantic idealist poetics.
- Although I do not completely buy Paul de Man's distinction between
symbol and allegory, his equation of the symbolic and the aesthetic
works nicely as a way into Keats's ode. The poem strives to construct
the well-wrought urn as a symbolic form, as an eternal work of art capable
of representing the ideal perfections Romanticism attributed both to
nature and to Hellenism. The poem seeks to idealize the urn, that is,
as an embodiment (and thus an expression), as an incarnation (and thus
a revelation) of transcendent and intelligible meaning in a sensible
form. At the same time, however, the poem includes subtextual elements
(de Man would call them "allegorical") that put into question the very
possibility of an aesthetic symbolism uncontaminated by and transcending
temporal, material reality.
- In stanza one, for example, the urn is represented as both "historian"
and poet, but the speaker cannot decode the "flowery tale" it tells,
a readerly and writerly failure intensified, as already mentioned, in
stanza four. The tonal and thematic inconsistencies in stanzas two and
three also point to an underlying metaphysical and poetic dilemma. An
ideal order "far above" the exigencies of material human existence—including
attempts to "Pipe . . . spirit ditties" to a non-"sensual ear"—can
only be expressed in terms of the same naturalistic and sensual order
that the speaker desires to transcend. Vehicle obscures tenor, signifier
compromises signified, language deconstructs meaning.
- A similar problem unfolds in stanza five as the speaker seeks to
elicit from the urn a transcendental message both aesthetic and ontological
that will bring the poem to thematic and formal closure and that will
confirm the urn's (and the poem's) status as a revelatory Romantic symbol.
Not only is the revelation itself largely undecidable, however, but
the speaker's conflicting attempts at personification and apostrophe
betray, as figurative language so often does, his (and our) epistemological
uncertainties. Is the urn a "silent form" that leads us beyond intelligibility
(and speech) altogether, or is it a loquacious, even sententious "friend"
speaking a higher, but still explicable, wisdom? The speaker, like the
text, and like second-generation British Romanticism, can (indeed must)
desire an answer, but cannot know. | <urn:uuid:564124b6-fbd5-4654-96c8-717f63842174> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rc.umd.edu/praxis/grecianurn/contributorsessays/grecianurnhall.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926136 | 2,371 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
said Wednesday that people who dismiss the Iranian threat as a whim or an exaggeration "have learnt nothing from the Holocaust."
Speaking at the state ceremony for Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Warsaw Ghetto Square in Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Museum, Netanyahu said: "I believe in our ability to defend."
"A nuclear Iran
is an existential threat on the State of Israel
and also on the rest of the world," Netanyahu said. "We have an obligation to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. It's the world's obligation, but above all it is our obligation.
Netanyahu in Yad Vashem (Photo: Ben Kelmer)
"Remembering the Holocaust is not merely a matter of ceremony or historic memory. Remembering the Holocaust is imperative for learning the lessons of the past in order to ensure the foundations of the future. We shall never bury our heads in the sand. "
Addressing criticism following his proclamations of Iran as an existential threat, the prime minister said: "I hope the day comes when we learn of calls for Israel's annihilation in history classes only, and not in daily media reports. But that day is not here yet. The Iranian regime is openly calling for our destruction and working frantically for the development of nuclear weapons as a means to that end.
"I know that some people don't appreciate me speaking such uncomfortable truths. They would rather we not talk about Iran as a nuclear threat, they claim that, though it may be true, this statement serves to sow panic and fear."
Peres warns of Holocaust denial (Photo: Ben Kelmer)
President Shimon Peres
also spoke at the ceremony. "The Nazi dictator's crematoriums created a global disaster and a Holocaust for my people," he said. "Holocaust deniers are denying the actions of their predecessors to cover up for their own actions. The lie of denial will not extinguish the fire of the inferno."
Peres addressed the tragic accident
in Mount Herzl in which Sec.-Lt. Hila Bezaleli, 20, was killed when a lighting fixture collapsed. He offered his condolences to the officer's family and to that of a Combat Engineering Corps soldier who died
at an IDF base apparently due to a heart defect earlier on Wednesday.
"On my way here, the bright lights of Jerusalem changed into the flames that consumed my people. This is us, this is our nation. A nation bearing a great light; a nation bearing fathomless orphanhood."
Linking the memory of the Holocaust and the Iranian threat, Peres said, "Today we are a strong nation. Humankind has no choice but to learn the lessons of the Holocaust and face existing threats, before it is too late.
"Iran stands at the center of the threat to Israel. It is the terror hub. It presents a threat to world peace. One should not underestimate Israel's unconcealed and hidden capabilities to deal with this threat."
Speaking at the Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at Kibbutz Tel Yitzhak, IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Benny Gantz said, "Tonight, 70 years later, standing in the land of Israel I look before me and see the embodiment of the strength of the Jewish nation. The leitmotif that no enemy has ever been able to cut off."
Gantz said that the IDF draws it strength from the determination of Holocaust survivors and that never again shall the Jewish people stand defenseless.
"We are the arm of steel that will respond to any attempt to hurt us with a harsh blow. We are the people's wall of protection," he said.
Minister Dan Meridor said: "There is a false claim that the State of Israel was established because of the Holocaust. This is not true. The Holocaust happened because there was no state of Israel and six million Jews instead of 10 million live here now because of the Holocaust. "
Boaz Fyler contributed to this report | <urn:uuid:62483f3c-f0fd-4043-9cf2-5ddf9e0f7f76> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4217989,00.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949388 | 817 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Old name for the Middle East
ern area which is now Israel
, supposedly derived from "Philistine
," a biblical-era name for a part of the region.
In 1948 a United Nations mandate divided the area between Arabs and Jews -- the Palestinian leaders and leaders of surrounding countries (who were all Arabs) did not accept this and have several times since then invaded or attacked Israeli territory. In the process of fighting back, Israel actually gained about 80% of the territory originally divided about equally between the two groups. The Gaza Strip and the West Bank are some of these areas; they are now partially ruled by the Palestinians native to the areas but are still overall under Israeli control. Many Palestinians, both those who've left the area and those who've stayed, are part of resistance movements with the goal of regaining some or all of the territory once called Palestine back from Israel. | <urn:uuid:47b7ae42-dabe-407b-90cb-824bde50834e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://everything2.com/user/Segnbora-t/writeups/Palestine | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97598 | 178 | 3.1875 | 3 |
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Scientists use a telescope and spectroscopy to analyse the atmosphere of an exoplanet.
Arthur Leonard Schawlow (1911 - 1999 ) received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1981 along with Nicolaas Bloembergen for their contribution to the development of laser spectroscopy.
Johannes Robert Rydberg (1854 - 1919) most important work is on spectroscopy where he found a relatively simple expression relating the various lines in the spectra of the elements (1890).
Comprehensive website about analytical chemistry methods and instrumentation, including chromatography, spectometry, spectroscopy and diffraction.
Albert A. Michelson (1851 - 1931) received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1907 for his optical precision instruments and the research he carried out in the fields of precision metrology and ...
Scientists can use lasers to find explosives in containers from a distance. They rely on using spectroscopy from the light scattered back. This is similar to the process they use to test the quality ...
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The Curiosity rover conducts its first analysis of the chemical composition of rocks on Mars by firing a laser at rocks. The laser uses spectroscopy to measure what the rock is made of.
Showing 11 - 19 of 19 | <urn:uuid:cf8be08c-5ecf-4521-b7fa-bd2c555fe909> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.physics.org/explore-results-all.asp?q=spectroscopy&age=0&knowledge=0¤tpage=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916415 | 437 | 3.125 | 3 |
The metro Atlanta area and most of North Georgia are preparing for severe weather moving in from the west. As of noon today the majority of North Georgia was under a Tornado watch until 4 p.m. Wednesday afternoon. The storm which is producing hundreds of lightning strikes, heavy rain and strong winds is moving at about 50 mph will be moving of the central metro area around 1 p.m.
Local news outlets are reporting that a possible tornado was sighted in Adairsville. The massive and very distinctive funnel cloud was captured on video by an area resident. Channel 2’s website WSBTV.com has video of the tornado. Interstate 75 in Adairsville is closed in both directions. The storm brought down a number of tress blocking the roads.
WSB-TV reporter Ross Cavitt is covering the storm from Adairsville. He reported that the storms casued a tractor trailer truck and several cars to flip over. The same storm that produced the tornado also leveled a house, luckily no one severely injured. Sirens in Douglas and Cobb counties are reported as going off just before 1 p.m.
If you are in an area and hear a tornado siren you are advised to do the following:
Find the lowest area of the building you are in.
Get under a strong and sturdy structure such as a door frame, desk, etc.
If you are unable to get into a low area, find the center of the building you are in or a room with no windows.
If you are in a home you may e able to seek refuge in a bathroom tub of basement. You should avoid any unnecessary travel while the storm warnings are in affect. Stay tuned to your local news for the most accurate and up to date forecasts. | <urn:uuid:4c0e3c7e-6d31-45f3-8c25-55b666f0f8f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.examiner.com/article/metro-atlanta-braces-for-severe-weather?cid=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962262 | 357 | 1.507813 | 2 |
On the Set
All about nails
Manicure for women
Manicure for men
Repair broken nails
Palmistry: Simple Handreading
IN EXAMINING anyone's hands, including your own, bear in mind that a combination of traits gives accurate character assessment, and the appearance of any quality in the hand must be verified in at least two tests to have any validity. And remember, any feature of the hands can be changed or modified to a striking degree by changing your character or perspective.
Before reviewing the various character "tests", I would like you to consider really focusing on the hands of all you meet. Soon you will realize that they impart more knowledge of the person than you previously thought. A hand that is full of life is springy and elastic, almost telling you of its vital energy before you even touch it! Dr. William Benham, author of "The Laws of Scientific Hand Analysis", the veritable bible of the subject, states that, "Every pair of hands has eyes: that they seem to look at you, asking for pity, maybe, for their owners, or, that they have mouths, and beseech you to hear their story". (Perhaps this is why the most successful hand models are more than a perfect set of fingers, but rather have a "knowing" that guides their hands like little actors).
The right and left hand
Note that palmists consider the left hand (in a right-handed person) to represent the unconscious life as well as the person's potential. The right hand represents what is actual, how an individual has handled his problems, or how easy or difficult it has been for him to follow his original "life path."
Texture is determined by feeling the skin on the back of the hand. It is the key to the natural refinement of the person. The difference in the texture of the two hands can reveal much about a person's social mobility. If the left is rough while the right is smoother, the person has attained some refinement. Very fine texture tells that the person just can't say "So what!" These people are oversensitive to what others do and say about them, no matter how tough their demeanor. Very fine texture can be found on the hands of those who do the roughest tasks, and conversely, rough texture can be found on young and (seemingly) refined boarding school students.
The degree of elasticity of the muscles of the hand indicates the flexibility or rigidity of the personality. If, as you shake the hand, the hand grips and releases as you release, the person is usually intelligent, trustworthy and full of energy. The person with hard consistency has tremendous physical energy but is not at all cerebral. The person with weak consistency has low energy and is hard to stir to activity. This is why we are often turned off by the "dead fish" handshake.
If the fingers are stiff, so is the person. An argument with him is an exercise in futility. He lives in the past, isn't receptive to new ideas, tends to hoard old possessions, and is narrow in his outlook. The owner of the flexible hand is versatile and mentally adaptable. But if the fingers are very flexible, the person is often weak-willed and overly susceptible to other's ideas. What we look for are medium qualities in these tests. Also, you can begin to see that if a person has hard consistency and lack of flexibility in his hands, he is more rigid than the person with hard consistency and flexible fingers.
The color of the palm is an indication of the temperament and health of the person, and is directly related to the bloodstream. Most palms are a shade of pink. The white-palmed person may be cold and distant; he lacks sensuality, is dreamy and mystical and makes few friends. Red palms signify intensity of physical expression. These people are ardent. Yellow color signifies a cynical pessimist who can be sarcastic and moody. He always crosses bridges before he gets there and can be very uncooperative. Blue color is usually seen after illness or surgery.
Nails give us an insight into the robustness and sensitivity of the person. They are like windows. Look for smooth, pliable nails without bumps, fluting or scaling. Any variation shows us something is out of balance.
Any mark, be it a white dot or a knife mark, shows that a serious physical or emotional upheaval has occurred. The timing of the event is told by the location of the mark. It takes six months for a nail to grow out, so if the mark occurs in the middle of the nail, the event took place three months ago.
The shape of the nail gives us more information. A narrow nail, compared to the width of the whole fleshy part of the finger, shows a lack of robustness. Nervous energy keeps these people going. The broad nail is usually a sign of muscular strength and energy. The deep or long nail (from cuticle to tip) belongs to the frank person. If the nail is deep as well as broad, the person is open and easy to get along with. Medium-short nails often tell of a quizzical nature. However, very short nails, especially if bitten, reveal a very critical personality. The criticism is often turned towards the self, and, if the cuticle is also ragged, he is literally "running himself ragged."
The general rule is the more pointed the tip the more idealistic the person, the broader the tip, the more practical. The spatulate tip, the broadest, wants action, is on the go and is extremely enthusiastic. Conic tips suggest artistic, impulsive people who rely more on intuition than on reasoning.
Noted palmist Frank Andrews told me that most babies have spatulate fingertips, showing their freedom and openness. During the school years, the tips tend to change and become squared as the children are expected to accept a certain amount of dogma by rote. As they mature, however, it is not uncommon for the tips to become more conic or rounded as the individual creativity develops and is allowed to express itself. If the person becomes extremely religious his fingertips may become pointed, showing the least resistance to divine inspiration.
Andrews illustrated the distinctions between the varying fingertips by describing the sort of artwork that might be done by each type. The artist with spatulate fingertips would paint a horse running through a field. The feeling would be expansive, and the canvas probably large. The artist with square tips would paint the horse standing still and would include lots of detail in his picture. The artist with conic tips would create a painting of a very beautiful horse, using lots of color to illustrate its magnifagance. However, the artist with pointed fingertips would see his horse with wings and would possibly depict him as a flying horse. Picasso had spatulate and squared fingertips, and was, of course, one of the pioneers of the cubist style of painting.
Smooth and knotted joints
All of us have two joints on each finger and one on the thumb. People with pronounced joints or knots are neat, lead orderly lives, and are the doubting Thomases of the world. The more pronounced the knot, the more philosophical, slow-acting and less likely to be led they are. Overmeticulousness is thought by some to cause arthritis. If you have smooth fingers, you may develop knots later if your personality becomes overly judgmental.
Long and short fingers
People with long fingertips go into the smallest details. They don't accept change easily and are offended at the drop of a hat. The short-fingered person despises detail. He thinks big, quickly, and considers the whole picture. Don't give him details; give him results. He is intuitive and gets to the point. Often he is a fast talker and may be impulsive and hotheaded.
The hand as a whole is divided into three worlds: the mental, the practical, and the material or sensual. Because it is rare to find a balanced hand, one or two worlds usually predominate. If the fingers are very long, the mental world predominates. A large middle section (the area from where the thumb is attached to its webbing up to the base of the fingers) belongs to the person who is interested in practical matters; he is your businessman. If the third world (from the thumb to the wrist, that is, the heel of the hand) is large, the person wants results and is quite capable of asking for what he wants. He is also usually a physically oriented person. Professional people often have prominent first and third worlds. And the wise ones leave the business side of their work to others. A person with little third world is not asking enough from life, both materially and emotionally.
The lines of the hand show the details of one's life. When events have strongly impressed themselves upon the brain, lines appear. However, if someone makes a dire prediction about you because of a line in your hand, run, do not walk to the nearest exit. Lines can change in as little as three weeks, when you change your point of view, and thus your destiny.
In general, the deeper and clearer the lines in your hand, the clearer your path will be. And please note that the length of the life line does not necessarily determine how long you will live! The curve of it, however, can tell a lot about a person's love life. A very curved life line, sweeping into the palm, outlining a large cushion or heel of the hand attached to the thumb, usually belongs to a lustful, healthy, good-natured, warm person. A life line that cleaves close to the thumb, with a fairly flat heel, can be the sign of a person who is more mental than physical, is shy, and tends to have relationships that are more platonic than sexual.
The prominence or absence of mounds tells us much about the character, preferences and dilemmas of the person. For example, a large prominent mound under the finger of Jupiter (the pointer finger) suggests a leader, one who uses his voice effectively to influence people, who can be an overprotective parent, is predisposed to drinking problems, and should only marry a person he is proud of. Now if the subject also has a prominent mound of Venus (the cushiony portion attached to the thumb) he can be very attracted to a lover because of lust. Thus a conflict is present. He may be crazy about a woman because of their physical relationship, but if he isn't proud of her, a marriage between them will never work.
The interesting part of this study really begins when the different worlds and tests are placed together. Not only does each finger represent different character qualities, but also the phalanx of each finger. Now, consider that the lines in your hands can actually change within months-I can personally bear witness to that.
The simian line
When the heart and headlines are fused, as on a monkey's palm, the existing line is called the "simian" line. Although this is often evidence of Down's Syndrome in infants, palmists believe that it can be a sign of genius as well. It is also thought to indicate intensity and is not uncommon on the hands of people who agonize and have overly possessive attitudes.
by Linda Rose.
Beware of the harsh soaps in public restrooms. They dry out hands and cuticles. Try moistened towelettes instead.
-- Linda Rose in | <urn:uuid:77a516cb-f1d9-48bf-baa2-95c4b0916f76> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lindarose.com/art-palmistry.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966837 | 2,367 | 2.09375 | 2 |
M. King Hubbert should be spinning in his grave. In defiance of Hubbert's theory of "peak oil," the International Energy Agency recently predicted that the U.S. will have energy independence by 2020 and return to its former place as the world's biggest producer of oil. By 2030 or sooner, according to the IEA, North America will be a significant energy exporter.
This was a turnabout as severe as it was sudden. As recently as 2010, the IEA still agreed that U.S. oil production could never catch up with demand; indeed, it was speculating that the whole world had already passed its point of peak oil production—70 million barrels per day in 2006.
"The age of cheap oil is over," IEA Chief Economist Fatih Birol said then. He explained that it would take ever-increasing effort to find new reserves and produce from them, just to replenish the reserves that existed in 2006. By 2035, he said, the active oil fields of 2006 would produce only 20 million barrels of oil per day.
The IEA was channeling Hubbert, who died in 1989. Hubbert predicted back in 1956 that U.S. oil production would peak in 1970—which it did—and never return to its former glory—which it hasn't. Yet.
Back to the Stone Age
Extreme followers of Hubbert, a modern Malthus, know that the end of the Age of Oil is so near that it's too late to do anything but prepare to survive the transition, if we can.
Richard C. Duncan, a power-systems engineer and author, pointed the way in a classic 2000 essay, "The Peak of World Oil Production and the Road to the Olduvai Gorge." He said we need a new human civilization to replace the Age of Oil—and not in a good way. He envisioned energy consumption crashing and population crashing with it, to the "sustainable" levels of the Stone Age exemplified by the fossils of early humans found in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania.
Oil is the essential fuel for transportation, so Duncan expects that a decline in production of oil will also handicap the use of coal and other fuels, leading to a breakdown of the world's electrical grids.
As anyone who has suffered through a weeklong power interruption caused by a storm or blizzard knows, a comfortable 21st-century lifestyle cannot be maintained without reliable electricity. Duncan warns how much more disruptive large-scale blackouts would be, and suggests there might be a tipping point, after which power would never be restored. And then, electricity is created by burning other fuels, but the other fuels are produced using electricity.
Duncan's summary: "When the electricity goes out, you are back in the Dark Age. And the Stone Age is just around the corner."
Science-fiction writers have been playing with this idea for decades, but Duncan is trying to start a serious movement.
All of us must recognize with him that it would be well-nigh impossible to adapt smoothly from a 2030 economy to a 1930 economy. An 1830 economy would be the next way-station on a long journey into the past.
But our Thanksgiving message from the International Energy Agency is that this chilling doomsday vision is not just around the corner.
Demand Creates Supply
Like any commodity, the peak-oil theory swings from highs to lows in the marketplace. The value perceived in the theory usually follows the oil market, since high oil prices are associated with shortages.
In 2005, during the last surge of oil prices, some members of the U.S. House of Representatives formed a bipartisan Peak Oil Caucus. It proposed a resolution "that the United States, in collaboration with other international allies, should establish an energy project with the magnitude, creativity, and sense of urgency that was incorporated in the Man on the Moon project to address the inevitable challenges of peak oil."
Mercifully, the House did not act and shows no sign of acting on the resolution, or on the "investments" that would be necessary to create a NASA-style bureaucratic assault on the projected energy shortage. The Obama administration's ventures in solar-cell manufacturing and windmill technology are nothing compared with the visions of the Peak Oil Caucus.
Instead, the demands of the marketplace, expressed in high energy prices, have induced inventors and entrepreneurs to develop new technologies. While Hubbert's predictions about a peak in "conventional" oil production remain on track, our immediate energy future is "unconventional."
New technologies have unlocked reserves of natural gas that were known but inaccessible. Hydraulic fracturing of shale rock and collection of gas by horizontal drilling actually have produced a glut of gas. The price of gas has fallen to the equivalent of $20 per a barrel of oil, so low that drillers have turned to other opportunities. They are producing oil from similar rock formations, with similar welcome results.
Changing Prices, Changing Markets
The technological change in energy economics will have far-reaching consequences. More than half of the U.S. trade deficit is attributable to oil imports. And with a relatively free market in energy, U.S. prices are sensitive to changes in supply, downward as well as upward.
The price of natural gas is dragging down the price of other fuels. It has prompted real profit-seeking investments in chemicals. Cheaper energy heralds larger profits in manufacturing, services, and exports.
The new American production technologies won't merely improve the ability to find and produce oil in the U.S. Technology advances are more rapidly diffused around the world than ever before, and nowhere more than in energy production, long since a globalized industry. Other countries can find opportunities as great as those in the U.S. They can make their own contributions to the world's energy supplies.
Like the production of food by the Green Revolution, technology is on the way to making energy so abundant that only government policies restricting production can make it expensive.
Part II will address the government policies that restrict energy production.
Editorial page editor THOMAS G. DONLAN receives e-mail at firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:eda36073-169a-4034-802b-6a94b203d34d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424052748703961304578132960808817782.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960628 | 1,266 | 2.75 | 3 |
Submitted by Judy Hartnett on Sun, 11/27/2011 - 10:25am
The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District is trying to balance parental donations with the need for equal education opportunities for all.If a well-heeled neighborhood of Los Angeles wanted better police protection, would it be OK for the residents to donate money to their local police station so it could assign an extra patrol car to their streets?
Submitted by Courtney Williams on Thu, 10/27/2011 - 5:36pm
Parents, teachers and students sitting in on a packed meeting of the San Diego Unified School District got a "big picture" look at the financial crisis facing the state's second largest school district.
Submitted by Courtney Williams on Thu, 10/27/2011 - 5:19pm
On Wednesday, President Obama introduced two changes to the federal student loan program that could affect several million borrowers. The broad outlines of his plans to encourage loan consolidation and assist people who are struggling financially are reasonably clear.
Submitted by Judy Hartnett on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 1:25pm
The Beaverton School District's request for more money with Measure 34-193 presents voters with an interesting choice: Do we continue to support K-12 education with funds currently available and learn to live within our means? Or, do we approve an expensive levy?
Submitted by Judy Hartnett on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 1:04pm
The new statewide school district for Michigan's worst K-12 schools is being funded by $2 million in private dollars pledged this year, making it the only district in the nation supported primarily by donations, experts said Tuesday.
Submitted by Courtney Williams on Sun, 10/16/2011 - 6:37pm
All but 13 of Wisconsin’s 424 public school districts are getting less state aid than a year ago. The Department of Public Education released the final numbers Friday, which show schools will see an average drop in state aid of about 10-percent.
Submitted by ANGELA PASCOPELLA on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 7:18pm
A Twin Cities neighborhood action group is blaming big banks for costing Minneapolis schools millions in state funding. The group, Neighborhoods Organizing for Change(NOC), linked home foreclosures to per-pupil funding. | <urn:uuid:5adfbc50-9f56-4b00-b7b4-4e802bc5efb8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://districtadministration.com/tags/finance?page=5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94341 | 488 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Fail The cost of being tough on crime
The Conservatives have used their so-called tough-on-crime agenda to drive a wedge between themselves and their political opponents.
Not surprisingly, the Liberals, Bloc and NDP reject the label that they are "soft on crime," with Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff in turn accusing the Harper government of being "dumb on crime."
But finding epithets with which to tar a political opponent seems easier than formulating a coherent policy. Consider what's on offer, particularly the costs.
First, the Conservatives
The government's Truth in Sentencing Act, which received assent in the fall of 2009, will keep criminals behind bars much longer. That's because they will no longer receive as much credit for the time spent in pre-sentence custody.
The government estimates the new law will add about $2.1 billion over five years to the federal treasury.
But the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Kevin Page, says the bill will be at least twice as much over the same period, including an additional $689 million a year in maintenance and operational costs.
The NDP, Liberals and the Bloc have all criticized the incarceration costs associated with the government's crime bills, with Ignatieff recently accusing the government of importing "failed American polices."
Yet the Liberals still voted for the Truth in Sentencing Act (C-25), which critics find contradictory and difficult to understand. Especially as the government has not exactly overwhelmed its critics with concrete evidence.
Consider the following exchange between Rob Nicholson, the justice minister, and the NDP's Libby Davies in 2009 on the proposal to impose a mandatory minimum sentence for drug offences, a bill that is still outstanding.
Nicholson: "It's been a long time, Ms. Davies, since we've had a number of these mandatory penalties here, but we're absolutely convinced, from our consultation with Canadians, that this is exactly what Canadians want us to do."
Davies: "Do you have evidence?"
Nicholson: "We have the evidence that Canadians have told us that."
Davies: "Any studies?"
Nicholson: "With respect to resources, I can tell you that this bill is welcomed across this country. You can check with the attorneys general in British Columbia and other jurisdictions."
Davies: "I take it you have no evidence, though, about mandatory minimums."
Nicholson: "You have to send out a strong message to the people who are in the business of destroying these things there. We have the mandate of the Canadian people."
The NDP plan, more police
For its part, however, the NDP also faces challenges producing evidence for its crime-fighting proposals.
During the English-language leaders' debate, Jack Layton talked about hiring 2,500 police officers as a "current" fix in the battle against crime. This, despite the fact that there is little evidence that putting more officers on the streets actually reduces crime.
What's more, a Statistics Canada report called Police Resources in Canada, 2010, makes it clear that the number of police officers is already on the rise, up 11.5 per cent over the decade in the number of officers per 1,000 population.
And yet, during the same time period, the overall crime rate has been decreasing.
As Statistics Canada put it: "At the same time that police officer strength has been increasing, the volume and the severity of police-reported crime have been on the decline.
"Both the 2009 police-reported crime rate and the Crime Severity Index decreased from the previous year, in keeping with a general trend observed over the past decade.
"In addition, the 2009 national weighted clearance rate rose to 38.4 per cent, the fifth consecutive annual increase. The clearance rate represents the proportion of crimes that are solved by police."
What would the Liberals do?
The NDP and the Bloc voted against Bill C-15, which died on the order paper at the end of 2009 when Stephen Harper prorogued Parliament for the first time.
What was surprising was that the Liberals initially supported the bill and then did an about-face at the end of the most recent session when it announced it would not be backing the bill in its renamed version (S-10).
The Liberals criticized the government for failing to come clean about the price tag, which in light of the Parliamentary Budget Officer's estimates, is a fair concern.
But apart from attacking the government's plans to put more people behind bars, the Liberals fail to spell out what they would do to deal with crime, and how much they'd pay for it.
"No one disagrees that criminals must be punished," the party says in its election platform.
"But more prisons alone will not make our communities safer and stronger. That approach has failed in the U.S. Evidence and experience suggest it will take much more than prisons."
Though there has been a lot of talk about crime, prisons, price tags and police, there's been a lack of coherent discussion about realistic proposals to deal with the problem. This makes if difficult for voters to decipher which party has the best plan.
This is a shame because crime and punishment have been studied extensively. European countries experiment with progressive strategies. The U.S. on the other hand appears to be backtracking from many of the kinds of initiatives the Conservatives are championing.
So given the amount of time, energy and money experts around the world have spent putting crime under a microscope, it's unclear why Canadians have been offered such little insight into a problem that all parties claim that voters are very concerned about.
You can reach David McKie at email@example.com
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- Harper faces cabinet gaps
- With Parliament expected to return to work at the end of May, Prime Minister Stephen Harper will have openings to fill after losing several cabinet ministers on election night. more »
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Energy poured into the six-year legal and political fight over the proposed construction of a coal-fired power plant in southwest Kansas is shocking.
The saga is chewing through the third administration of a Kansas governor — ranging from Kathleen Sebelius, who deftly fought the project; and Mark Parkinson, who negotiated approval of the development; to Sam Brownback, who is eager to see it built.
While a federal lawsuit haltingly plays out in Washington, D.C., the Kansas Supreme Court is poised to hear oral argument Aug. 31 in Topeka on a separate legal case challenging the validity of the state permit issued in 2010 necessary to start construction of an 895-megawatt unit near Holcomb.
Sierra Club and Earthjustice filed suit in Kansas last year contending the Kansas Department of Health and Environment fell to political pressure and improperly granted regulatory approval to a project unnecessarily damaging to the environment. The organizations seek to overturn the permit.
