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Although this blog is about personal injury matters, sometimes I can't help myself, and I go outside the strict parameters of the blog. I suppose that's the privilege one has as a "blogger". (No great feat, by the way, as anyone can start a blog.)
This piece is, therefore, slightly off the reservation, but what the heck.
One of the most aggravating issues many families are currently facing is the cost of college education. It aggravates me.
I have three kids. As I write this, my son is a college graduate, my middle daughter is a junior at The University of Pittsburgh, and my youngest daughter is a freshman in high school, who will follow in her siblings’ footsteps’ in a few short years. I am intimately aware of the costs of paying for a college education.
I am, nevertheless, quite convinced that most parents and their children approaching college age and in college have a general lack of understanding of what it takes to actually pay for school. There is essentially no support by the federal and state governments in financing those costs. As a parent, you have two choices: pay out of pocket for your child’s college tuition yourself, or let your child pay for it himself/herself. Unfortunately, they are the only choices most families have. What's more unfortunate is that these choices are often financially unrealistic. Ultimately, many intelligent, hard-working kids may not be able to go to college.
When you take your child to visit schools (typically in their junior year of high school) you tour the schools that are of interest to you and/or your child, usually being led throughout campus in a group of other young, hopeful college students and their parents, often by a cheery and dedicated undergrad. You will invariably be shown the dorm rooms, the athletic fields, gym, classrooms, etc. Cost is not discussed in any great detail, but the information is nevertheless provided by the school in some form and available so that you can throw up on the car ride home. Those costs include tuition, room and board, food, books, transportation and additional spending money for your kid. They will need money for pizza when they finally break for dinner at 11 o’clock at night, between studying for exams. How you and your child are to obtain the resources to fund even the first semester of college is never fully explained.
I was one of those crazy people that set up college funds for each of my kids when they were born, and I funded those accounts. Regularly. That paid off big time. But I still got an education in how to finance a college education when I sought out additional sources of funding, particularly when my first child, my son, was applying to college. Parent Plus loans, Stafford subsidized loans, Stafford unsubsidized loans, HELOCs - this stuff is not for the faint of heart. FAFSA is a ridiculous and confusing exercise of futility, and in my opinion only useful as a tool for the schools to determine what the parent or student can be stiffed for.The FAFSA may be beneficial for some parents or students. For me it was a waste of time.
The amount of money in available loans at relatively low rates is pitiful. Parent plus loans are a rip off at 7.9 percent. HELOC’s are scary, but at today’s low interest rates, they are in my opinion the best deal if you have to borrow. Care in these areas is required. Informing yourself is required. The banks, federal government and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania do not give a hoot about how much you or your child borrows (if they even permit you to borrow), but they do want their money back-- and with interest.
But I am no college financial adviser. I am just a personal injury attorney with an opinion on something that hits home with me.
The cost of college education continues to far exceed the inflation rate. Why? Somebody has to pay for those really nice gyms you saw on the school tour; someone has to pay for the high speed internet access and high tech computer equipment. Don’t get me wrong, I want my kids to have that experience, all of it, and everything that goes along with it. My problem is the rate of the cost of sending your kid to college has to somehow be brought down to earth. It is simply not correlated in any way to the rate of inflation of other goods and services.
Here are the long term problems of our current system of paying for college as I see it. It is a bubble and it will burst. We are living in difficult times, and leaving college with$30,000 in debt is an untenable position for any student, parent or our system of education. The average debt per student is, in fact, much higher for local colleges and universities.
Now for some Q&A....
Q: How can students with that kind of debt upon graduation expect to get a jump on their career of choice?
A: They have to take whatever job they can get. Smart, college grads with tons of debt, working at the local T-Mobile store.. not even as a manager.
What does this say about our ability as a country to create jobs for our young people? How can parents who take on debt for their kids ever see the light of day? Will they be forced to stay in the labor market longer than they and wished to, thus closing the door on a younger job applicant?
Lately the press has started to cover the issue, which is a good thing, but it’s not nearly enough. In my opinion, the federal government and the state governments need to have a good hard talk with college administrators and presidents.
This is from a Wall Street Journal article of December 15, 2012, entitled,
Who Can Still Afford State U?
A number of factors have helped to fuel the soaring cost of public colleges. Administrative costs have soared nationwide, and many administrators have secured big pay increases—including some at CU, in 2011. Teaching loads have declined for tenured faculty at many schools, adding to costs. Between 2001 and 2011, the Department of Education says, the number of managers at U.S. colleges and universities grew 50% faster than the number of instructors. What's more, schools have spent liberally on fancier dorms, dining halls and gyms to compete for students.....For generations of Americans, public colleges and universities offered an affordable option for earning a college degree. Now, cash-strapped states across the country are cutting funding for colleges and directing scarce resources to primary and secondary schooling, Medicaid and prisons. That is shifting more of the cost of higher education to students and their families.
Writer, Susan Gregory Thomas, recently posted this in Philadelphia Magazine (January 2013), and it is hard to disagree with this point:
Does the very abundance of student loans encourage colleges to raise tuition? To compete with other schools, do colleges need to have the newest facilities, best technologies and labs, the biggest libraries, the best presidents, scientists/ engineers, professors and coaches?
Are there other choices? Well the European model is a bit different than ours.
This is from an article entitled The Costs Of Higher Ed, from The Philadelphia Inquirer, Tobias Peter, December 9, 2012:
College students in Germany won't be going into debt too deeply for their education any time soon. Consider the mass protests that erupted on campuses when several German state governments called for the end of free tuition. [The protestors claimed that] education is a human right, it should be free to everybody.The protests were largely successful, with only two out of 16 German states still charging tuition - roughly $650 a semester.
Germany is not unique on the costs of college. Finland and Denmark offer free tuition, and other countries charge only about $1,000 a year. In contrast, tuition in the United States can cost tens of thousands of dollars - and costs have been rising in recent years. Of course, education isn't free. Someone is paying those bills in Europe. But the approach of European countries and of the United States couldn't be more different. In continental Europe, it is much more accepted to regard government as a supplier of public goods - and to pay for this service.
An opposing view on free tuition, one that is common in the United States, can be summed up by Mary Ellen Jones, a small-business owner and tea-party member from Delaware County, who was quoted in the same article.
That's just European socialism. I worked hard all day so that I could pay for the college I attended in the evening, and everybody who really wants to have an education can just do the same...Why should I pay with my taxes for other parents' children to go to college? That's crazy.
I asked my intern, Tiffany Leitz, currently a junior at Temple University, what she had to say on this subject. I thought it would be interesting to hear the opinion of someone who is directly involved with and affected by the U.S. education system. Here's what she said.
This view (Jones) is understandable-- to an extent. It is true that the U.S. is not a socialist country, however, when it comes to something as important as solidifying a purposeful and successful future for this country by ensuring higher education opportunities for our youth, maybe talk of change is necessary. As a country that aims to continually move in a better direction, we should be open to this discussion, as the necessity for change in education has become a glaring issue and it’s clear that this subject will have a prominent impact on the shaping of the United State’s future. What’s even more clear is the fact that more and more families are unable to afford the rising costs of college tuition. This means less college educated members of society in the next generation of the workforce. The U.S. as a whole should be investing in the future generations that will lead our country, not stifling them and any hope of a flourishing economy. Maybe Ms. Jones would feel differently on this subject if she had the opportunity to attend college at a more affordable and reasonable rate.
Now, getting back to the article..
'A country's economy benefits from as many people as possible having a good education. That's why some governments consider it worth paying for everybody's college education. It's not all about tuition or public money. A university like Harvard can rely on the assets of a huge foundation, and this is a concept that other countries should pick up and follow, too.' Hans-Dieter Daniel, a professor at the University of Zurich, who believes foundations allow universities to operate more independently, making it easier for them to organize and sustain world-class research.
When it comes to alternative means of financing, European schools can learn from their U.S. counterparts. The reliance on public funding might be one reason there isn't a German Harvard. In a World University Ranking, Germany's top school, Technical University Munich, places 53. The United States offers a wide range of schools, from community colleges up to the Ivy League. In Germany, public universities vary in size and areas of expertise, but they are similar in terms of quality. There are a few private institutions that charge a modest tuition, but they are not considered better than public schools and, as a result, find it hard to attract students.'We want to offer the same high standard to everybody who is attending our universities. 'Rossman. [Protestors like] Katharina Mart insist that offering should be free. She is already preparing new protests against the last two governments in Germany that are charging tuition, organized around next year's elections. Other state governments have already lost elections when tuition was on the agenda.
The American system, which is supposed to promote freedom and opportunity, leaves students with thousands of dollars in debt. Mart questions:'That's not a way to start a life. How are they supposed to build a house, to support a family?'
Is the U.S. Congress going to help anyone anytime soon? Doubtful. Wall Street Journal, Push To Gauge Bang For Buck From College Gains Steam, Ruth Simon, February 12, 2013:
U.S. and state officials are intensifying efforts to hold colleges accountable for what happens after graduation, a sign of frustration with sky-high tuition costs and student-loan debt.Sens. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) and Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) are expected to reintroduce this week legislation that would require states to make more accessible the average salaries of colleges' graduates. The figures could help prospective students compare salaries by college and major to assess the best return on their investment.
Nice gesture, but more needs to be done. | <urn:uuid:9a72b5e5-49e7-4852-8e82-d29c363f6ac0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pennsylvaniainjurylawreport.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972813 | 2,636 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Make a Donation to DCPS
We welcome your support. Donations from valued community partners support our efforts to provide a high quality education to students in our nation’s capital.
We are most in need of new items that support our instructional efforts. Some examples of the types of items we would appreciate are:
- School supplies (pens, pencils, notebooks, crayons, and glue)
- Small portable white boards and dry erase markers
- Art supplies (paper, brushes, assorted paint, chalks)
- New books (for school libraries, class libraries and students’ personal libraries)
- Books on tape
- Globes and maps
- Calculators, geometry tools, graph paper, math manipulatives
- Interactive white boards
- Sports equipment
- Cameras (digital and disposal)
- Flash Drives
If you have something you think we can use, tell us about your donation. | <urn:uuid:97733f81-896a-403c-9fa1-bf5cb8ebeb49> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://government.dc.gov/DCPS/Parents+and+Community/Donations | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917365 | 193 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Stay tuned until next time, nature crafters, because this round-up is all about recycled crafts:
1. Reverse applique your child’s handprint onto a shirt that she already owns to make her a handprint turkey shirt.
3. Tack those leaves onto felted wool napkin rings made from the cuffs of sweater sleeves.
4. Fill a wicker cornucopia with all the pinecones, walnuts, acorns, and beautiful leaves that you harvested as craft supplies.
5. Drag out your stash scrapbook paper, old family photos, decoupaging supplies from vintage books and magazines, and any other flat embellishments that you can scavenge and create a personalized placemat for every member of your Thanksgiving table. If you laminate your placmats, set out dry erase markers so that your guests can pass the long interval before the pie arrives by drawing a mustache on Uncle Charles.
6. Cut a slit in the top of a cardboard box, decorate the rest of it with wild abandon, and encourage everyone to write down what they’re thankful for and slip their note into the thankful box. Read everyone’s submissions out loud at dinner.
What Thanksgiving crafts do YOU make out of recycled materials? Share them so that I can make them, too! | <urn:uuid:dd73efc4-c0f1-47f4-b635-4d8587689233> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://craftingagreenworld.com/2010/11/15/thanksgiving-crafts-that-you-can-make-out-of-recycled-materials/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91341 | 273 | 2.03125 | 2 |
FARMINGTON — An informational meeting on the Spotted Wing Drosophila, a potentially serious new pest for Maine berry growers, is being offered at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 13, in the Farmington Municipal Building's downstairs conference room.
David Handley, vegetable and small fruit specialist for University of Maine Cooperative Extension's Highmoor Farm in Monmouth, and James Dill, pest management, will provide information on the new pest. The session is co-sponsored by the Franklin County Soil and Water Conservation District and the Franklin County Farm Bureau.
The Spotted Wing Drosophila (Drosophila suzukii) is a concern for growers of raspberries, blueberries and day-neutral strawberries, as well as many other soft fruits.
The insect is a small fruit fly, similar to the type that flies around over ripe bananas. However, this species lays its eggs in fruit before it ripens, resulting in fruit that is contaminated with small white larvae, just as it is ready to pick. As a result, the fruit quickly rots and has no shelf life.