Development partners Sunflower Electric Power Corp., of Hays, and Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, of Colorado, portray the state's permit action as scientifically and legally sound.
For now, the estimated $1.5 billion project is on indefinite hold.
Inaction hasn't gone unnoticed by advocates convinced obstacles to expansion of Sunflower's footprint to be part of a national campaign to undermine coal as a source of electricity.
"President Obama's attack on the coal industry is a real problem for consumers in Kansas because 74 percent of our energy comes from coal plants," said U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan. "And Kansans do not take kindly to environmental groups following his lead and trying to use our state as a climate-change battleground, especially when energy costs are rising and the economy is stalled."
Amanda Goodin, an attorney with Earthjustice, said Parkinson's negotiated deal with Sunflower to break a political stalemate resulted in issuance of a KDHE permit falling short of Kansas' obligations under the Clean Air Act. KDHE failed to properly limit emissions of mercury, nitrogen oxide, and sulfur dioxide and Sunflower cast aside cleaner technology for burning coal to cut costs, she said.
She said the final regulatory process was excessively influenced by Sunflower executives who were allowed by KDHE to draft responses to public critiques later published by the agency.
"KDHE let Sunflower have their way," Goodin said. "We think it's very clear they should have done better."
Cindy Hertel, spokeswoman for Sunflower, said the cooperative's management would have no comment in advance of the Supreme Court review. Sunflower serves 400,000 people in Kansas, but most of the new electricity would be transferred to other states.
The pile of legal briefs forwarded to the justices in Topeka stands about 1 foot tall. The materials present conflicting assessments of environmental implications of the coal project. Contrary interpretations of laws and regulations are scattered throughout materials offered the court.
Brownback, who inherited the controversy from Parkinson and previously embraced construction of the Holcomb unit, said he wouldn't wade into the debate at this point.
"This is a matter for the court," the governor said.
Brownback took the opportunity to discuss his enthusiasm for development of wind farms in Kansas. The state is poised to complete installation of $3 billion in turbines by December, he said.
He said a federal production tax credit relied upon to spur development and due to expire Dec. 31 should be renewed by Congress and Obama for at least three years.
Scott Allegrucci, representative of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign in Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, said growth of wind energy illustrated the state didn't have to commit to new coal.
"Why wait for a coal plant boondoggle when renewable energy, especially wind, is moving forward full blast in Kansas and can provide jobs, revenue and energy for our state?" Allegrucci said. "It's a zombie coal plant that's killing more opportunity than it would create."
Allegrucci said Tri-State, the partner of Sunflower, would be the primary consumer of this coal-driven electricity but wouldn’t have need for that extra capacity for more than a decade.
In 2006, Sunflower proposed dual 700-megawatt coal-burning units. KDHE, led by Sebelius-appointee Rod Bremby, rejected Sunflower's application because the units would pose a threat to health and safety by emitting too much carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas linked to climate change.
Sebelius vetoed three bills in 2008 drafted to force acceptance of Sunflower's coal endeavor.
Lt. Gov. Mark Parkinson assumed duties as governor when Sebelius resigned to work for Obama in 2009. Parkinson quickly announced a deal with Sunflower allowing the 895-megawatt unit, but Bremby didn’t issue the permit and was dismissed. Bremby's replacement at KDHE approved the permit in 2010.
In January, U.S. District Court Judge Emmett Sullivan moved to delay the project until a federal environmental impact study could be completed on the Sunflower expansion. His ruling stemmed from litigation against the Rural Utilities Services, a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that made loan guarantees to Sunflower. | <urn:uuid:3e340d38-fcb3-4570-af3b-e79b0bf31df6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cjonline.com/news/state/2012-08-18/supreme-court-hear-arguments-coal-lawsuit | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95586 | 1,083 | 2.40625 | 2 |
February 11, 2013 | 9:02 pm | Print
Above: Kingston (CJ Photo)
By the Caribbean Journal staff
Jamaica is now “finalizing” a new agreement with the International Monetary Fund, along with a debt exchange offer to be made Tuesday, Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller said in a national address Monday night following another IMF mission visit to the country.
The centrepiece of the IMF agreement will be a commitment to “significantly reduce” Jamaica’s debt, she said, from its current level of over 140 percent of GDP.
She said that a National Debt Exchange Offer would be launched Tuesday, something the Prime Minister called a “critical” component of the IMF agreement and the government’s Debt Reduction programme.
“It can only succeed with the fullest cooperation of the broad financial sector and the support of the entire country,” she said.
The negotiations to secure a new Extended Credit Facility agreement with the IMF have been a major stated priority of the People’s National Party government, which won the country’s elections in December 2011, but the government has not yet struck a deal.
Finance Minister Dr Peter Phillips said the deal the country is finalizing is “the best we could negotiate for Jamaica.”
The aforementioned Debt Exchange Offer will be launched “with the support of leading private sector financial institutions,” Phillips said.
The Finance Minister cautioned bondholders that there would be “no haircut on their principal investment.”
“This offer, which we urge bondholders to accept, will make possible the reduction of our debt to GDP ratios by 8.5 percent or around $17 billion per year between now and 2020,” he said.
The exchange, he said, would trade higher-interest debt for lower-cost debt and would entail “significant sacrifices from our financial institutions and the holders of our domestic bonds,” he said.
“It will be painful and difficult, but we have no option,” he said.
“Many of our bondholders, with good reason, will immediately respond to this announcement with a sense of disappointment, as they recall that they made a similar sacrifice for Jamaica three years ago, when they were assured that their sacrifice would have put Jamaica on the path of growth and stability,” he said. “I am only too aware of the fact that for them to be asked to make another sacrifice at this time is a burden that will be hard to bear.”
The end goal is to reduce Jamaica’s debt-to-GDP ratio from 140 percent of GDP to 95 percent over the next five years, Phillips said.
He said that the country would need take several more steps, including intensifying tax reform efforts, ensuring greater levels of tax compliance and “public sector transformation.”
Phillips said there were several prior actions Jamaica will have to take to secure the support of the IMF board.
One is eliminating discretionary tax waivers, along with securing a contract with public sector workers to achieve a wage-to-GDP ratio of 9 percent by 2015/2016.
Jamaica has already completed another prong, the passage of a Public Debt Management Act, he said.
Pointing to a similar debt deal three years ago, Phillips said that this time around would be different, with the implementation of measures such as the creation of an Economic Programme Oversight Committee and a unit in the Ministry of Finance that would ensure that all agencies and departments meet the IMF timelines.
It all hinges on growth, however, for a country that is projected to post the slowest growth of any in the Caribbean this year.
Phillips said projects like the government’s major logistics hub initiative, the completion of a north-south link for Highway 2000 and the development of eight agro parks would make a dent in the negative prospects, along with tourism and new ICT projects.
He also said the China Communications Construction Company, the parent company of China Harbour, had recently established an investment arm which plans to establish an office in Kingston.
“We now have a real opportunity to confront and conquer the root causes of our longstanding economic difficulties,” Simpson Miller said. “Every single Jamaican is a stakeholder in this enterprise called our economy.”
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A history worth remembering by Nick Vandergragt
One of Canada’s greatest periods in it’s history, is also one of mankinds darkest times. During the 20th century, There where two major wars fought by those who wanted to control the whole planet and the people on it, and those who opposed them. In both cases, Canadians play a role in these conflicts out of all proportion to her size and military weight. The men and women who stepped into the breach when called upon make sacrifices that we today can barely imagine. During world war one, the men who filled the ranks of the Canadian army are trappers, farmers, prospectors and woodsmen who are used to hard living and danger. The vast majority of the Dominion is still wild and untamed and so are the men who flock to the recruiting stations to fight against the Kaizers plan for conquest. The women too are hardened through a life of hard living and sacrifice as part of their daily experience. These things prepare them for the incredible hardships that await them on the European battlefields. It is no small wonder then that Canada earns for herself a reputation as a nation to be feared and respected on the world stage. During this conflict our country comes of age. A short twenty five years later, the test will come again, but it will test the mettle of the young country in ways the Great War never could.
The interwar years are not good ones for Canada, or for the rest of the world for that matter. The dirty thirties as they are called, come complete with a world wide depression, wars in China, Spain and Ethiopia and a rise in Germany of a new and far more sinister threat that goes unheeded even though the warning bell is rung loud and long by Winston Churchill. In spite of his best efforts people buy into the “peace dividend” that is supposed to be the good that flows from the 4 years of slaughter known as world war one. The new League of Nations holds the promise of stopping wars before they start, so governments allow their militarys to decay, concentrating instead on trying to pull themselves out of the world wide depression that now grips the globe. Most countries try to restart their economies by massive building projects and work programs concentrating on civilian infrastructure, but in German, Japan and Italy, another road is travelled. these countries and their leaders are successful in winning massive public support by rebuilding not only their military, but national pride out of the ashes of the Great war. By 1939, an axis of evil now threatens to engulf the world in a way never before experienced by mankind in his long history.
Canada for her part, has followed the lead of the other western democracies. The depression has been cruel, even more so on the priarries where a widespread drought has forced thousands of farmers to abandon their land as the bread basket becomesa dust bowl. The Army, Navy and Airforce are totally unprepared for the upcoming tempest, a mere shadow of their former ability and size from just a generation before. When war finally comes on Sept. 3rd, our Grandparents, aunts and uncles are thrust into it with not much more than determination and ill fitting uniforms.
Over the next six years, Canada is transformed from a mostly agrarian society to a massive industrial machine and once again plays a role well beyond her size and weight in overcoming the greatest threat to liberty the world has ever faced. The generation that fights this evil is called the greatest generation and deservedly so. Our men and women win countless medlas and awards for bravery and courage under fire, couuntless battles overcoming a well trained, equipped and determined enemy and once again play a huge role in the final outcome of this most terrible conflict.
When it is over, Canada has reinforced it’s position as a major player on the world stage through the sacrifices made by not only our military, but by the sacrifices and resourcefulness of those who stayed behind to work in the factories on the farms and in thousands of mundane but vital jobs in support of the war effort. In the ensuing years, Our military has continued to serve around the globe in Korea, Cyprus, the Balkans, Afghanistan and dozens of other places most of us are not even aware of. They have done this with skill and dedication, always serving us well no matter the job at hand.
Canadians owe our veterans a huge debt of gratitude we can never repay. Our forefathers have sacrificed more than we can possibly imagine and have done it under the most difficult conditions. Now it is up to us to not only recognize that sacrifice and honour them, but to make sure that we are ready to do whatever it takes to maintain and uphold our liberties. As John Mcrea says in his immortal poem In Flanders Fields”:
“…Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields…” | <urn:uuid:a448eb30-b8a5-4b8b-a28a-2469145d612a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.perspectiveottawa.com/?p=1555 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961406 | 1,034 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Governor Jerry Brown wants to restrict the length of time families can receive cash grants from four years to two years if they do not work or pursue job training.
H.D. Palmer, with the Governor's Department of Finance, says work participation rates have declined from about 27 percent three years ago to an estimated 23 percent last year.
He says the state could face financial penalties if it doesn't meet federal work participation requirements.
Palmer: "On the fiscal year that begins on July 1st for example, California is going to be paying about $180 million more to pull down federal matching dollars for this program than we otherwise would."
Democratic legislative leaders say given the state's high unemployment rate, it's foolish to train people for jobs that don't exist. So they want to preserve cash grants for needy families.
The governor has until June 27th to act on the spending plan the legislature sent him last week. | <urn:uuid:2e22fb51-ea2e-4002-a8bc-f49b79052529> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.capradio.org/174256 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964 | 188 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Looking south and east for growth
10 April 2011
As the shift in global economic power gains momentum, South Africa's trade is moving eastwards and southwards in a pattern that both reflects the worldwide trend and helps drive it.
In 2010 alone South African President Jacob Zuma has paid official visits to India, Russia, China and Brazil. Earlier in 2010 China became South Africa's largest two-way trading partner and, in August 2010, China became the world's second-largest economy after the US.
Leadership position in Africa
In late 2010 China announced that it was inviting South Africa to become a member of the BRIC group of major emerging economies. South Africa takes up its membership of the group, made up of Brazil, Russia, India and China, and now called BRICS, at a summit in China this month.
Membership of BRICS underscores South Africa's significance as a leader in Africa, a bridge between the industrialised and developing worlds. That the much smaller South African economy could join four mega-economies in BRICS reflects growing global investor interest in Africa, the last frontier of the global economy.
With a population near 1-billion, Africa is the world's third-largest market after China (1.3-billion) and India (1.1-billion) and is rich in mineral and natural resources.
Shifting export priorities
While South Africa aims to maintain its substantial trade and investment links with the US, Japan and the European Union, the reality is that these markets' growth has been severely slowed by the global economic crisis.
High-growth developing economies and the next tier of emerging markets – such as the Civets (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa) – are likely to lead growth in the medium to long term, with slower growth in developed economies.
At a UN conference in Beijing in September 2010, Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies said South Africa would prioritise China and India for exports as the two countries were now its biggest markets. He said "sluggish growth" in the US and the European Union, South Africa's traditional trading partners, was a factor in shifting export priorities.
Two-way trade between China and South Africa grew to US$16.8-billion (R116-billion) last year, according to South Africa's Department of Trade and Industry, while South Africa's exports to India reached $700-million (R4.8-billion) and imports totalled $280-million (R1.9-billion), in favour of South Africa.
Looking to China
Zuma's statements during his 2010 China visit reflected this shift in trade. He said the country would look to China for investment in infrastructure projects such transport, renewable energy and mining, as well as in agriculture and car manufacturing.
China's pace of investment has been slow so far, but it has been strategic, paving the way for accelerated future investment.
In 2007, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China bought 20% of South Africa's Standard Bank for US$5-billion (R35-billion) – China's largest foreign investment to date. China is currently in talks with South Africa's government to build a $30-billion high-speed rail network between Durban and Johannesburg.
The growing relationship with China is likely to both boost South Africa's global trade and accelerate African development.
Since Deng Xiaoping began opening its economy in 1979, China has lifted 400-million people out of poverty with growth close to 10% for more than 25 years. South Africa's world-class financial sector and deep experience in African markets make it well-placed to lead similar miracle in Africa.
John Battersby is UK country manager for the International Marketing Council of South Africa. | <urn:uuid:bf1f95bf-a25e-4a1e-be3d-180c52cdbeac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.southafrica.info/global/brics/trade.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959114 | 770 | 2.078125 | 2 |
Skip to comments.NBC News: Gay flag in Louisville, Ky classroom?
Posted on 09/12/2012 7:21:02 PM PDT by MeganC
This evening I was watching NBC Nightly News (it was not my choice, mind you) and they ran a human interest story on a group called "Watch D.O.G.S" with the last part being an acronym for 'Dads of Great Students'. The piece was shot at the Maryville Elementary School in Louisville, Kentucky. It was a nice story but in one scene I about spit out my coffee when I saw a GAY FLAG hanging in the elementary school classroom!
I stopped the video with my recorder and got my camera and took a couple pictures because I knew this was one of those moments where I knew I'd need to be able to prove this had even happened. Because you just know that the school and NBC will deny this unless there's a picture.
Here's the picture and look over the gentleman's right shoulder to see a gay flag that's easily twice the size of the US flag in the same classroom.
And just in case anyone says it is something else, I checked and made for sure that the colors on that flag match up to the unique colors of the gay flag. They do.
So why is there a GAY flag in this classroom? Why are elementary school kids being exposed to sexual deviancy at taxpayer expense? I think the people of Kentucky deserve an answer to that question!
Maryville Elementary School 4504 Summers Drive Louisville, KY 40229 (502) 955-6553
I think it is a kite.
Sounds good, right? No one likes a bully. We all want our kids to feel safe, right?
Do a little research -- the "Anti-Bully" campaign is about 95% focused on getting kids to stop making fun of fags. It's aimed at the normalization of homosexuality, and getting very young kids to accept this without question.
Paranoid much? Those are kites.
Look over his right shoulder (that’s on your left).
“..Do a little research — the “Anti-Bully” campaign is about 95% focused on getting kids to stop making fun of fags. It’s aimed at the normalization of homosexuality, and getting very young kids to accept this without question...”
Yes. The libs cannot operate in the daylight — they must mask their sick, perverted agenda. Parents need to pay MORE ATTENTION to what is being shoved into the little minds of their kids.
We don’t need to invent enemies...there are already enough of them out there without adding to them.
indoctrination. But its not really gay when they go after minor children. It’s called somthing else.
true but it also is about indoctrination
Maybe it’s a gay kite ;-)
Exactly right. Step 1 is convincing everyone that Going In Through the Out Door is perfectly normal. Step 2 is convincing everyone that a 30 year difference in age is nothing to worry about and that Mr. Parker really needs Johnny to stay after school today and help in the back room ...
Saw local news story describe the Muslim murderers as “conservative Islamists.”
I’d like to think it’s just indoctrination but you’re probably right.
“I think it is a kite.”
It it a kite. Over his right shoulder (on your left) is a flag and it is folded over to hang like bunting. Look at the geometry of the stripes and you’ll see that it is a flag.
ROY G. BIV
Red. Orange. Yellow. Green. Blue. Indigo. Violet.
It just looks like a rainbow colored kite to me.
That doesn't mean it's not meant to be a gay symbol, but a rainbow pattern is pretty common in kid's arts and crafts projects.
Isn’t it a tragic pity that the homosexuals have been permitted to soil the rainbow, one of God’s most beautiful displays of nature?
Remember ... Satan was given absolute freedom over Job and all he had ... but he couldn't kill him.
Looks Like ROY G. BV to me.
Indigo has a long history of being repressed.
yep thats how it works..
whats next condoms in kindergarten class?
I can see them. They are kites. Several years ago they sold them at the Smithsoninan gift shop. Are only certain color groupings allowed now? The kites also came in Commie red with a black flower.
Sometimes something colorful and decorative is just that. Don't forget to check your bathtub for drain monsters tonight.
Why is any child who is loved by their parents or parent in a public school?
We took all 5 of ours out many years ago at great financial expense and octrisication from our neighbors.
No excuses people. It's time to stand up or submit. Most I know submit out of convenience and sacrifice their children and grandchildren in the process.
It’s a gay flag pretending to be a kite.
It’s a kite people! Would everyone please relax.
My first thought too. Could be a gay kite though.
That’s a rainbow. Yellow-orange-red-purple-blue, what we were all taught was the spectrum in art class. I refuse to let the gays take my rainbow away.
So they can do this and my child can’t say the name “Jesus” in class!?
***the Anti-Bully campaign is about 95% focused on getting kids to stop making fun of fags.***
When I was in school back in the 50s and 60s bullies concentrated on people who were smaller, weaker, not much money, too much money, new students, non athletic kids, not popular kids.
We did not know what a “queer” was. We thought it was just someone strange.
In other words, anyone who could not fight back were fair game.
This is correct, that is the hidden agenda to these programs, but the program is subtle enough that bringing this up makes you sound like a bitter clinger wingnut.
Stopped reading right there.
Wow...paranoid you are! It’s a kite Megan.
Last night one of Houston's A-list local TV newsies, a black woman, was wearing a black jacket with her outfit, that had a rainbow collar sewn on it. I thought that was "repping" for someone.
Good way to introduce the concept though. Have a kite made up of the fag colors so the kids can get used to it.
I throw away anything with a rainbow, I refuse to use the word gay to describe homos.
This is all how they normalize their behavior. Twist words and symbols around while we all say its a kite etc.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works. | <urn:uuid:6c632381-cf7c-4da6-9bd9-9c5e87262a15> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2930210/posts | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961985 | 1,526 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Corn is the heart and soul of Mexico’s agriculture. It accounts for more than 60 percent of the nation’s total agricultural output and 62 percent of its cultivated land. Up to 18 million people – some 17 percent of Mexico’s population – depend on corn production for their livelihood. And bats help them do it.
Mexican free-tailed bats make a major contribution to protecting corn crops from insect damage – a fact that is almost completely unknown to most farmers in Mexico, where bats face a wide array of perils. Accurate information can be a powerful tool in promoting bat conservation.
Graduate student Leonardo J. López-Damián of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, under the direction of Professor Rodrigo Medellín, who heads the Program for Conservation of Mexican Bats (PCMM), is conducting the first systematic study of the diet of Mexican free-tailed bats in Mexico. PCMM and its parent, the conservation group BIOCONCIENCIA, are sponsoring the study, which is also supported in part by a BCI Student Research Scholarship funded by the U.S. Forest Service International Programs.
Among the most damaging pests of Mexico’s corn crops are two insects: corn earworm (also known as cotton bollworm) moths during summertime in northern Mexico, and fall armyworm moths during winter months in the south.
The researchers worked in three caves, each home to about 1 million Mexican free-tailed bats, in northern, central and southern Mexico. They visited each cave once a month for more than a year, capturing bats as they returned from their nightly foraging.
They netted more than 1,500 Mexican free-tailed bats and obtained nearly 900 samples for dietary analysis. Results showed a very diverse diet, but at the north and central caves, Mexican freetails’ diet is dominated by moths from July to September, right after adult flying moths begin to emerge from cornfields in June. In the south, where freetails are found year-round, moth consumption peaks from January to March and again from August to December. This coincides with moth emergences from cornfields in the region.
Bats are clearly taking advantage of this abundant food supply and feeding heavily on moths that wreak so much destruction on Mexico’s most important crop.
BCI members can read the whole story of Mexican free-tailed bats’ role in protecting Mexico’s corn crop in the Winter 2007 issue of BATS magazine.
To help BCI’s Student Research Scholarship program support important scientific studies like this one, please contact firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:c50b4f96-6108-4130-9720-61db0fb895a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.batcon.org/index.php/media-and-info/e-newsletter.html?task=_viewArticle&ArticleID=1104 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950584 | 546 | 4.0625 | 4 |
Audrey Hepburn: A Biography, by Warren G. Harris
Released the year after she died, this book does a pretty good job at getting the facts down. It’s a good read, and must have been very exciting when it came out, but reading it many years after the fact tends to make the factual errors jump out at you. For example, this book claims that Audrey was actually born Andrey Kathleen Ruston, which was something I had never read in a biography before and will probably never come across again. Harris claims that this is a feminization of the name Andrew, but due to typographical errors and the fact that the name Audrey was more common, she became Audrey by default. This is the most glaring error in the book, but overall it is a good read.
In some areas Harris goes into a lot more detail than other biographers. He throws out little tidbits like exact addresses of houses where Audrey had lived throughout her life, which is exciting when you live near some of them or plan to travel in places where she had resided. He also lists various places where her bigger films had previewed or been test screened before general release, and it was a rush to realize that I have walked right past some of these places!
However, some of these details just seem like idle speculation at best, gossip at worst. I don’t want to give away all of the book for you, but Harris claims that Ella and Joseph (Audrey’s parents) divorced because of Joseph’s fascism. To put it more bluntly, Joseph’s father-in-law bribed Joseph into walking away from his family and never seeing his wife or daughter again, because Ella’s father was so fearful of Joseph’s political dealings. Hmm. Still, the book is a good read, especially for the more advanced Audrey fans who are getting to the point where they’ll read anything they can get on her, true or not. The pictures are worth looking at, too. If you can find this book at your local library I’d definitely recommend borrowing it, since it would be a fairly quick read, but if you were thinking about buying, you might want to check out a used book store or the Amazon marketplace, since it is out of print. Just don’t pay more than $20 for it. | <urn:uuid:aee3a391-69b1-480a-a194-2812e0189df3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fabaudrey.com/reviews/books/a-biography/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985253 | 489 | 1.546875 | 2 |
German poet and teacher; born at Posen July 17, 1800; died at Berlin Sept. 24, 1841. Basch was a somewhat precocious child, being able to expound the Talmud when twelve years old. A year later he became secretary to the mayor of Landsberg, but resigned the position to attend the yeshibah at Prenzlau, where he studied German, French, and Latin under Rabbi Josef Albu.
In 1817 Basch went to Berlin, and eked out a precarious existence—living in a garret in the Rosenstrasse—by copying Hebrew manuscripts and contributing articles and verse to "Wadzecks-Wochenblatt." In 1825 he traveled through South Germany, making the acquaintance of Goethe. On his return to Berlin the same year, he became teacher of Hebrew at Weyl's seminary.
Owing to the failure of the seminary, Basch was again thrown on his own resources, but on account of his unpractical nature was reduced to penury.
- Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums, 1841, p. 677. | <urn:uuid:e77c0d37-aa54-430a-a673-82f1a59f5a9e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/2602-basch-abraham | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97179 | 236 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Determining if a Large Number is Prime
Date: 05/05/2004 at 14:41:38 From: Jerry Subject: prime number? Is 333667 a prime? I have ruled out all evens plus 5, 10, 7, 8, 9, 13, 17, and 19 as possible factors but do not know how to proceed from there.
Date: 05/05/2004 at 15:03:17 From: Doctor Ian Subject: Re: prime number? Hi Jerry, Note that you only need to check prime factors. For example, for something to be divisible by 10, it would also have to be divisible by 2 and by 5, so having checked those, you don't need to check any of their products. Does that make sense? Second, you only need to check primes up to the square root of the number you're trying to factor. This is because if you have one factor larger than the square root, the other factor will have to be smaller, so you'll find it first. So you need to check all the primes smaller than sqrt(333667) < 578 That's still a lot of primes, though! So for numbers like this, which are big, but not _too_ big, the easiest thing to do is to check a table of prime numbers! Our prime number FAQ at Prime numbers http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.prime.num.html has a link to 100,000 primes, but this doesn't quite get as far as you need. The link http://www.utm.edu/research/primes/lists/small/ has longer lists, and you will find your number in their list. If you have any questions about this or need more help, please write back and show us what you have been able to do, and we will try to offer further suggestions. - Doctor Vogler and Doctor Ian, The Math Forum http://mathforum.org/dr.math/
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© 1994-2013 The Math Forum | <urn:uuid:0ed51879-230f-4f5c-b2db-cacecbd2a26b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/65378.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935249 | 438 | 2.078125 | 2 |
WHAT IS A PROBLEM?
Many people struggle with problems and have learned that you keep things to yourself and don’t complain; or you express it over and over- wearing out your friends;
OR have the belief that counseling indicates a weakness.
But it’s actually one of the signs of intelligence to explore a solution to a problem with someone else.
We all go through transformations; some are more difficult than others.
We believe that in every Crisis, there are two events happening: A perceived danger or threat; and an opportunity to learn or grow from the experience.
Sometimes wisdom comes from elders who have travelled the road, and taken the time to walk with others. | <urn:uuid:7a792fb6-278f-4651-869b-2d7a4753e2b4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iaia.edu/student-life/student-services/counseling/what-is-a-problem/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955671 | 144 | 1.992188 | 2 |
Obviously legislation written by someone who has never ridden a motorcycle. Can you spot the mistake in section 2?
"2. Seating Requirements
Motorcycle operators and passengers must be seated with their feet on foot pegs or the floorboards at all times (even when the motorcycle is stopped at an intersection).
The operator is responsible for ensuring passengers younger than 16 years of age are properly seated. Any passengers, including children who cannot reach the foot pegs or floorboards, are not permitted to ride as passengers.
Fines for violating seating requirements range from $109 to $121 or vehicle impoundment, if considered stunting. Failing to use foot pegs and permitting a passenger to be unlawfully seated both come with a $109 fine."
Im not making this up. And the third part on License plate improvements? The older plates with smaller digits could not be read by automated license plate recognition technology. Enjoy. | <urn:uuid:422d5763-96b1-488d-9c0e-c641768e85b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.motorcyclemojo.com/forum/showthread.php?234-New-BC-Motorcycle-Laws-Hilarious | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954623 | 187 | 1.585938 | 2 |
We had a small group on Monday, so I wasn’t there either, but I’m writing up a thorough synopsis of Handout 1 in distress tolerance. I plan to have it published by tomorrow night. In the meantime, here’s last semester’s entry.
In this week’s class, we continued our discussion of emotion regulation. Before we talk about changing your emotion, remember that emotions are normal reactions to stimuli. Once you’ve decided that you’d like to change the emotion you’re experiencing, you’ve got to figure out whether it’s justified; that is, is the emotion something that’s important to have to, say, keep you out of danger? For example, if you’re scared to go into a room because you know that there’s a snake in there and your life is in danger, you probably ought to leave that emotion alone.
If you’ve decided that your emotion isn’t keeping you out of danger or doing you any favors, one way to change it is by using the skill of Opposite Action.
Each type of emotion has a particular action urge associated with it. When you’re angry, you want to lash out.
- Anger: Lash out
- Sadness: Isolate
- Fear: Run away
- Shame/Guilt: Hide
The key to using this skill is to accurately identify the emotion you’re trying to change. If you’re unsure about what the emotion is, use Handout 4 to help you. After you’ve identified the emotion, work on doing what’s opposite to it.
- Anger: Gently avoid or be kind.
- Sadness: Be active and engage with people.
- Fear (anxiety): Approach what’s making you scared.
- Shame/Guilt: Do what’s making you feel shameful or guilty. Over and over.
Doing this is a form of exposure. We can become “habituated” to things that cause us emotion. That is, we can get used to those things that cause us a signficant degree of emotion. The more we expose ourselves to the emotion, the less emotion it will arouse.
Remember, that if you do opposite action, do it all the way. You can’t make a half-hearted attempt and expect it to work. Homework is the last homework sheet in the module. Focus on the opposite action portion of it.
In the emotion regulation section, we’re going to be learning how to: accept emotions as they are, reduce negative emotion and increase positive emotion. The concept of emotion as a normal reaction to situations (either external or internal) was discussed.
We covered a lot of ground in group, going over handouts 1 through 5. The highlights of these handouts are listed below:
- Handout 5: The functions of emotion.
- To communicate to yourself or others. Emotions help your “mind” get its point across. When you experience emotion, your being sent a message.
- To motivate action. Emotions can help get you motived to make a change or do something!
- To self-validate. Emotions can help you make sense of your world.
- Handout 3: The cycle of emotion. See handout 3. This handout describes the cycle through which emotion can be generated. And re-generated.
- Handout 2: Some myths and challenges for emotion.
- Handout 4: The major emotions, the things that can lead to them (e.g., prompting events, interpretations) and their consequences (e.g., secondary emotions, after-effects)
Homework for this week was to complete identification of the emotion you experience. From the prompting event through the after-effects. If you’re having trouble figuring out what emotion you’re experiencing, make use of the extensive descriptions on handout 4 to help you figure out what you’re feeling. Martha also passed out an additional handout (Biopsychosocial Model of Emotion) about emotion regulation.
We continued our discussion of Interpersonal Effectiveness by talking about our experiences dealing with others. Each member shared an experience during the previous week when they needed to act effectively. Each example was different and actually targeted a different objective, which made for a nice teaching point because the next part of the module was determining what your goals are and how to decide on what to do. (more…)
In this week’s class, we reviewed mindfulness and mindful decision making. We talked about the “what’s” and “how’s” of practicing mindful activity. Each member reviewed his/her homework and we discussed the process of acting mindfully. We also had a discussion about the importance of not invalidating your stuggles with making a wise mind decision.
We then moved into talking about Interpersonal Effectiveness and the reasons why you’d want to target I.E. as a skill. Martha listed 4 reasons for wanting to be more interpersonally effective:
- To get your opinion taken seriously.
- To help you tolerate saying “no” to a request.
- To help you learn how to say “no.”
- To help you learn to ask for what you want or need.
We also talked about the differences between priorities (things that are important to you) and demands (things that are important to others).
For homework, we had page 129 in the handouts: thinking about situations where you wish you were more effective during the week. Jot a time or 2 down for discussion in the next class.
Remember that we don’t have group on July 3rd.
In our second group of the summer session, we continued the discussion of mindfulness from the previous week. Last week, Martha and the group talked about mindfulness and wise mind in particular. The homework review was short since we’ve still got a small group, but we talked about using wise mind to make decisions. | <urn:uuid:c3c68d84-404e-4345-917d-25a3751c4007> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dbt-u.com/category/durham-summer/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943652 | 1,282 | 3.1875 | 3 |
SECRETARY OF ENERGY STEVEN CHU: So hi, Facebook fans. I’m here on the Mall in Washington, D.C. What we have is a solar decathlon, universities competing to see who makes the most efficient house, the most – the best solar house, ones that have the best renewable resources and recycling – very, very exciting because these are projects that are student-run, and the students are remarkable. They’ve gotten together. They’re applying high technology. They’re learning about fundraising. They’re learning all sorts of things.
And what we see are glimpses of what will be in the future homes of tomorrow. These are cutting-edge things. And when I talk to some of the students, they said, well –
I ask, how much time do you spend on this? You know, you’re full-time students.
They said, well, sometimes 80 hours a week.
So in physics, that’s known as an alternate universe that you can spend 80 hours a week building a home like this with your own brain, your own hands, and still go to school. But it’s fabulous. It shows how exciting things can be. It shows when students get together how ingenious they are. Some of this stuff, we hope, will be (sort of ?) regularly installed maybe five or 10 years from today. But it’s a very exciting time and again, you know, many things in the world, some of the best ideas come from our youngest people.
So it’s very encouraging. You should – if you can’t be here in Washington to walk around and look for these things, you can take a virtual tour and so you should look that up on the website. | <urn:uuid:e934e97c-f944-425f-8f8f-2c1c70b5dab6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://energy.gov/videos/solar-decathlon-update-secretary-chu?page=0%2C1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949834 | 375 | 1.75 | 2 |
Sinha: Surcharge on super-rich fine
A higher income tax rate for the “super-rich” may be a bad idea as it would be a “powerful disincentive” for them to comply, but a surcharge, being temporary in nature, could still be tried, according to former finance minister and BJP leader Yashwant Sinha. In an interview to MK Venu for Rajya Sabha TV, Sinha also endorsed the idea of increasing tax on dividend income above a threshold. This, he said, can be done by making dividends beyond a level taxable in the hands of the recipients also, in addition to the levy at the company level, so as to take the effective rate to close to 30%, the marginal income tax rate at present.
On the proposal to increase the tax dividends for promoters and high net-worth shareholders, Sinha said: “It is a very unpopular thing to do but there is a philosophical issue here. I am convinced that dividend income in the hands of the recipient should be taxed.... There are high net-worth individuals who are receiving all their income in dividend, which is not taxed... Because there are promoters holding 20% or 30% in the company and then are investing in instruments which are not taxed. So these high net-worth
individuals end up paying no tax. So if they (the government) have the stomach for it, please go ahead and do it.”
When asked about his view on increasing the tax on
Be the first to comment. | <urn:uuid:57d1d82c-8ca9-4fb3-9856-9fa8859d133d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.financialexpress.com/news/sinha-surcharge-on-superrich-fine/1071747 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969436 | 316 | 1.679688 | 2 |
No of pages: 288
Other Editions: Paperback
An Elegy for Easterly
A woman in a township in Zimbabwe is surrounded by throngs of dusty children but longs for a baby of her own; an old man finds that his job making coffins at No Matter Funeral Parlour brings unexpected riches; a politician’s widow quietly stands by at her husband’s funeral watching his colleagues bury an empty coffin. Petina Gappah’s characters may have ordinary hopes and dreams, but they are living in a world where a loaf of bread costs half a million dollars; a country expected to have only four presidents in a hundred years; and a place where people know exactly what will be printed in the one and only daily newspaper because the news is always, always good.
In her spirited debut collection, Zimbabwean author Petina Gappah brings us the resilience and inventiveness of the people who struggle to live under Robert Mugabe’s regime. Despite their circumstances, the characters in An Elegy for Easterly are more than victims; they are all too human, with as much capacity to inflict pain as they have to endure it. They struggle with larger issues common to all people everywhere: failed promises, unfulfilled dreams and the yearning for something to anchor them to life.
Keep in touch with all the latest news and events from Faber Social by signing up for the newsletter. Sign up here. | <urn:uuid:fdb5dc75-1c49-4cbc-8631-8d6930b707f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.faber.co.uk/catalog/an-elegy-for-easterly/9780571246939 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952981 | 297 | 1.515625 | 2 |
The storage and generation of electricity is a hotbed of scientific study around the world. New and improved methods of storing electricity have a myriad of potential uses from phones and laptops that run longer to new electric vehicles with much greater driving range.
"Micro helicopters, the kind that fit in the palm of your hand (and sometimes spread holiday cheer) are huge fun -- and hugely frustrating. Have you ever tried to get one to hover in place next to another? Impossible! MIT thinks it can do that, not with just two but thousands of the little beggars all hovering in harmony as part of a project called Flyfire. By using LED-equipped drones the project pledges to build free-floating 3D displays, endowing them with enough smarts and positional awareness to organize themselves into an airborne canvas.
Copyright 2013 © Godem Online Inc. | Web and server solutions by NewTech Solutions. | <urn:uuid:4e67eb8d-8c03-497f-9627-782d57eb7c09> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://3dgameman.com/tags/mit | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937229 | 181 | 2.234375 | 2 |
A few months ago, former National Geographic maps intern Tala Katner finished her gig and set off to explore the world for a while. Here, she shares her trials hiking up to an Everest Base Camp.
This was it. I was finally a college graduate and I was ready to enter the real world… by way of Asia. From Nepal to the Philippines, my eight-month journey was to start 17,000 feet up in the Himalayas, at the Everest Base Camp. Wanting to choose a local trekking company, I forgave the misspelled words and communication struggles of our correspondences and put my trust in Inventive Panorama Treks Nepal.
About one week before my departure, a Yeti Airlines plane crashed killing 18 people at Lukla, Nepal, the launching pad for Everest hikes used by thousands of trekkers every year and the very place I would be flying to so soon. I emailed my guide, Gelu Sherpa, inquiring about the safety of these small planes. In his reply he assured me that “it was no problem because Yeti airlines has five airplanes, one is crash but there is still four more.” Ten days later I was nervously strapping into a small twin otter propeller plane. But as we rose in the air, and the Kathmandu Valley gave way to snow-clad giants, I soon forgot my worries and was enjoying my first breathtaking views of the Himalayas.
The trek started as soon as I stepped out of the plane at the Tenzing-Hillary Airport in Lukla at the altitude of 8,000 feet. I was met by my light-hearted and playful hiking guide, Shiba, and a very sturdy porter, Lakpa. These two men would become my closest friends for the next 15 days.
The altitude hit me right away.
Lightheadedness, nausea, and weakness made me begin to regret having signed up for the whole thing. I began having fantasies that my hiking partner and boyfriend would become violently sick, forcing us to turn around. I pressed on. Each glimpse of Everest in the distance kept me going.
There was something intoxicating about arriving at each small town and tiny community that could only be reached by foot.
Every now and then, however, the charm of this thought would give way to a feeling of isolation and the realization that the only way back was also by foot.
The Everest trail is incredibly rocky and dusty and the constant clinking of yak bells warning you to move aside becomes a very familiar sound. Colorful Nepali and Tibetan prayer flags strung along mountain ridges are blown in the wind spreading their prayers across the land. The assumed sternness of the sherpas who are hauling enormous loads by a strap across their foreheads is softened by their friendly smiles and affable demeanor.
The small towns became more and more sparse and the accommodations more and more basic as we came closer to our destination. After a few days on the trail, we had learned what every trekker learns about base camp: there are no views of Everest from there. A few miles away and a few hundred feet higher, however, lies a peak called Kala Pattar which boasts some of the best views of Everest. So early on we decided to abandon base camp and instead make the extra day climb to Kala Pattar.
You could now see the wind blowing snow off the mountain tops and could only imagine the weather up at the summit. We began our hike to Kala Pattar at 4 a.m. to catch the sunrise over Mount Everest. With this amazing vista we sat to contemplate our accomplishment as well as what the days ahead would bring.
Photo: Tala Katner | <urn:uuid:dac62163-38d3-478f-8db0-68e382e31fc2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://intelligenttravel.nationalgeographic.com/2009/03/11/fifteen_days_in_the_himalayas/?q=/2009/03/fifteen-days-in-the-himalayas.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976386 | 759 | 1.53125 | 2 |
› Larger image
NASA commercial partner Orbital Sciences of Dulles, Va., successfully conducted an engine test of its Antares rocket Friday, Feb. 22, from Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport Pad-0A at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Va. The company fired dual AJ26 rocket engines for approximately 30 seconds while the rocket was bolted down on the pad. Known as a "hot fire" test, it demonstrated the readiness of the rocket's first stage and launch pad fueling systems to support upcoming test flights. Credit: NASA
NASA Partner Orbital Tests Rocket, Newest U.S. Launch Pad
Video of Antares hot fire test at Wallops on February 22, 2013. Credit: NASA
WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. -- NASA commercial partner Orbital Sciences of Dulles, Va., successfully conducted an engine test of its Antares rocket Friday, February 22, at the nation's newest launch pad.
The company fired dual AJ26 rocket engines for approximately 30 seconds while the first stage of Orbital's Antares rocket was held down on the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) Pad-0A at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va. The test demonstrated the readiness of the rocket's first stage and launch pad fueling systems to support upcoming test flights.
"This pad test is an important reminder of how strong and diverse the commercial space industry is in our nation,” said Phil McAlister, director of Commercial Spaceflight Development at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “A little more than one year after the retirement of the space shuttle, we had a U.S company resupplying the space station, and another is now taking the next critical steps to launch from America’s newest gateway to low-Earth Orbit. Today marks significant progress for Orbital, MARS and the NASA team."
Orbital is building and testing its new rocket and Cygnus cargo spacecraft under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. A demonstration flight of Antares and Cygnus to the space station is planned for later this year. Following the successful completion of the COTS demonstration mission to the station, Orbital will begin conducting eight planed cargo resupply flights to the orbiting laboratory through NASA's $1.9 billion Commercial Resupply Services contract with the company.
Wallops, which has launched more than 16,000 rockets in its 67-year history, provided launch range support for the hot fire test, including communications, data collection, range safety and area clearance.
NASA initiatives like COTS are helping develop a robust U.S. commercial space transportation industry with the goal of achieving safe, reliable and cost-effective transportation to and from the space station and low-Earth orbit. In parallel, NASA's Commercial Crew Program is working with commercial space partners developing capabilities to launch U.S. astronauts from U.S. soil in the next few years.
For more information about upcoming Orbital test flights, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/orbital | <urn:uuid:fc35c195-7232-4463-a78b-6833453ce79b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nasa.gov/centers/wallops/news/oscpadtest.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915924 | 620 | 2.40625 | 2 |
Jacquelyn Smith, Forbes Staff
If it has to do with leadership, jobs, or careers, I'm on it.
As you rise up the corporate ladder you get more money but also more stress and more complications that can make you less happy on the job, right? No, maybe not, according to a new survey by the jobs site CareerBliss.com. It finds that employees with higher salaries are happier with all aspect of their work life, not just their compensation.
“Employee happiness defines our workplaces,” says the company’s chief executive, Heidi Golledge. “Employees used to be happy just to be paid consistently and hopefully paid well. Now, overall job and life satisfaction, sense of well being and the work that they do are intricately tied together.”
CareerBliss analyzed 69,000 job reviews written by employees between 2011 and 2012 and found that money could buy happiness—at least in the workplace.
The employees, at 22,000 different companies, were asked to rate ten factors that affect workplace happiness, including growth opportunities, benefits, work-life balance, career advancement, their senior managers, job security, and whether they would recommend their employers to others. They evaluated each factor on a five-point scale and also indicated how important it was to their overall happiness at work. The numbers were combined to find an overall rating of employee happiness for each respondent, and then they were sorted by salary bracket to find who the happiest workers were.
It turned out the overall happiness ranking for people making between $40,000 and $50,000 a year was 3.78 out of 5, which made this the least happy salary bracket. It rose to 4.21 for those making between $400,000 and $450,000—the happiest workers of all.
Bradley Brummel, a Ph.D. in workplace psychology who analyzed the CareerBliss data says the survey points out that where you evaluate happiness is important to consider when answering the question, Can money buy you happiness? “Yes, to some degree,” he says. “We see that happiness is highest at an income level of about $400,000 to $450,000 a year and then decreases slightly. It is important to understand higher income appears to correspond to increases in almost all other things that make a happy job. Some of these things include interesting work, autonomy, flexibility, and interesting coworkers.”
So in other words, if you make more you’re probably happier with most aspects of your career, but not necessarily in life altogether. | <urn:uuid:28967956-2b88-41da-afd8-f7d9d55b8d8b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2012/11/14/can-money-buy-you-career-happiness/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980119 | 537 | 1.953125 | 2 |
MEXICO CITY (AP).-
Archaeologists found a round Aztec ceremonial platform studded with stone carvings of serpent heads at Mexico City's Templo Mayor ruin, raising hopes in the search for an emperor's tomb, authorities said Thursday.
No Aztec ruler's tomb has ever been located and researchers have been on a five-year quest to find a royal tomb in the area of the Templo Mayor, a complex of two huge pyramids and numerous smaller structures that contained the ceremonial and spiritual heart of the pre-Hispanic Aztec empire.
Mexico's National Institute of History and Anthropology
said the stone platform is about 15 yards (meters) in diameter and probably built around A.D. 1469. The site lies in downtown Mexico City, which was built by Spanish conquerors atop the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan.
"The historical records say that the rulers were cremated at the foot of the Templo Mayor, and it is believed to be on this same structure the 'cuauhxicalco' that the rulers were cremated," said archaeologist Raul Barrera.
"That is what the historical sources say," he said, referring to accounts written by Roman Catholic priests who accompanied the Spanish soldiers in the 1521 conquest. "Of course, now we have to find archaeological evidence to corroborate that."
He said the platform, which is still being unearthed, was gradually uncovered over the preceding months. It is covered with at least 19 serpent heads, each about a half-yard (meter) long.
Barrera said accounts from the 1500s suggested the platform was also used in a colorful ceremony in which an Aztec priest would descend from the nearby pyramid with a snake made of paper and burn it on the platform.
Records indicate there were a total of five such platforms in the temple complex. One was found several years ago, but that platform was farther from the ritually important spot at the foot of the pyramid, where the most recent finding was made.
In 1997, archaeologists using ground-penetrating radar on a site very close to where the latest stone platform was found detected possible underground chambers that they believed at the time might contain the remains of Emperor Ahuizotl, who ruled the Aztecs when Columbus landed in the New World.
Subsequent excavations turned up a sort of stairway leading down and lots of ritual offerings of shells, animal bones and pots, but no tomb.
Archaeologists agree any such find would be very significant.
"This would be quite an important find for Aztec archaeology," said Michael Smith, an archaeologist at Arizona State University who is not connected to the dig. "It would be tremendously important because it would be direct information about kingship, burial and the empire that is difficult to come by otherwise."
He says the find shows that "archaeologists are inching closer and closer to finding an Aztec royal tomb."
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. | <urn:uuid:2f9a5008-3f1d-4dd1-8cd9-7d6e83096477> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=50959&int_modo=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97105 | 616 | 2.703125 | 3 |
The marvelous food depicted in these two panels of Late Gothic German stained glass may have been of vegetable origin. Left: Gathering Manna. Moses, holding the staff received from God on Mount Sinai, presides over the gathering of a miraculous fall of quail and manna from heaven. Right: Storing up Manna. Two men bear a large wooden tub of manna into a tent; a third man carries a great basketful in his arms.
The identification of Biblical plants has occupied investigators for centuries; the identity of manna is one of the most intriguing and most debated of ethnobotanical mysteries, although some interpreters have suggested that the substance is of insect rather than vegetable origin. Read more » | <urn:uuid:034a05eb-1f3a-433c-8a08-4197a5c94d06> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.metmuseum.org/cloistersgardens/tag/platearius/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946295 | 144 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Le Monde, Courrier International, Swiss Info, Les Echos, Tribune de Geneve, Le Temps, BBC, and more.
Phase two of our research on land grabs reveals how bad energy policies and development agendas contribute to famine and conflict in Africa.
As populations expand and food prices hit record highs, international investors are hoping to strike it rich in an unlikely place, Africa. We investigate one controversial deal and the surprising cast of players involved – including one of America’s oldest land grant universities.
A new report published this week claims farmers in Africa are being driven off their traditional lands to make way for vast new industrial farming projects backed by European hedge funds seeking profits and foreign countries looking for cheap food.
After a global food crisis in 2008, prices of grain and other staples tripled and agricultural investment in Africa has swelled. The crisis set off alarms in countries with booming economies but where arable land was increasingly at a premium.
The Guardian--Report says largescale foreign agri-investment offers 'few solutions to the poverty and hunger plaguing the country.'
Financial Times--When farmers start to plant chickpeas in a remote spot of South Sudan this month, they may well sow the seeds of a backlash. South Sudan seceded from the north in July and this Egyptian-run plantation is the most advanced of several big-ticket farming deals detractors decry as "land grabs" in the world's newest nation.
Vanderbilt Hustler--Mounting evidence suggests Vanderbilt University’s investment in emerging African markets may be creating a commodity crisis in the region, even as university officials and a hedge fund manager directly involved in the fund tout their potential for high returns and local benefits.
ONE--Thanks to the comprehensive property rights that we enjoy in the US today, our homes and livelihoods are protected from being seized by large corporations. Unfortunately, throughout much of Africa, this threat is a daily reality. | <urn:uuid:c5729817-f058-461a-9e33-af2e5153ce01> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/issues/land-rights | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927086 | 398 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Essay Topics/Writing Assignments
These 20 essay questions can be used as essay questions on a test, or as stand-alone essay topics for a take-home or in-class writing assignment. Students should have a full understanding of the text in order to answer these questions. They ask for a thorough analysis of the text.
1. This play seems to include many moments in which the characters discuss how bored they are with their lives.
Part 1: Why do you think the characters are always so bored with their lives?
Part 2: Do you think the characters are doing enough to deal with the boredom they are facing? Why or why not?
Part 3: Do you think that boredom is a bad thing? Why or why not?
2. At many points of this play, the characters seem to be ready to argue with each...
This section contains 1,464 words|
(approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) | <urn:uuid:270804b4-d3a2-472b-88b6-32ce535feeb7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bookrags.com/lessonplan/unclevanya/essaytopics.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966896 | 197 | 3.234375 | 3 |
- Showing 1 posts filed under: School [–], Region: Pacific [–], Practice [–] published between Apr 01, 2011 and Apr 30, 2011 [Show all]
Campbelltown Primary School's justice for all sees grades rise and behaviour improve
Deputy principal Graeme Shugg said the effect of restorative practices at Campbelltown was immediate. "Teachers reported change within two weeks in their classes," he said.
"We empower kids to question and take responsibility for what they've done and repair the harm and allow the victim to have a say. The bottom line is, the people involved in the problem are the best people to solve the problem."
Suspensions dropped from 86 in 2003 to just 33 last year. In 2003, students were sent to the principal for discipline 683 times. Last year there were 76 referrals to the office. | <urn:uuid:cd6a5dd9-d3af-44c1-ae82-b35515347193> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.restorativejustice.org/RJOB?Subject:list=School&Subject:list=Region%3A+Pacific&Subject:list=Practice&from:date=2011-04-01+00%3A00%3A00&to:date=2011-05-01+00%3A00%3A00 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973381 | 177 | 1.867188 | 2 |
Re: Elton Gallegly’s June 19 commentary, “Empower employers and entrepreneurs to create jobs”:
His analysis is deliberately deceptive, relying on the statutory corporate tax rate, which exists on paper, in theory. An honest discussion starts with the effective tax rate, the taxes corporations pay in practice.
Thanks to a myriad loopholes, the U.S. today has the lowest effective corporate tax rate since the Eisenhower administration, amounting to only 1.3 percent of gross domestic product. Gallegly wants more loopholes, calling for a repatriation tax holiday on overseas profits, something he last peddled in 2004. Now, as then, Gallegly claims this will encourage corporations to “invest in our economy and create American jobs.”
As the National Bureau for Economic Research, the Treasury Department, the Congressional Research Service and the George W. Bush administration itself all acknowledged, in practice it did just the opposite. Pfizer, for example, repatriated $37 billion and killed 10,000 American jobs; Merck repatriated $16 billion, gutting 7,000 American jobs; and Ford brought home $850 million while putting 30,000 Americans out of work.
There is simply no evidence that corporate tax cuts create jobs. If corporate taxes lead to unemployment, the 1990s under Presidents Bush and Clinton should have been a decade of growing unemployment, not growing employment.
Gallegly’s “global competitiveness” claims also hold no water. Corporate taxes have nothing to do with America’s standing. The U.S. ranks dead last among industrialized economies in terms of corporate taxes paid in practice.
"Empowerment” in Gallegly-ese is just another stalking horse for corporate socialism, the same shopworn platitudes and economic gibberish that have sustained the GOP since the Reagan years --years when corporations paid much more in taxes than they pay today.
- Russell A. Burgos, | <urn:uuid:c29dccbd-9034-4f96-afda-77b531d72956> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vcstar.com/news/2011/jun/20/deceptive-arguments/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919645 | 405 | 1.929688 | 2 |
One of the best things about print-on-demand books is that you can create a family history book that doesn't have to be all things to all people. You can tailor a book to a specific audience, and later make a different book for a different audience. Marilyn Ramer Burroughs and Kathleen Ramer Harden created Cousins Remembering with the younger reader in mind. Marilyn brought her skill as an artist to the project, and the result is a great example of how art can replace photographs as a way of illustrating family history. A book like this one would be visually appealing to family members of all ages, and particularly to younger readers who might be less attracted to a book illustrated by old photographs. I enjoyed the text as well. This book will be a Ramer family treasure for generations to come.
To view the book full-screen, click on the little square next to the Blurb logo.
- Before even beginning to make a book, think about its potential readers and how best to engage their interest. For whom do you want to make a book? What material do you have, and who might be interested in it?
- Consider whether co-authoring with another family member would result in a richer book.
- Consider whether your own art skills or those of another (willing!) family member could be used to enhance the book you're thinking of making. | <urn:uuid:8c2e98a3-17d3-4401-b1be-aef8e3073ffa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://krentz.blogspot.com/2011/02/exemplar-artful-family-history-book.html?showComment=1296861809460 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968693 | 281 | 2.9375 | 3 |
VIENNA — Ever since the Mangans gave up their comfortable house in Kansas City, Kan., and moved here a year ago, the family has been living in a kind of suspended animation.
It almost looks as if they just moved into their two-bedroom apartment near Austria's old Imperial Palace: Some boxes shipped from the U.S. have never been opened and the bedroom windows are still covered with sheets because the family ran short of money before they could buy curtains.
The three young Mangan children have stopped asking about their plight, although 9-year-old Timothy gets angry every once in a while. "I wish I can yell at them," he blurted out recently about his father's former employer.
Joseph Mangan, 41, is a whistle-blower. As a result he and his family find themselves in a foreign country with unfamiliar laws, fighting a legal battle that has left them almost penniless.
A year ago, Mangan told European aviation authorities that he believed there were problems with a computer chip on the Airbus A380, the biggest and costliest commercial airliner ever built. The A380 is a double-decked engineering marvel that will carry as many as 800 passengers -- double the capacity of Boeing Co.'s 747. It is expected to enter airline service next year.
Mangan alleges that flaws in a microprocessor could cause the valves that maintain cabin pressure on the A380 to accidentally open during flight, allowing air to leak out so rapidly that everyone aboard could lose consciousness within seconds.
It's a lethal scenario similar to the 1999 crash that killed professional golfer Payne Stewart and five others when their Learjet lost cabin pressure and they blacked out. The plane flew on autopilot for hours before crashing in South Dakota.
Mangan was chief engineer for TTTech Computertechnik, a Viennese company that supplies the computer chips and software to control the cabin-pressurization system for the A380, which is being assembled at the Airbus plant in France.
In October, TTTech fired Mangan and filed civil and criminal charges against him for revealing company documents. The company said the information was proprietary and he had no right to disclose it to anyone.
Mangan countersued, saying he had been wrongly terminated for raising legitimate safety concerns.
Unlike U.S. laws that shield whistle-blowers from corporate retaliation, Austrian laws offer no such protection. Last year an Austrian judge imposed an unusual gag order on Mangan, seeking to stop him from talking about the case.
Mangan posted details about the case anyway in his own Internet blog. The Austrian court fined him $185,000 for violating the injunction.
And the Vienna police, who are conducting a criminal investigation into the matter, searched the family's apartment for four hours, downloading files from Mangan's computer as his children watched.
Boxes of documents detailing his allegations clutter the living room, but Mangan can't show the material or talk about the case -- at least in Austria.
To discuss his case with The Times, Mangan took a five-hour train ride to Munich, Germany, where the gag order doesn't apply. "I don't want to destroy TTTech," he said. "But I still get nightmares of people dying. I just can't let that happen."
To help pay living expenses and legal fees, Mangan sold his house in Kansas. With only about $300 left in his bank account, Mangan missed a Sept. 8 deadline to pay his $185,000 fine and faces up to a year in jail. Next month he's likely to be called before a judge on his criminal case.
The family expected to be evicted this month from their apartment, but their church in Vienna took up a collection to pay their rent.
At the moment, Mangan is hiding out at a church member's home because he fears he could be arrested at any time.
Mangan's wife, Diana, has been reading a book, "Lord, Where Are You When Bad Things Happen?" to make sense of the family's ordeal. "He's trying to do the right thing. Why are we suffering for it?" she said.
On both sides of the Atlantic, Mangan's case has raised eyebrows in the close-knit aerospace community, which is fascinated by his allegations but unclear about how serious they are.
Hans Weber, a veteran aviation consultant in San Diego, can't say whether Mangan has a legitimate claim because he hasn't seen the evidence. But he is baffled by the extent to which Airbus and TTTech have "gone after" Mangan.
"There is something really unusual about this case in the sense that there is this hard standoff between Airbus and the individual," Weber said. "It doesn't make any sense to me."
One of Mangan's key allegations is that because of the A380's unusual design, any loss of cabin pressure would be extremely dangerous. | <urn:uuid:1e93a88e-6090-490e-9e2e-795cf71536e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.latimes.com/2005/sep/27/business/fi-whistleblower27 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979656 | 1,014 | 1.5 | 2 |
'Previson' oral contraceptive pills.
‘Prevision’ is one of the earliest brands of oral contraceptive pills known as ‘first generation’ pills. Monophasic pills (like the one shown at the bottom of this image) are taken for 21 days, at the same time each day, with a week in between packets. The pill suppresses ovulation, which is the release of eggs into the womb. They also make it difficult for sperm to reach an egg, or for an egg to implant itself in the lining of the womb, all preventing pregnancy. First generation pills were introduced in the 1960s. They had high levels of hormones, which caused heart problems and increased the risks of heart attacks and strokes. Later contraceptive pills had much lower doses of hormones. The pills are shown with other oral contraceptives.