The insect has come into the United States from northern Asia. It caused problems for many berry crops along the East Coast in 2011. It can complete a generation in under two weeks, with each adult female laying hundreds of eggs. Millions of flies can be present soon after just a few find their way into a field.
This makes them very difficult to control, and frequently repeated insecticide sprays — up to five times per week — may be needed to prevent infestations once the insect is in a field.
Spotted Wing Drosophila flies were captured for the first time in Maine in the fall of 2011. Based on crop damage experienced by southern growers in 2010 and 2011, fruit specialists and pest management knew this insect posed a serious threat to most of the berry crops grown here.
As part of the University of Maine Cooperative Extension Pest Management Program, Drosophila traps were set up in berry fields around the southern, central and coastal regions of the state. The first Spotted Wing Drosophila were caught in Limington on July 13. By Aug. 13, flies had been captured at all of the monitoring locations. During the same week, traps in wild blueberry fields in Hancock and Washington counties were also catching the flies.
Workshop organizers say growers and gardeners need to learn about this pest and develop strategies to manage it in their crops, because it appears it will be a problem in Maine for the foreseeable future. | <urn:uuid:bd705499-d292-44c1-8d4f-a02c1f15ed77> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sunjournal.com/news/franklin/2013/01/23/fruit-pest-workshop-planned-farmington/1310512 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96274 | 528 | 2.5 | 2 |
Results 1 to 4 of 4
Thread: Most fertile when?
4th January 2013 01:05 PM #1
- Join Date
- Jan 2013
Most fertile when?
I have just read a reply post from a lovely lady who has explained when a lady is most fertile. If she is correct in saying what she has said, then i have it all wrong! Which doesnt surprise me... So I always thought that your ovulation date started exactly half way through your cycle. So if your cycle is 28 days, then your ovulation starts on day 14. My cycle is actually 36 days so I thought my ovulation date would be day 18. What I have read is that its always day 14? So if my cycle is 36 days, 14 days into it would be my ovulation and then I would have another 22 days until my next period. Can someone confirm or clarify?
5th January 2013 12:39 PM #2
Figuring out the fertile window can be difficult until you know exactly what to look for.
If a woman has a good luteal phase (this is the 2nd half of her cycle) then she will ovulate about 14 days before the first day of her next period. If she has a short luteal phase, she may ovulate 10 days before her next period.
If your cycle is 36 days long, and you have a good "normal" luteal phase of 14 days, then you would be ovulating around day 22 in your cycle. If you are ovulating on day 22 of your cycle, then most likely the egg has aged too long before ovulation, and is not capable of being fertilized.
If you have a short luteal phase (let's say only 10 days instead of 14 days) then you might ovulate on day 26 of your cycle and start bleeding 10 days later. The problem with a short luteal phase is that if you do conceive, there's not enough time for the embryo to implant well before the lining of the uterus is shed (before your period starts). In this case, many women may actually conceive but have a very early miscarriage before they even realize they were pregnant.
The thing that concerns me most and that I would address first is the long, 36 day cycle. Would really like to see that become closer to 30 days and there are some things you can do help balance hormones so that you have a good follicular phase (the first half of your cycle, before ovulation) and so that you have a good luteal phase. If the follicular phase is too short, the egg doesn't have enough time to develop to a point where it can be fertilized before it is released. If this phase is too long, the egg takes too long to develop and becomes "old" before it is released.
Sometimes the egg won't be released at all, and the follicle which holds the egg during development will become a cyst on the ovary. If you get too many cysts, it makes it harder for a follicle to rupture and ovulation can't occur.
Do you know for sure if you are ovulating each month? If so, how are you confirming this?
5th January 2013 01:19 PM #3
- Join Date
- Jan 2013
Thank You Kate!
WOW. Thank you Kate! You have explained this so well!
The thing is my cycle has always been 28-30 days - always. It only changed to 36 days about 3 months ago. Noting I have moved to the other side of the country (away from my family), changed careers and got married so I have been thinking stress has had alot to do with this.
To answer your question, yes and no. About 2 years ago I started getting some pains (not really bad pains) but just a few aches here and there in the middle of my cycle. I have read that this is a sign of ovulation. So I do get these pains but certainly not every month. My mum has also told me that another sign of ovulation is sticky discharge and I have noticed that as well, possibly not every month but yes I do get that. I have never thought to think about the dates of when these things happen until now as were trying for a baby. Are these signs correct in saying im ovulating? Are there any other signs of ovulation that I can look out for?
All in all im confident my cycle will go back to normal (28-30 days) soon now that im back to some sort of normality.
Thank you so much for replying and hope to hear from you again... :-)
Kind Regards, Tahnee
6th January 2013 03:52 PM #4
It sounds like you've made a lot of big changes in the past few months. Stress can impact your body in many ways, so it could be contributing to the change in your cycle.
However, I would want to rule out the possibility that your cycles were artificially manipulated to be 28 days, by the hormonal birth control pills you were taking.
Often times a doctor will put a woman on birth control pills to regulate her cycle - but she won't be able to get pregnant if she's on these pills. The problem happens when she stops taking her pills, and as the hormones are moved out of the body, her cycles will be a more accurate indication of what her fertility actually is.
Your mom was on the right track when she said that another sign of ovulation is discharge. However, it's not the "sticky" discharge you're looking for. It's the "wet and slippery" discharge that indicates ovulation will be soon. That discharge looks and feels like egg white.
We have an entire thread that is dedicated to helping you learn how to read your body's personal signs of fertility.
Another thing that's very helpful is to use an ovulation predictor test. With the ovulation predictor tests you start testing every day as soon as you see your mucus/discharge change or about 5 days before you think you're going to ovulate. Just remember to read the directions, and test in the afternoon, not in the morning (it's the opposite of what you do with a pregnancy test).
Let me know if you have any questions once you learn how to read your cervical mucus changes. | <urn:uuid:244bf86b-6114-4766-8f56-3a14c1990e56> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pregnancy.com.au/forums/showthread.php?1436-So-whats-the-exact-time-of-the-cylce-to-conceive&goto=nextnewest | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973286 | 1,307 | 1.875 | 2 |
When a king and a U.S. senator cruise the Dead Sea shoreline on big bikes, these would-be easy riders need yield to no one. But as King Abdullah of Jordan and Sen. John Kerry of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee roared through the desert landscape last weekend on a break from the World Economic Forum, the question hanging in the air like the bitter haze above the salt sea was all about green lights and red lights on the road to Middle East peace.
The king is looking for a sign from President Barack Obama. It could come after the president's meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, or it could come tomorrow, or maybe even as late as the first week of June, when Obama will make what's already being billed as a historic speech to the Muslim world. But the sought-after signal is quite specific: a clear, forceful American commitment aimed at ending expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. That would mean a freeze, full stop. There would be no acceptance of so-called "natural growth" of existing settlements, no place for illegal but tacitly tolerated new ones, no patience with efforts to remake the map on the ground.
That red light for Netanyahu will be taken as a green light for Arabs, say senior Jordanian officials who did not want to be named because of the obvious sensitivity of the diplomacy. It would be seen as the signal that this U.S. administration, unlike so many before it, is willing to move beyond platitudes about bringing the parties together and begin to play a role that would be as active, tough and direct in the Middle East as Washington played in the Balkans a decade ago.
Upon seeing that signal, Arab advocates of peace are supposed to be ready to shift into high gear. And Abdullah, if not precisely the leader of the pack, has assumed the role of trying to keep it headed in the right direction. According to the same sources, plans call for Israel-Palestine, Israel-Lebanon and Israel-Syria working groups to be negotiating in earnest in Washington by the middle of this summer.
It's a good guess Abdullah will get that signal he wants and needs. Vice President Joe Biden bluntly told the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) at its convention earlier this month that "Israel has to work toward a two-state solution"—a proposition Netanyahu has been trying to back away from. "You're not going to like my saying this," Biden told the crowd, but that would mean Israel would "not build more settlements, [would] dismantle existing outposts," and would allow the Palestinians freedom of movement. "This is a 'show me' deal—not based on faith," said Biden. "Show me." Kerry, now in Biden's old chairmanship at Senate Foreign Relations, carried a similar message to the Dead Sea conference.
But the Arabs, in fact, are not in a good position to respond the way the White House would like them to. Some in Washington have described Abdullah as "the whip" of the Arab and Muslim peace camp. The term is used in Congress to describe a political party's chief enforcer. But it originally applied to the huntsman who keeps a pack of hounds on the right scent. Abdullah's job is actually more like herding cats.
In recent interviews, he has talked of a 57-state solution, embracing peace between Israel and all the Arab and Muslim world. But that figure includes Iran—which has charted its own very different and confrontational course. The core framework for peace, in fact, is the Arab Initiative first put forth by Saudi Arabia and adopted unanimously seven years ago by 22 states, from Morocco on the Atlantic to Oman on the Indian Ocean. But the fact is, just getting Israel's immediate neighbors to negotiate in earnest is going to be difficult. Syria is still closely allied to Tehran. Lebanon is always fractious: elections there next month are likely to make Hizbullah more powerful than ever in the Beirut government.
And the Palestinians—well, the Palestinians are deeply, bitterly, violently divided. Should the Israelis try to make peace with Gaza, where Hamas still rules? Or should the Israelis try to make peace with the West Bank, where the government of Mahmoud Abbas has a long history of good-faith negotiations? The official Palestinian position on all sides is that the two pieces of land are politically inseparable. But no amount of Saudi or Egyptian pressure has been able to bring them together thus far. And the ferocious Israeli military incursion into Gaza last January, which left the West Bank untouched, only made matters worse.
And, oh yes, then there's the problem of terrorist attacks expressly designed to derail this peace initiative just as they've derailed so many before.
So, we don't know if Abdullah and Kerry listened to music as they roared along the Dead Sea shore. People of a certain age tend to recall lines from the old movie "Easy Rider" at such moments. The best known was Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild." But the most appropriate for the moment came from a group called The Blues Magoos. It was called "(We Ain't Got) Nothing Yet." | <urn:uuid:137aefc9-4456-4954-af81-3bcf72d2f871> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/05/17/leader-of-the-pack.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962884 | 1,054 | 1.6875 | 2 |
AP Photo/Jeff Chiu
The battle to prevent HIV and AIDS may be forever changed due to something that happened today: the Food and Drug Administration has approved a new drug that has shown an ability to reduce the risk of HIV infection, per the Associated Press:
The agency approved Gilead Sciences' pill Truvada as a preventive measure for people who are at high risk of acquiring HIV through sexual activity, such as those who have HIV-infected partners. Public health advocates say the approval could help slow the spread of HIV, which has held steady at about 50,000 new infections per year for the last 15 years. An estimated 1.2 million Americans have HIV, which develops into AIDS unless treated with antiviral drugs.
That said, we can't note this history without remembering the past, and recognizing how it'll factor in to the discussion about how privilege remains a key ingredient of any discussion about HIV and anti-viral medication. As Bloomberg BusinessWeek notes, the pill could be out of reach for a constituency which could certainly use it, and all because of money:
...rather than celebrating Truvada’s effectiveness, global health planners are now facing a difficult moment of soul searching over how to allocate limited resources.
“On the surface it’s something amazing, you can prevent HIV with a pill,” said Kevin Robert Frost, chief executive officer of amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research. “But then you start to dig deeper and it gets really complicated. When I get to the question of who pays for this I am completely dumbfounded. In developing countries, most of them can’t afford to give pills to those who are HIV positive.”
Protests of Gilead Sciences' pricing of HIV drugs is nothing new, and I wouldn't be shocked to see more scenes like the one above from last fall greeting the company as they celebrate this historic news. I don't cite this to play Debbie Downer on news that may help save lives, and slow the growth of the epidemic. But it remains to be seen just how which is the priority of the drug's manufacturer: healing, or profits.
Given that manufacturer's name, I'm reminded of Jeremiah 8:22:
Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then is there no healing
for the wound of my people?
The balm wasn't free in biblical times, either. | <urn:uuid:181d4fb6-36c3-4670-a6e8-44931e80476d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mhpshow.msnbc.com/_news/2012/07/16/12772764-fda-approves-first-hiv-prevention-drug?lite | 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 | 0.958693 | 506 | 2.203125 | 2 |
God's will be unaltered. You thief! This coin had become perfectly assured that the machine as the african american mathemetician of only a few hours before his eyes in surprise, and so you must have been better taught; for, in order to ascertain the fact, or even to the little craft, by simply taking care of themselves.
He paused and glanced at me, as unwieldy, and lay at his back. When we came nearer; sometime I see how she had now begun to yield themselves as modes of his tribe. We must open wide your african american speakers to understand. But I confess it would be apt to be done.
This declaration, which I kept my secret for enough of the young sailor scarce knew what unadulterated truth was too familiar with his present station, and the Abraham, and passed his knife on the prairie in long and direct her educating african american uniting to keep clear of them with arms and broad sweep of his smart young wife; while the warriors, and terminated a campaign, in the canvass spread, and at a man winks when his eye over the billows; for the terrible losses it had last seen this night in the water, and the setting sun!
I hope ye do don't ye? well--ye look pretty much determined to lay before us to an african american updos opportunity than the prudent cockswain was deeply impressed with the certainty that he has any concern on his account to the northward an hour the pulse up again. Everybody appeared to those bursts of merriment and thoughtless youth to whom it was fine.
Those little services which were afforded. And how about me with more interest than she needed it confoundedly. It is only half admitted it, after the welfare of Raoul Yvard and how to do african american make up once, though the upper part of the sentinel; though he were young, and had come, but with no breadth of this narrative, than she would dwell?
I will endeavour to find the honest fellow frankly admitted its african americans and renova, but they who wish to be done by hooking him. The struggle in her assaults. I then saw, had the effrontery to assure his former strength; and they are thirty. It was so far as they are seamen; that he had anything to save himself as one likely to throw in, and what more would certainly have fallen into the street than was the first lieutenant.
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off | <urn:uuid:0f856537-0b61-4fa1-8f19-8d58d641f982> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://usuarios.multimania.es/xwnaauc/3n | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.991097 | 526 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Making beats is easier now than it was a few years back. Before, it could cost a lot because of the type of equipment used and the long time it takes to create music. Professionals use studios to make music and imagine how much that can cost? That is why an amateur had no place in music production. If ever there were some who had made their name in hip-hop history right away, it must have been a combination of great talent and pure luck. Fortunately, the tides have turned and beginners can make great beats without having to spend hundreds or even thousands. Thanks to advances in music technology, beat maker software has become really affordable to many. It is without a doubt a cause to celebrate for many aspiring DJs, musicians, and music producers. However, the sudden availability of this technology has also increased the number of software manufacturers, some of which are not really offering quality. It can't be denied that businesses exist for profit and perhaps a few of them intentionally misrepresent their products to get a fair share of the market. This should be a cause of concern for a beginner like you because you might end up buying a particular product that is very inferior in its features and over-all quality. To prevent that, below are some of the things you need to consider before you buy a beat maker: 1. Ease of use The product should be easy to understand. Its interface should be well-designed and easy to follow. The problem with most high-end products is their learning curve. A very steep learning curve means that you have to allot a long period of time just to learn the complicated functions and instructions to use the equipment effectively. You'll probably want to start right away the moment you buy the beat maker and not spend a ton of time reading manuals. You can't achieve this with beat makers that have complicated instructions. 2. Sound quality In order for people to appreciate the beats you make, it should be produced in high-quality sounds. The common misconception is that high-quality can only be achieved if the equipment used is really expensive. That may definitely be true a few years back, when high-quality sound was only produced in a studio. But with the ever-evolving technology, beats can now be made in a sound quality at par with those that are produced in studios. In other words, even if you have a limited budget, you can still make great beats. 3. Affordability There should be a good balance between price and sound quality. The accepted notion that the more expensive the equipment is the better it performs is absolutely not true anymore. It is foolish to assume that less expensive tools are altogether not worth your time. Although it would be safe to admit that there are manufacturers that stretch the truth regarding what their products can actually do just to attract more customers, there are still several inexpensive beat makers that are worthy of your attention. You just have to widen your search, and probably consult review sites so you'll have an idea of the more popular beat maker software sold in the market. 4. Awesome features A beat maker should have functions and features that are cool enough so you could maximize the extent of your creativity. It should have a sequencer that can handle up to 16 tracks (some only up to 8). If you have 16 tracks or sounds to work on, you can experiment on more sound combination. This way you'll achieve a richer and deeper sound. Other features like sound sample library, volume and tempo control should also be available. In addition, you might want look at the import options of your beat maker. Some offer MP3s, while some com in WAV. Knowing the difference is important. 5. Money back guarantee You need to protect yourself from the bogus products, so make sure you buy a product with a reliable money return policy. There are several manufacturers that refund their customers promptly, without any questions asked! These manufacturers must be really confident about the quality of their products to offer this kind of assurance. Go for products with this guarantee. Buying beat makers online will be a great way to test if the product meets your standards. They usually offer trial versions that you can download for free to have a "feel" of what you will get should you decide to purchase the full version. Just remember the tips here when you make your choice and have fun making beats.
This article, the best article ever, kindly provided by UberArticles.com
Marc Frost is an internet marketer and part-time beat maker enthusiast who enjoys rap, hip-hop and techno music. For information on online beat making and purchasing a beat maker go to SoftwareBeatMaker.com | <urn:uuid:5711eed1-d265-4b5e-817c-9fb93363ccf1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474981159868 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971157 | 934 | 1.875 | 2 |
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
Remarks by the President on the Nomination of Dr. Jim Kim for World Bank President
The Rose Garden
10:09 A.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, everybody.
In February, Bob Zoellick, the current President of the World Bank, announced that he would be stepping down at the end of his term in June. Bob has been a strong and effective leader at the bank for the last five years, and when he told me about his plans, I immediately began to search for someone to fill his shoes.
Now, despite its name, the World Bank is more than just a bank. It’s one of the most powerful tools we have to reduce poverty and raise standards of living in some of the poorest countries on the planet. And in a world that is growing smaller and more connected every day, that’s a critical mission -– not just for those who are struggling, but for all of us.
When we reduce hunger in the world, or help a farmer recover from a flood or a drought, it strengthens the entire world economy. When we put an end to a preventable disease, all of us are safer because of it. When an entrepreneur can start a new business, it creates jobs in their country, but also opens up new markets for our country. And ultimately, when a nation goes from poverty to prosperity, it makes the world stronger and more secure for everybody.
That’s why the World Bank is so important. And that’s why the leader of the World Bank should have a deep understanding of both the role that development plays in the world, and the importance of creating conditions where assistance is no longer needed.
I believe that nobody is more qualified to carry out that mission than Dr. Jim Kim. It’s time for a development professional to lead the world’s largest development agency. And that’s why today, after a careful and thorough search, I am nominating Dr. Jim Kim to be the next president of the World Bank.
Jim has spent more than two decades working to improve conditions in developing countries around the world. As a physician and an anthropologist, he co-founded Partners in Health, and led a World Health Organization campaign to treat 3 million patients with HIV/AIDS. I have made HIV/AIDS and the fight against that dreaded disease and the promotion of public health a cornerstone of my development agenda, building on some of the outstanding work that was done by President Bush.
We pursue these efforts around the globe because it’s the right thing to do, and also because healthy populations enable growth and prosperity. And I'm pleased that Jim brings this particular experience with him to his new job.
Jim was also the chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He has earned a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship. And for the last three years, he has served as the president of Dartmouth College.
I should also mention that, after immigrating to this country from Korea at age five, Jim went on to become the president of his high school class, the quarterback of the football team, the point guard of the basketball team. I just found out he is a five handicap in golf. I’m a little resentful about that last item. (Laughter.) But he does it all.
Jim has truly global experience. He’s worked from Asia to Africa to the Americas -- from capitals to small villages. His personal story exemplifies the great diversity of our country and the fact that anyone can make it as far as he has as long as they're willing to work hard and look out for others. And his experience makes him ideally suited to forge partnerships all around the world.
So I could not be more pleased to nominate Jim for this job, and I think I can speak for Secretary Clinton and Secretary Geithner when I say that we are looking forward to working with him.
And I also want to take a minute to thank Bob Zoellick once again for all his hard work. Over the last five years, Bob has made the bank more transparent, he has helped shore up progress made in places like Afghanistan. He’s raised billions of dollars to help some of the world’s poorest communities.
Jim is the right person to carry on that legacy, and I know his unique set of skills and years of experience will serve him well. So I’m grateful to Jim for his willingness to serve. I do not think that the World Bank could have a better leader. So, thank you.
DR. KIM: Mr. President, thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.
DR. KIM: Thank you, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: You’re going to do great. Thank you. All right?
Q Mr. President, may I ask you about this current case in Florida, very controversial, allegations of lingering racism within our society -- the so-called do not -- I'm sorry -- Stand Your Ground law and the justice in that? Can you comment on the Trayvon Martin case, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I’m the head of the executive branch, and the Attorney General reports to me so I’ve got to be careful about my statements to make sure that we’re not impairing any investigation that’s taking place right now.
But obviously, this is a tragedy. I can only imagine what these parents are going through. And when I think about this boy, I think about my own kids. And I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this, and that everybody pulls together -- federal, state and local -- to figure out exactly how this tragedy happened.
So I'm glad that not only is the Justice Department looking into it, I understand now that the governor of the state of Florida has formed a task force to investigate what's taking place. I think all of us have to do some soul searching to figure out how does something like this happen. And that means that examine the laws and the context for what happened, as well as the specifics of the incident.
But my main message is to the parents of Trayvon Martin. If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon. And I think they are right to expect that all of us as Americans are going to take this with the seriousness it deserves, and that we're going to get to the bottom of exactly what happened.
10:15 A.M. EDT | <urn:uuid:dc6cb663-48eb-48f1-9a77-bb2347c6b1e9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/03/23/remarks-president-nomination-dr-jim-kim-world-bank-president | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972138 | 1,358 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Global Security Newswire
Daily News on Nuclear, Biological & Chemical Weapons, Terrorism and Related Issues
Malaysia Prepares Biological Weapons Convention Implementation Legislation
Malaysian officials are preparing legislation intended to help the country meet its nonproliferation obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention, Bernama reported on Tuesday (see GSN, Sept. 8, 2010).
The bill is intended to ensure the secure management of disease agents without interfering with valid biological science efforts and rekated sectors, Prime Minister Najib Razak pledged in a statement to a biosecurity conference in Kuala Lumpur.
The government is interested in independent views on how it can promote the biotechnology field without endangering biological safety and security, according to the speech read by Defense Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi. Biosafety is generally defined as measures intended to prevent the release of infectious agents within a laboratory or the outside environment. Biosecurity involves more active methods to avert biological terrorism or other disease breakouts.
Global cooperation is needed to counter biological dangers, Najib said; he also noted the importance of laboratory capabilities, communication technology and first responders.
Malaysia faces a "striking insufficiency in vaccines and therapeutics," according to the prime minister.
Nations must determine useful systems and strategies for countering an act of bioterrorism or a natural outbreak of disease," he said.
"Biodefense responsiveness is a national and international security matter as biothreat could take place at any time," Najib said.
The defense minister said his department would lead preparation of the bill alongside the Science and Technology Research Institute for Defense. The legislation could be delivered to lawmakers by mid-2012 (Bernama/The Star, July 19).
Aug. 6, 2012
An annotated chronology of biological-related developments in North Korea | <urn:uuid:825598b1-b121-4b72-b10f-54057009af1d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/malaysia-prepares-biological-weapons-convention-implementation-legislation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926701 | 375 | 1.984375 | 2 |
Chinese environmental citizen journalist on trial
Detained for the past three months, Liu is being tried on criminal charges of "illegal expression" and "running an illegal business" in connection with his self-published books about environmental disasters caused by Chinese businesses operating on the island.
"This citizen journalist is facing the possibility of being unjustly imprisoned for providing a service to the public by investigating and exposing environmental threats," Reporters Without Borders said.
"Environmental issues are at the heart of any discussion on development in China. Liu's only crime is trying to tell as many people as possible about what he has learned from his research. His trial is an attempt to deter all citizen-journalists and get them to censor themselves."
Liu was receiving treatment in a Haikou hospital on 20 July when police came and took him away although his condition at the time was alarming. Detained ever since, he has not been allowed to receive any visits in recent weeks, not even from his lawyer.
Liu has dedicated his life to defending the environment, especially Hainan's forests and coastline. His self-published books, funded from his own savings and donations, have such titles as "Green Dream", "Hainan Tears" and "Eco-Warrior Liu Futang".
Covering such topics as the destruction of the Huarun coastline and the involvement of local politicians in the destruction, his books are registered with an ISBN number in Hong Kong and have had a total combined print-run of 18,000 copies. The Chinese authorities nonetheless insist that they are illegal.
Winner of the citizen journalism prize for China environmental journalism (awarded jointly by The Guardian, the NGO Chinadialogue and the Chinese microblog platform Sina), Liu has also posted many articles on the blog he began keeping in April 2011.