Related Themes and Topics
There are 535 related objects. View all related objects
A substance produced in one part of the body which passes into the bloodstream and is then carried to other (distant) organs or tissues, where it acts to modify their structure or function
The use of methods and techniques to prevent pregnancy from sex.
Glossary: oral contraceptive pill
A drug containing hormones, taken to stop pregnancy.
Also known as a pill, it is made by compressing a powdered form of one or more drugs. It is usually taken by mouth, but may be inserted into a different body cavity.
Common term for vaginal bleeding, which happens once a month as part of a female's menstrual cycle. Periods usually last from one to five days and begin when a girl reaches puberty. | <urn:uuid:e36270c7-fbbe-42e8-a2f5-810d35140595> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/objects/display.aspx?id=93344 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946216 | 334 | 3.046875 | 3 |
GROTON -- A orphaned boy finds refuge deep in the Indian jungle and is raised by the animals who live there. Relive this classic story by Rudyard Kipling and meet Mowgli the "man cub," along with a zany group of jungle animals and sing along to the familiar songs that we all grew up with. Performed by the Florence Roche Elementary third- and fourth-graders through the GDCE on March 8 and 9 at 7 p.m. and March 10 at 2 p.m. at the Groton-Dunstable Regional Middle School Performing Arts Center. Tickets are $12 for adults and $8 for students/seniors at the door on the day of the performance. Email Wendy Flaherty at firstname.lastname@example.org for information. | <urn:uuid:7e4dcc50-1699-48a8-994d-aafc66691a46> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nashobapublishing.com/ci_22644141/middle-schoolers-perform-jungle-book-march | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95536 | 163 | 2.265625 | 2 |
Free Search (11124 images)
- Title Maunder Crater
- Released 16/10/2007 2:06 pm
- Copyright ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)
The above image shows the striking Maunder crater lying at approximately 50° South and 2° East, in the Noachis Terra region on Mars.
The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on ESA’s Mars Express orbiter took pictures of the Noachis Terra region during orbits 2412 and 2467 on 29 November and 14 December 2005 respectively, with a ground resolution of approximately 15 metres per pixel.
The sun illuminates the scene from the north-east (top left in the image).
Maunder crater, named after the british astronomer Edward W. Maunder, is located halfway between Argyre Planitia and Hellas Planitia on the southern highlands of Mars.
With a diameter of 90 kilometres and a depth of barely 900 metres, the crater is not one of the largest impact craters on Mars at present, but it used to be much deeper. It has since been filled partially with large amounts of material.
This colour scene has been derived from the three HRSC-colour channels and the nadir channel. | <urn:uuid:4df8f8f4-ced3-49a6-8474-2725980fdf4d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://spaceinimages.esa.int/Images/2007/10/Maunder_Crater | 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 | 0.934414 | 263 | 2.875 | 3 |
Options available to address dangerous drivers
The recent death of a Lenawee County woman pinned between two cars in the Adrian Walmart parking lot raises questions about when a person should stop driving. The accident occurred when an 89-year-old man accidentally depressed the gas pedal instead of the brake, trapping the woman between two vehicles.
The accident is still under investigation at this time. This incident is not the only local example of driving fatalities involving senior citizens.
Tom MacNaughton, Director of the Lenawee Department on Aging, said local senior centers often observe members who show signs they should not be driving. They recently began the process of having two people reviewed by the Secretary of State’s office for poor driving, but before the process could begin for either person, they died in vehicle crashes due to driving mistakes.
According to Fred Woodhams of the Michigan Secretary of State, drivers 65 and older actually are less likely to be in a car crash, drive drunk, or drive without a seatbelt. The Secretary of State receives approximately 300 calls each month from law enforcement or family members to report unsafe drivers.
Not all the calls are for senior drivers. Woodhams said, “There are problematic drivers of all ages.”
Woodhams suggests the best course of action when there are worries is to sit down and talk with the family member directly. He encourages the person approached about his or her driving to listen to the family’s concerns.
“The issue of senior drivers is one we receive a lot of questions about,” Woodhams said. “We are an aging society.”
When a driver does not respond positively to the family intervention, the next step is for family members to fill out a “Request for Driver Examination.” The form details issues with a driver and requests a formal evaluation. Although the form requires the name of the person requesting the investigation, that information is not given to the person being evaluated.
An assessor looks at a variety of information including driving and accident record as well as doctor or optometrist reports. The driver may be required to have a complete vision exam, take a written test, or even complete a road test. If the driver does not report for the evaluation, then his or her license is suspended.
The evaluation clears a person who does well, while a driver exhibiting issues can have his or her license temporarily suspended or permanently revoked. Another possibility is a license with restrictions placed on it, similar to licenses for teens. Restrictions include only driving to and from work, staying within ten miles from home, or only driving during the day.
Making the decision to stop driving is a challenging one for most people, especially those who live alone. “Giving up a drivers license can be a difficult choice to make,” Woodhams said.
“People are afraid to stop driving because they will be stranded,” said MacNaughton. He reminds seniors that the Lenawee Department on Aging offers ride assistance to and from doctor appointments.
Many senior citizens keep their driver’s licenses current to use as a form of identification, which can present a temptation to drive when it is not a safe choice. According to Woodhams, senior citizens are eligible to get a state picture ID card at no charge, eliminating the need to have a driver’s license as identification.
The key is for honest assessment of physical and mental issues that make driving hazardous by every driver. The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) addresses when it’s time to give up driving on its website and gives a list of 10 signs showing a driver should consider putting away the car keys. Some of the suggestions focus on increased physical limitations, like vision problems, not being able to turn and check blind spots and mirrors or experiencing trouble switching from the gas pedal to the brake.
Others target mental confusion like getting lost easily, experiencing road rage, being distracted, and finding dents on the car or personal property. The site’s last reminder is that anyone regularly receiving tickets and warnings from the police should consider taking a break from driving. There is also a link to help families approach an unsafe driver without causing offense.
Although the list is on the AARP website, the basic suggestions of mental distraction and physical limitations could apply to drivers of any age. Young people are often distracted by technology and lack the experience to predict possibilities of driving maneuvers. Adults often multi-task in the car or get distracted by children, which causes impaired focus and attention.
“We always encourage senior drivers to be aware of their physical limitations,” Woodhams said. He recommends older drivers to talk to a doctor about any concerns and to check on whether medications could cause a problem. Both MacNaughton and Woodhams believe refresher courses can be very helpful for senior drivers.
The bottom line, experts say, is that drivers of all ages need to be focused and able to respond quickly when traveling roads and parking lots. Good drivers address any issues before tragedy strikes. | <urn:uuid:6d4d5144-948f-4f09-8aa9-e1e7c76f357a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tecumsehherald.com/content/options-available-address-dangerous-drivers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965092 | 1,039 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Stanford EE Computer Systems Colloquium
4:15PM, Wednesday, Mar 3, 2010
HP Auditorium, Gates Computer Science Building B01
Economic Webs and The Evolution of Wealth
About the talk:
Finnish Distinguished Professor
Signal Processing Departments
Tampere University of Technology
University of Vermont
Departments of Biochemistry and Mathematics
Economic growth theory considers aggregates such as GDP, and has tended to ignore the specific structure and productive competencies in an economy with respect to its capacity for growth. In the past 50,000 years, the diversity of goods and services has grown from perhaps 1000 to billions. The diversity of production capacities has grown vastly as well.
An economic web is a bipartite graph consisting of goods as nodes and production capacities as boxes. Factors that are inputs to production of a product (node), are denoted by arrows from the input factor nodes to the box, and arrows out to one or all product nodes.
I will discuss three major topics:
- As the diversity (number) of production capacities increase on
one axis, and the number of goods that can serve as input factors
increase on a second axis, a roughly hyperbolic curve in this space
separates a subcritical from a supracritical economy. The former
cannot generate an increasing diversity of goods, from a supracritical
economy that can generate an increasing diversity of goods and novel
production capacities. Alberta Canada is subcritical, exporting wood,
oil, wheat and beef. Ethiopia is subcritical, exporting coffee. The
global economy is supracritical. Transition to supracritical behavior
is an essential feature of economic growth.
- There are knowledge spillovers, as is well known, from production
of one product to those that are similar. R. Hausmann has mapped this
in some detail. A high diversity of production capacities suggests
ease of combining these to produce new goods.
- It is a fundamental fact that we cannot finitely prestate the goods
and services that will emerge in an evolving economy, just as we cannot
finitely prestate what adaptations may occur in biological evolution
by Darwinian exaptations. We cannot make probability statements
here because we do not know the sample space. No law can be had for
this unfolding. Therefore in the real economy, not only do we not
know what WILL happen, we do not even know what CAN happen. All the
above have major implications about fostering economic growth, and
policy formation, when governments want milestones that cannot be
set with respect to goods whose possibilities cannot be foreseen.
There is no downloadable version of the slides
for this talk available at this time.
About the speaker:
Stuart Alan Kauffman (28 September 1939) is an American theoretical
biologist and complex systems researcher concerning the origin of life
on Earth. He is best known for arguing that the complexity of biological
systems and organisms might result as much from self-organization and
far-from-equilibrium dynamics as from Darwinian natural selection, as well
as for applying models of Boolean networks to simplified genetic circuits.
Kauffman rose to prominence through his association with the Santa Fe Institute (a non-profit research institute dedicated to the study of complex systems), where he was faculty in residence from 1986 to 1997, and through his work on models in various areas of biology.
[extracted from Wikipedia] | <urn:uuid:fa68b190-9758-43cb-8526-d33f5f1b415f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/Abstracts/100303.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931313 | 720 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Paleoenvironmental Investigations in the Dutchess Quarry Caves”
|by R. E. Funk & D. W.
|extracted by S. Gardner,
| The Black Dirt area and its wetlands are famous for their
abundance of remains of late Pleistocene mammals, mainly mastodons. (Mammut
americanum), ground sloths (Megalonyx jeffersoni), prehistoric horse, bear
and moose elk (Cervalces scotti). The
geology of the area was affected by the glaciers that covered much of the
north. When the glaciers retreated,
they formed debris piles, or moraines.
Pellet’s Island, in the Black Dirt region, is a local example of an
ice-retreat moraine. This blocked
water flow, and lakes and bogs resulted that eventually formed the Black Dirt. A bog on top of a similar moraine at New
Hampton has yielded fossil pollen nearly 13,000 years old. Prior to being
drained by Euroamericans, the area teemed with life that would have been
attractive to prehistoric peoples.
| Beginning in 1964, a search for cave sites and rock shelters was
begun here, spurred by the scarcity of evidence of the earliest human
inhabitants in the Northeast. Our area
had been long known to be unusually productive in surface finds of the fluted
projectile points that were produced by the Paleo-Indians.
| The quest for previously undiscovered and undisturbed sites led
researchers, following the advice of
Henry Malley, to the limestone outcrops on the northwest side of Mount
Lookout. It is near the Village of
Florida, in the Town of Goshen It had
been quarried extensively since the 1930’s.
Possible overhangs and openings were tested, and when rock falls were
cleared away a large deep cave later named Dutchess Quarry Cave No. 1 was
found. Caribou bones left in the caves have been radio carbon dated to over
12,000 years old, one of the oldest dates attributed to human occupation of
North America. Cumberland type
arrowheads found there as well, which are generally dated about 10,500 years
old. Controversy continues over
whether the older bones were carried in by humans or scavengers.
| Excavations by the Orange County Chapter of the New York State
Archaeological Association took place in 1965 and 1966. Some evidence found suggested that it had
been used by humans occasionally for over 10,000 years. There were many animal remains, including
bones of the caribou; another cave had been removed by quarrying in the
1930’s and artifacts had been found but scattered or destroyed. Much of the original outcropping has been
lost to quarrying activities.
| In 1974 another surge of exploration was begun. A ground-penetrating meter was used to
search for other possible cave sites. Seven additional chambers were found,
their openings often hidden by rock falls.
Three of the seven, Dutchess Quarry Caves No. 2, 7 and 8, were found
to be archaeologically significant, but results were not published and most
of the data was lost.
| In 1987, the outcrops were again surveyed, using
ground-penetrating radar and explorations continued.
|What was found in the caves
| In addition to the late Pleistocene/early Holocene human
artifacts found at Cave Number 1, the several caves on the outcrop that were
excavated yielded animal bones of the ancestors of many of today’s common
local species, and also some of those that are extinct or are gone from
Warwick. These include Rangifer tarandus, (caribou), Ectopistes migratorious
(passenger pigeon), Acipenser (sturgeon), Castoroides onioensis (giant
beaver), Platygonus compressus (flat headed peccary), Cervus canadensis
(elk). Many of these remains are dated to between 10,000 and 12,000 years | <urn:uuid:30a92c1d-4ff2-4d99-bd96-410952b1f45f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.albertwisnerlibrary.org/Factsandhistory/History/Curriculum%20Powerpoint/PowerpointWebPage/Test2MapsandPrimaryDocuments_slide0021.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959672 | 896 | 3.234375 | 3 |
On Feminism And Nationalism: Kartini's Letters To Stella Zeehandelaar, 1899-1903 (Revised Edition) (Monash Pap On Seasia No. 60)
by Cote, Joost (Trans.)
About This Book
Raden Ajeng Kartini (1880-1904) was born into an aristocratic Javanese family and despite the shortness of her life, is widely known and respected as the founder and inspiration of Indonesia's Women's Movement. These letters to a Dutch pen friend she had never met were written 1899-1903. They show the clear educational and reform ambitions maintained by Kartini who, by enforced custom, had left school at the age of 12, but who continued to read, study and develop nationalist and feminist ideas. These she shared with reform-minded contacts. Her arranged marriage was followed by her death shortly after childbirth. A funeral oration, Kartini's 1903 memorandum on the education of Javanese women and 1903 application for official support for her higher education in Holland, and addresses by others on the need for education in Dutch, and for new policies on girls' education are appended.
This is a fully revised edition of the original published in 1995. This second edition also includes a new foreword by Goenawan Mohammad. With notes, bibliography and index.
* Actual charges are made in Singapore Dollars (SGD). SGD1.00 = US$0.77 | <urn:uuid:32e8db69-4abf-412e-8a93-29564674c352> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.selectbooks.com.sg/getTitle.aspx?SBNum=017557 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966884 | 299 | 2.3125 | 2 |
The Curriculum of the IMPRS-Uncertainty has three pillars: summer school, local training and workshops. Additionally scholars are encouraged to spend a term at a cooperating international institution: either the Center for Rationality, Jerusalem or the Indiana University at Bloomington.
Upfront training of new members comes at two levels. General training of all participants is entrusted to the summer school held each year in August in Jena. The main purpose of the summer school is not to deepen disciplinary training. This is mostly done in specialised courses at the respective department. Rather, these events are meant to give participants the necessary grasp of the neighbouring field(s) with which they are expected to collaborate during their dissertation project. Psychologists and lawyers will thus get a crash course in economic modelling. Lawyers and economists will receive a basic training in the cognitive theory, the assessment of psychological experiments, along with the statistical tools needed for doing so. And economists and psychologists will be imbued with the case method which is at the core of legal work.
At the summer school, each week is planned as follows:Monday - Friday
- 5 days with 3 crash courses (90 min each)
- complemented with (2-5) 45 min exercise courses
- group assignment
participants will gather in interdisciplinary groups of 4-6 students and jointly develop a research project, which is then presented to the plenum at the end of the summer school.
- exams from 9 - 13:00 (45 min each) and / or
- various leisure activities organized by the IMPRS
Each summer school will last four weeks. During each week three crash courses will be completed, which makes a total of 12 courses to choose from. Students are required to participate in the summer school in their first and second year and to cover 14 courses altogether (e. g. 6 courses + group assignment in the first summer and 8 in the second summer). If they wish, they may join the summer school also in their last year.The themes of the 2 x 12 crash courses are
(statistics for grad students – basic and advanced; empirical methods – basic and advanced; mathematic methods with MAPLE - basic and advanced; software/informatics; legal decision making)
- theoretical background
(cognitive psychology – basic and advanced; game theory - basic and advanced; theory of institutions - basic and advanced; social psychology; adaptive dynamics)
(heuristic decision making; intra- and intergroup conflict; probabilistic reasoning and strategic interaction; search for information and other resources; experimental economics; computational economics; innovation and industrial dynamics; search strategies in space and time)
Teaching will be conducted by faculty and by invited guests.
The second, more specific level of upfront and continuous training is at the respective host institution. If appropriate, this may imply a deepening of disciplinary competencies. It also encompasses an interdisciplinary training that focuses more specifically on the research topic of the faculty or institute of which they are becoming a member.
In Jena, if the Research School is granted, we plan to join most of the so far separate graduate courses of
- the MPI Jena and the Department of Economics on the one hand and
- the Department of (Social) Psychology on the other.
So far, this has been done only by organizing joint daily research seminars. Such day-long workshops will then be offered every month and be supplemented by jointly organized crash courses.
At the Department of Social Psychology in Jena graduate teaching has already been established in the context of the international graduate college “Conflict and cooperation between social groups”. There is a weekly research methods class and there are 4 short workshops per semester two of which are taught by guests and two by members of the department of psychology. Both are open for all PhD students in Jena.
The MPI Berlin will conduct a two-semester course on heuristic decision making and risky behavior (which is also open to students of the Humboldt University). The course will deal with versions of uncertainty in everyday, legal, and economic interactions; probability theory as a tool for taming uncertainty, and its limits; the science of heuristics as a robust tool; mathematical analysis of the match between heuristics and environmental structures; training of legal experts in constructing proper mental representations for understanding uncertain evidence; the illusion of certainty and its economic and legal costs.
In Bonn there are several weekly seminars, aiming at forging a joint agenda, at discussing individual projects, and at extending methodological, theoretical and topical competence. Specifically, there is currently a seminar on behaviourally informed institutional design, a seminar on the behaviour of corporate actors, courses on game theory and on statistics, and the general seminar of the institute, also covering the research agenda of the second unit, specializing in economics modelling and econometrics.
Workshops are the third pillar of cooperation in the school. There are two of them per year: the Thesis Workshop and the Topics Workshop. In organizing the workshops, the participating institutions will take turns.Thesis Workshops
Each IMPRS Uncertainty student needs to present a recent project out of her PhD project. Our faculty eagerly provides feedback to all participants during this workshop. Hence, each presentation should give a brief introduction into the broader thesis project before the latest paper is presented. The PhD students should explain where they see difficulties for their work and where they need further input.
Each presentation should not be longer than 20 minutes, and may well be shorter. This will ensure sufficient time for feedback (approx. 20 minutes). The shorter the presentations are the more time the other participants have to provide feedback.
See the previous workshops for more information:
In each year the IMPRS Uncertainty organizes a workshop at one of its partner institutions. The idea is to get to know the different research fields and institutions of the IMPRS Uncertainty and to take advantage of the expertise of each partner. Optimally, this will enhance the scientific exchange and contribute to the excellence of our research.
See the previous workshops for more information: | <urn:uuid:beede070-b78e-4ebc-872a-5e5096c44165> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.imprs.econ.mpg.de/curriculum.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942217 | 1,247 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Introducing Bosnia & Hercegovina
Once known for tragic reasons, Bosnia and Hercegovina now features in travel plans as people realise what this country has to offer: age-old cultures, stunning mountain landscapes, access to the great outdoors and a sense of adventure. This most easterly point of the West and the most westerly point of the East bears the imprint of two great empires. Five hundred years of domination, first by the Turks and then briefly by the Austria-Hungarians, have inexorably influenced the culture and architecture of this land.
In Sarajevo, minarets, onion-shaped domes and campaniles jostle for the sky in a town where Muslims, Jews, Orthodox Christians and Catholics once lived in harmony. Alluring Baščaršija is a jumble of cobbled laneways spanning centuries of activity. Here workshops for ancient crafts are mixed in with cafés, souvenir shops, and trendy bars. There’s also plenty to lure visitors away from the capital. Mostar’s Old Bridge has been rebuilt and daring young men now plunge from its heights to amuse the tourists. Small Jajce delights with its medieval citadel and waterfall while Međugorje attracts thousands to its Virgin Mary apparition site.
Most likely it’ll be in adventure sports where Bosnia and Hercegovina will make its name. Already its major rivers are rafted and kayaked and its mountains are skied, climbed and hiked over, and as more out-of-the-way areas are made safe this country could easily become the year-round adventure centre of Eastern Europe.
Last updated: Mar 24, 2009
Tips & articles
20 June 2012
This excerpt from Lonely Planet’s Mediterranean Europe guide provides a selection of travel literature to get you in the mood...
Top cities in Bosnia & HercegovinaBrowse more cities in Bosnia & Hercegovina
Featured propertySee all hotels and hostels in Bosnia & Hercegovina
Going to Bosnia & Hercegovina? Make sure you're covered.Get a quote | <urn:uuid:c227f005-c89d-49af-9ae6-a455ed15c019> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lonelyplanet.com/bosnia-and-hercegovina | 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 | 0.914346 | 441 | 1.703125 | 2 |
MONDAY, Nov. 10 (HealthDay News) -- The number of U.S. children allergic to foods such as peanuts, milk and fish is rising rapidly.
At the same time, researchers are working on new approaches to treating these allergies, according to two reports to be presented Monday at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology's annual meeting, in Seattle.
An estimated 3 million children under 18 had a food allergy in 2007, an 18 percent increase since 1997, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"The problem is even more than numbers," said Dr. Sami L. Bahna, a professor of pediatrics and medicine and chief of allergy and immunology at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center. "The severity of food allergies is going up."
There has been an increase in severe rashes; severe attacks of airway obstruction, called anaphylaxis; and intestinal problems, Bahna said.
What's more, the method of exposure that results in an allergic reaction is also changing, Bahna said. "People used to react by eating the food, but there are many people now that react by touching or smelling the food," he said.
Food allergies aren't the only allergies on the rise, Bahna said. "All the allergies are increasing -- asthma, hay fever, eczema," he said.
Several factors are contributing to the increase in allergies, the expert said. The first is the so-called "hygiene hypothesis," which holds that people in industrialized countries are living in increasingly sterile environments. As a result, their immune systems don't have to fight as many infections, so those systems can become hyperactive.
"When there is some degree of unhygienic conditions, the immune system from infancy adapts and develops to fight infection," Bahna said. "Cleanliness, antibiotics, whether they are needed or not, and vaccinations are allowing the immune system to develop as if 'I don't need you,' " he said.
Other reasons include the increased use of antacids among children, which prevents stomach acid from doing its job, and the increased use of multivitamins, which is associated with an increase in allergies, Bahna said.
Also, eating more highly allergenic foods such as fish, peanuts, tree nuts, milk, eggs and soy, as well as the increasing rates of childhood obesity, contribute to the rise in allergies, Bahna said. And, eating out hikes the risk for food allergies because you don't have total control over what you're eating. The ingredients in processed foods can also trigger allergic reactions, according to Bahna.
Allergic reactions can be severe -- even deadly. Current treatment is limited to avoidance of problematic foods and treating the symptoms of the reaction, Bahna said. But new treatments may be on the way.
Dr. Robert A. Wood, director of pediatric allergy and immunology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, was scheduled to discuss potential new treatments for food allergies at the meeting on Monday. These include anti-IgE antibodies, a Chinese herbal remedy and immunotherapy.
Anti-IgE therapy disrupts the sequence of events that causes an allergic reaction. The treatment appears to work in about 75 percent of patients. Its drawbacks are that it must be given continuously and it does not work in the patient who is too allergic. There are also concerns about its safety and cost, Wood said. | <urn:uuid:74b21de2-beca-4305-8ae0-e832d48685ad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Healthday/story?id=6222998&page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972888 | 712 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Sip a cup of tea while enjoying a slice of history: Did you know that tea played an important role in the lives of this country’s founding families? Certified tea etiquette consultant Pat Sagert cordially invites you to travel through American history with our presidential families as they take tea.
A delightfully different topic each month! Program takes place in Old Troy Church at the Troy Historic Village. Guests are welcome to bring their own teacup or use our disposable products. Sponsored by Elizabeth A. Kaniarz, CFP, FIC
Tickets are $7 each and can be purchased over the phone (248.524.3570) or at the Village. Advance registration required, space is limited. No refunds or exchanges.
Follow us on Facebook to stay up to date on upcoming programs and events: facebook.com/troyhistoricvillage | <urn:uuid:239b9626-3049-4b07-8bf2-b206184274a7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theoaklandpress.com/calendar/details/?eventid=10270 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908903 | 177 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Published September 19, 2012
Wikipedia users are up in arms over accusations that a trustee was providing front-page exposure and favorable edits to paying clients.
Roger Bamkin is a trustee for the the Wikimedia Foundation UK, the group behind the open-source encyclopedia. He is also a paid consultant, according to a CNET report, and has reportedly been using his position within Wikipedia to forward the cause of his clients.
The country of Gibraltar, which Bamkin has been representing, was featured in Wikipedia’s coveted “Did You Know” main page section seventeen times in August. Most other entries appear just once (with the exception of the Olympics), giving Gibraltar access to an enviable hundred million page views per month -- and really annoying some of the site's editors.
“It is wildly inappropriate for a board member of a chapter, or anyone else in an official role of any kind in a charity associated with Wikipedia, to take payment from customers in exchange for securing favorable placement on the front page of Wikimedia or anywhere else,” Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales wrote, when members broached the subject.
Wales admitted he didn’t know all the details of the case, but concluded that if the facts were true, Bamkin should resign from his post or sever ties with his client.
“The honorable thing for anyone with a conflict of interest driving them to act on behalf of a client ... is resign from the board of Wikimedia UK, or resign from the job with the client," he wrote.
Bamkin has been working on “Gibraltarpedia” for some months, a project in which Gibraltar would use QR codes and Wikipedia to digitize the city in the hopes of boosting tourism, which makes up a significant portion of the economy.
Several Wikipedia editors stepped in to defend the trustee, who they say has been upfront about his dual rules.
"As the minutes and disclosure statements show, Roger has been pretty clear about this with the board," wrote Craig Franklin on an internal discussion board. "If there is a grand conspiracy here ... then it's a pretty inept one."
Bamkin himself weighed in, saying he has tried to be upfront about the potential conflict.
"I have referred ethical dilemmas to the board. I have offered my resignation twice and it has not been accepted," he wrote on the same board, denying that his actions represent any conflict.
But Wikipedia administrator “Beeblebrox” agreed with Wales. “Roger is acting as a paid consultant at the same time as he is on the Board of WMUK,” he posted in response to the co-founder’s comments. “That's their problem but I share Jimbo's feelings on the matter, he needs to resign one post or the other.”
There is no official policy against "paid editing," noted Chris Keating, the chair of Wikimedia UK.
It’s the second time in a week that Wikipedia has come under scrutiny for conflicts of interest, after community members exposed another “Wikipedian in Residence” for running a PR and SEO-optimization business that leveraged his access to the Internet’s most popular encyclopedia.
Max Klein, the editor in question, quickly responded on his site, untrikiwiki, noting that despite advertising such services, he had yet to do any such business. “Although we have advertised such a service, we’ve not aggressively pursued it -- and we have not accepted any clients interested in on-Wikipedia work.”
Wales was understandably peeved when users brought the incident to his attention in the same thread.
“If what you say is accurate, then of course I'm extremely unhappy about it. It's disgusting,” he wrote. | <urn:uuid:dcd7cf0c-a7c7-4432-aec7-05165947ef67> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2012/09/19/new-wikipedia-scandal-uk-head-was-paid-to-promote-topics/print | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971717 | 785 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Think with me for a moment about education and relationships. Some of you care deeply that education not ignore or marginalize relationships of love. They are essential in real, lasting, life-changing education. Amen.
So I turn to the Bible. I find in place of the words, "education" and "relationship," the words, "truth" and "love." So what does the Bible say about how truth and love relate to each other? There are at least four ways of talking about this relationship.
1. Truth aims at love.
"The goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith" (1 Timothy 1:5). Note: instruction is not the goal, love is. Instruction is the means. It is subordinate. Truth serves love. Education serves relationships - mainly the relationship between us and God, but also between Christian and Christian, and between us and unbelievers. The "goal" of all our education is love.
"Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider one another how to stir up to love and good deeds, . . . encouraging one another" (Hebrews 10:23-25, literal translation). The aim of our "considering one another" and "encouraging one another" is that we stir up love. We mingle insight into "the confession of our hope" with insight into "each other," and the effect is stirring each other to love. The truth of doctrine and truth of people-watching unite to aim at love.
2. Love aims at truth.
"Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth" (1 Corinthians 13:6). Love is glad when truth is spoken. Therefore love aims at truth. It supports truth.
"Out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears; not so that you would be made sorrowful, but that you might know the love which I have especially for you" (2 Corinthians 2:4). Here is an example of how love aims at truth. Paul is filled with love and it compels him to write a letter that was hard, and caused sorrow in him and in the Corinthians. But it needed to be said. So love said it. Love speaks the truth personally and doctrinally.
3. Love shapes how to speak the truth.
"Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ" (Ephesians 4:15). There is an unloving way to speak the truth. That kind of truth-speaking we should repudiate. But there is a way to speak the truth in love, and that we should seek. It is not always a soft way to speak, or Jesus would have to be accused of lack of love in dealing with some folks in the Gospels.