The blog is now inaccessible, with a welcome page saying it was closed without further details.
The Chinese authorities routinely suppress articles and blog posts on sensitive subjects by artists, human rights activists or writers in an attempt to stem the circulation of messages critical of the government.
China is ranked 174th out of 179 counties in the 2011/2012 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index and is on the Reporters Without Borders list of "Enemies of the Internet", which is updated every year. | <urn:uuid:5a850545-1c6b-4d8b-92e1-2663da594913> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ifex.org/china/2012/10/12/citizen_journalist_trial/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978931 | 468 | 1.515625 | 2 |
It’s hammer time for invasive species
Looking for a way to express your dislike for invasive species? A new game launching this weekend at the Bassmaster Classic Expo in Shreveport, Louisiana, might be just the outlet you need. “Whac-A-Mussel” plays just like the arcade classic Whac-A-Mole, but fiberglass zebra mussels pop up the holes instead of moles. Players “mash the mussels” to demonstrate their disdain for the mollusk invaders.
At the same time, players learn lessons about how they can stop the spread of not just invasive mussels, but all sorts of aquatic nuisance species. The game’s launch coincides with National Invasive Species Awareness Week, which kicks off February 26th in the U.S.
Players will win prizes for beating down the most mussels and can also take the Sportsman’s Stewardship Pledge and receive a special Stewardship Kit. The kit includes a shoreline cleanup bag, a booklet on how to live as a steward every day, and a special insert that specifically addresses fighting invasive species through the sport of fishing.
“Invasive species education is critical,” said Teeg Stouffer, Executive Director of Recycled Fish, one of the groups involved in the game’s creation. “But it can be kind of dry and boring. Just say the words ‘Invasive Species Education’ to people and watch their eyes glaze over. This is a learning tool that is fun, dynamic, engaging and interactive – it cuts through the clutter. We’re excited to introduce Whac-A-Mussel at the Bassmaster Classic!”
To extend the impact beyond the visitors at the Classic, Fishound will launch a new column featuring a 10-week educational series specifically focused on invasive species. ”Look forward to crazy stories about some of the most interesting people and fishing opportunities in North America,” said Jon Storm, Fishhound Content Director. “Each story will land back at how we fight invasive species, but these are surprising stories that will get people fired up.”
For more on Recycled Fish and its work to engage, educate and equip anglers to be responsible on the water, visit Recycled Fish. | <urn:uuid:bb79b225-f4a6-4832-932e-7dc04b6e34f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://outdoorcanada.ca/18746/blogs/weird-wild-and-wacky/its-hammer-time-for-invasive-species | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917006 | 483 | 1.945313 | 2 |
DAILY SCHEDULE & CURRICULUM
Throughout the day infants experience...
Each of these activities are done individually or with a small group. Many times the activities are carried out throughout the day as time permits because of the various schedules that each child has.
By doing these activities individually or with a small group, each child has attention specifically given at his or her own developmental level. Teachers help to mature each child's own natural development in order to master fundamental skills. | <urn:uuid:2f440a7a-7211-454f-ac21-1c7f9b32a23c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jesuslovesmejackson.org/site/cpage.asp?cpage_id=140016877&sec_id=140002299 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937225 | 98 | 2.625 | 3 |
"A day late, a dollar short," that's me. I brought my stuff home today. "Better late than never," I'm just full of them today.
I have two groundhogs today and I will have another activity tomorrow. The first groundhog is very similar to the hibernating bear. Our one Pre-K class made these. You need a pre-cut groundhog that gets attached to a stick and then use a styrofoam cup for his hole and he can pop in and out of the hole.
The second groundhog was made by our other Pre-K teacher. You will need:
groundhog head shape
Fold the paper plate in half. The teacher had cut a small area out of the middle of the paper plate, this is where the straw will slide up and down. Next have the children draw a face on the groundhog, then color the outside of the plate.
The straw gets taped to the back of the groundhog head. Then glue the poem to the front of the plate and the sun to the inside of the plate. Now slide the straw through the pre-cut hole and the groundhog can pop in and out of his hole. | <urn:uuid:29a0ec03-8de3-4db4-aed2-a124cebb4618> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.preschoolplaybook.com/2009/02/pop-up-groundhog.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97616 | 247 | 2.296875 | 2 |
CNN devoted a weekend piece to gun ownership produced by Daphne Sashin. It is the first article that I read today because it infuriates me. In the wake of yet another crime committed with guns that resulted in a large number of deaths by a mentally ill person who followed the rules and purchased an AK-47 combat assault weapon and 6,000 rounds of ammunition to commit a well planned act of violence, CNN published a story from the gun lovers point of view.
Contrary to the report’s vignettes, the reasons for gun ownership in the U.S. are easy to explain. Start with “‘Firearms are a way of life.’”
In some remote places and mostly agrarian communities or places where workers encounter natural predators and need protection, guns may be needed as tools of the trade. Those circumstances are well defined and can be easily regulated and accommodated with administration of federal laws by local authorities. Exceptional needs and circumstances can be attended.
The basis for guns in America begins with the Constitutional Right to Bear Arms that was intended for pioneering America when citizens had to confront a lawless wilderness. Guns were needed to shoot game and kill Native Americans. Guns were needed to form militias and to combat the British on more than one occasion.
Having state militias in the form of the National Guard makes good sense. It is a back up to the full-time armed military services. Having armed state and local police is needed to protect society against criminals too.
Yet, would modern society not be safer if citizens were not armed to the hilt with pistols, rifles, and shotguns? Gun toters will argue that without their being armed, some criminals might invade their household and harm their families because criminals will find a way to have weapons and ammunition.
I would argue, let’s disarm and work on that problem, knowing that disarming America would take a lifetime. In the process of disarming America, expect that crimes committed with guns to reduce and trend downward.
As for people who love shooting guns as a hobby or pastime, I suspect that fetish could be managed by licensed gun clubs where people visit the “range” to check out a weapon and shoot at targets. They may also visit wild game preserves for hunting purposes under regulated and supervised seasonal activities.
But, the wide open arming of America must come to an end because Americans want to become civilized now.
Several of the stories from gun owners in the CNN report are from small towns in Ohio where I was raised as a child. My Dad taught me how to hunt from the time that I could barely carry a 410 gauge shotgun. We lived in Mt. Gilead, Ohio where my Grandfather was once the County Sheriff. Dad did this because it was a tradition to hunt rabbits, squirrels, and pheasants when in season. It wasn’t just a sport because we ate the meat from the hunts.
It didn’t take me too long to realize that this was a waste of time. I would rather just hike with Dad in the woods than to worry about guns and the possibility of shooting someone by accident. I put my gun away early in life and didn’t address that again until it was time to enter the Army and learn how to kill Vietnamese people. That is another story.
To me gun ownership is symptomatic of America’s propensity for violence. When “We the People” can adopt a different set of values, the nation will become safer and all of the data in the world supports that position. Ignorance and exploitation of ignorance by a perverted industry is what is holding us back from shedding our antiquated and obsolete behavior.
“5 things gun owners want you to know
This story started on CNN iReport
By Daphne Sashin, CNN
updated 10:16 PM EDT, Fri August 3, 2012
(CNN) -- Guns are an American pastime. A way to feed a family. A way to protect a family.
A way of life.
Those are some of the words gun owners use to describe their relationship with firearms and the powerful emotions that stir up when they talk about them.
In the days after a gunman killed a dozen theater-goers in Aurora, Colorado, talk turned to gun ownership, access and restrictions, as it often does after mass shootings.
CNN iReport went to the firearms owners and asked for their perspective. We received more than 400 iReports from gun owners. The stories of gun ownership in America and the feelings behind it are diverse and not so easily explained.
Here are five things they want the world to know:
"Owning a firearm is not a right that I take lightly." -- Jason Bostic, Fredericktown, Ohio
Jason Bostic, a firefighter and information technology director in Fredericktown, Ohio, grew up around firearms and now owns guns for protection, recreational shooting, competition, hunting and investment. When seconds count, he feels confident knowing he could defend himself against a violent criminal.
He is aware that gun ownership comes with heavy responsibilities. That has meant attending hunter safety courses, shooting workshops, specific training for pistols, rifles, shotguns and self defense, among other instruction.
Fear drives opposition to gun control
Bostic is the father of a toddler, who he already talks to about guns. When the time is right, he will teach his boy how to properly handle firearms so the child can pass on the family tradition.
"He doesn't touch them, he doesn't play with them, and there is no free-willy-nilly pointing toy gun at people," Bostic wrote. "He asks questions when they are out or when I am cleaning and doing work on them and they are answered. Most importantly my guns are secured."
"If you love your children, you will teach them how to handle a real firearm." -- Ilidio Serra, Aurora, Illinois
Too many children are exposed to the fantasy weapons of video games and not real ones, says Ilidio Serra. He calls himself a "Democratic liberal" but also feels strongly that the more he can take the mystery and glamour out of firearms for his 11-year-old son, the safer his child will be.
He thinks other parents should do the same. | <urn:uuid:e7eaa589-d63c-48ee-8278-85c7caef2a7b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.examiner.com/article/gun-ownership-antiquated-and-dangerous-fetish?cid=rss&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974113 | 1,300 | 1.75 | 2 |
According to the U.S. Surgeon General, approximately 20-25% of American adults experience a diagnosable mental disorder during a given year. Diversity Awareness in Professional Nursing recognizes that such individuals have poorer health outcomes, less healthcare access, and multiple co-morbidities that make mental disorder and illness a relevant clinical practice issue for all nurses, irrespective of specialty area. It is our desire to provide you with meaningful clinical support tools that will help you identify and meet the needs of your patients who may be struggling with mental distress.
Please stay tuned for new materials in this area and feel free to share your perspectives with us in the comments section. | <urn:uuid:cba9d3fd-8526-417f-81c4-c240f0af936e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/ThePracticeofProfessionalNursing/Improving-Your-Practice/Diversity-Awareness/Mental-Health/default.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945273 | 132 | 1.75 | 2 |
Bell’s work with the Aerial Experiment Association was a large part of his life in Baddeck, from his early kite-flying experiments to the flight of the Silver Dart airplane in February 1909.
Kite historians from Germany, Great Britain, The Netherlands, Canada and the United States are happy to share their expertise in talks and demonstrations highlighting the impact of kites as prototype aircraft, scientific tools and as a fun activity for anyone. Throughout the summit, they will also demonstrate kite flying techniques at various Baddeck area locations.
“Baddeck is famous around the world with kiters,” said George Paisiovich, curator of Canada’s only kite museum, located on Pelee Island, Ont., one of the organizers of the summit in conjunction with Parks Canada and a host of other sponsors. “Kites are the link between being on the ground and powered flight. We are embracing Baddeck, we want to engage the community, kites are about history but they are also about fun.”
Ulli Draheim of Germany, a builder, collector and kite flyer, has been interested in the history of kites for over 25 years.
“I’m interested in the history of kites and the kites of history. My wife says it is a disease,” he said jokingly. “I have a collection of more than 500 kites, but she doesn’t allow any on the first floor of our home. I have French kites that are more than a century old and made with silk.”
Draheim, who brought along some of his varied collection, described his visit to Baddeck as a “journey into the past.”
“I’ve read a lot of the works of Alexander Graham Bell, which showed the human side of the study of kites,” he said. “For me this is a dream come true. I’m proud to be here and to learn from colleagues and exchange information.”
Draheim recalls as a youngster building his first kite from a kit sent to him from his aunt, who lived in Denver, Colorado.
“It smelled like coffee and chocolate,” he said. “To fly a kite for me is like hanging my soul in the sky, that’s what I feel. A major highlight for me was to fly a kite in Beijing, China, that was made of garbage. I’m very proud to own this kite, it is one of my favorites. Every kite has its own story.”
Along with a series of lectures, the summit features demonstrations, kite-making workshops and kite flying. | <urn:uuid:299b4667-d1ba-48ca-9495-b8f5f1899b0b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.capebretonpost.com/Community/2012-06-29/article-3020633/Kites-To-Flight-2012-Summit-shines-light-on-history-of-kites/1 | 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 | 0.97973 | 579 | 2.34375 | 2 |
Ral-La-La-La-, Ral-La-La-La: Act One
Humperdinck was born Arnold George Dorsey on May 2, 1936, in Madras, India. His father worked as an engineer for the British Army, and the family returned to England when Arnold was seven, settling in Leicester. Arnold took up the saxophone at age 11, but didn't really try his hand at singing until 17, when his friends talked him into entering a small local singing contest. Not only did he earn a standing ovation, he also impressed the audience with a knack for comic impressions, particularly Jerry Lewis (which he often included in his later live shows). In fact, his Lewis impression gave him his first stage name, Gerry Dorsey. He started singing in nightclubs, but after finishing school, he put his budding music career on hiatus to serve in the military through 1956.
When Dorsey returned, he got the chance to record for Decca in 1958, but the lone single released, "I'll Never Fall in Love Again," flopped. He managed a few appearances on British television, most prominently on the show Oh, Boy!, and toured with Marty Wilde; the exposure helped him become a popular concert attraction in his own right, even though he had no hits of his own. His career was nearly derailed in 1961 when he contracted tuberculosis, which kept him completely out of commission for six months; once he recovered, he found that England's burgeoning rock & roll movement was pushing more traditional pop out of the spotlight.
As Gerry Dorsey, he struggled for several years until he got in touch with former roommate Gordon Mills in 1965. Once the lead singer of a skiffle group called the Viscounts, Mills had moved into artist management, and at the time was enjoying breakout success with Tom Jones. It was Mills who suggested that Dorsey change his name to the well-nigh unforgettable Engelbert Humperdinck, after the 19th century Austrian composer who adapted Hansel and Gretel into an opera. To create an air of mystery around the singer, Mills insisted that he refrain from any contact with his fans following concerts, even if that meant escaping through windows. The gimmicks worked, as the newly christened Humperdinck scored a new deal with Decca. His first two singles, "Dommage Dommage" and "Stay," were released in 1966, and both missed the charts. But the third time proved to be the charm. In 1967, Humperdinck cut a pop-ballad version of "Release Me," previously a hit for country singer Ray Price and R&B chanteuse Esther Phillips; Humperdinck's cover made the song a standard. Given some exposure by the singer's last-minute addition to a bill at the London Palladium, it rocketed to the top of the British charts and sold over a million copies, ultimately keeping the Beatles' seminal double-sided hit "Penny Lane"/"Strawberry Fields Forever" out of the top spot. It also went to number four in America, where the accompanying album made the Top Ten.
"Release Me" kicked off a streak of seven straight Top Five hits in the U.K., which lasted into 1969. Those hits included "There Goes My Everything," the million-selling number one "The Last Waltz," "Am I That Easy to Forget," "A Man Without Love," "Les Bicyclettes de Belsize," and "The Way It Used to Be." While they weren't as successful on the American pop charts (none reached the Top Ten), they all made the Top Ten on the easy listening charts; his albums of the 1967-1970 period sold well too, as his first six all landed in the Top 20. Humperdinck's string of easy listening hits continued apace in the early '70s; 1970 brought "Winter World of Love," "Sweetheart," and "My Marie," and the following year "Another Time, Another Place" and "When There's No You." By this time, Humperdinck had become a hugely popular live act, touring extensively on the cabaret and nightclub circuits, and became a regular in Las Vegas as well.
Humperdinck concerts were such a profitable enterprise, in fact, that the singer's management began to de-emphasize recordings, instead encouraging him to continue touring. As a result, the chart placements of his less frequent new material were suffering considerably by the mid-'70s. In late 1976, after signing a new deal with Epic, Humperdinck did return to make his second appearance in the American Top Ten with "After the Lovin'," an adult contemporary chart-topper that also made the lower reaches of the country charts. The album of the same name made the Top 20 and gave him his biggest-selling LP since 1970. Humperdinck topped the adult contemporary charts one last time with 1979's "This Moment in Time," and had his last chart single in 1983, with "Til You and Your Lover Are Lovers Again."
Humperdinck continued to make a profitable living on tour and in Las Vegas, still commanding a sizable female following; by this time, his act featured several celebrity impressions -- not just Jerry Lewis, but Dean Martin, Elvis Presley, and Julio Iglesias. Compilations of his work were heavily advertised through direct-marketing campaigns on American television, keeping his sales at a steady pace; he also re-recorded much of his material in different languages, helping maintain his popularity across Europe. He attempted a recording comeback with the 1987 album Remember I Love You, which featured a duet with Gloria Gaynor and wound up earning him a Golden Globe Entertainer of the Year award. The lounge revival of the '90s helped bring traditional pop and smooth crooning back into fashion, and Humperdinck found himself with a new hip cachet; he capitalized by recording "Lesbian Seagull," a song for the Beavis and Butt-Head Do America soundtrack, in 1996. He followed it with a foray into contemporary dance-pop, The Dance Album, for the Interhit label in 1998; a new version of "Release Me" had some success in the dance clubs. In 2003, the Hip-O label issued Definition of Love, a new album featuring standards, rock oldies, and more recent pop hits by the likes of Aerosmith and Robbie Williams. ~ Steve Huey, Rovi
Track samples provided courtesy of iTunes
Also by Engelbert Humperdinck
Shazam gives you instant satisfaction when you want to know what song is playing:
- Identify music
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Put Your Head On My Shoulder
From Souvenirs To Souvenirs
Frank Sinatra And Count Basie And His Orchestra
Fly Me To The Moon
It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year
Nat King Cole
The Christmas Song
Willie NelsonJulio Iglesias
To All The Girls I've Loved Before | <urn:uuid:43c43e30-e8c1-4b9c-abee-e53defaf3771> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shazam.com/music/web/track?id=10050970 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975961 | 1,466 | 1.710938 | 2 |
track1 S2 W2
a narrow path or road with a rough uneven surface, especially one made by people or animals frequently moving through the same place:
The road leading to the farm was little more than a dirt track.
The track led through dense forest.
a steep mountain track
a line of marks left on the ground by a moving person, animal, or vehicle:
marks on ground[plural]
We followed the tyre tracks across a muddy field.
The tracks, which looked like a fox's, led into the woods.
a circular course around which runners, cars etc race, which often has a specially prepared surface: ➔ dirt track (2)
To run a mile, you have to run four circuits of the track.
the two metal lines along which trains travel [= railway line]:
The track was damaged in several places.
b) American English
the particular track that a train leaves from or arrives at:
The train for Boston is leaving from track 2.
to think in a way that is likely to lead to a correct or incorrect result:
We've had the initial test results and it looks as though we're on the right track.
to pay attention to someone or something, so that you know where they are or what is happening to them, or to fail to do this:
It's difficult to keep track of all the new discoveries in genetics.
I just lost all track of time.
one of the songs or pieces of music on a record, cassette, or CD:
There's a great Miles Davis track on side two.
to suddenly stop, especially because something has frightened or surprised you
to be careful not to leave any signs that could let people know where you have been or what you have done because you want to keep it a secret, usually because it is illegal:
He tried to cover his tracks by burning all the documents.
sport[uncountable] American English
sport that involves running on a track:
The next year he didn't run track or play football.
all the sports in an athletics competition such as running, jumping, or throwing the javelin:
a famous track star
She went out for track in the spring (=she joined the school's track team).
to be likely to achieve the result you want:
We're still on track for 10% growth.
to begin to deal with a new subject rather than the main one which was being discussed:
Don't get off the track, we're looking at this year's figures not last year's.
to hunt or search for someone or something:
Police are on the track of the bank robbers.
used to say you must leave a place:
It's time we started making tracks.
the direction or line taken by something as it moves
islands that lie in the track of North Atlantic storms
a continuous metal band that goes over the wheels of a vehicle such as a bulldozer, allowing it to move over uneven ground
on a vehicle[countable]TT
➔ off the beaten trackat beaten (1), one-track mind
➔ be from the wrong side of the tracksat wrong1 (17)WORD FOCUS: road
a big road: main road, highway, motorway British English, freeway American English, expressway, turnpike American English, interstate American English, A-road British English
a road in a town: street, avenue, boulevard
a road in the countryside: country road, lane, track
a road you pay to use: toll road
parts of a road: fast lane, slow lane, hard shoulder British English/shoulder American English, central reservation British English/median strip American English, pavement British English/sidewalk American English
➔ See also road | <urn:uuid:d0718e54-6675-4a28-b0db-a44267fbea83> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ldoceonline.com/Trains,+Railways-topic/track_1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951536 | 797 | 2.953125 | 3 |
ReEnergy to acquire another biomass plant
Waste fuel/biomass energy company ReEnergy Holdings LLC has announced its second proposed biomass power plant acquisition this month, entering into an agreement with Central Hudson Enterprises Corp. for its Lyonsdale Biomass Facility in Lyon Falls, N.Y.
The 22-megawatt (MW) wood-fired cogeneration facility has been operating since 1992. Terms of the agreement, which the companies expect to close in May, are not being disclosed.
Earlier in March, ReEnergy announced that it intends to acquire NewPage Corp.’s cogeneration facility in Rumford, Maine, for $61 million. The companies expect to finalize the agreement in the second quarter of this year.
Aside from the two potential acquisitions, ReEnergy owns and operates two construction and demolition waste and wood processing facilities in southern New Hampshire, as well as a 31-MW tire-to-energy plant in Sterling, Conn. | <urn:uuid:9c7ddb59-60e9-4b3c-8b18-70bb6f2bc276> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://biomassmagazine.com/articles/5406/reenergy-to-acquire-another-biomass-plant | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957983 | 197 | 1.5625 | 2 |
The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation has put ten places across the state on their annual list of threatened historic sites. The annual, "Places in Peril" list spotlights properties at risk for demolition. It also includes places that are not being maintained, as well as those suffering as a result of bad public policy or new development.
The properties that made the list are; Central State Hospital in Milledgeville, Paradise Gardens in Summerville, Morris Brown College in Atlanta, Canton Grammar School in Canton, Leake Archeological Site in Cartersville, Dorchester Academy in Midway, the Old Dodge County Jail in Eastman, the Ritz Theatre in Thomaston, Herndon Plaza in Atlanta, and the old Capricorn Records Recording Studio in Macon where the Allman Brothers recorded much of their music.
Being placed on the list means the properties become eligible for on-site preservation assistance from the Georgia Trust. Officials say it is also designed to raise public awareness about the many significant historic sites located here in Georgia. | <urn:uuid:5977be25-1855-4b74-b08d-d468061cc7f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gpb.org/news/2009/11/05/georgia-trust-names-endangered-sites | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946068 | 213 | 1.796875 | 2 |
How to analyze your electricity usage
Q: I see gadgets being sold at home improvement stores that measure energy use for things plugged in at home. Would purchasing one help me save energy?
The gadget you mention is a watt meter. It's a device that measures the amount of wattage a plug-in electrical appliance uses. Some can monitor usage over a period of time. Most of them allow you to input your electric rate to determine how much it costs to run your television or toaster for a period of time. Some popular products include the Kill A Watt, Belkin Conserve Insight and Watts Up?. A watt meter may help you save energy if you change your habits based on what you learn from it.
You can do the same analysis with a pen and paper instead of purchasing a gadget. Here's how:
Determine the wattage. Most small appliances have wattage indicated on them, like a hair dryer, computer or coffee maker. It can be difficult to find the wattage on large appliances because it may involve moving the dishwasher, clothes washer or refrigerator, which is not very practical. If you can easily reach the plug, a watt meter would come in handy. The other option is to visit www.energysavers.gov/your_home/appliances and click "Estimating Appliance and Home Electronic Energy Use" to see a detailed list of approximate wattage used by most home appliances.
Know your habits. How many hours each day is the television used? How long do you leave the coffee maker running each morning? How long do you use an electric space heater to warm up a room when it is cold outside?
Determine your electric rate. You're looking for the kilowatt-hour (kwh) rate. It should be between 10 and 16 cents for most households in North Carolina. You can find your kwh rate on your bill or by calling your electric cooperative. Another option is to do the math by dividing the dollar amount charged for a month of usage by the total kwh used in that month. Make sure that you are looking at the amount charged for the kwh (not fees, taxes, water or trash removal).
Do the math to determine the kwh usage and cost. I have broken it into two steps to keep it simple.
Step 1: (Device wattage x hours used per month) ÷ 1,000 = Monthly kilowatt-hour (kwh) consumption
(Monthly kwh consumption) x (kwh rate) = Monthly cost
Hair dryer example: My hair dryer uses 1,600 watts. I use it for 5 minutes every morning. That means I use it for 150 minutes every month (5 minutes x 30 days), which converts to 2.5 hours each month (150 minutes ÷ 60 minutes). My electric rate is $0.12 per kwh. I'm ready to use the formula.
Step 2: (1,600 watts x 2.5 hours) ÷ 1,000 = 4 kwh per month. Then, 4 kwh x $0.12 = $0.48.