But it does ask about what is the most helpful thing to say when everything is considered. Sometimes what would have been a hard word to one group is a needed act of love to another group, and not a wrong to the group addressed. But in general, love shapes truth into words and ways that are patient and gentle (2 Timothy 2:24-25).
4. Truth shapes how to show love.
"By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome" (1 John 5:2). It is not always obvious which acts are loving. So John tells us some truth will help us know if our acts are loving.
One truth test for our love is whether we are keeping the commandments of God toward people. In other words, love cannot be cut loose from the truth of God's will. Truth shapes how to show love.
Let us pray that God will cause his love and truth to abound and mingle in us in all these ways for the glory of his truth-filled love and love-filled truth.
John Piper has been the Pastor for Preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, since 1980. He has authored numerous best-selling books, including The Passion of Jesus Christ, Don't Waste Your Life and Desiring God. You will find 25 years of online sermons, articles, and other God-centered resources from the ministry of John Piper at www.desiringGod.org. He also has a daily radio program, called "Desiring God," which can be accessed online at www.desiringGod.org/radio. Visit the Desiring God online store to find all Audio Resources 40 percent Off! | <urn:uuid:ea8000bd-6875-445d-96c2-ca7902fdbc74> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oneplace.com/devotionals/desiring-god-by-john-piper/desiring-god-week-of-1016-1436108.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956168 | 978 | 2.234375 | 2 |
@henrynatalie is getting creative with homemade lip balm and cards, a jar full of notes with positive affirmations or date ideas, and vintage broaches and cufflinks.
@sliceofTOlife says, “Craftberry Bush’s March of the Penguins would make a cute stocking-stuffer.”
On our Facebook page, WWF’s symbolic wildlife adoptions are a huge hit. It’s like giving two gifts in one: a cute stuffed pal for your child (or the young at heart), and a donation to help us protect a real animal’s habitat. Check out our species of the week for your chance to win one of our newest adoption kits, like the snowy owl, Kermode bear and orca.
Or, get cozy in WWF’s ultra-adorable hat and mitten sets featuring species at risk, with proceeds supporting our conservation work.
You don’t necessarily need to give “things,” either. Our “Tell Me Tuesday” blogger Riannon John points out, “Since no one actually needs anything, I want to make sure I’m giving my friends and family something that’s fun and meaningful – not just more stuff.” Last year, she gifted her family with experiences, like a course on Italian art and passes to a climbing centre.
Green gifts keep giving, too. Our friends at the Nature Conservancy of Canada work to protect habitat for species such as the lynx and grizzly bear, through their Gifts of Canadian Nature. Buying make-up or perfume for the guys and gals? Be sure to bring along Enviro Defence’s Pocket Guide.
You can make a gift donation to one of Canada’s 83,000 charities (!) at CanadaHelps.org – extra handy for last-minute gifts. You can also set up a “Cause Wish List”: instead of gifts (or as well as gifts), ask everyone to support your favourite charities.
Of course, you don’t need to spend money to give meaningful gifts. Cook a nice meal for a friend (with local ingredients) or take on an annoying chore for someone in your family. After all, the best present is your presence, right?
Got other green gift ideas? We’d love to hear them! | <urn:uuid:25de875c-239b-48d5-94b8-a2b3c37b6124> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.wwf.ca/blog/2012/11/16/green-gift-guide-2012-edition/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918224 | 491 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Hot on HuffPost Parents:
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Obese Parents Can Keep Kids Healthy
I am a 30 year old mother of a 4- year-old-boy and 6-year-old-girl. I am overweight and approaching the obesity limit based on my body mass index (BMI). My husband is a little overweight and carries some extra weight in his midsection. My parents are both overweight and my husband's family tends to be on the heavy side. Both kids carry a bit of a belly, but seem to be okay, so far. Are my kids doomed when it comes to their health based on their family history?
Hello Mrs. Finley,
I would not worry about your kids having a bit of a belly at this age. If they were overweight all over, unable to play games at the playground or constantly lethargic, I would be concerned. As long as you ensure they stay active and instill in them healthy eating behaviours, they should be fine.
On the other hand, to ensure your kids break of the family pattern of being overweight, you need to be aware of cause and effect relationships theory of childhood obesity.
According to a study from Stanford University's School of Medicine, children of obese parents are at greatest risk of becoming overweight. One hundred and fifty children were included in the study, 74 boys and 76 girls. Researchers observed families from the day a child was born and measured factors including: the parents' weight the time of birth, the infant's weight, parent and child eating behaviours, the amount of child activity, the child's sleep time and the parents' concerns about their child's weight. By the age of nine and an half, 64 per cent of children with overweight parents were overweight, compared with 16 per cent of those of parents with a healthy a BMI.
Environment Is the Key
This type of research establishes a certain trend, but does not insist that over weight parents are destined to have overweight kids. Until we discover an obesity gene, we have to assume that your children are a product of the environment in which they are raised.
What Parents Need to Know
Understanding the major causes of childhood obesity is the best defense against a growing epidemic. Kids need a minimum 60 minutes-a-day of vigorous activity to maintain a healthy weight. For optimal health, they need to eat well-balanced meals, loaded with fresh fruits and vegetables and free of sugar and fat-filled snacks. Research has also found that obese kids sleep less than non-obese children. | <urn:uuid:e8caba68-43f4-4a93-8bb2-c653365d58b4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.parentdish.com/2010/04/19/preventing-obesity-kids/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969216 | 544 | 1.882813 | 2 |
East Coast Turkey
Thanksgiving is a day thick with plenty. The penultimate November Thursday marries history, tradition, and myth in commemorative indulgence. Its goals are less commercial and Puritan-stiff than many a holiday, and it thumps with seasonal and human spirit.
The history of the day of thanks trickles down from early American settlers. It was to be a day of rest from battle with Native Americans, and the gruesome winter, which took the lives of nearly half of the early pilgrims. The first account of Thanksgiving dates to 1623, chronicled in Eliot's New-England History, and tells of Governor Bradford who "sent out a company for game [turkey which was of plenty in the are]...and abundant materials for a feast...and they feasted Massasoit and ninety of his Indians, and they thanked God for the good and the good things in it. So they kept their first Thanksgiving." | <urn:uuid:f8da9610-1163-4fda-928e-3801e112e35d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.myheritage.com/tag/president/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96612 | 191 | 3.234375 | 3 |
GSSW Center Aims to Aid Immigrants' Integration
Boston College, founded 150 years ago to educate the children of Boston immigrants, has embarked on a new initiative to help foreign-born persons make a successful transition into American democratic society.
The Immigrant Integration Lab (IIL), housed at the University’s Graduate School of Social Work, is a unique applied research center that addresses the critical issue of immigrant inclusion. The IIL draws on academic and clinical expertise to provide resources, studies and leadership to national working groups, local agencies and professional leadership that focus on immigrant integration.
Under the direction of Westy Egmont, who brings considerable experience in the humanitarian and social services fields, the lab seeks to identify avenues that affirm the worth and contribution of immigrants and emphasize the role of human intervention and the impact of good policy and best practices.
GSSW will formally launch the IIL with a colloquium for community leaders in the Corcoran Commons Heights Room on Dec. 14, which will feature a panel discussion on social workers’ roles in immigrant integration.
“The Immigrant Integration Lab is a timely initiative, given the well-documented persistence of disparities between the foreign-born and native populations in the US,” said Egmont, who joined GSSW as an adjunct faculty member four years ago. “Today’s new immigrants reflect different sociodemographic and economic backgrounds than previous immigrant groups and have been under-researched — even as the 39 million foreign-born population is expected to increase.
“Integration is a dynamic two-way process that requires both immigrant and native to accommodate each other, so as to build a robust community for the future,” said Egmont, who co-chairs the Governor’s Advisory Council on Refugees and Immigrants. “Often, it is a social worker, or perhaps a classroom teacher, who will be that first point of contact for an immigrant and thus guide the way into a new culture. The Immigrant Integration Lab seeks to help human services agencies recognize and strengthen their role in integration.
“While many think of America as the great success model in assimilating generations of immigrants, the hardships of the first generation grow with denied benefits, austerity decisions of governments and very new patterns of settlement. Immigration remains a crucial political issue at the national and local level while integration remains relatively obscure and ignored.”
At the heart of the IIL mission, according to Egmont, is a four-fold approach to immigrant inclusion known as CORE (Consulting, Organizing, Research and Educating). This involves ongoing engagement with social and human services providers to assess their needs in fostering integration. Through CORE, the lab will offer research, training and education to aid agencies, programs, institutions and professionals in developing successful strategies for immigrant inclusion in the country’s social structures.
“The establishment of the IIL reflects the continuing internationalization of the social work field,” said Egmont, “in that social workers increasingly encounter global issues and concerns in their jobs. The Graduate School of Social Work, which has been a pioneer in international social work, is a most appropriate headquarters for the lab.”
This fall, the IIL awarded its first Immigrant Integration Fellowship to Lyndsey McMahan MSW ’14, a former community health worker in Zambia with the Peace Corps. McMahan will join the Lutheran Social Services (LSS) immigrant legal services with attorney Erin Fricker — a BC Law School graduate — to provide legal services to asylum applicants and find a way to provide essential food and shelter for the clients. As an Immigrant Integration Fellow, McMahan will combine direct service, along with the larger research project of finding models of intervention and developing a best practice in the field. She will share her findings through a paper and reports.
Egmont is the former executive director for the International Institutes of Boston and New Hampshire, New England’s leading provider of educational, employment, legal and social services to enable foreign-born persons to become self-sufficient. He also served as executive director of the Greater Boston Food Bank, hosted a Sunday morning talk show on WBZ-TV for 11 years, and created a multi-media exhibit, “Dreams of Freedom,” about the history of immigration to Boston. He holds a doctorate from the Andover Newton Theological School.
“Focusing on the integration of immigrants reflects GSSW’s local and global commitment,” said GSSW Dean Alberto Godenzi. “The unrivaled diversity of today’s immigrant populations allows us to see the world through the eyes of others. To study facilitators and inhibitors of integration and naturalization honors our country’s tradition of being an open and inclusive society. It is extremely fortunate for us that Westy Egmont, one of the thought leaders of immigrant integration policies in the US, signed on to lead this effort for the GSSW.”
Egmont will present closing remarks at the Dec. 14 colloquium, which will include a keynote speech by Demetrios Papademetriou, president and founder of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit Washington, DC, think tank dedicated exclusively to the study of international migration. Boston Foundation President Paul Grogan will serve as moderator for the panel discussion “How Can Social Workers Strengthen Immigrant Integration?” with Massachusetts Department of Children and Families Commissioner Angelo McClain, Boston Rising Executive Director Tiziana Dearing and Thrive in Five Executive Director Jane Tewksbury.
Other speakers include GSSW’s Godenzi and Eva Millona, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. Co-sponsoring the event with GSSW are the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition and The Boston Foundation. | <urn:uuid:bf967b45-ec15-4589-8553-f05df3ed77e2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bc.edu/content/bc/publications/chronicle/FeaturesNewsTopstories/2012/topstories/immigration112812.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941325 | 1,212 | 1.953125 | 2 |
This illustrated series covers more than 600 writers and illustrators for children and young adults. Typical entries consist of a listing of major works and awards and criticism from significant reviews and commentaries on the author's or artist's works. Each volume includes cumulative author name and nationality indexes as well as a volume-specific title index. A cumulative title index to the entire series is published separately (included in subscription).
While Gale strives to replicate print content, some content may not be available due to rights restrictions.Call your Sales Rep for details.
Price: US $313.00 | <urn:uuid:45dc6d0e-97d9-42e3-8864-f9435d3afd52> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gale.cengage.com/servlet/ItemDetailServlet?region=9&imprint=000&cf=p&titleCode=CLR&type=3&dc=null&dewey=null&id=3306 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928919 | 116 | 1.734375 | 2 |
It is Yom Teruah (also known as Rosh Hashanah) today. (Please feel free to skip this post if you wish to avoid my faith/festival musings!)
An extra candle lighting, for us, last night. And other traditions like starting the day with apples dipped in honey (for a sweet new year), braiding round challah (representing the crown of heaven, or the circle of the year if you follow less traditional interpretations) and casting bread into water (representing throwing away our past wrongdoing for a fresh start - which I am never one to pass up the chance for marking)!
Most importantly, hearing the Shofar being blown as a wake-up call to our souls - that and following the ongoing biblical instruction to make a loud joyful noise to the Lord. :) (That, I think, we can do!) The traditional focus of the Days of Awe following Yom Teruah is putting right our affairs and rededicating to holiness in the following year. Without minimising those themes I want the children to mostly take away the message that we are loved and covered by God's grace. So I tend to emphasise rather more the sweetness of God's gifts and our surety in Christ than a prolonged inward focus on our deeds and actions.
Shana Tovah, friends, and a year filled with sweetness to you all whatever new year dates you keep. Although I don't really personally consider Yom Teruah a new year as such (any more), as always I like to keep plenty of new years in my festival calendar! Greedy, I guess. ;) | <urn:uuid:1efe1508-5228-4c08-9f93-c6f849134047> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://carried-family.blogspot.com/2011/09/shouts-of-joy.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94112 | 334 | 1.585938 | 2 |
President of South Africa says Africa must deal effectively with HIV to reduce maternal mortality on the side-lines of the African Union Summit
South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma called on African leaders to effectively deal with HIV and as such eliminate one of the main causes of maternal deaths on the continent.
Addressing the Campaign for Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa (CARMMA), President Zuma was one of more than 15 Heads of State and policy makers who participated in the High-Level Meeting. The African leaders reviewed past successes and future opportunities for reducing maternal and child mortality in Africa.
“HIV still contributes to about 40% of maternal and child deaths in South Africa. This means that unless we deal decisively with HIV we will not be able to reduce maternal and child mortality to any significant extent,” said President Zuma.
FOURTEEN years ago, Kholekile Shasha joined SA’s nascent doctor training programme in Cuba, unaware of how controversial the state-sponsored initiative would turn out to be.
He came from a poor family, and had finished high school in the Eastern Cape with exam results just shy of the grades needed to study medicine in SA. He leaped at the chance of a free education in Cuba.
"I was disadvantaged in terms of colour, and access to education and finance," he says. | <urn:uuid:d65a4910-bf8d-498d-b79e-f8bb19a548c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hst.org.za/category/person/nkosazana-dlamini-zuma | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960604 | 281 | 2.25 | 2 |
Electoral historian and Fox News commentator Michael Barone, having long since made the trek from mainstream liberal to standard-issue conservative, is now endeavoring to pull the whole of American history along with him. In today’s Financial Times, he argues that Franklin Roosevelt never really won majority support for his key New Deal programs. Those programs now stand on the chopping block should Mitt Romney be elected president next Tuesday, Barone writes, and they lack popular support even if Barack Obama should prevail.
If you want to know what’s different about Florida, both in general and in this election cycle, just ask Jose Lopez. The organizer and leader of a laundry workers’ union that’s part of the Service Employees International Union, Lopez has been walking precincts as part of SEIU’s campaign to re-elect President Obama since mid-summer. One day, as he was chatting with an elderly man on his doorstep, his canvassing partner interrupted and asked Lopez, “How much do you know about snakes?” A rather large snake, it seems, had slithered between Lopez’s legs.
The elderly gentleman, who, like hundreds of thousands of new Florida voters, had migrated from Puerto Rico to the Orlando metropolitan area, excused himself, returned carrying a machete and proceeded to hack the snake not entirely to death. “The machete was too dull,” says Lopez, shaking his head. “He ended up just beating that poor snake to death with that thing.”
During Senator George McGovern’s 1972 presidential race, just out of college and back in my hometown of Los Angeles, I worked at the campaign’s Fairfax Avenue office, which was in the epicenter of L.A.’s Jewish community. Someone there (I don’t remember who) got the idea to print up a leaflet that proclaimed, in bold letters, “Nixon is Treyf”—treyf being the Yiddish word for not kosher, filthy, you shouldn’t eat it. The leaflet then went on to list reasons why President Nixon wasn’t good for the Jews. (We didn’t know at the time that Nixon had ordered a purge of Jewish economists from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or that would have headed the list.)
America has the Koch brothers, and now California has the Munger kids. Unlike the rightwing Koches, Molly Munger and her brother Charles Jr. entered politics from opposite directions—she’s a liberal Democrat and a champion of inner-city schools; he’s an economic right-winger, a social moderate, and a Republican activist. But thanks to the vicissitudes of California politics and the self-absorption that wealth can bring (their father is Charles Munger, a Pasadena attorney and investor who is the longtime vice-chairman of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway investment consortium), they’ve come together in the past couple of days to attack the most important measure on the California ballot: Governor Jerry Brown’s initiative to raise taxes on the rich so that the state’s schools and colleges won’t take a massive fiscal hit immediately following the election.
The scariest piece in the news this week isn’t about the election or the economy or the threat of terrorism—though it touches on all three. It’s about the latest development in humanity’s ceaseless urge to invent things—subcategory, the ceaseless urge to invent things that let people do things more cheaply than before. | <urn:uuid:9fe79b3d-18b4-46e1-889b-1fefd5054490> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mailto:editors@prospect.org/authors/harold-meyerson?page=8 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959809 | 749 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Winds will be calmer today
HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- Yesterday's winds will die down today, according to the Huntsville office of the National Weather Service. A northwest breeze will be 10 to 15 mph and will go even lower late in the afternoon. Higher elevations may still experience some gusts.
The overnight low is 33 degrees. Patchy frost may also be evident before 7 a.m. The high later today will be about 59 degrees before dropping back to a 34-degree low tonight. The day should remain clear and sunny.
Tomorrow's high will be a bit warmer at 63 degrees.
Sign up to receive a daily weather report via email for free at al.com/newsletters. On the go? Sign up for important weather alerts delivered to your phone, a free text service provided by al.com and the National Weather Service. | <urn:uuid:cecafba8-5408-4f14-ae9d-12a480e1a8b4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.al.com/breaking/2012/10/winds_will_be_calmer_today.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903561 | 177 | 1.554688 | 2 |
What is heat rash?
Heat rash (prickly heat) is a red or pink rash usually found on body areas covered by clothing. It can develop when the sweat ducts become blocked and swell and often leads to discomfort and itching. Heat rash is most common in babies, but it may affect adults in hot, humid climates.
What causes heat rash?
In babies, heat rash can be caused by well-meaning parents who dress their baby too warmly, but it can happen to any baby in very hot weather. A baby should be dressed as an adult would be to be comfortable at the same temperature and activity level. Babies' hands and feet may feel cool to your touch but that does not mean they need to be dressed too warmly in hot weather.
What are the symptoms of heat rash?
Heat rash looks like dots or tiny pimples. In young children, heat rash can appear on the head, neck, and shoulders. The rash areas can get irritated by clothing or scratching, and, in rare cases, a secondary skin infection may develop.
How is heat rash diagnosed?
Heat rash can usually be identified by its appearance and does not usually require medical attention. But if it doesn't go away after 3 or 4 days, or if it appears to be getting worse, or if your child develops a fever, contact your doctor right away.
When you or your child has a rash, be sure to watch for signs of infection, including:
If any of these symptoms develop, contact your doctor immediately.
What is the treatment for heat rash?
Most prickly heat rashes heal on their own. The following steps can help relieve symptoms.
The following tips can help prevent future episodes of the rash:
After the rash is gone, gradually expose your child to warmer temperatures so that his or her skin can acclimate.
eMedicineHealth Medical Reference from Healthwise
To learn more visit Healthwise.org
© 1995-2012 Healthwise, Incorporated. Healthwise, Healthwise for every health decision, and the Healthwise logo are trademarks of Healthwise, Incorporated.
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Keep Kids Happy
In The Car
Most kids love going on vacation, but long car rides can be a bore. Here are some tips on assembling fun and inexpensive travel kits which will have your child looking forward to your road trip!
If you're planning a family road trip, the best idea is to create a travel kit for your child. In the travel bag include the "necessary" items such as pens, pencils, crayons, travel games and writing paper -- these are all important for a child to have in order to stay entertained on a trip. However, other items are necessary to spice up a long car ride. The best idea is to find small and inexpensive items with a lot of play value. Don't spend a fortune!
>> Travel with kids: Activities on route
Making your kit
Here are some ideas of budget-friendly items to add to your kit:
- Allow your child to help choose what kind of items he/she would like in the tote bag. However, be sure that she does not decide everything, because the element of surprise will keep her from getting bored.
- Individually wrap the items you bring with on the trip. Inexpensive wrapping paper or placing the items in lunch sack bags creates interest. An item is always more fun if the child doesn't know what it is ahead of time.
- Visit your local discount store, but don't just buy any item. Be sure to ask yourself, "How long will this item keep my child's attention?"
- Buy some Colorforms. These are great to stick on windows. Don't buy too many, because they can cause a mess. Just one set will do. Children will enjoy using the Colorform characters to act out scenes.
- Buy snacks for on the trip. Preferably, choose snacks which don't cause crumbs and are easy to pack, such as fruit roll-ups, grapes, apples, juice boxes with holders, carrots and celery.
- Buy a roll of scotch tape for your child. This will keep his or her attention for hours! Your kids can tape their mouth shut and try to talk to one another. They will also put tape on the windows and tape together paper to create books and other masterpieces.
- Get a book or two for them to read on the trip -- just be sure to save it for the trip!
- Bring along some stencils so your child can do something a little different with the pencils and paper.
- Sing songs and play games on your trip.
- Include Post-it sticky notes in your child's tote. Your child will love writing messages and drawing on them, and then he or she can stick them on the windows and create an art display.
- Put a sticker pack in the tote bag.
- For older children, include a comic book, kid-friendly magazine, soduku game or word search.
- Wrap all new items in the tote bag in gift wrap or construction paper. Give your child a new surprise every 30 minutes to 1 hour (30 minutes for ages 3-5, and 1 hour for ages 5 and up).
- Include your child's favorite kind or candy or gum in the travel tote.
- Put tiny toys and other things in an empty aspirin bottle. Examples: Micromachines, worry dolls, pretty stones & beads. Check out your local craft store for more great ideas.
Read more about traveling with kids | <urn:uuid:db5fe3e3-2b95-4dc4-808a-a79dbfadc7ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sheknows.com/parenting/articles/5677/travel-kits-for-kids | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93266 | 714 | 2 | 2 |
Nuclear Summit warns Iran's recipe for atomic ingredients will be complete within a year. Lieutenant General Ronald Burgess, head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, delivered this news to a Senate Panel Wednesday. Burgess maintains that Iran could build one nuclear bomb within a year if Iran can Iran generate sufficient highly enriched uranium. Iran presently has a number of centrifuges in place to complete atomic plans. In Burgess' Senate address, he stated: "The general consensus -- not knowing again the exact number of centrifuges that we actually have visibility into -- is we're talking one year."
This announcement was made during Obama's Nuclear Summit focusing on international nuclear cooperation. Many countries with nuclear capacities have agreed to Obama's plan to dismantle bombs and surrender nuclear power by products to the United States for global safety. Members of the UN Security Council including the United States, China, France, Russia, and Britian have agreed to Obama's plan. India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea have not and are not members of the United Nation's Security Council.
Over thirty countries world wide utilize nuclear plants to power their nations. A fear echoed from many nations top leaders and from Obama himself, is that terrorists could easily gain access to the weapons grade nuclear material from these plants and build "dirty bombs" Iran and Korea are two countries who cause such fears. Secretary of Defense for Policy, Michele Fiournoy, represented Obama's stance on such matters. Fiournoy stated: "military options are not preferable and we continue to believe that the most effective approach at this point in time is the combination of diplomacy and pressure." | <urn:uuid:4bb9dbf6-5ae9-4c5b-9ef1-ead4574a3192> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brainz.org/news/nuclear-summit-warns-irans-recipe-atomic-ingredients-within-year/2338/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941149 | 325 | 2.15625 | 2 |
By Michael Feingold
By Elizabeth Zimmer
By James Hannaham
By Christian Viveros-Faune
By Christian Viveros-Faune
By R. C. Baker
By Michael Feingold
By Michael Musto
Once upon a time, coffee-table books signified luxury, upward mobility, things of quality and distinction. Buying one of those suckers conferred a sense of your own good taste. It was only a matter of time before publishers began catering to the downwardly aspirational, offering cheap (well, not that cheap) voyages into other people's fringe or freaky existences.
Take Create and Be Recognized (Chronicle, $40), the first major study of photography in outsider art. The title phrase was the motto of Eugene von Bruenchenhein, a baker and self-taught artist who photographed his wife obsessively and exclusively over two decades. He is one of the many forgotten visionaries included in this beguiling book by John Turner and Deborah Klochko. What binds together these figures isn't their amateurishness but the obsessive nature (and sometimes outlandish scale) of their missions. Alexandre Lobanov, deaf and dumb, staged elaborate self-portraits as a kind of Russian revolutionary icon, while homeless artist Lee Godie dressed herself in multiple personae for her many photo-booth snapshots, making her a bag lady forerunner of Cindy Sherman. Some of the eeriest images come from Morton Bartlett; although he was educated at Harvard and briefly worked as an advertising photographer, he belongs here because his photos, like those of his fellow outsiders, were born of "extreme private impulses." For 30 years he created and shot plaster figurines of young girls: a fantasy family of little women.
The somber photos of Margaret Morton's Glass House (Penn State, $34.95) capture another kind of marginal existence. The book's subject is an abandoned glass factory in the East Village settled by squatters in the early '90s. The poignant oral history and dimly lit pictures trace the household's emergence: Images of young people standing in rubble give way to portraits of people building their own rooms from scratch, occasionally using police barricades as structural supports. They make forays into the street to siphon water from hydrants, and cook dinner on a hot plate powered by the corner street lamp. In retrospective interviews, the squatters recall how they ended up theresome had no place else to go, while others chose the lifestyle for a sense of community or independenceand piece together the death of Glass House, infamously invaded and shut down by riot police in 1994.
It's hard to know how to look at David Yellen's heavy-metal devotees in Too Fast for Love (powerHouse, $35). Admire them on their own terms, as rebels against tight-ass, red-state mores? Or pity them as victims of one never ending bad-hair day? The proudly defiant poses of these subjects and the sheer effort they've put into their appearance suggest the former. And the ultra-bright, unflinching way Yellen shoots them, exposing every pore and underarm stain, further undermines any impulse to sneer. What's particularly touching is that these are not fans of contemporary nü metal, but time-warp acolytes of '80s hair metal, still showing up to see increasingly haggard relics like Poison. In fact, there's something heroic about these thirty- and fortysomethings who remain faithful to their subculture long after the world has passed it by.
Craig R. Stecyk III's legendary images of another subcultthe Dogtown skateboarders of the late '70shelped transform a local scene into a nationwide phenomenon that in turn influenced the loose assemblage of artists and photographers collected by Aaron Rose and Christian Strike in Beautiful Losers: Contemporary Art and Street Culture (D.A.P./Iconoclast, $39.95). United by what Rose dubs a "rogue outsider creative spirit," these artists erupted out of 1980s DIY culture (skateboarding, graffiti, hardcore, and indie rock), distributing most of their work via alternative venues. Some, like Chris Johanson, played in bands and did graphics for skateboard companies. Barry McGee paints his primitivistic cartoons of down-and-outs on buildings and trains as well as canvases; Clare E. Rojas conjures folksy paintings while recording naive bluegrass records under the name Peggy Honeywell; and Shepard Fairey's flyposters of Andre the Giant became a ubiquitous part of the New York streetscape.
Intoxicated by graffiti, most of the Beautiful Losers crew mess around with typography, cramming tags and signs into their work. They'd probably agree that "the hand is mightier than the pixel," as Steven Heller and Mirko Ilic boast in Handwritten: Expressive Lettering in the Digital Age (Thames & Hudson, $45). This book documents the recent explosion of scrawled or "distressed" typefaces, and in the process offers a fascinating if meandering history of handwritten lettering. (For a deeper look at one of the most influential fountains of fonts, check out The Push Pin Graphic, a boisterous compendium of the graphic design magazine published between 1957 and 1980 by Milton Glaser and Seymour Chwast's Push Pin Studios.) Connoisseurs of the splotch and the scratch, Handwritten's authors present a boggling array of examples from books, ads, and comics, paying special homage to the king of animation lettering, R. Crumb.
Ironically, it takes great control to create chaotic visuals à la Ralph Steadman or Maira Kalman, and Handwritten points out that the popularity of the Macintosh as a design tool almost killed off the tradition of hand-lettering. Tell that to the army of Apple fetishists brought to life by Wired columnist Leander Kahney in his amusing tome The Cult of Mac (No Starch, $39.95). Kahney crawls into every crevice where Mac addicts lurk, providing us with tales (and images) of tattoos, evangelism, hoarding, and Deadhead-style conventions. (It's fascinating the way people convince themselves that this corporate entityas innovative and comparatively consumer-friendly as it may beis some kind of counter-cultural bastion rather than just a more enticing form of consumerism.) Kahney trots out theories to explain (and perhaps justify) this cultish behavior, ultimately leaving us with the question: Are Mac addicts loyal to a brand, or is it more about allegiance to some big Apple community?