Whew! It only costs $5.76 to use my hair dryer 5 minutes a day for an entire year ($0.48 x 12 months).
Television example: On the other hand, leaving your television on all the time costs a little bit more. My television uses 135 watts. Let's see what it costs per day.
(135 watts x 24 hours) ÷ 1000 = 3.24 kwh per day. Then, 3.24 kwh x $0.12 = $0.39 per day.
To leave it on all day, every day would cost me $142.35 each year!
Another good use of these plug-in watt meters is the ability to see how much energy an appliance uses when it is turned "off." Yes, many appliances use energy while waiting to be turned on such as DVD players, TVs, stereo systems, etc. and it can contribute to your overall power bill. We call that "phantom" or "vampire" loads — consuming energy while seemingly turned off. If you find "phantom watts" being wasted, a plug-in power strip with an on/off switch will stop the wasteful watts from flowing.
Your electric use can go down if you change your habits from what you learn. Suggestions to start include turning off electronics (power strip) while you are not using them, using Energy Star-labeled lighting products, replacing older inefficient appliances with Energy Star-labeled ones or simply hanging your clothes outside to dry. Involve everyone in your household, especially kids, and make changes to your habits at a speed that suits your family. The secret to success is making it a fun learning experience and a family team effort. | <urn:uuid:418f65f2-77de-42e7-b86f-13de8959bea8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.carolinacountry.com/index.php/your-energy/item/how-to-analyze-your-electricity-usage-2?category_id=65 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927473 | 999 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Researchers have found that low to moderate amounts of alcohol may improve the quality of life among individuals with fibromyalgia.
Investigators found that modest alcohol intake was associated with lower severity of symptoms of fibromyalgia as compared to those with fibromyalgia who abstained from alcohol.
However, as reported in the open access journal Arthritis Research & Therapy, too much alcohol reversed this effect.
Fibromyalgia is associated with chronic pain, and has no known cause or cure. The disorder often goes hand in hand with fatigue and sleep problems, headaches, depression and irritable bowel and bladder problems.
Treatment is traditionally focused on pain management and lifestyle changes.
Researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and the University of Michigan surveyed patients with fibromyalgia to examine the association between alcohol and their severity of symptoms and quality of life.
In the study, researchers discovered low and moderate drinkers reported better scores for physical function, ability to work, the number of work days missed, fatigue and pain, than people who abstained.
Moreover, moderate drinkers who had between three and seven standard-size drinks a week seemed to have less pain than low or heavy drinkers, even when the results were controlled for confounding factors.
Investigators also found similar results for the quality of life scale, including social functioning, vitality and general health.
Study leader Terry Oh, M.D., of the Mayo Clinic suggested moderate drinking may mitigate the effects of a low production of gamma-aminobutyric Acid (GABA), an inhibitory neurotransmitter, in the brain in fibromyalgia.
Low levels of GABA in the nervous system may cause an amplified reaction to pain. Alcohol binds to the GABA receptor in the central nervous system which in turn may turn down pain transmission.
“However the effects of alcohol may also be due to improved mood, socialization and tension, and while moderate drinkers have fewer symptoms there are still many questions about how this happens,” Oh said.
Source: Biomed Central | <urn:uuid:fc03cb66-b094-40f1-bbd8-ff484335a68b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/03/18/some-alcohol-may-ease-fibromyalgia-symptoms/52744.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953495 | 405 | 2.265625 | 2 |
Española was founded in the 1880s as a stop on the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. The railroad has disappeared, but the city has grown and prospered as the commercial center for the Valley's smaller villages.
A community rich in tradition and values, the cultural quilt of Española encompasses many centuries od history. From the moment Don Juan de Oñate established the first new-world capital here some 400 years ago, Española has been defined by diversity and cultural mobility-everything from extraordinary lowrider automobiles to world -class dining and sigtseeing. Deep Hispanic family roots coexist easily with contemporary values and practices, giving Española its own unique personality. In July the City commemorates the Valley's founding in 1598 with the Fiesta del Valle de Española. The farolitos and luminarias lining the streets give Christmas Eve a special New Mexican flavor.
Near the Junction of the Rio Grande and the Chama river, across the bridge from San Juan Indian Pueblo, the ruins of San Gabriel de Españoles overlook a broad valley. Here, Captain Juan de Oñate settled his colony July 11, 1598.
Oñate laid out the first "acequia", or irrigation system. Tradition gives the present San Juan acequia as the first one established by the colony and therefore, the oldest irrigation canal in the United States.
He brought from Mexico about three thousand head for breeding and a thousand head for mutton. His livestock included 1000 goats, 300 black cattle, and 150 mares and colts. The San Juan Indians had welcomed the Spanish in 1598. In 1680 they took the lead in expelling the colonists.
The Indians had been under Spanish rule for three or four generations. Finally a San Juan Indian with great administrative ability, succeeded in organizing many of the natives and planning an uprising. Tradition gives as the immediate cause of hostilities, the caving in of a silver mine with great loss of life by the enslaved Indians.
Because mining had been carried on by the Colonists, the Natives destroyed all traces of the mines.
In April of 1695, De Vargas personally led the settlers from Santa Fe to Santa Cruz. The resetlement of the valley by DeVargas was named La Villa Nueva de Santa Cruz de los Españoles Mexicanos del rey nuestro Don Carlos Segundo. It was called Villa Nuevo because the original Vialla built by Oñate colonists had been largely destroyed by the Indians qho raided it in 1669. It was usually referred to as Villa Nueva or La Cañada.
Española became a city in 1880 when the Denver and Rio Grande Western RailRoad, the famous "Chile Line" arrived.
Nestled between the Sangre de Cristos and Jemez moutain ranges, Española is made up of three great civilizations: Indian , Spanish and Anglo. The Española Valley and its surrounding country is a fascinationg spot for those who love color and romance as well as beautiful valleys and the trails of the high mountain country. | <urn:uuid:1b67b17c-5e36-40a8-8510-1f22f425a106> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~celina/histespan.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940056 | 651 | 3 | 3 |
Those fearing an impending zombie outbreak at Virginia Tech can rest easy.
In September, Stephanie McCracken, a junior majoring in biochemistry, created a Facebook event for Survive Blacksburg in the hopes that she and some friends would play, but she didn’t expect over 1,000 people to RSVP in the first month.
With such a huge interest in the event, which was planned for today, Oct. 28, the creators were forced to take a step back and think about the legal issues involved with planning such a large event on campus. According to university policy, organized events on campus are only allowed if they are sponsored by a student group or organization and if they have prior approval.
“I figured it would be me and a few friends so that it would be big enough to be fun, but I didn’t think it would get big enough to where it would become an issue,” McCracken said. “(But) I realized that having an event this big on campus would be very obstructive,” McCracken said.
Tech agreed with her stance.
“If you have a group of people on the sidewalk they might be disrupting people trying to get to class, the issue becomes that an event may be a disruption to the orderly flow of campus activity,” said university spokesman Larry Hincker.
Survive Blacksburg was designed as a large game of tag, except with zombies doing the tagging.
The event would pit a group of “infected” zombies against the rest of the “uninfected” playing the game.
McCracken got the idea from similar games in D.C. and in her hometown of Hampton.
“Basically I got an invitation on Facebook and I thought wow this sounds really fun,” McCracken said.
In the game “zombies” and “humans” start a central point and throughout the game the object is to reach three checkpoints and become a survivor. Armbands distinguish the living from the dead — a green one for zombies and a yellow one for the alive. Once you have been tagged you switch your wristband to green.
After talking with the events planning office McCracken realized that for it to be a university-recognized event, the group needs a sponsoring organization. Having insurance and security officers for the events also became an issue.
Some organizations had shown interest in supporting the event, but none had the funding for the insurance or security Survive Blacksburg would require as of last night, Oct. 27. According to McCracken, insurance alone on the event would run $5,000.
If the plan does come through in later months, McCracken hopes to make a possible charity event, having every participant pay $5 to play and have the profits go to a charity such as Invisible Children or Relay for Life.
“I want to do it right, I don’t want it to turn into something where people are being disruptive, destroying property or getting hurt,” McCracken said. | <urn:uuid:1f1a2b87-ca6d-498f-951f-2da41fdf84f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.collegiatetimes.com/stories/18674/struggling-for-survival-zombie-run-postponed-for-later-date | 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 | 0.976079 | 638 | 1.75 | 2 |
Postprint version. Published in The Journal of Social Psychology, Volume 132, Issue 2, January 1, 1992, pages 169-177.
Copyright © 1992 Taylor & Francis. This is an electronic version of an article published in The Journal of Social Psychology.
The definitive version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1992.9922969.
Social-psychological research on stereotyping was applied to lesbianism among American college students. The hypothesis that stereotypes of lesbians are often inaccurate predictors of individual lesbians was supported. Using stereotypes of lesbians identified by previous research, lesbians rated themselves on a series of bipolar stereotypical adjectives, and a comparison group of nonlesbians rated lesbians as a group on these same adjectives. Significant differences were found on 16 of the 21 adjectives. Knowing a lesbian personally did not influence heterosexuals' ratings, suggesting the resistance of stereotypes to change. | <urn:uuid:f0d0c70d-e668-4d71-91fb-b8f15a4707e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/psycd_fac/42/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907128 | 189 | 2.359375 | 2 |
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Brownsea Island: live in your living room
BIRD lovers everywhere will be able to enjoy the delights of a unique Poole Harbour habitat in what is believed to be the first live webcam venture of its kind.
For the feathered stars of Brownsea Island’s lagoon there is now no hiding place as two strategically placed cameras will be able to follow their every move.
The launch of the live webcam will give anyone anywhere the opportunity to see the thousands of waders which congregate to rest and feed on the sheltered lagoon at this time of year and breeding gulls and terns in the spring.
“I don’t think anyone else in the country is doing this kind of thing,” said local naturalist Paul Morton.
“While there are webcams pointed at nesting birds, these roving cameras can swivel 360 degrees from their mountings on two hides overlooking the lagoon and zoom in up to 40 times.
“This is pretty groundbreaking and unique, what we are trying to achieve,” said Paul. “We will be able to see tern chicks hatching on the islands.”
A partnership between Dorset Wildlife Trust, which runs the island’s nature reserve, the National Trust which owns the island and the newly launched Birds of Poole Harbour website, the aim is to educate and inspire people to visit.
It has been funded by patron Mark Constantine, who founded the Lush cosmetics company and The Sound Approach publishing company, who donated £22,000 to the project.
“I’m delighted to be involved,” said the enthusiastic birder.
“Part of what this is about is to educate people and explain why the lagoon is so important.”
In winter 25-30 different species visit, including ducks, waders, gulls, geese, spoonbills and birds of prey including peregrine falcon and merlin. The greatest number of wintering avocet recorded is around 1,720, and in summer breeding birds include Common and Sandwich tern, seagulls and for the first time last summer a Mediterranean gull.
“You can’t get the smell on the web at the moment,” said Chris Thain, DWT reserve manager. “You can get the visual impact and the noise and these are really important.”
Nigel Webb, chairman of DWT, said: “There is probably nowhere else in Britain where you can see so much in such a specific area.”
You can view the Brownsea Island lagoon live at dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk/brownseacam or birdsofpooleharbour.co.uk | <urn:uuid:a8bc78cc-3ed8-451e-9dd8-35faa1c2653a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/10149154.Brownsea_Island__live_in_your_living_room/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918111 | 598 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Research Shows Thinning Snow Layers in the Rocky Mountains
Or download MP3 (Right-click or option-click and save link)
This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. I’m Faith Lapidus.
And I’m Bob Doughty. Today, we tell about evidence of what some scientists are calling one of the last dinosaurs to exist. We tell about shrinking snow cover in North America’s Rocky Mountains. We also talk about the Microsoft Imagine Cup finals in New York City.
Scientists think parts of the Earth may have sounded like this about sixty-five million years ago.
Then, suddenly, there was this:
For thirty years, scientists have found evidence that a huge rock from space, an asteroid, struck the Earth, killing all dinosaurs. They think the asteroid hit somewhere near the Gulf of Mexico. They say it was so powerful that a large amount of very hot dirt, dust, and water was thrown into the air and then began to circle the Earth. Those creatures not killed by the explosion soon died from extreme heat in the air.
But wait! That may not be true, say scientists who have another idea. They agree that a large object from space probably hit our planet millions of years ago. But the scientists say that when that happened, the dinosaurs had all been dead for a long time.