"America has always been a nation of isolatos, solitaries striking out on their own," argues poet J.D. McClatchy in the text accompanying American Writers at Home(Library of America, $50). "Europeans could never understand . . . why we headed off into the unfamiliar, why we built our cabins on the pond's edge." Erica Lennard photographs the cocoons that famous writers like Walt Whitman and Flannery O'Connor fashioned for themselves in those dark, pre-iPod days of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Bathed in honeyed light, these images are so sumptuous they might be mistaken for layouts from a shelter magazine dedicated to gracious, cozy old houses. Instead, they provide an excuse for McClatchy's meditations on how dwellings and solitude shape the creative process. If these houses look like museums, that's because they are. When regular people die their things are ransacked, most precious possessions parceled out or tossed away. But these show homes halt and preserve a moment in an illustrious writer's life, like an insect trapped in amber. We see Eudora Welty's desk as it apparently looked while she lived: littered with manuscript pages, calendars, and correspondence. Or the corner of Faulkner's pantry, where the camera finds a wall covered with names and numbers scrawled above a black rotary phone that will never ring again.
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Check out the hottest list of places and things to do around your city | <urn:uuid:3e93499f-4a84-4125-bda4-f9c03ce0d60a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.villagevoice.com/2004-11-23/books/cult-following/full/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938084 | 1,726 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Pleading exhaustion, Pope Benedict XVI broke a 600-year taboo this week in announcing that he would resign as leader of the Roman Catholic Church and live out the rest of his life in prayer and contemplation. It could change the profile of the papacy forever.
The decision took many by surprise, although the ailing 85-year-old pontiff had hinted over the years that he would step down if and when he felt unequal to the demanding job of tending the global flock of 1.2 billion Catholics.
Reaction among religious scholars and Benedict’s brethren at the Vatican has been stunned admiration. The pope has put the needs of the church first, they say, and concluded that he can no longer muster the “strength of mind and body” to fulfill the withering agenda of overseas travel, 24/7 communication, preaching and administration.
Benedict’s managed departure will benefit the church in a host of ways, Vatican analysts say. Future popes will now feel free to pass the baton when they realize they are in failing health, averting the stagnation that often marked a frail pope’s final years. The newly perceived option of retirement also could encourage the College of Cardinals to consider younger, more dynamic candidates when choosing a new pope or even extending to the papacy the retirement age of 75 that applies to bishops.
“I think this will set a very good precedent for when a pope in office begins to become feeble or incapacitated, mentally or physically or both,” said Chester Gillis, a professor of theology and dean of Georgetown College. “Popes have always had the freedom to step down but they didn’t, until now. That makes so much sense in the 21st century, when longevity and modern medicine mean people live a long time.”
A pope today runs a massive, global operation, not unlike a multinational corporation. He is expected to travel to the faith’s far-flung congregations and craft important doctrinal policy and teachings. He is supposed to preside over worldwide gatherings like World Youth Day, set for July in Rio de Janiero, and celebrate Mass on religious holidays, including Lent, which begins Wednesday and culminates on March 31 with Easter Sunday.
“The timing of his announcement is interesting, just before Lent. He might have looked at the calendar and said to himself, and to God: ‘I don’t have the energy to go through another Lent and Holy Week. All that public ceremony is exhausting,’ ” Gillis speculated.
It was revealed on Tuesday that Benedict had been fitted with a pacemaker even before he was made pope, and that the device regulating his heartbeat had to be replaced recently. The pope’s older brother and fellow priest, Georg Ratzinger, told reporters in Germany after Benedict’s announcement that his brother’s doctor had advised against any further transatlantic travel. And the pope’s diminishing physical capacities were increasingly apparent in his slow, hunched gait and reliance on canes, escorts and motorized pathways to negotiate St. Peter’s Basilica.
In a detailed Q&A on the forthcoming papal transition, Father Thomas J. Reese of the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University noted that popes have always had the right to resign but felt spiritually obliged to suffer through the burdens of the calling. Pope Paul VI observed in 1975 that “paternity cannot be resigned,” setting what until now had been the accepted interpretation that the job was a pope’s responsibility for life.
Benedict’s decision to call it quits “is a big, bold courageous move” that will be the enduring legacy of a papacy that drifted from one focus to another over the last eight years, veteran Vatican reporter John Thavis told The Times’ book department in an interview from Rome on Tuesday.
“Now every pope will consider resignation” when he feels himself weakening and unable to fully perform his duties, said Thavis, discussing his book "The Vatican Diaries," which chronicles 30 years of Holy See coverage and is due out at the end of the month.
Contrasting the current pope’s judgment of his abilities with John Paul II’s debilitated final years, when Parkinson’s disease and hip injuries sidelined him, Thavis described Benedict as “a pope of reason. He felt this was the time to show the world another way and to bring the church into the modern world.”
Benedict’s resignation creates an opportunity to redirect attention from the issues in debate in Western congregations -- sexuality, gay marriage and the clergy sex abuse scandals -- to the needs of the developing world congregations, said Mathew N. Schmalz, a professor of religious studies at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.
Benedict alluded to the changing demands of the church in his letter to cardinals Monday, Schmalz noted, when he spoke of the “new context” the papacy finds itself in, one shaped by fast-paced social media and a crushing workload.
“The pope really needs to be someone who understands the power of social media and is also aware of its dangers,” Schmalz said.
Georgetown College’s Gillis pointed out that Benedict “could have held on to fame and power and stayed to the end. But he didn’t want to do that. What he’s done is a generous act, a real gift to the church." | <urn:uuid:82bab7fc-d769-43d8-94f0-f425cb8e1a9e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-pope-resignation-consequences-20130212,0,3464083.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fmostviewed+%28L.A.+Times+-+Most+Viewed+Stories%29 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970221 | 1,155 | 1.875 | 2 |
(Click to enlarge)
This image is of the solar eclipse earlier this week. Solar eclipses occur when the moon comes between the Earth and Sun. However, there's more to it than just that, otherwise we'd have a solar eclipse every ~28 days (one full lunar cycle).
When viewed edge on, the plane in which the moon orbits is slightly tilted in relation to the plane the Earth and Sun lie on (hence the reason the shadow moves along a different line in the sky than the sun, intersecting only at the one point). Because of this, most of the time, when the moon is on the line between the Warth and the Sun, it is simply too high or too low to cause an eclipse.
Sometimes it's between the point where it's too high or low and the point where it will completely come in front of the Sun. In this case, the moon will only cover part of the Sun and the result will be a partial ecplipse, such as this one I photographed in Spring 2005.
Additionally, the moon's orbit around the Earth is not perfectly circular. It is slightly elliptical. This means that at some points in its orbit, it further than other points. As common experience should tell you, ther further away an object is, the smaller it will look (which is why the sun appears the same size in the sky as the moon dispite being millions of times bigger). Therefore, since the moon is further away, it will be smaller, and may not cover the sun entirely. This is known as an annular eclipse in which the moon will be silhouetted on the sun leaving a ring (such as in this picture).
Thus this image is an extremely rare "total solar eclipse" in which the moon completely covers the full disk of the sun. But what's all that fuzzy stuff around it in the center one? That's called the corona and is essentially the sun's extended atmosphere which is shaped by the Sun's immense magnetic field. It's actually always there, but it's extremely faint in comparison to the sun, so we can't see it unless the sun is somehow blocked out, as in the case of a total solar eclipse. It is primarily composed of the nuclei of ionized hydrogen atoms.
You may also be wondering why you didn't happen to catch this eclipse given that it only happened a few days ago. The reason is that this one only happened to be visible from regions of northern Africa and the Middle East. You should not be asking yourself, "why only such a small location given that half the Earth can see the sun at any time?" The reason for this is something called parallax. In the scenario of a total eclipse, only the locations directly below the center of the moon will see the eclipse. Locations slightly further away will be viewing the event from a slightly different angle.
While this wouldn't seem like it would play much of a difference, try a quick experiment. Imagine your left eye is someone standing in southern Africa and that your right is someone standing in England. Close one eye and hold your fist out in front of you and cause it to eclipse something on the other side of the room (or outside if possible, the further away the better). Make sure the object you choose is just barely covered by your fist. Now without moving your arm, change eyes. You'll notice that your fist is no longer covering the object at all.
This effect that you have just observed is precisely what happens in the case of an eclipse for different observers and is what astronomers call parallax (Parallax also has many other applications in astronomy such as directly measuring the distance to a great number of stars to extremely high precision thanks to the HIPPARCOS satellite). This quick experiment is also reasonably close to actual scale in terms of angular sizes and relation between sizes for the earth and moon. The distances between objects and true sizes aren't even close, but those don't matter in this case.
So you're probably wondering why there's the strange disjointed path. After all, we never see that. There's only one sun in the sky. This image is actually a compilation of 18 images taken ~3 minutes apart (and presumably one more to use as the beautiful background). I can say that these were taken ~3 minutes apart because of the spacing of the suns.
In 24 hours, the sun makes a full 360º path around the sky. Thus, converting hours to minutes and dividing, we find that the sun moves 1º every 4 minutes. Although it doesn't seem that there's any scale marked on this image to permit me to figure out how many degress there is between each image from which to figure out the time between images, there actually is a very easy one: the sun itself.
Both the sun and the moon have an angular size of 1/2º. That means that if the little suns were butted right up against one another, it would have traveled 1/2º between images, which in turn implies that it would have been 2 minutes (4/2) between each image. Since there's a little more space, roughly 1/2 of a sun width (ie, 1/4º), I can estimate there was approximately another minute between pictures. Thus 2 + 1 = 3.
So ultimately 18 images of the sun were taken and then reassembled to produce this dramatic image. While in and of itself it is quite stunning, a closer look reveals more information than meets the eye. This concept is one I feel is important to keep in mind in the sciences. Things are not always what they seem to be at a first glance. If this wasn't the driving concept behind science, we would still hold with many ridiculous ideas such as the Earth being flat, or alchemy, or perhaps more relavant today, intelligent design.
Image copyright: Stefan Seip
Found via: NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
Update: The original version of this post contained erronious math which was noted by reader, Benjamin Franz, in the comments. I have corrected my math here, but wanted to make sure he was given due credit. | <urn:uuid:c439f314-1664-4d1c-830e-b989fad44188> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://angryastronomer.blogspot.jp/2006/04/so-i-figure-thats-enough-ranting.html?showComment=1144175280000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969243 | 1,262 | 4.09375 | 4 |
The Wildlife Loop, at 18 miles, is the longest of the three byways in Custer State Park . On the north side of the park, the Wildlife Loop begins just east of the State Game Lodge off of Hwy 16A. The southwestern entrance to the Loop is located off of Highway 87 just about one mile south of the Blue Bell Lodge area.
It doesn’t matter which end of the loop you start with—what matters is the time of day. Wildlife is most active and visible early in the morning or near dusk.
Pronghorn, bison, whitetail deer, mule deer, and prairie dogs are common along the route. On lucky occasions, the elusive elk herd will make an appearance, or a coyote will slink into the underbrush. The Wildlife Loop runs through the rolling prairie regions of the park, so visibility is exceptionally good.
Bring carrots on this drive. One of Custer State Park’s two herds of burros is usually found somewhere along this route. While the burros are not wild animals, these burros have lived in the wild for decades. They are used to visitors and are generally friendly, but keep an eye out for overly aggressive behavior and watch your children. In their enthusiasm to grab carrots, especially early in the spring and summer when visitors come by less frequently, burros could knock over a child.
There are several turnouts along the route to allow for photographs and wildlife viewing. Expect “traffic jams” when bison herds decide to cross the road. Keep in mind that bison are wild, dangerous animals that are quite capable of turning on a dime and of reaching speeds of up to 45 miles per hour in a matter of seconds. You cannot outrun them if they choose to charge, so keep your distance. | <urn:uuid:b4b7abda-ce6d-4696-9614-ed83adb42b7c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://moon.com/print/100264 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952491 | 374 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Mars (Syrtis Major side) on the last day of Martian spring in the northern hemisphere, photographed by the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope on March 10, 1997. Among the sharpest images ever taken from Earth’s vicinity, it shows the bright and dark features long familiar to telescopic observers. The north polar cap at the top has lost much of its annual frozen carbon dioxide layer, revealing the small permanent water-ice cap and dark collar of sand dunes. Syrtis Major is the large dark marking just below and to the east of centre; beneath it, on the southern limb, is the giant impact basin Hellas shrouded by an oval of water-ice clouds. Clouds of water ice also appear on the eastern limb above the volcanic peaks in the Elysium region.
NASA/JPL/David Crisp and the WFPC2 Science Team | <urn:uuid:06c35037-ff41-4645-97df-601aa38965cb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.britannica.com/media/full/70911 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909371 | 178 | 3.296875 | 3 |
Here’s a link to my blog post about the film.
And here’s some additional commentary on the Grimms’ version from my Annotated Brothers Grimm:
More than Beauty in “Beauty and the Beast,” Snow White has become the quintessentially fair–both beautiful and just–heroine of fairy tales. The innocent, persecuted heroine par excellence, she succeeds in living happily ever after despite the plots designed by her wicked stepmother. Named after only one of the three colors that characterize her beauty (“skin white as snow, lips red as blood, hair black as ebony”), she is often connected with the purity and innocence that our culture associates with the color white. But the term “snow” adds another dimension to her characterization, deepening the meaning of her innocence. Snow suggests cold and remoteness, along with the notion of the lifeless and inert, yet it also comes down from the heavens. And Snow White in the coffin does indeed become, not only pure and innocent, but also passive, comatose, and of ethereal beauty.
Bruno Bettelheim, in exploring some of the alternate versions of “Snow White” recorded by the Brothers Grimm, came to the conclusion that the story turns on “the oedipal desires of a father and daughter, and how these arouse the mother’s jealousy which makes her wish to get rid of the daughter.” The oedipal entanglements, he argues, come to be disguised in the version chosen by the Grimms, which turns the biological mother into a stepmother and relegates the father to the judgmental voice in the mirror.
The many versions of “Snow White” heard by the Grimms suggest the richness of folkloric variation and remind us how we have allowed stories that once circulated freely to ossify into definitive versions. The Grimms describe one version of “Snow White” in which a count and countess drive by three mounds of snow, and the count wishes for a girl as white as the snow. After passing three ditches filled with red blood, he wishes for a girl with cheeks as red as the blood. Finally, three ravens fly overhead and he wishes for a girl with hair as black as the ravens. The couple discovers on the road a girl exactly like the one the count longs for, and they invite her into their carriage. The count immediately has tender feelings for the girl. The countess, however, cannot abide the girl and schemes to get rid of her. She drops her glove and orders Snow White to retrieve it, and then orders the coachman to drive off as speedily as possible. In a related version, the countess tells Snow White to gather roses, and then deserts the girl, leaving her to fend for herself in the woods.
Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) has so overshadowed other versions of the story that it is easy to forget that the tale is widely disseminated across a variety of cultures. The heroine may ingest a poisoned apple in her cinematic incarnation, but in Italy she is just as likely to fall victim to a toxic comb, a contaminated cake, or a suffocating braid. Disney’s queen, who demands Snow White’s heart from the huntsman who takes her into the woods, seems restrained by comparison with the Grimms’ evil queen, who orders the huntsman to return with the girl’s lungs and liver, both of which she plans to eat after boiling them in salt water. In Spain, the queen is even more bloodthirsty, asking for a bottle of blood stoppered with the girl’s toe. In Italy, she instructs the huntsman to return with the girl’s intestines and her blood-soaked shirt. The dwarfs are sometimes miners, but sometimes also compassionate robbers, thieves, bears, wild men, or ogres. Disney’s film has made much of Snow White’s coffin being made of glass, but in other versions of the tale that coffin is made of gold, silver, or lead, or is jewel-encrusted. While it is often displayed on a mountaintop, it can also be set adrift on a river, placed under a tree, hung from the rafters of a room, or locked in a room and surrounded with candles.
“Snow White” may vary tremendously from culture to culture in its details, but it has an easily identifiable, stable core in the conflict between mother and daughter. In many versions of the tale, the evil queen is the girl’s biological mother, not a stepmother. (The Grimms, in an effort to preserve the sanctity of motherhood, were forever turning biological mothers into stepmothers.) The struggle between Snow White and the wicked queen so dominates the psychological landscape of this fairy tale that Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, in a landmark book of feminist literary criticism, proposed renaming the story “Snow White and Her Wicked Stepmother.” In The Madwoman in the Attic, they describe how the Grimms’ story stages a contest between the “angel-woman” and the “monster-woman” of Western culture. For them the motor of the “Snow White” plot is in the relationship between two women, “the one fair, young, pale, the other just as fair, but older, fiercer; the one a daughter, the other a mother; the one sweet, ignorant, passive, the other both artful and active; the one a sort of angel, the other an undeniable witch.”
Gilbert and Gubar, rather than reading the story as an oedipal plot in which mother and daughter become sexual rivals for approval from the father (incarnated as the voice in the mirror), suggest that the tale mirrors our cultural division of femininity into two components, one that is writ large in our most popular version of the tale. In Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, we find these two components fiercely polarized in a murderously jealous and forbiddingly cold woman on the one hand and an innocently sweet girl accomplished in the art of good housekeeping on the other. Yet the Disney film also positions the evil queen as the figure of gripping narrative energy and makes Snow White so dull that she requires a supporting cast of seven to enliven her scenes. Ultimately it is the stepmother’s disruptive, disturbing, and divisive presence that invests the film with a degree of fascination that has facilitated its widespread circulation and allowed it to take such powerful hold in our own culture.
Children reading this story are unlikely to make the interpretive moves described above. For them, this will be the story of a mother-daughter conflict, which, according to Bruno Bettelheim, offers cathartic pleasures in its lurid punishment of the jealous queen. Once again, as in “Cinderella,” the good mother is dead, and in this story the only real assistance she offers is in her legacy of beauty. Snow White must contend with a villain doubly incarnated as beautiful, proud, and evil queen and as ugly, sinister, and wicked witch. Small wonder that she is reduced to a role of pure passivity, a “dumb bunny” as the poet Anne Sexton put it. In its validation of murderous hatred as a “natural” affect in the relationship between daughter and (step)mother and its promotion of youth, beauty, and hard work, “Snow White” is not without problematic dimensions, yet it has remained one of our most powerful cultural stories. In 1997, Michael Cohn drew out the dark, Gothic elements of the story in his Grimm Brothers’ Snow White, starring Sigourney Weaver. | <urn:uuid:c35f6328-d07d-48ad-a4e7-fab773166e52> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tatar/2012/06/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957821 | 1,630 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Following operating experience from a 500 m3/day pilot plant in El Gouna in Egypt, a low temperature distillation process has been launched which claims to produce water using less than 1.0 kilowatt hour per cubic meter (kWh/m3).
Called the Watersolutions low temperature distillation (LTD) system, the process is based on the principle of low temperature distillation and claims an operating cost of between one third and half of existing processes, according to the company.
LTD condenses water at low temperature and pressure, using waste heat (50-110° C) from thermal processes including renewable energy sources such as solar energy or geothermal energy.
Significant amounts of low grade waste heat (6 - 30 MW) are required that can be derived from any source including thermal power plants, district cooling systems, general industry, mining and waste incineration.
Watersolutions said the LTD system with one cascade can produce pure water at less than 1.0 kilowatt hour per cubic meter (kWh/m3) in contrast to SWRO which typically uses 3.5 – 4.5 kWh/m3 of water production.
The company said that 1.5 m3 of seawater is needed to produce 1.0 m3 of clean water (< 10 ppm of dissolved solids).
Units are available in two sizes – a large module that produces 1000-2000 m3/d (pending the amount of waste heat available and number of cascades) and a medium module with capacity of 500-1000 m3/d.
According to the firm, LTD works efficiently over a broad range of salinity. “Because the process is very tolerant to the salinity of the feedwater, it can even handle brine concentrate from RO. As a result, retrofitting an existing RO plant with an LTD system would be an efficient way to increase the plant’s capacity,” said Watersolutions. | <urn:uuid:2f8645de-0608-48a8-85ce-8891110c51b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.waterworld.com/articles/2012/10/new-thermal-desalination-process-claims-1kwh-m3-energy-use.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90271 | 402 | 2.65625 | 3 |
An effective alternative to the traditional chest press for those with shoulder pain.
In this video analysis (Google ipod compatible, 3.6MB; Google streaming flash video), Bud demonstrates the rotated dumbbell chest press. The chest press can be a challenging exercise for those with shoulder pain. The problem usually arises with the abducted and externally rotated position that is required for the exercise. The rotation at the bottom of this move helps to eliminate the stress put on the shouolder joint and supporting structures.
In the first photo at the left Bud is in the start position for the press. As you can see his elbows are close to his sides and his palms are facing each other. In this position the shoulder is internally rotated and there is less stress on the joint. This is a very safe position in which to begin the movement as the joint is strong and stable when it is internally rotated. It should be noted that it is in this start position that most people feel the shoulder pain.
The second photo shows Bud in the initial push off phase. Although his shoulders are still internally rotated you can see that as he is pushing he begins to rotate his hands and bring his elbows wide. As he progresses through the move he will be able to safely bring his shoulders into abduction and external rotation.
The third photo clearly shows Bud widening his elbow position as he pushes towards the top of the move. It is at this point that the move begins to look more like a traditional chest press. There is less stress on the joint at the top of the move. The fourth photo shows the top of the move. Buds' palms are facing away from him. As he returns the dumbbells to the start position he rotates his palms so they are facing each other at the bottom again.
Bud states that this variation of the chest press alleviates the strain he feels in his shoulder when performing a traditional chest press or even bench press. | <urn:uuid:f8864ac3-5e97-4f59-97ff-c0c51c417daf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://muscleventures.com/video/2006/11/rotated_dumbbell_chest_press.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973547 | 390 | 1.617188 | 2 |
The U.S. House Tuesday night (Dec. 13) voted to reform and extend the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) for five years as part of a bill that also would extend the expiring tax cuts, including cuts to the payroll tax.
House Republicans tucked a long-term NFIP extension, which had already been passed in July, into the “Middle Class Tax Relief & Job Creation Act of 2011,” which passed by a 234-193 vote mostly along party lines.
The NFIP program expires Dec. 16 without an extension.
Unfortunately, this is the same controversial bill that is on the nightly news, and the Flood Insurance extension is only a small part of the bill, which also includes House Republicans’ demands for budget cuts in exchange for their support on extending expiring tax cuts. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has said the bill is “dead on arrival.” President Obama also has indicated he would veto the measure.
ALTA is actively working to preserve the Flood Insurance extension here and in other bills. | <urn:uuid:b854146c-eff6-4c8f-b70c-d47a92d93c3f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.flta.org/GovtAffairsBlog?bmi=756984 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975499 | 220 | 1.539063 | 2 |
As a humanities librarian and liberal humanist, I have both a professional and personal interest in the fate of the humanities, especially the professional study of the humanities. Thus, it is sometimes distressing to hear about the crisis in the humanities, especially the heated rhetoric of late. The “scenarios” from ARL threw a few sops to the humanities, but the general assumption seemed to be they would disappear from research universities within 20 years. The president of Cornell just issued a call to defend the humanities. The pages of the Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Educationi bring us frequent laments for the state of the humanities. Martha Nussbaum has a new book out about the humanities crisis. I haven’t read it yet, but according to this review it opens: “we are in the midst of a crisis of massive proportions and grave global significance.” The reviewer thinks she overstates the case, but she’s not alone in using such apocalyptic rhetoric. By now, most of you probably know that, despite still calling itself a university, SUNY Albany is planning to cut several of its foreign language departments, with the foreign-language classes to be replaced by talking– very-slowly classes.
Here’s one scholar on the crisis in the humanities, especially for foreign-language study: “in our days the field of modern languages is undergoing a severe crisis.…There is a general crisis in the humanities, there is a particular and more acute crisis in modern foreign languages.” That sounds ominous, and given the current crisis it is prescient indeed. It’s from the introductory paragraph of an essay by Hans W. Rosenhaupt, “Modern Foreign Language Study and the Needs of Our Times,” published in the journal Monatshefte für deutschen Unterricht in 1940. And Rosenhaupt was right to be concerned, because SUNY Albany, which in 1940 was the New York State College for Teachers, would within seventy years slowly expand into a research university before beginning the gradual slide backward. Germaine Brée, writing in the Modern Language Journal, is just as concerned about this crisis. “For our literary heritage has come to seem more and more overwhelming in its mass, burdensome and without significance. We have tended to lose the sense of delight and newness all good literature gives. This, I would say, is one aspect of the crisis in the humanities.” That was in 1949.
In the South Atlantic Bulletin, you can read about the twelfth meeting of the Southern Humanities Conference: “The Crisis of the Humanities in the South” was the theme. “The participants seemed to agree that a real crisis does exist. But, as one panelist put it, the crisis is neither ‘new nor localized;’” The conference was in April 1959. Given the turmoil of the times, such as the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and the Little Rock Nine in 1957, I think there were bigger crises in the south to worry about, but fretting humanists often look inward in times of social unrest.
Throughout the 1960s the humanities stayed in crisis. In 1965, Penguin published the widely read book Crisis in the Humanities, edited by J.H. Plumb. That work analyzed the crisis in depth in art, philosophy, literary studies, and history. In 1964, The American Council of Learned Societies published The Commission on the Humanities, Report of the Commission on the Humanities. It’s a pessimistic report, in which we find that “the humanities in the age of super-science and supertechnology have an increasingly difficult struggle for existence,” and that “Today, more than ever, those concerns which nourish personality, and are at the heart of individual freedom, are being neglected in our free society. Those studies which refine the values and feed the very soul of a culture are increasingly starved of support.” I found out about this study through W. David Maxwell’s essay on “The Plight of the Humanities” (Journal of Aesthetic Education, April 1969), in which he argues that the humanities are in crisis because of a gap between their methods and their goals. In the same journal issue, Stuart A. Selby thinks the crisis results “from the fantastic specialization and fragmentation of scholarship which is incapable of presenting to the students a comprehensive enough view of the world.” It’s always something.
Unfortunately, the 1970s didn’t relieve the crisis in the humanities, either, maybe because of stagflation or Watergate or pet rocks. It was an acknowledged crisis that seemed to be spreading. In his essay, “Should Religious Studies Develop a Method?,” Richard E. Wentz warns that, “If religious study does not find a method appropriate to itself, it may fall victim to the crisis in the humanizing arts and to the crisis in theology.” (Journal of Higher Education , Jun., 1970). I think theology has been in crisis since the Origin of the Species was published, but it seems to keep on going. According to a professional note in the October 1975 PMLA, The School of Criticism and Theory Program at Irvine was created in 1976 “in the belief that a unifying conception of the humanities and humanistic discourse can be grounded in literary theory,” and that “a major reason for the crisis in the humanities” was that this belief didn’t “flourish in our intellectual communities.” Wolfgang Iser, in “The Current Situation of Literary Theory,” posits much the same development, and says that “As a reaction to the crisis in the humanities, literary theory became increasingly dependent on the relationship between literature and society-a relationship which stood in urgent need of clarification” (New Literary History, Autumn, 1979). Literary theory certainly took off in the next couple of decades, but it still didn’t fix the humanities, darn it.
In “The NEH and the Crisis in the Humanities,” Mel A. Topf tells us,“That the humanities are in trouble is no secret. Current discussion revolves around declining public support, declining enrollments as students turn away from the liberal arts to professional studies, and overproduction of Ph.D.‘s.” As timely as today’s headlines! Except that was from the November 1975 issue of College English. Not everyone was convinced, though. In “Much Ado about Little? The Crisis in the Humanities,” Byrum E. Carter, opens, “The humanities, if we are to trust their academic spokesmen, are in trouble. They are plagued by declining student enrollments, a surplus of PhDs, a skeptical public, a sense of uncertainty as to mission, and a decline in available money. Dire predictions are made as to their future and cries arise for assistance in meeting the “crisis” that confronts humanistic scholarship” (Change, March 1978), but he doesn’t believe the situation is so dire, and predicts that the humanities will be around for a long time. It’s 32 years and counting so far.
In “Legacies of May,” Christopher I. Fynsk writes of economically driven education reform in France that is removing philosophy and the other humanities disciplines from the high place they traditionally held in the academy (MLN: Comparative Literature, Dec. 1978). He warns hat “some of the social forces that have made this reform possible in France are functioning similarly in the United States to create a situation of crisis in the humanities.” Apparently nobody told him the humanities had already been in crisis for 40 years. But again, as timely as today’s headlines, as philosophy departments are threatened with closure in several universities. Ellen Ashdown opens her essay “Humanities on the Front Lines” with an acknowledgement of the tenor of the times:
The threat to the humanities in colleges is now a common theme. Worried scholars and teachers face with dismay the public demand for “accountability” and its inappropriate consequences when applied to disciplines dealing unapologetically with questions of value. Those who feel the threat most deeply have responded with eloquence and passion that the traditional arts and letters are not antagonistic to scientific and practical studies, are not dispensable, are, in fact, central to education and life. (Change, March 1979)
I could go on, and on, and on. Search JSTOR for the phrase “crisis in the humanities.” Starting with the oldest articles first, I stopped reading at record 69 out of 217. The phrase first appears in a JSTOR journal in 1922, and from 1940 on becomes a steady stream of complaints. I think this is enough evidence to suggest that there has been a sense of crisis in the humanities almost as long as there have been departments of humanities. The organization of modern universities seems timeless, but the development of departments and disciplines as we know them now is a product of the late 19th century. Not only is the sense of crisis decades old and persistent, but for the most part the causes are as well. Students are choosing professional programs over the humanities; the sciences have the most authority and get the most funding; there are too many humanities PhDs; they’re evaluated by standards appropriate to the sciences but not the humanities. Every generation of scholars wakes up afresh, looks about, and thinks the sky is falling.
The sky might indeed be falling, but if it is, it seems to be falling very slowly. It could also be that the sky is not so much falling, as readjusting itself, if that makes any sense. The story at SUNY Albany exemplifies my scenario for the future of research universities and their libraries. After World War II, college enrollments and higher education funding swelled enormously, and the humanities benefited from the largesse heaped upon the universities to pursue scientific research. I knew a professor of English who claimed the Defense Department paid off the student loans he had taken out to fund his English PhD in the 1960s. Money was flowing, enrollments were up, and every teacher’s college wanted to become a university, and every research university was molded on a model of research appropriate for scientific investigation but inappropriate for the humanities. However, that level of support was not sustainable. The New York College for Teachers became the University at Albany, and it may become the New York College for Teachers again. Or, more likely, it may shed its humanistic programs and devolve into a technical and scientific research center and undergraduate vocational training school rather than a research university as such, dedicated to creating and disseminating new knowledge in all disciplines. Such may be life. But that doesn’t mean that Cornell and Columbia and NYU will undergo similar changes. “The humanities” will survive just fine, only they’re likely to survive at a research level at considerably fewer universities. Maybe there’s only so much new knowledge that can be created in the humanities.
The unfortunate thing is that state governments seem to think that higher education isn’t sustainable, but that’s not the case. It’s the current number of research universities with thousands of humanities professors teaching light loads and doing research that requires expensive libraries that aren’t sustainable. The country just doesn’t need as many PhD programs in the humanities as it has, and research universities are going to start eliminating them as state funding dries up. My worry is that entire departments will be cut instead. It would be much worse for future generations if only the elite could study foreign languages or philosophy than if the number of PhD programs and research-intensive programs were reduced. That’s going to happen at any university that demands immediate profitability from every department.
The humanities were from the beginning about creating free, well-rounded people who could think clearly and communicate at a high level. In the middle ages, what we would now associate with the humanities (the trivium–rhetoric, grammar, and logic) was part of the “School of Arts” and taught to undergraduates, who then went on to the advanced schools for master’s degrees and doctorates in theology or the professions. In Renaissance Italy, the literae humaniores––rhetoric, grammar, poetry, history, and moral philosophy–were studied by the sons of the elite so they could advance themselves in a world that required abundant knowledge, critical thought, and clear communication to succeed. Today is no different. Every university should have people teaching literature and history and philosophy to undergraduates, but not every university needs literature and history and philosophy graduate programs. Their emergence and growth were the result of historical forces unrelated to the need for the number of such programs we now have.
The sense of crisis as a lack of historical memory effects librarianship as well. My friend Kathleen Kern at the University of Illinois is working on a project related to the “serials crisis.” It seems the phrase first pops up in the library literature in the mid-70s, but she found discussions of similar issues going back much further. I’ve been doing some research related to “information overload,” and have found evidence of a “crisis” as far back as the 16th century. By definition, a crisis requires a period of normalcy by which to define itself. I argue that we don’t really have a “serials crisis” or a “crisis in the humanities,” because the state in which we find ourselves has been the normal state for decades. Humanists, like librarians, always think people are out to get them (which is true), but they also think that the situation is new (which isn’t true). If we’re always in crisis, then we’re never in crisis.
The existence of patterns like this is why I’m so skeptical about hyperbolic or apocalyptic rhetoric in general. People who say “X is the future!” with such boundless optimism usually have a very short historical memory, and they don’t realize that the majority of predictions about such and such being the future were just plain wrong, and even the most accurate ones were partially true at best. The same goes for the overly pessimistic predictions of decline. They’ve been with us at least since Plato. The humanities as a profession, like librarianship as a profession, always faces challenges, but constant challenges don’t a crisis make. They are the normal state of affairs. The appropriate action isn’t to jump for joy that we’re saved by some hot trend or panic because we’re supposedly in the midst of crisis, but to face the challenges soberly, make our case, and do the best we can to create the future we want. I find it more comforting to realize we’re not in a state of unprecedented crisis. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. | <urn:uuid:48c88db0-0a04-418f-a34c-61db940993dd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.princeton.edu/librarian/2010/11/the_crisis_in_the_humanities/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964564 | 3,132 | 1.765625 | 2 |
State officials who want to inspect the site of a proposed nuclear-waste storage area here must first sneak by Margie Schlegel.
Mrs. Schlegel, a soldier in this community's war against bureaucracy, sits from dawn to dusk in a cramped, 22-foot camper, parked amid the tranquil dairy farms of rural Cortland County. When an occasional car drives by, she puts down the paper flowers she makes to pass the time and peers through binoculars at an adjacent country road.
If state officials appear to inspect the proposed nuclear waste site, Mrs. Schlegel, a 46-year-old mother of eight children, sounds the tocsin. She calls Citizens Against Radioactive Dumping, and their members block the way.
Protesters in this Cortland County town of about 500 have had their resolve fortified by some unusual support from the county's officials, who have spent more than $100,000 in legal fees and consultants to aid the protesters. In addition, the District Attorney dropped charges against 20 people who were arrested in a protest in December.
In December, and again in January, dozens of local residents have used their bodies and vehicles to keep officials off two sites in Taylor. The sites, which are close to each other, are made up of farmland and forest about 40 miles south of Syracuse.
Under a Federal mandate, all states are seeking sites to dispose of their low-level radioactive waste. Opposition has sprung up, but in few places has it reached the level that it has in New York's Cortland and Allegany Counties.
In Allegany, in southwestern New York, where three waste sites are being reviewed, dozens of arrests were made during protests in May 1989 and last month when officials tried to inspect the land.
Feelings Run High in Taylor
About a dozen low-level waste disposal sites are under consideration nationwide. In 1988, 1.4 million cubic feet of commercially generated low-level radioactive waste was shipped for disposal, an amount that would fill 390 tractor-trailers, according to a report by the Office of Technology Assessment.
Residents of Taylor say the fight against their two waste sites has aroused this usually sedate county of 50,000, uniting teen-agers and grandmothers, college professors and farmers.
''I haven't felt this way about an issue since Vietnam,'' said Eileen Malay, a member of the citizen protest group in the city of Cortland, the county seat about 11 miles west of the two proposed sites.
The state commission responsible for siting New York's waste center has turned to the courts to battle the protesters. On Thursday a State Supreme Court justice in Buffalo enjoined protesters in Allegany County from interfering with siting work. The commission said it would seek a similar injunction against the demonstrators in Cortland County.
But the protesters say the threat of legal action will not stop them.
''I will be arrested if I have to be,'' vowed Mrs. Schlegel, who wore a T-shirt saying ''Be Active, Not Radioactive.'' She said she had left Long Island four years ago partly because of concern about the Shoreham nuclear power plant.
'We Have No Choice'
''If you had to choose between violating an injunction and having a radioactive waste dump in your backyard, which would you do?'' asked Sally Campbell, a resident of Alfred and a member of the Allegany County Nonviolent Action Group. ''For us, we have no choice.''
Low-level radioactive waste is generated commercially primarily by nuclear power plants, in the form of contaminated equipment, and also by diagnostic medical services. In terms of volume and radioactivity, the nuclear plants contribute by far the most to the waste stream. | <urn:uuid:5996d23f-e482-4614-831b-fb6f49b3eea3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/26/nyregion/guerrilla-warfare-over-nuclear-waste.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965431 | 769 | 1.875 | 2 |
US 4151007 A
Variations in threshold voltage of Metal-Oxide-Silicon (MOS) structures are attenuated by the inclusion in the fabrication process of a hydrogen anneal step using a temperature range of 650 degrees C≦T≦950 degrees C. This anneal step is designed to be the last step in the fabrication process which is performed at temperatures above 600 degrees C.
1. In a process of fabricating a semiconductor device, the device comprising a semiconductor substrate having a major surface which is at least partially covered by a layer of silicon dioxide, the last fabrication step in the process which is performed at temperatures of 600 degrees C. or greater being the step of heating the semiconductor device in an ambient of hydrogen gas at a temperature in the range of 650 degrees C.≦T≦950 degrees C.
2. The process of claim 1 wherein the semiconductor substrate is n-type with a orientation and the process comprises the step of forming a first conductive layer on the silicon dioxide prior to the heating of the semiconductor device in hydrogen and the temperature range during the hydrogen heating step being 850 degrees C.≦T≦950 degrees C.
3. The process of claim 2 further comprising the step of forming a second conductive layer over the major surface of the semiconductor device, said second conductive layer being formed at a temperature below 600 degrees C. and the first conductive layer being phosphorus doped polycrystalline silicon.
4. The process of claim 3 wherein the second conductive layer is aluminum.
5. The process of claim 2 wherein the first conductive layer is boron doped polycrystalline silicon and the temperature range for the heating of the semiconductor device in hydrogen is 650 degrees C.≦T≦750 degrees C.
6. The process of claim 5 wherein the second conductive layer is aluminum.
7. The process of claim 1 wherein the semiconductor substrate is p-type silicon with a orientation and a first conductive layer is selectively formed on the silicon dioxide prior to the heating of the semiconductor device in hydrogen and the temperature range of the heating step is 850 degrees C.≦T≦950 degrees C.
8. The process of claim 1 further comprising the step of forming a second conductive layer on the semiconductor device at a temperature below 600 degrees C. and the first conductive layer being phosphorus doped polycrystalline silicon.
9. The process of claim 8 wherein the second conductive layer is aluminum and is deposited by magnetron sputtering.
10. In a process of fabricating a semiconductor device, the device comprising a semiconductor substrate having a major surface which is at least partially covered by a layer of silicon dioxide, the last fabrication step in the process which is performed at temperatures of 600 degrees C. or greater being the step of heating the semiconductor device in an ambient of hydrogen gas at a temperature in the range of 650 degrees C.≦T≦950 degrees C., the hydrogen heating step being performed prior to metallization of the device.
11. The process of fabricating an MOS silicon device which is characterized in that the last step in the processing which involves heating the device to a temperature above 600 degrees C. is a step in which the device is heated to a temperature of between 650 degrees C. and 950 degrees C. for approximately a half hour or greater in an ambient which consists essentially of hydrogen gas.
Now referring to the FIGURE there is illustrated a typical semiconductor structure 10 in whose fabrication the present invention may be used. Structure 10 comprises a silicon substrate 12 having a first conductivity type and drain and source regions 14 and 16, which are formed within a portion of 12 and extend to a major surface thereof and have the opposite conductivity type. A silicon dioxide layer 18 exists between the major surface of region 12 and a gate electrode 20. A selective layer of silicon dioxide 22 is illustrated on top of substrate 12 with metallic contacts and interconnections 24, 26, and 28 making contact to region 14, gate 18, and region 16, respectively.
Prior to any deposition of metallic contacts and interconnections 24, 26, and 28, structure 10 is heated (annealed) is essentially pure hydrogen gas at a temperature in the range of 650 degrees C. to 950 degrees C. for a period of time of 30 minutes to two hours at approximately one atmosphere pressure. Subsequently matallic contacts and interconnections 24, 26 and 28 are formed. This annealing step has been found to improve the stability of structure 10 by significantly reducing threshold voltage and flat band voltage variations that occur without the use of the step.
An MOS capacitor very similar to the structure illustrated in the FIGURE, absent the drain and source regions 14 and 16, was tested with respect to flat band voltage changes with applied negative bias (an applied negative field of 2 one atmosphere pressure in a dry nitrogen ambient to determine changes in flat band voltage as a function of time (aging). Time aging at an elevated temperature and applied negative bias has been found to be useful in predicting standard operation of an MOS structure at normal operating temperatures. It had previously been found in devices prepared without the use of the described hydrogen anneal step there was typically a change of 1.9 volts in the flat band voltage in an elapsed time of approximately 1000 minutes. The slope of the curve of the flat band voltage versus time was positive. Under the same conditions, in devices whose preparation differed only in the inclusion of the described hydrogen heating step prior to metallization, it was found that the flat band voltage changed only 0.4 volts and that the slope of the curve of flat band voltage versus time was relatively flat (exhibited little, if any, positive slope).
Changes in threshold voltage correspond to those of flat band voltage and the threshold voltage of a MOS capacitor structure prepared without the hydrogen anneal was 2.4. volts, and was only 0.8 volts when the hydrogen heating step was used.
Why the hydrogen anneal step of the present invention does in fact cause the stabilization of the MOS parameters discussed, is not completely understood; however, it is believed that the moderately high temperature hydrogen anneal relieves the stresses which are present in the dangling bonds at the interface between silicon and silicon dioxide. It is further believed that partially ionized and, therefore strained silicon atoms in the transition region are further ionized by breaking an additional silicon oxygen bond creating positive charge slightly within the oxide transition layer, and additional surface states at the silicon interface. Creation of positive oxide charge and surface stress causes shifts in device threshold voltage and result in slow-trapping instability.
In one embodiment of the structure of the FIGURE of substrate is n-type silicon with a orientation, regions 14 and 16 are p-type regions, gate 18 is an n-type polycrystalline silicon structure, and metallic interconnections and contacts 24, 26 and 28 are aluminum which are electron beam evaporated at 330 degrees C. The temperature used with the hydrogen anneal step of the present invention with this embodiment is nominally 900 degrees C., the time duration of the step is typically one-half to one hour and the pressure is typically approximately one atmosphere.
In another embodiment of the structure of the FIGURE, the parameters indicated for the substrate 12 and regions 14 and 16, metallic interconnections and contacts 22, 24 and 26 are the same as above, however, the gate is p-type boron doped polycrystalline silicon. The temperature used for the hydrogen anneal step of the present invention with this structure is nominally 700 degrees C. and the time duration of the step is typically two hours.
In still another embodiment the substrate 12 is p-type silicon with a orientation, regions 14 and 16 are p-type regions, gate 18 is n-type polycrystalline silicon and metallic interconnections and contacts 24, 26, and 28 are aluminum that are sputter-gun deposited. The temperature used for the hydrogen anneal step for this embodiment is 900 degrees C., the time duration of the step is typically one-half to one hour and the pressure is approximately one atmosphere.
Sputter-gun deposition normally causes damage to MOS structures and variation in threshold voltage in a direction that is similar to that observed for slow trapping. Silicon having a orientation is known to exhibit considerably more slow-trapping instability than silicon having a orientation. The use of the hydrogen anneal step of the present invention with MOS structures which use silicon having a orientation has been found to make these structures considerably more immune to radiation damage from sputter-gun deposition damage.
The beneficial effects of the hydrogen anneal step of the present invention tend to be lost if there are included subsequent processing steps carried out at over 600 degrees C. For example, if the hydrogen anneal step of the present invention is performed immediately after oxidation of silicon and then followed by the deposition of polycrystalline silicon (by pyrolysis of silane at 700 degrees C.), boron diffusion at 1000 degrees C., deposition of an intermediate dielectric (by chemical vapor deposition from tetraethoxy silane at 765 degrees C.) and POC1.sub.3 getting at 1000 degrees C., then the device exhibits slow-trapping instability as if there had been no previous hydrogen annealing. Most processing steps carried out above 600 degrees C. in a nonhydrogen ambient ten to negate the effect of a prior hydrogen anneal step that is in accordance with the present invention.
The packaging of completed MOS structures generally does not negate the effects of the hydrogen anneal step of the present invention because the packaging generally is performed at 450 degrees C. or below to protect the metallization of the structure.
The embodiments described herein are intended to be illustrative of the general method of the present invention. Various modifications are possibly consistent with the spirit of the invention. For example, the hydrogen anneal step of the present invention can be utilized in an MOS process just prior to radio frequency glow discharge deposition, etching or sputter deposition and etching. It is believed the pressure during the hydrogen anneal step can be above normal atmospheric pressure.
The drawing illustrates an MOS structure which may be fabricated using the process of the present invention.
This invention relates to Metal Oxide Silicon Field Effect Transistors (MOS-FETs) and in particular, to methods for stabilizing drifts in threshold voltage in MOS-FET structures.
Drifts in threshold voltage of MOS-FETs during normal use can constitute a potentially serious threat to the reliability of many of the MOS integrated circuits produced today. One well known cause of such drifts is the mobile charge contamination (particularly sodium contamination) which manifests itself in an increase in the flat band voltage (V.sub.FB) upon positive bias-temperature aging. The stability of the threshold voltage has been controlled by the use of clean processing techniques including dry HCl oxidation, an intermediate gettering step, and a final passivation layer. Another important source of such threshold voltage drifts especially in, but not limited to silicon-silicon dioxide structures, is the so-called slow-trapping instability. It produces a negative shift in V.sub.FB and therefore in the threshold voltage, upon negative bias-temperature aging. It also produces a positive shift in V.sub.FB for positive bias-temperature aging, but these shifts are generally smaller than those produced by negative bias-temperature aging. The cause of slow-trapping instability is not completely understood. It has been attributed to hole-trapping in the oxide or to field induced dissociation of additional silicon bonds in partially ionized silicon atoms near the silicon-oxide interface of an integrated circuit.
The publication entitled "Stabilization of MOS Devices" in Solid State Electronics, Volume 10, pp. 657-670 (1967), discusses the problem of slow-trapping instability in MOS devices and teaches the use of annealing the devices in dry hydrogen or helium at temperatures between 1,000 and 1,200 degrees C. to negate the effect slow trapping has on threshold voltage changes. A problem with using temperatures over 1,000 degrees C. is that silicon dioxide tends to get reduced by hydrogen at these temperatures. This causes an increase in the oxide fixed charge and an undesirable change in the threshold voltage of the MOS structure. In addition, many of today's MOS integrated circuits (e.g., p-channel 1024 bit RAMs) use boron doped polysilicon, and fabrication temperatures in excess of 1,000 degrees C. cause boron to diffuse into the silicon dioxide. The boron diffusion is enhanced by presence of hydrogen in the ambient. The presence of boron at the oxide-silicon interface reduces the oxide fixed charge and thereby changes the electrical characteristics of the device.
It would be desirable to be able to limit the degrading effect slow trapping has on threshold variations in MOS structures without adding undue complexity to the semiconductor fabrication process.
The present invention essentially comprises adding a hydrogen heating (annealing) step to an MOS fabrication process at a point in the process after the last step that is to be performed at 600 degrees C. or higher has been completed. The temperature range at which hydrogen anneal step of the present invention is carried out is 650 degrees C.≦T≦950 degrees C.
It has been determined that the inclusion of the hydrogen anneal step of the present invention significantly increases the stability of MOS structures by limiting variations in flat band voltage and threshold voltage during use of the structures. The hydrogen anneal step of the present invention appears to negate the effects of slow trapping and thus to improve the stability of MOS structures. | <urn:uuid:fc50ddb8-68c1-4a6f-af8b-3c06df00e252> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.google.de/patents/US4151007?hl=de | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913039 | 2,865 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Class of 1969 Alumni Mentoring Program
The Alumni Mentoring Program (AMP) pilot was approved by the USNAAA Board of Trustees at its 8 December 2011 meeting. While AMP is the 50th Legacy Gift of the Class of 1969, AMP is intended as an offering by all Alumni for all Alumni. Protégé and mentor participants will be from all classes and will be guided by a new multi-class steering committee to be formed in the near future.
AMP Pilot: The AMP Pilot will run for a minimum of one year targeting 600 protégé and 400 mentor participants. Upon successful completion of the AMP Pilot, we expect to implement full AMP for a combined 3,000 mentor and protégé participants in 2014.
How You Can Help: Volunteer by enrolling today for training as a mentor to share your experience, wisdom, and network to help other Alumni or as a protégé to take advantage of a mentor’s knowledge and experience. Lead by helping to inform both your Classmates and other Alumni you know to support the AMP Pilot.
Say Again Your Last: We need 400 mentors and 600 protégés to conduct a meaningful AMP Pilot! All a USNA Alumni has to do is go to the AMP website through www.usna.com and sign up for mentor training or register to be a protégé. We have almost 200 trained mentors and have opened the program for protégé sign-ups. WE NEED MENTOR AND PROTÉGÉ VOLUNTEERS NOW!!
By the numbers: Total USNA Alumni number about 50,000 of which about 10,000 are on active duty. AMP will provide the means for Alumni to help Alumni in an unprecedented way.
Our goal: To revitalize the culture of Alumni helping Alumni. By sharing experience and wisdom and leveraging connections and relationships, we will inspire Alumni to set higher goals, achieve more, and have greater satisfaction, first in military service and then in their selected career for the purposes (1) that more Alumni achieve “the highest responsibilities of command, citizenship and government” and (2) to improve retention.
About AMP: The Alumni Mentoring Program (AMP) is a system of connecting Alumni for a greater good. The foundation tool of AMP is the proven eMentoring on-line platform which Facebook-like features will be familiar to most and which will adeptly allow Protégés and Mentors to pair-off, conduct ongoing dialogue, and access other mentoring tools offered there. Protégés will obtain objective advice from neutral resources outside of their command structure - from other Alumni who “have been there and done that”. Of course, mentoring pairs may go off-line or meet face-to-face anytime. Protégés and volunteer Mentors may be from any and all USNA classes. At least initially, AMP will focus on providing mentoring (i) to Alumni approaching the end of their initial obligated service and facing the decision to stay in or get out. Mentors will receive standard training and work kits. AMP is an offering by Alumni for Alumni; AMP activities will be private and confidential. | <urn:uuid:49449354-e74c-42b8-84f4-102295108af6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.usna.com/page.aspx?pid=288 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937968 | 684 | 1.554688 | 2 |
The so-called carcinoid tumor of the breast is synonymous with invasive ductal carcinoma with neuroendocrine differentiation. The tumor cells are arranged in small and large nests separated by fibrovascular tissue. The clinical presentation, gross features, and behavior are no different from the ordinary breast carcinoma. The presence of estrogen receptors, patterns of metastases, and occasional presence of an in-situ component further support the notion that the so-called carcinoid tumor of the breast and ductal carcinoma are related lesions.
return to Miscellaneous Carcinomas | <urn:uuid:a879e1d3-1652-4a40-b282-a5fc893ec213> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.webpathology.com/image.asp?case=651&n=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91263 | 112 | 1.867188 | 2 |
The victor, inevitably, scripts history. Historians’ labour unearths the virtues and valour of the vanquished describing the plight of ‘people’ caught in the crossfire. The victor, however, does not stop at authoring ‘official’ history of any one event alone but seeks to re-write all history to consolidate its current hegemony. Following the collapse of the USSR and in the present conjecture of the global capitalist recession, the West seeks to reinterpret World War II’s history by equating fascism with communism.
In 2004, to deflect rising global protests against the US military occupation of Iraq, on the 50th anniversary of the landing of the Allied troops at Normandy, all North Atlantic Treaty Organisation leaders assembled to project themselves as the champions of the victory over fascism liberating Western Europe. They deliberately concealed the fact that for every allied soldier who laid down his life, fighting fascism, there were 40 Soviet soldiers who laid down their lives. Over 20 million Soviet soldiers and people lost their lives. In 1,418 days of war, the Soviet Union lost nine lives every minute, 857 every hour and 14,000 lives a day.
On the 70th anniversary of fascist Germany’s attack on Poland (September 1, 1939, 4.40 am), which started the World War II, a similar attempt is being made to once again distort history. This is necessary for the advanced capitalist powers to seek to prevent the growth of socialist ideas and Left politics, as currently seen in various countries of Latin America, in the wake of the worst capitalist economic recession since the Great Depression. Today, the US has an unprecedented seven million people unemployed. The European Union is faring no better. Under these circumstances, it is imperative for them to decry the glorious role of the Soviet Union and, by implication any socialist alternative, in the defeat of fascism. | <urn:uuid:4e66c6cd-7a9e-4084-a429-58e45f757c6c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://reddiarypk.wordpress.com/tag/ussr/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945772 | 382 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Learning to Serve Others: The Key to HappinessNovember 10, 2011
With Veterans Day tomorrow, it seems appropriate to highlight the achievements of Charles Kaiman, an artist and a clinical nurse specialist in psychiatric mental health who works with veterans, primarily those with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Kaiman recently received the Excellence in Behavioral Health Nursing Award at the 2011 New Mexico Nursing Excellence Awards for his work as a caregiver for veterans at the New Mexico Veterans Affairs Health Care System in Albuquerque.
In this video interview, posted on YouTube by KASA FOX 2, an affiliate of the Fox Broadcasting Company, Kaiman speaks about how he decided to become a nurse, the symptoms of and treatment strategies for PTSD, and what he sees day to day while working with Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans—an experience he calls “one of the most rewarding” of his life.
When asked why he became a nurse, Kaiman said he was first inspired when he was 10 years old, reading a book by Albert Schweitzer that argued no one could be happy unless they learned to serve others. Later, when Kaiman was trying to make ends meet as an artist, his father suggested becoming a nurse because he would “never be out of work.” And his father was right.
Kaiman has now worked as a nurse for 31 years, 26 of those specifically with veterans. When asked about the rewards of helping others and what he would say to those interested in entering the nursing profession, his answer was clear:
“I can’t believe I get paid for this. It’s the greatest thing you can do for the world and for yourself. I completely and absolutely urge everyone who is interested to become a nurse.”
Kaiman’s artwork has been featured in AJN‘s monthly Art of Nursing and twice on AJN’s cover (September 2009 and September 2011). His painting “America the Beautiful” appeared on our September cover in honor of the 10th anniversary of 9/11; for more about that cover, read our blog post and see On the Cover.—Amy M. Collins, AJN associate editor | <urn:uuid:86002a9e-0388-4b11-b836-1ac1c10274e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ajnoffthecharts.com/2011/11/10/learning-to-serve-others-the-key-to-happiness/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981201 | 443 | 1.75 | 2 |
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Stay informed and be ready to help when we urgently need your support. Contact Us and tell us what is the best way to keep you informed—by phone, email, or Pony Express. | <urn:uuid:4e3393a8-a92c-487a-89cb-d0fe7fb77d4b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cienega.org/partner-with-us/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91252 | 353 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Hello and welcome back to the Dogpound, where we are going to rest up on the day they call Labor Day.
The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union to recognize the efforts of the common working man. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later, on September 5, 1883. In 1884, the first Monday in September was selected as the holiday, as originally proposed, and the Central Labor Union urged similar organizations in other cities to follow the example of New York and celebrate a “workingmen’s holiday” on that date. The idea spread with the growth of labor organizations, and in 1885 Labor Day was celebrated in many industrial centers of the country.
By 1894, 23 other states had adopted the holiday in honor of workers, and on June 28 of that year, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the territories. Now you know how this holiday came into being, so sit back in the shade with a tall cool one and enjoy a few smiles and compliments of the Dogpound for the working man and woman.
Thought for the Week
“Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.” Ovid
Current News Flash
News bulletin: All of the Walmarts across Alabama sold out of ammunition as of yesterday. A reliable source said that one of the purchasers commented that while Russia may have invaded Georgia, they sure as heck ain’t doin’ it to Alabama. [Note: just for some of you, Georgia is a country in Europe, not to be confused with Georgia the state. I certainly hope no further explanation is necessary, or I will have to send you back to Geography 101.]
Bring Kids from Anywhere
I know my company has made a big effort to be family friendly, but I was baffled when I read this holiday announcement posted on the bulletin board: “All employees are invited to the annual Christmas party. All children under the age of ten will receive a gift from Santa. Employees who have no children may bring grandchildren.”
The first graders were attending their first music lesson. The teacher was trying to begin at the beginning. She drew a musical staff on the blackboard and asked a little girl to come up and write a note on it. The little girl went to the blackboard, looked thoughtful for a minute, and wrote, “Dear Aunt Emma, just a short note to tell you I’m fine.”
That is a wrap. As always be good, play safe and remember to rest up, because you have to go back to work.
JR and Max | <urn:uuid:94d35680-48b0-46c8-a905-986fd83cb5d7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.villagenewsonline.com/node/9650 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969931 | 582 | 2.453125 | 2 |
MOOCs rely heavily on interaction among participants: Bowman said he's more of a discussion moderator than a teacher. At the start of a class students will watch one of his videos, which last 10 to 25 minutes.
The lectures include questions and talking points, and students use the website or Twitter to discuss the ideas brought up during the class. They can ask questions of other students or Bowman during the event.
Everyone benefits from that discussion, including Bowman. It's a way for him to see how what he teaches is being used in the real world.
"You have a family of four and have four kids on Facebook. You probably have some unique experiences that I don't have," Bowman said. "In a way it really is 'Hey, come play with Dr. Bowman for a week.'"
He's one of four professors offering a MOOC through WVU. Starting Monday, Bowman's class lasts six days. The first two are devoted to lecture and discussion.
On Wednesday Bowman plans a "tweet up" during which students can interact with him on Twitter for a live office-hour session. More class is slated for Thursday and Friday, with another tweet up rounding things out on Saturday.
People don't need to "attend" class each day; the information is available in a variety of mediums on the course website, Bowman said.
Three other professors are planning similar courses in February. Starting Feb. 11, students can learn about online relationships in a course entitled "Love at First Like." A class on cyber bullying is slated for the week of Feb. 18, and a course called "Understanding and Conquering Technology Overload" is scheduled to start Feb. 25.