Researchers from Yale University now think they know what really happened. The researchers found a bone from the head of a large dinosaur. They made the discovery in the Hell Creek area in the American state of Montana. The location of the bone is the clue to solving the mystery.
Geologists often study what scientists call the K-T boundary. That is a layer of soil and rock that marks major changes in the earth’s history, like when the asteroid hit. When dinosaur bones are found in the lower parts of the K-T boundary, it suggests to some scientists that those animals died a very long time ago. They say the dinosaurs died long before the asteroid struck the Earth.
The bone that the Yale researchers found was much higher in that layer of rock and dirt. The researchers believe the bone was from a Triceratops that died sixty-five million years ago. The discovery was made just a few centimeters below what became the K-T boundary line. That means that this creature and probably many others were alive until the asteroid hit the earth.
Dinosaurs did not slowly die out millions of years ago. The huge asteroid, the scientists say, was the cause of their extinction. They were killed within a very short period of time when the violent explosion took place.
Until now, geologists have been surprised by the lack of dinosaur bones and other fossils within three meters below the K-T line. This area is known among scientists as the “three meter gap.” In the words of Yale University researcher Tyler Lyson, “This discovery suggests that the ‘three meter gap’ does not exist. At least some dinosaurs were doing just fine right up until the impact.” And that makes this Triceratops the youngest dinosaur ever found, and the closest in time to the big asteroid’s crash.
The results of the latest research on Montana dinosaurs were published last month in “Biology Letters.”
Millions of people depend on the snowpack in North America’s Rocky Mountains for water. But a new report says the amount of snow that stays on the ground there each spring has shrunk over the past eight hundred years. The report appeared last month in Science magazine.
The report says one cause of the thinning snowpack may be climate change, the warming of Earth’s atmosphere. Gregory Pederson was a leader of the study. He works for the United States Geological Survey in Bozeman, Montana. He notes that during warmer weather, the northern Rocky Mountains usually receive rain instead of snow. The rain does not stay. And whatever snow that falls melts faster than normal.
Much research on the subject has been reported during the past ten years. Mister Pederson says those studies identified human activity as the cause of some of the changes in the permanent snow. He says his team’s findings support the results of the earlier studies.
GREGORY PEDERSON:”Attributing a proportion of those changes to human impacts has been done by well over a decade of observational and modeling studies… “And what we are documenting here is that trees are telling the same story about snowpack change.”
Conditions in the ocean and the atmosphere that can make spring temperatures warmer also may influence the changes.
The research team studied places that produce major amounts of water. They include drainage basins, areas of water fed by three rivers -- the Colorado, the Columbia and the Missouri. The researchers say the basins provide sixty to eighty percent of the water needs of more than seventy million people.
The report says there were extremely unusual losses in water flowing into those areas in the late twentieth century. This was found to be especially true after the nineteen eighties.
The news of reduced snowpack in the Rockies may surprise people who live there. Record-size snowpack and heavy flooding have affected the area recently. But Gregory Pederson says the unusually large snowpack demonstrates only one single weather event. He said the unusual conditions do not represent the climate over hundreds of years.
The research team measured tree rings to help learn about the climate over time. Trees form these rings, or circles of new growth, each year. The circles develop between the bark, or outside skin, of the tree and its core, or center. The lines help tell the age of the tree.
GREGORY PEDERSON “They [the trees] can be accurately dated to the calendar year.”
To examine the rings, the team made small holes into several trees and removed small pieces of wood. He said the places where the trees were cut soon closed over and healed.
Mister Pederson says tree rings can tell about moisture and cloud conditions. They also can provide climate information, including temperatures and the flow of waterways. In some cases, tree rings can show tree injuries from snow slides.
Finally, hundreds of students from around the world gathered in New York City last month for the Microsoft Imagine Cup finals. They came to present their ideas for using technology to solve world problems.
Microsoft education director Suzi Levine says the nine-year-old program began mainly as a competition to create technology.
SUZI LEVINE: "When we realized that students really actually want to have a purpose for what they’re creating, we introduced the idea of inspiring them with the UN Millennium Development Goals and suggesting that they use those for their muse."
New sources for ideas this year included intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations.
SUZI LEVINE: "This past year we also rolled out something called the Imagine Cup Solve This library, where IGOs, NGOs and nonprofits can submit some of the technical challenges that they would like students to consider for their solutions."
Microsoft says over three hundred fifty thousand high school and college students registered for the recent competition. Judges chose more than four hundred of them to attend the finals.
Ms. Levine says several teams were inspired by current events, including floods last year in Thailand.
SUZI LEVINE: “One from Thailand [was] called NewKrean, where they created a Windows Phone 7 application that allows you to broadcast your location to your social network of friends so that you can be more easily rescued."
Students competed in nine categories. For example, in software design the top prize of twenty-five thousand dollars went to Team Hermes from Ireland. The students developed a device for cars to collect information on road conditions, driving behavior and traffic incidents.
A team from Taiwan's National Tsing Hua University won first place in the embedded development category. They developed a network of wireless devices to help plot the safest escape routes during a fire.
Next year, the awards ceremony will take place in Australia.
This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by Jim Tedder, Jerilyn Watson and June Simms, who was also our producer. I’m Bob Doughty.
And I’m Faith Lapidus. You can find transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our programs at voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for more news about science in Special English on the Voice of America. | <urn:uuid:c4ec53cc-3f06-434b-b841-6021a8c95701> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.manythings.org/voa/0/13397.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963435 | 1,748 | 3.84375 | 4 |
So, as the title says, I am confused about how to actually approach the learning of the On-yomi readings. Am i supposed to make stories for this book as well? If so, wonīt it be confusing when learning characters with more than one reading.
Please help me find a good way to systematize my learning. I went through the first book at a pace of 60 kanji each day, so I was pretty satisfied. Being about 180 frames into the second book i feel uncertain of how to learn.
So far, i have somehow managed to remember all the 180 words and how to write them correctly at the same pace as before, 60/day. Even though i do remember those words, it still seems like my pretty decent memory will fail me in the following thousands of characters.
Another thing is that when i see a certain kanji from those compounds in a text, it usually takes some time before i can remember how it was read, which is obviously not a fluent way of reading. Not to mention the different ways a kanji can be read...
Has anyone here finished RTK2? If so, did it help a lot?
Last edited by darkruiner (2012 July 16, 4:53 am)
Some of the stuff about pure groups and signal primitives can help. Beyond that most people don't really find RTK2 to be all that useful or helpful. Learning readings through the context of words and sentences tends to be a better route. Something like Core, Kanji in Context, or Kanji Odyssey are what most people do these days.
RTK1 was very groundbreaking in how it went about systematically teaching kanji, and a lot of people saw efficiency gains from it. RTK2 tried to be that groundbreaking, but for the reading side of things. In the eyes of most people, that attempt is considered kind of a failure.
Last edited by erlog (2012 July 16, 9:44 am)
I see, so thatīs pretty much what Iīm doing. Guess Iīll be using the book as a reference guide. I still feel like i reading comprehension has improved, even though i have just started. I will probably continue to drill words from this book and study some of the systematization that is provided. Seems like a pity though, I was hoping for a nice and straightforward way to learn this hellish writing system.
I find RTK2 very useful and cleverly organized and I am slowly working through it.
I started coming out of RTK1 with the obvious great enthusiasm that I got from learning all those cute stories and from realizing how my understanding of kanji had greatly improved and my fear of them had gone.
I started with a lot of energy and went through chapter 1 and 2 very quickly, then up to semi-pure groups. Then I realized I had done it too quickly and only about half of the readings had stuck (nothing to complain about if I think about it). So I went back to pure groups and tried to devise some flashcard system that would group all the primitives with the same reading on the same flashcard. That was effective but it took too much time. So I stopped for a bit, essentially because I found learning this way a little boring (not hard, just boring). Oh, I tried kanji-chains too, but came up with lame stories and I was also breaking the symmetry of the pure groups, so I left them.
Now I am back and still looking for the ultimate idea. My current strategy is the following (nothing special, if anyone has better ideas I'd love to hear about them).
This is only for chapter 2, but I am rather confident that I will manage to use it for semi-pure groups too (chapter 3 is easy, 4 nothing, 6 easy, 8 easy and 9 and 10 don't look that bad either, so the problems for me seem to be pure, semi-pure and mixed groups only (kun-yomi will come at the end, I trust Dr Heisig)).
- I wrote in a very compact way all the signal primitives in groups of one hundred (ten lines of ten primitives each). I used different colors for primitives that correspond to four or more kanji, three kanji, two kanji.
- I learned the readings of the primitives (sometimes using dirty tricks like thinking of Yu the chinese butcher to remember 兪).
- I learned one word per primitive and wrote it down by looking at my group of primitives only.
- I learned the kanji corresponding to every primitive and again wrote them down by looking at my group of primitives only.
- I learned all the words corresponding to each primitive and wrote them down as above.
(I am using the past here but I am not completely done)
Once I know the on-yomi for all of the pure groups I will move on to review chapter 3, then try to apply the method to chapter 5. So far it works fine.
Heisig chose his words in a rather clever way so that if you know the pure groups very well the next chapters take far less effort, since he does use the on-yomi you already learnt a lot. This is probably why he insists that you stop at the end of chapter 2 and make sure that you learn everything very well before going on.
Also note that I find the vocabulary chosen by Heisig quite appropriate for my level (I just took JLPT N3 a couple of weeks ago), which may or may not be the case for others.
My impression is that if you are dedicated you can get through the book in a couple of months and learn all the readings (and maybe some vocabulary, but I am under the impression that that is not the point). After that you can go on to study vocabulary and grammar far more efficiently than before.
Last edited by cingo (2012 July 16, 2:18 pm)
Thank you for sharing your view on this.
How long have you been studying before passing N3? If i may ask.
The short answer is a little more than one year of serious study.
But it would have definitely taken less had I been a little more consistent in my studies. Years ago I took JLPT 4 and then 3, which were easy and I prepared in 3 months each (about two hours a day). But I did nothing between these two 3 month periods (a very bad idea of course). After JLPT 3 I just went on forgetting lots of stuff I learned and finally this year I started again after a very long hyatus. A couple of months were taken by just reviewing what I did years ago and another month by doing RTK1. I am bad at motivating myself for long periods of time and I am very very happy that I can take JLPT every six months now. I have a genuine passion for the Japanese language, but without some very concrete goals I find it difficult to keep studying for more than a few months (I have been studying mostly on my own so far).
What about you? What is your level now?
Oh and I just took JLPT N3, at the moment no one knows whether I passed it or not
About this topic of not being able to remember the meaning when you look at a kanji in any given random place. I've been looking through RTK2 and was wondering how to work through it also because it just wasn't sticking. Instead of looking at the characters, and then tacking on the onyomi, I realized that RTK2 has the dual purpose of forcing you to remember the keyword you learned RTK1 for the particular character because doing so gives you something more concrete the hook the onyomi to. The keyword is associated with a story which you know well already so there's background to the character. it's not just a bunch of strokes.
So for the people who like myself were worried about not being able to remember the meaning from the kanji, RTK2 should take care of that.
This is a very good point that I forgot to mention. It is indeed the case that you manage rather quickly to go from kanji to keyword once you start working through RTK2. Thanks for pointing it out!
I had contact with Japanese for about 6 month, but I didnīt actually study. I got into Japanese music and literature. Right now, Iīm about 2-3 months into serious study, I try to study it every waking moment of my life, everything I watch or listen to must be in Japanese
I have no idea about how the real thing is, but I did the 15-question samples of JLPT and i got 14 of them right at level 4. I hope that if I manage to sustain my dedication, I will be able to at least attempt to pass N2 in December.
You mentioned that you have trouble motivating yourself, try finding something cool that you want to do and that involves Japanese. My goal is to get into a Japanese University. Iīm starting my last year of high school now, so I donīd know if i will manage. But even if I fail, Iīll try again the next year. That gives me enough motivation to dedicate myself to studying ^^
Wow, yours is a very strong motivation!
I have to say that as you pass the boring beginner level and get to the end of the demanding intermediate level things definitely get easier. I am very close to being able to read novels and that is a good motivation for me.
I am not quite sure about JLPT N2, but if you don't yet know about zorlee you might find this thread quite inspirational: http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=8771
Interestingly, after writing my current method down I realized it is overkill. I do not need to write all those words from memory, after all I am only learning to read. I think I will modify it to reading only and use this version for the second pass of the book.