The courses are free because they don't cost WVU anything apart from time, Bowman said. Bowman said the courses are work intensive, but they go toward the idea that public universities exist to serve the community as a whole. Tuition helps the university stay afloat, and so the university serves its students. But so do tax dollars, Bowman said. The courses are an experiment, but Bowman is optimistic they'll be a success. He had heard several hundred people already were kicking around the idea of registering, including some from South America and Asia.
He's happy about the international connection but hopes students considering college in West Virginia check out the courses as well.
"The kids of coal miner families aren't going into the mine," Bowman said. "You're seeing this huge shift in how people make their money. There's huge disconnect between Morgantown and the rest of the state. This closes that disconnect."
Anyone interested in participating can register at WVUCommMOOC.org. During the courses, Bowman and students will use #WVUCommMOOC for their Twitter discussions. | <urn:uuid:e4583413-84d8-43ff-a68d-28097fe96e09> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailymail.com/News/201301300254?page=2&build=cache | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973682 | 571 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Culture and leisure industries help make the country a better place to live and contribute significantly to its economy. In 2008, according to the Labour Force Survey, 759,600 Canadians, or more than 4% of the labour force, worked in jobs related to information, culture and recreation. More than half worked in Toronto, Montréal and Vancouver.
Employment in information, culture and recreation grew 20% from 1999 to 2008, surpassing the economy’s overall employment growth of 19%. However, employment in these industries fell 3% from 2007 to 2008, whereas employment across the economy grew 1.5%.
The information and culture industry accounts for more than half of all employment in information, culture and recreation. Self-employment is common: 16% of information, culture and recreation workers reported themselves as self-employed in 2008.
Information, culture and recreation industries contributed $56.8 billion to the economy in 2008, up 39% from 1999. The total gross domestic product (GDP) grew 26% over the same period.
Information and cultural industries— which include publishing, movie and sound recording, broadcasting and telecommunications, and news services and libraries—showed the most growth, 43%, and contributed $45.1 billion to the GDP in 2008.
Arts, entertainment and recreation industries—which include performing arts, spectator sports, museums, heritage sites, zoos, amusement parks, casinos and gaming machines, golf courses, ski hills, fitness facilities, and bowling centres— contributed $11.7 billion to the economy in 2008, an increase of 26% from 1999.
The three levels of government spent a total of $8.3 billion on culture in the 2005/2006 fiscal year, including about $444 million in intergovernmental transfers.
In 2005/2006, the federal government spent $3.5 billion on culture. Of each federal culture dollar, 47 cents supported broadcasting, 26 cents funded heritage resources—which includes museums, public archives, historic sites and nature parks—10 cents helped film and video production, 5 cents went to the performing arts, 4 cents went to literary arts and half a cent supported arts education.
Provincial and territorial governments spent $2.4 billion on culture in 2005/2006. These funds were largely directed toward libraries (37 cents of every culture dollar) and heritage institutions (28 cents). Smaller amounts went to multidisciplinary activities (about 9 cents) and the performing arts (8 cents).
Municipal governments spent $2.3 billion on culture in the 2005 calendar year. For each of their culture dollars, 70 cents funded libraries, 21 cents went to cultural centres and other activities, and 6 cents supported museums. Historic sites and parks and the performing arts each received less than 2 cents of every municipal dollar spent on culture. The remainder went to public archives. | <urn:uuid:3cf8ef99-f433-4233-b0fc-7c8dca9d5e72> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www41.statcan.ca/2009/3955/cybac3955_000-eng.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941063 | 576 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Leonard Bernstein Center
The Leonard Bernstein Center seeks to strengthen education on a national level by preparing teachers, schools and communities to use the Arts and the artistic process in the teaching of all academic subjects.
View the timeline at right to learn more about the education legacy of Leonard Bernstein and the evolution of the Leonard Bernstein Center and Artful Learning.
ARTFUL LEARNING stimulates and deepens academic learning through the Arts.
Artful Learning is the signature school improvement program of the Leonard Bernstein Center, based on 19 years of intensive collaboration and refinement, field research and implementation with leading educators, researchers and practitioners of the model.
Leonard Bernstein's vision was to use music and the other fine and performing arts as a means of instilling a lifelong love of learning in students. Artful Learning embeds the arts within the learning process through a carefully researched, concept-based, interdisciplinary model that has proven to increase comprehension in students as well as improve academic achievement across the board.
The Artful Learning Sequence and Model is a framework that educators can use to revitalize their curriculum and their teaching processes. Grounded in the artistic process, this extensive, research-proven professional development program gives educators the tools to apply the Artful Learning methodology over a three-year implementation process, ultimately building a sustainable, thriving learning community.
Learn more about Artful Learning > | <urn:uuid:33496558-9383-4494-9e08-bfd52edccd12> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.leonardbernstein.com/lbcenter.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933937 | 275 | 2.890625 | 3 |
This post has been updated to correct where the original news story was published.
When the Washington Post published a front-and-center story covering the PhD job crisis — that "there are too many laboratory scientists for too few jobs," as it said — science blogs lit up with commentary.
Science's Beryl Benderly said that the reporter who wrote the story, Brian Vastag, "deserves credit for getting onto the front page a story that contradicts the prevailing media narrative" — that scientists are in short supply, and that the US ought to make every effort to train more.
At Cosmic Variance, Julianne Dalcanton says that "difficulty finding a long term academic position is not the same thing as difficulty finding a job." While the Washington Post did make mention of the low unemployment rate experienced by scientists, Dalcanton notes that information was buried. "To me, what this implies is that most of the skills mastered by PhD-level lab-based scientists are not readily transferable to other jobs, and are not easily generalized (or at least, are not perceived as generalizable by employers)," she adds.
Gene Expression's Razib Khan adds that "if a tenure track position is your goal, and you aren't going to be happy with anything else, then you should know that all things equal the odds are going to be against you." Still, he says, "in the real world everyone has to hustle now, and often it is better to hustle with a doctorate than not." | <urn:uuid:63714a06-644f-42bb-a7ff-f7b3a1131e8c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.genomeweb.com/print/1105346 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978016 | 310 | 1.960938 | 2 |
BOSTON--An everyday office building doesn't quite work when you need to hammer out a prototype of a solar-powered chiller or an inflatable wind turbine. So a group of entrepreneurs here have created a hands-on workshop to bring their clean-energy ideas to life.
Greentown Labs held its official opening last week, bringing fellow entrepreneurs, city officials including Boston Mayor Tom Menino, and investors looking to plug into the active clean-energy technology scene.
About 40 people from 10 fledgling companies have moved into this former baker and confectioner's supply warehouse in South Boston with the hopes of finding more like-minded green-tech start-ups. Among the offerings was beer chilled by solar panels.
Their work environment is definitely not class A office space. A disorderly room houses work areas shared among four or five companies. There is separate space for small offices and another with a lab table set aside for electronics testing. In the basement is a large machine shop where inventors can bang out their first prototypes.
The people who started Greentown Labs feel they are filling an unmet need. Like many other energy technology companies, energy technology developers need more than desk cubes and an Internet connection, as an Internet start-up might.
Promethean Power Systems is building the next generation of its solar-powered milk chiller, which it has started testing in India. Alteros Energies needs tall ceilings just to inflate the prototype of its airborne wind turbine. OcComp Systems is very much a nuts-and-bolts operation as well, as it works on a better natural-gas compression system.
Grimy and industrial
Sharing space and tools helps keep their costs down, but member companies have been tapping each other's expertise as well. That can mean working with a resident aeronautics engineer on a specific issue or sharing business tips on how to hire people, members said.
"We're diverse enough so that we don't compete but we are all focused on clean tech so there's a lot of collaboration," said managing director Jason Hanna, who is working on a home energy company, Coincident, from the lab.
There is a growing number of entrepreneurs eager to start companies that help address energy and environmental problems. But in Boston there's a dearth of appropriate work space for companies that need to build things, said Brock Forest, the director of engineering at BlueBoxBio, a research and development company spun out of Harvard University.
BlueBoxBio is developing a biological system to clean natural gas so it can be pumped into pipelines. But given that the company can generate nasty smells during development, it's had some trouble finding the right space.
"Everything is either IT-oriented office space or, at the other end, high-end biotech labs. But we need a mechanic's garage--something grimy and industrial," Forest said. The company's founders are considering Greentown Labs.
The incubator, which only opened in May, organized itself as a nonprofit and has the enthusiastic support of city officials. It also has signed on corporate sponsors, such as National Instruments which is donating testing equipment and Digital Lumens which is supplying LED lights. "We didn't build Greentown Labs to make money, but to help our companies," said Hanna. | <urn:uuid:d75d29f9-75d1-4145-96bd-d00145e97c1f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20076111-54/clean-tech-incubator-gets-down-and-dirty/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965482 | 674 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Some people start developing qualities of entrepreneurs and leaders in their childhood. But very few can survive and achieve their goals in the cruel corporate world. However, some people fight all the odds and achieve their dreams when they are just outside their cocoon. And one such entrepreneur is Suhas Gopinath – the founder, Chairman and CEO of Globals Inc., a multinational IT Company.
Suhas Gopinath was born on November 4, 1986 in Banglore, India. When he was a kid, he wanted to become a veterinary doctor. But when his elder brother introduced him to the world of internet, he was enthralled by the power of web. Gopinath then started learning how to design website, ASP, HTML and other relevant software. He started Globals Inc. in one cyber café in Banglore, India, when he was just 14. But as Indian law did not permit minors to start company; he was forced to start his company in San Jose, California with the help of an American friend.
Led by Suhas Gopinath’s amazing skills, Globals Inc. was turned out to become a huge success. It soon became a multinational company, doing business in at least 11 countries and serving more than 200 clients. Some of the company’s prestigious clients are – UNICEF, Government of India and the European Business School of Germany.
By the time Suhas Gopinath was 16, he earned a place, as the youngest CEO of the world, in the Limca Book of Records, Washington times and BBC. In 2005, he became the youngest receiver of the prestigious Rajyostava Award awarded by the state government of Karnataka, India. The European Parliament and International Association for Human Values awarded Suhas Gopinath with Young Achiver Award, on December 2, 2007. He has been also declared as the Young Global Reader for 2008-2009 by the World Economic Forum.
Apart from his professional career, Suhas Gopinath worked for animal rights and has also been the ambassador of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). He has also attended Indo-Pak Leadership Program at School of Leadership, Pakistan as Youth Ambassador.
This young entrepreneur is inspired by Bill Gates and his aim is to provide employment for eligible unemployed youth all around the world. | <urn:uuid:04f4fc9c-dd8a-4b48-9aa6-f63d813f3092> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.baby-bombers.com/suhas-gopinath/suhas-gopinath.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982918 | 478 | 1.75 | 2 |
Guide for Data Subjects Requesting Data
The Minnesota Government Data Practices Act, per Minn. Stat. § 13, gives every individual important rights when state agencies collect, create, store, use, or release data about him or her. This guide explains how to use these rights at DEED.
Data about You
You are the subject of data when you can be identified from the data that DEED collects, creates, and keeps. "Government data" means all recorded information a government entity has, including paper, email, CD-ROMs, photographs, etc.
Classification of Data about You
The law presumes that all government data are public unless a state or federal law says that the data are not public. Data about you are classified by state law as public, private, or confidential.
- Public data: We must give public data to anyone who asks; it does not matter who is asking for the data or why.
- Private data: We cannot give private data to the general public, but you have access when the data is about you. We can share your private data with you, with someone who has your permission, with DEED staff who need the data to do their work, and with others as permitted by law or court order.
- Confidential data: Confidential data has the most protection. We cannot give members of the public any access to confidential data about you. Nor can we give you direct access to confidential data even when the confidential data is about you. We can share confidential data about you with DEED staff who need the data to do their work and to others as permitted by law or court order.
Your Rights under the Law
We must keep all government data in a way that makes it easy for you to access data about you. Also, we can collect and keep only the data about you that we need for administering and managing programs that are permitted by law. As a data subject, you have the following rights:
- When We Collect Data from You: When we ask you to provide data about yourself that is not public, we must give you a notice of your rights. The notice is called a Tennessen warning. The notice controls what we do with the data that we collect from you. Usually, we can use and release the data only in the ways described in the notice.
We will ask for your written permission if we need to use or release private data about you in a different way, or if you ask us to release the data to another person. This permission is called informed consent.
- Your Access to Your Data: You have the right to look at (inspect)—free of charge—public and private data that we keep about you. You also have the right to get copies of public and private data about you, but the law allows us to charge for copies. If you ask, we will tell you whether we keep data about you and whether the data is public, private, or confidential.
As a parent, you have the right to look at and get copies of public and private data about your minor children (under the age of 18). As a legally appointed guardian, you have the right to look at and get copies of public and private data about an individual for whom you are appointed guardian.
Minors have the right to ask us not to give data about themselves to their parent or guardian. If you are a minor, we will tell you that you have this right. We may ask you to put your request in writing and to include the reasons why we should deny your parents/guardian access to the data. We will make the final decision about your request based on your best interests. Note: Minors do not have this right if the data in question are educational data maintained by an educational agency or institution.
- Protecting your Data: The law requires us to protect your data. We have established appropriate safeguards to ensure that your data is safe. In the unfortunate event that we determine a security breach has occurred and an unauthorized person has gained access to your data, we will notify you as required by law.
- When your Data are Inaccurate and/or Incomplete: You have the right to challenge the accuracy and/or completeness of public and private data about you. You also have the right to appeal our decision. If you are a minor, your parent or guardian has the right to challenge data about you.
How to Make a Request for Your Data
To look at data or to request copies of data that we keep about you, your minor children, or an individual for whom you have been appointed legal guardian, make a written request to DEED's responsible authority. You may use the Request to Inspect and/or Copy Government Data form. If you choose not to use the form, your written request should include:
- A statement that you, as a data subject, are making a request for data about you under the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act, Minn. Stat. § 13.
- Whether you would like to look at the data, get copies of the data, or both.
- A clear description of the data you would like to inspect or have copied.
- Identifying information that proves you are the data subject or the data subject's parent/guardian.
We require proof of your identity before we can respond to your request for private data. If you are requesting data about your minor child, you must show proof that you are the minor's parent. If you are a guardian, you must show legal documentation of your guardianship. The following constitute proof of identity:
- For individuals:
- A valid photo ID, such as a state driver's license, military ID, passport, tribal ID, or school ID.
- For the parent or guardian of a minor:
- A valid photo ID and either:
- A certified copy of the minor's birth certificate; or
- A certified copy of documents that establish the parent or guardian's relationship to the child, such as a court order relating to divorce, separation, custody, foster care; a foster care contract; or an affidavit of parentage.
- For the legal guardian of an individual:
- A valid photo ID and a certified copy of appropriate documentation of formal or informal appointment as guardian, such as a court order or valid power of attorney.
Note: Individuals who do not exercise their data practices rights in-person must provide either notarized or certified copies of the documents that are required or an affidavit of ID.
How We Respond to a Data Request
Once you make your written request, we will work to process your request. If it is not clear what data you are requesting, we will ask you for clarification.
- If we do not have the data, we will notify you in writing within 10 business days.
- If we have the data, but the data is confidential or private data that is not about you, we will notify you in writing within 10 business days and state which specific law says you cannot access the data.
- If we have the data, and the data are public or private data about you, we will respond to your request within 10 business days, by doing one of the following:
- Arrange a date, time, and place to inspect data, for free, if your request is to look at the data, or
- Notify you of the requested data we have and any associated costs. You may choose to pick up your copies, or we will mail or fax them to you. We will provide electronic copies (such as email or CD-ROM) upon request if we keep the data in electronic format. DEED charges a fee for the actual costs of making the copies. If we are asked to mail copies, the fee will include postage. Payment must be made before copies are provided.
- If you do not understand some of the data (technical terminology, abbreviations, or acronyms), let us know; we will give you an explanation.
After we have provided you with access to data about you, we do not have to show you the data again for six months unless there is a dispute or we collect or create new data about you.
We are not required to create or collect new data in response to a data request if we do not already have the data, or to provide data in a specific form or arrangement if we do not keep the data in that form or arrangement (for example, if the data you request are only on paper, we are not required to create electronic documents to respond to your request). If we agree to create data in response to your request, we will work with you on the details of your request, including cost and response time. In addition, we are not required to respond to questions that are not requests for data. | <urn:uuid:4b6b9617-bc99-48a4-9d42-9c7030e81ba6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.positivelyminnesota.com/About_Us/Notices_Announcements/Data_Practices_Your_Right_to_Information/Guide_for_Data_Subjects_Requesting_Data.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937803 | 1,801 | 2.375 | 2 |
COLUMN: Torture: Is it OK?
Does torture work?
It is a Bush-era debate that has found Obama-era relevance because of a new movie, “Zero Dark Thirty,” in which torture works well.
The film, an Oscar nominee for Best Picture, is being sold as a fact-based accounting of the 10-year manhunt that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden. In it, torture -- water-boarding, sleep deprivation, stress positions, hitting and humiliation the U.S. government once antiseptically dubbed “enhanced interrogation” -- is depicted as integral to CIA’s finding him.
That depiction has alarmed many. Acting CIA Director Michael Morell issued a statement to agency employees in which he says the film gives the impression these brutal methods “were the key to finding bin Laden. That impression is false.”
Actors Martin Sheen and Ed Asner asked members of the Motion Picture Academy not vote for the film.
But torture has its defenders. Bush-era Attorney General Michael Mukasey penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in 2011 defending the techniques because, he said, they produced results. In a recent column, George F. Will went so far as to quote Jack Nicholson’s famous “You can’t handle the truth!” speech from “A Few Good Men” about the moral choices the nation’s defenders must make. Will, who dubbed torture “hard but morally defensible,” failed to mention that Nicholson’s character ends up arrested and disgraced.
Does torture work?
That’s the wrong question. What matters is whether torture is right.
Consider: Drunk drivers kill almost 10,000 people a year. That’s three Sept. 11s and then some. If you wanted to stop that carnage, it would be simple. Make drunk driving a capital crime with instant punishment. Blood alcohol levels allow for scientific certainty of guilt, so there’d be no need of a long trial. We could execute the miscreants within a day.
It would end the problem. Continued...
But we won’t do it for one simple reason.
It would be wrong, inconsonant with the kind of people we are.
That is the same reason torture should unsettle the American conscience and debating its efficacy misses the point. We are a nation where human rights are enshrined in law, a nation that routinely lectures other nations on the need to close their gulags, free their dissidents and treat human beings as human beings.
We cannot be that nation and yet also this other nation that tortures and then defends torture because it works. If that were the only important metric, what other things might we do?
In America, even drunk drivers, even child rapists and murderers, have rights and, though those rights are sometimes inconvenient, even incompatible with justice, we honor them anyway because we realize the nation’s moral authority derives precisely from the willingness of the state to curb its own power -- even when it has reason to do otherwise, even when doing otherwise might “work.”
This is an obeisance power makes to human freedom. On the day it no longer does, it is not just terrorists who will be in trouble.
Power that is not constrained by humanity is not constrained by anything at all.
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Mary Messere, the former Madison County historian, describes herself as historian/writer/photographer who loves music, history, making videos, poetry, art and travel. Her entertaining blog covers all that and more. | <urn:uuid:d24459c3-ae44-4fe1-a3fe-27e8e8c2ed1f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://oneidadispatch.com/articles/2013/01/18/opinion/doc50f9cee527145885204162.txt?viewmode=fullstory | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932811 | 1,106 | 1.960938 | 2 |
Bilateral Economic Relations
The Bilateral Economic Relations Section (BER), within the Promoting Ireland Abroad Division (PIAD), works closely with state agencies, other government departments and the private sector in identifying new market opportunities
- working closely with state agencies, other government departments and the private sector in identifying new market opportunities and in raising awareness of Ireland as a preferred business partner and as a world class location for inward investment, scientific research and development; education and high technology;
- facilitating the development of trade and investment in emerging markets including through implementation of relevant aspects of the Government’s Asia Strategy and development of a strategic approach for the Gulf region;
- assisting Irish companies in gaining and maintaining access for their goods and services. | <urn:uuid:56ac3159-48bd-4c51-b518-e0a218fbec9f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.consulateofirelandatlanta.com/home/index.aspx?id=300 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935632 | 148 | 1.703125 | 2 |
The New CEO’s Wrong Message
Any new CEO who tries to wield power unilaterally will pay for it, according to Harvard Business School professors Michael E. Porter, Jay W. Lorsch, and Nitin Nohria. An excerpt from Harvard Business Review.
Bearing full responsibility for a company's success or failure, but being unable to control most of what will determine it. Having more authority than anyone else in the organization, but being unable to wield it without unhappy consequences. Sound like a tough job? It is—ask a CEO. Surprised by the description? So are CEOs who are new to the role. Just when an executive feels he has reached the pinnacle of his career, capturing the coveted goal for which he has so long been striving, he begins to realize that the CEO's job is different and more complicated than he imagined.
Some of the surprises for new CEOs arise from time and knowledge limitations—there is so much to do in complex new areas, with imperfect information and never enough time. Others stem from unexpected and unfamiliar new roles and altered professional relationships. Still others crop up because of the paradox that the more power you have, the harder it is to use. While several of the challenges may appear familiar, we have discovered that nothing in a leader's background, even running a large business within his company, fully prepares him to be CEO.
Through our work with new chief executives of major companies, we have found seven surprises to be the most common.
[Editor's note: The following passage describes Surprise Two: "Giving Orders is Very Costly." For a complete list of the seven surprises, see sidebar. The authors gleaned these lessons from participants in the New CEO Workshop held at Harvard Business School.]
The CEO is undoubtedly the most powerful person in any organization. Yet any CEO who tries to use this power to unilaterally issue orders or summarily reject proposals that have come up through the organization will pay a stiff price. Giving orders can trigger resentment and defensiveness in colleagues and subordinates. Second-guessing a senior manager can demoralize and demotivate not only that person but others around him, while eroding his authority and confidence. What's more, the need to overrule a proposal indicates that the strategic planning and other processes in place may be either inappropriate or insufficient. No proposal should reach the CEO for final approval unless he can ratify it with enthusiasm. Before then, everyone involved with the matter should have raised and resolved any potential deal breakers, bringing the CEO into the discussion only at strategically significant moments to obtain feedback and support. Ironically, by exercising his power to give orders, the CEO actually reduces his real power, saps his energy and his organization's, and slows down progress.
Ironically, by exercising his power to give orders, the CEO actually reduces his real power.
When CEOs wield direct power, they must do so very selectively and deliberately—and never without a broader plan of action in mind. Usually, power is best used indirectly, through the disciplined processes mentioned above (articulating strategy and so on). Together with tone and style, such processes enable the CEO to make effective decisions consistent with where he wants the company to go.
One of our new CEOs learned this the hard way. Soon after he became CEO, he was asked to approve a marketing campaign for the launch of a new product. The campaign was the result of more than a year's work by a division manager and his team. They had developed advertising, prepared promotional materials, crafted a sales and distribution plan, and assigned responsibilities for different parts of the plan. All that was needed was the new CEO's approval, which the executives assumed was largely a formality.
The CEO saw it differently. He felt that the company's advertising had become stale and that a makeover should start right away—and this would most likely mean hiring a new agency. He put the marketing campaign on hold until a new advertising plan could be developed—a decision that he hoped would send a strong signal about the changes he meant to introduce. Little did he realize that he had sent several other powerful signals as well.
Word of his order spread like wildfire. The CEO's calendar was soon filled with meetings with executives seeking approval of their plans. Some came to obtain consent for new capital expenditures, others for personnel decisions, and others on matters as mundane as whether to host a client conference. They had lost confidence that they understood the CEO's expectations, so they wanted to check with him before proceeding on anything. His calendar became a bottleneck, and organizational decision making virtually ground to a halt.
For a while, the CEO was oblivious to the high cost of his intrusive approach. As an outsider new to the company, he felt good about being part of all these conversations. He was now at the center of all the action. He viewed each meeting as an opportunity to communicate the new direction in which he hoped to take the company. But he began to recognize the impact of his actions when the division manager he had overruled came forward a month later with the news that he had decided to accept a job at another company. This came as a shock to the CEO, who, despite nixing the ad campaign, had been quite impressed with the other elements of the marketing program and the thoroughness with which they had been planned. What he had failed to understand was that he had undermined the manager's self-confidence as well as his authority with his subordinates and peers. As hard as the CEO tried to persuade him to reconsider and stay, the manager felt so demoralized that he was determined to leave.
A new CEO must be willing to share power and trust others to make important decisions.
Chastened, the CEO called a meeting of all his top managers the next week. He reassured them that they enjoyed his full confidence and that he had no intention of undermining their authority as he had done with the departing division manager. He candidly admitted that he might have been too precipitous in halting the marketing campaign, especially since he had not yet fully communicated his new strategy for the company. He identified the areas in which he wanted to make strategic changes, emphasizing that all this was a work in progress, to be completed with everyone's help. He clarified the issues on which he wanted to be consulted and those on which he would fully trust his managers. He created a task force to review some of the company's key management processes—planning, budgeting, performance evaluation, new product rollout, development of marketing campaigns, and recruitment of key employees—to ensure that there would be opportunities for early CEO input. Finally, he spent the next year working hard to make sure that his vision and agenda were clear to all employees, especially his senior management team. (We know this because he stayed in touch with us after the workshop, as many participants do.)
This CEO concluded, and we would agree, that it is rarely a good idea to unilaterally overrule a thoughtful decision that has cleared several other organizational hurdles. Indeed, a key indicator the CEO subsequently used to judge the health of the company's management processes was how enthusiastically he could approve the decisions that came his way. The need to overrule something is a sure sign of a broader organizational failure. Or, as hard as this is to admit, it may reflect the CEO's own failure to clearly communicate his strategy and operating principles. There are certainly some circumstances in which the harm done by moving forward with a major strategic decision that the CEO considers a serious mistake—a large acquisition, say—is greater than the harm done by issuing orders. But, as this CEO himself eventually acknowledged, the ad makeover could have waited.
A new CEO may need to put a stake in the ground to show that he's in charge and to let the organization know what he stands for. Giving a direct order (and especially undoing someone's work) is rarely the best way to do this, however. Instead, a CEO should look for ways to include senior managers and to promote agreement about decision-making criteria. At an off-site meeting, for example, the CEO can reveal his priorities and concerns by setting the agenda while giving his team a chance to participate and buy in. A new CEO must be willing to share power and trust others to make important decisions. The most powerful CEO is the one who expands the power of those around him.
Excerpted with permission from "Seven Surprises for New CEOs," Harvard Business Review, Vol. 82, No. 10, October 2004. | <urn:uuid:89030565-7562-4546-b3d3-349c7a567a5e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/4454.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984814 | 1,733 | 1.5 | 2 |
Accrual Accounting for the Public Sector - a fad that has had its day?
By Andy Wynne, firstname.lastname@example.org
The latest issue of the International Journal of Governmental Financial Management (www.icgfm.org/digest.htm) contains a useful review of the experience of implementing accrual accounting by central governments. Its findings should increase the number of governments which have considered this approach, but have decided that other reforms are more important and are more likely to deliver significant benefits.
For the last decade accrual accounting has been presented as the reform for public sector accounting. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that the claimed benefits of introducing accrual accounting are not being realised in practice. Few countries have actually adopted accrual accounting as the basis for their central government accounts. Spain was possibly the first in 1989 followed by the celebrated case of New Zealand. A few other governments followed suit over the next decade or so, but, according to Wynne (2007), by 2006 still only around 10 of the nearly 200 governments in the world had adopted accrual accounting.
In Australia, New Zealand and the UK the evidence now suggests that, if their governments’ knew then what they know now, then the move to accrual accounting may never have taken place (Dorotinsky, 2008). Wynne’s most recent paper on this topic reviews the evidence which is available from these countries so that governments considering this type of reform can base their decisions on the actual experience of those few countries which have adopted this approach. Just as the current world recession is undermining the previously dominant view on the efficacy of the free market, so the failure of accrual accounting to deliver on its promises is having a demoralising effect on at least some of its previous supporters.
Supporters of the move to accrual accounting argue that a range of significant benefits are available to governments which move from the cash to the accrual basis of accounting. Such arguments have been widely reported and repeated at many conferences. However, the authoritative independent research which is now available suggests that few, if any, of these benefits have been actually achieved in practice. In contrast, the costs of moving to accrual accounting are accepted as being substantial.
Some governments may consider that a move to accrual accounting will provide the opportunity for a complete overhaul of their financial management systems through the adoption of leading edge twenty first century reforms. However, Noel Hepworth (2003) argues against such a strategy and recommends that:
before this reform [accrual accounting] is introduced, cash accounting should be robust, control should be secure, external audit should be functioning well and the legislature should have an ability to call the executive to account. (page 37)
Several leading OECD countries are still not convinced of the overall benefits of moving to full accrual accounting and budgeting, for example, China, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia. A recent multi-country overview by the US General Accountability Office also concluded “Accrual Budgeting useful in certain areas but does not provide sufficient information for reporting on our nation’s longer-term fiscal challenge”. This reinforces growing recent scepticism on the value of a full transition to accrual accounting and budgeting.
The full article is available for free download from: http://tinyurl.com/ceuj72. | <urn:uuid:51b846e6-77ae-42d0-8924-437d8a6d43b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog-pfm.imf.org/pfmblog/2009/03/accrual-accounting-for-the-public-sector-a-fad-hat-has-had-its-day.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961069 | 692 | 1.828125 | 2 |