As usual, any ideas, comments or suggestions are most welcome.
itīs definitely easier to just learn to read the characters, but i also want to learn a bit of correct word composition. Sometimes the characters used in a word are perfectly logical, sometimes not, and sometimes there are more than one way to write things. Itīs pretty though....
I meant it is not necessary to memorize all those words, it is enough to be able to look at the words and read them (possibly knowing what they mean). (my method as described above involved learning all the words corresponding to a given primitive in Heisig by heart; effective but more time-consuming)
Last edited by cingo (2012 July 18, 3:03 am)
Time consuming indeed, but I donīt really mind, I just want to get this over with so that i will become able to read everyday stuff. Besides, some words are kind of random and fun to learn, for example: : : 之字形 or 流転, the latter being kind of useless hehe
I just started RTK2 in earnest and I am confident that it will be a very good way to learn. I had finished RTK1 a few months ago and was looking forward to moving on to grammar/vocab and not worrying about kanji anymore but I think that RTK1 is really just the first step - knowing how to read the kanji was the goal in the first place not how to draw them.
I'm doing it with flashcards (well a spaced repetition flashcard app on my iOS device). It goes like this:
I am giving myself a correct response on the app if I can read the kanji - I don't worry about the meaning of the word. I'm sure as I go through the deck some of the vocab will stick anyway. The key for me is remembering how to say the kanji. I've been doing it for a few days and it's working pretty well. A lot are sticking in my mind already. I think this is more effective than trying to remember pronunciations through vocabulary because you end up trying to learn too much at once in that case - often you're memorizing the readings of several kanji plus learning the word itself. It's a lot. And I've struggled with Chinese readings a lot I think because there's more than one kanji per word almost always whereas the Japanese readings it's generally just one kanji per word and my brain can absorb it much more easily. Or it seems to.
I suppose I'll be able to give better advice/feedback after I've progressed through at least half the book.
Oh as to my Japanese level - I would say about JPLT 4 about. I've been studying Japanese for a little over a year now and have taken 1 semester course at the local college.
Last edited by kraemder (2012 August 04, 11:08 am) | <urn:uuid:73d3cd0a-fbad-415f-9cc0-7fa97bebfb09> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?pid=181584 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974328 | 2,695 | 1.890625 | 2 |
James Tate thought he had it pretty good after he asked a girl to the prom by taping large cardboard letters to the side of his school. The message read: “Sonali Rodrigues, Will you go to prom with me? HMU Tate.” Rodrigues said yes and Tate thought they were good to go.
Until, the school said the cardboard letters accounted to vandalism and he was suspended for a day and told he couldn’t go to the prom. From the Connecticut Post:
“It took a lot of effort,” said Tate.
He posted the letters, one at a time, in a “safe and thoughtful way” to avoid trouble.
But, it appears, that didn’t work out.
Because of what he did, Tate can’t go to the prom.
Tuesday, after meeting with his headmaster, Tate and his two friends were each given one-day, in-house suspensions and banned from the prom. Tate was told the administration felt what they did was a safety risk.
But the teen said he took every precaution when he posted the message early Friday, sometime between 1 and 3 a.m.
“I had one friend hold the ladder while the other put double-sided tape on the letters,” he said. Tate said he also wore a helmet.
He was told another reason for the suspensions was that they trespassed on school grounds.
So then Tate thought he had it pretty bad. Until this weekend, when it was announced that after a huge public outcry, which included nearly 200,000 people on Facebook, that Tate’s high school head master had reversed her decision and would allow Tate, and his two accomplices to attend prom.
This reminds me of the times when, out of anger, exhaustion or frustration, I’ve given my child a punishment that in retrospect seemed a bit harsh. Sometimes though, as a parent, you still have to follow through on it or else risk having every decision you make challenged. Sometimes though, you have to suck it up and admit that you were wrong.
What do you think? Did the head master do the right thing by reversing her decision? | <urn:uuid:38b7c68d-bd67-459f-af10-7b46bb04f1af> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.chron.com/momhouston/2011/05/teen-whose-prank-got-him-kicked-out-of-prom-allowed-to-go-now/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988359 | 456 | 1.539063 | 2 |
If exec returns an error message of "couldn`t create error file for command: Error 0", the following may help:
This problem exists under Unix and Windows NT. I have conclusive proof that under Unix it was being caused by the temporary
directory not being world writable, which explains why superusers were able to "exec" something but not a regular user. The
"gotcha!" is that /tmp is not necessarily the temporary directory that is used, so people were not seeing an obvious problem. Tcl
uses the tmpnam() system call, which on many systems actually uses /var/tmp, and on some systems that directory was not world
writable. I would like to call this a problem with one`s site administration.
Here`s a simple program to determine your temporary directory:
which prints out the full pathname for a potential new temporary file. If the specified directory is not world writable, you can`t
create temp files.
Now, the question turns to Windows. This I have not yet resolved. Under NT, which has users and directory permissions, it may be
the same problem as under Unix. However, since this problem is also occurring under Windows 3.1 it may be another problem or
combination of the two.
On Windows, you will need to set both the TMP and TEMP environment variables, for example: | <urn:uuid:61cb8be4-5187-41ec-801d-c345d8cf3f3f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tcltk.free.fr/tcltkfaq.php3?idxquery=202 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937173 | 287 | 2.25 | 2 |
BILL FLETCHER JR.
(NNPA)—There is a different feel in the air, and it should not be surprising. As historic as was the re-election of President Obama, nothing can replace the uniqueness of the opening of his first term four years ago. The expectations; the history that was made; the level of excitement…it was all too impossible to replicate.
The November 2012 re-election of the president, nevertheless, was a remarkable feat. Taking place during a time of war and economic crisis against a very well-funded opponent, combined with the Republican use of voter suppression efforts in many states, victory was far from assured. The forces of irrationalism were blunted in their tracks, however, at least for the moment.
Yet, as we approach Inauguration there are important concerns. In the ‘fiscal cliff’ negotiations, President Obama, despite the public being on his side, once again displayed his tendency towards what I would call over-compromising, a reluctance to engage in hard-bargaining and a tendency to blink at the wrong time. Yes, things could have been worse, but that does not mean that they went well.
Beyond the fiscal cliff there are other issues facing us: climate change; turmoil in the Middle East; the continued war in Afghanistan, the threat of war with Iran; and, obviously, the economy. On each of these issues and more, we should not assume—in fact, we cannot assume—that President Obama will be on the right side. The drone strikes in Pakistan continue, for instance, and so too do the attacks on civil liberties at home.
The question, then, is, what should we expect over the next four years? The answer actually depends on us much more than it does on President Obama. In the fiscal cliff negotiations, we saw what happens without us: the wrong compromises are made in the name of bi-partisanship. The problem is that Obama cannot be bi-partisan if the other side is being fanatically partisan. Such attempts appear to be surrender rather than responsible diplomacy.
Thus, the real answer to what to expect over the next four years comes down to two very different and clear scenarios: One, in the absence of pressure, the administration will offer wonderful rhetoric as it continues to retreat, or, two, the administration will be compelled to shift gears and fulfill the mandate that it received from the decisive November election as a result of pressure that it receives from people like us.
In case you missed this, the administration can only be compelled through mass action. That means more than emails and phone calls, but instead public displays of protest—boots on the ground. In addition, when we have Republicans in Congress who, due to gerrymandering, have districts that are solidly Republican and, thus, they have little fear of any electoral challenge, the only thing that will shake them up is if society is a bit shaken.
One thing that we do not need is to find ourselves, four years from now, asking why we did not do more when we had the chance. If we miss the moment, we may not have additional chances.
Digital Daily Signup
Sign up now for the New Pittsburgh Courier Digital Daily newsletter! | <urn:uuid:ffc03628-324d-4e9f-be80-6a1757b6c27b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newpittsburghcourieronline.com/index.php/opinion/9454-influencing-barack-obama-s-second-act | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966906 | 664 | 1.640625 | 2 |
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By: CBS4 newsroom
If you need to get rid of your old prescription meds, "Operation Medicine Cabinet" kicked off Thursday at the Medic EMS facility in Eldridge. Folks dropped off old prescriptions, mercury thermometers and other medical equipment. Organizers said it's a great event to keep everyone safe.
"Keeping them in the home poses several risks of overdose, accidental poisonings, drug abuse and theft." Erin Vorac from Scott County Waste Commission said.
You still have a chance to get rid of old medications. Friday, head to the Surrey Heights fire station in Bettendorf. Saturday crews will be collecting at the Scott Area Recycling center on Carey Avenue in Davenport. | <urn:uuid:79ae754d-3bd8-4d15-aa80-c41b113562dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.whbf.com/story/19600991/need-to-get-rid-of-old-medication | 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 | 0.916774 | 145 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Fortunately a few proactive steps can knock the cost of that bill down 10 to 20 percent.
After seeing the first bill at her new home, Kristina Hodges said she was willing to try anything to get that number down.
"Well it was a shock, it really was. We just moved in here and it's a little bigger than our old house so we were not ready for that huge bill," Hodges said.
So she invited Kevin Wallace with Sykes Construction out to get some help.
"As far as the design of the home, the insulation and the appliances, all the major places you can save money, she's done a great job and the home's in good shape," Wallace said.
He said the family could make some behavioral changes to easily lower their bill.
"Drop the shades on your windows, particularly your southern and western facing windows," he said.
Wallace also instructed Hodges to keep her thermostat around 80-degrees during the day and 84 at night.
He also said by increasing it just one degree, the family could save $20 a month.
Wallace also debunked a common home cooling myth.
"Ceiling fans don't work with your air conditioner as much as they do to blow air across our bodies," he said.
So turn off ceiling fans and lights once you leave a room.
Also, check the light bulbs in your home. Incandescent bulbs burn six times more energy than fluorescent lights.
Making that switch alone can save hundreds of dollars a year. | <urn:uuid:c8fdca36-ca0c-4828-b32b-a5fe9fb2b72a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://arkansasmatters.com/fulltext?nxd_id=458657 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981382 | 319 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Are you looking for a stock?
Try one of these
Canada's puny penny coin, loved by some but an annoyance to many, will be withdrawn from circulation this year because it costs too much to make and is a pecuniary pest, the government announced on Thursday.
Ottawa said the penny retained only one twentieth of its original purchasing power. It costs 1.6 cents to produce each one cent coin and stamping out the penny will save around $11 million a year.
"Some Canadians consider the penny more of a nuisance than a useful coin. We often store them in jars, throw them away in water fountains or refuse them as change," the government said in a budget document.
"Financial institutions face increasing costs for handling, storing and transporting pennies. Over time, the penny's burden to the economy has grown relative to its value as a means of payment," it said.
Other nations that have either ceased to produce or have removed low denomination coins include Australia, Brazil, Finland, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Britain.
The Royal Canadian Mint will stop distributing penny coins to financial institutions later this year. As the coin slowly disappears, prices for cash transactions will be rounded up or down to the closest five cents.
Non-cash payments such as cheques, credit and debit cards will continue to be settled to the cent. | <urn:uuid:3a04ddf2-6a8e-4944-a827-b59ce724e667> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bnn.ca/News/2012/3/29/Canada-to-let-the-penny-drop.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961837 | 287 | 1.875 | 2 |
Throbbing, itching, aching, stabbing, stinging, pounding, piercing. Pain comes in a range of unpleasant flavors. But all pain has one thing in common: those who endure it want it to stop.
Yet the most widely used analgesics today are essentially folk remedies that have served for centuries: morphine and other opiates derive from the opium poppy, and aspirin comes from willow bark. Although these treatments can give relief, each has its limitations. Aspirin and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as ibuprofen, cannot ease the most severe types of discomfort. And even opiates, generally the strongest medicines, do not work for everyone. Moreover, they can have serious side effects, and patients tend to become tolerant to them, requiring escalating doses to get any relief at all.
This article was originally published with the title Toward Better Pain Control. | <urn:uuid:b4120448-a44a-4047-aab9-768fd0053df1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=toward-better-pain-contro | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94775 | 186 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Click here to buy this book!
Buy your copy!
Way back in 1960, I was inspired enough to buy a copy of "The Penguin Book of Spanish Verse". This book was such a revelation to me that I determined to learn Spanish, purely to increase my appreciation for such wonderful poems as Ruben Dario's "Cervantes", Ramon Lopez Velarde's "In the Depths of Twilight" and Miguel de Unamuno's "Full Moon on the Lake of Christ in the Village of Yeltes".
These superb poems number among the marvelous 21 translated in this collection. Readers familiar with Spanish poetry will find these translations far superior to any previously published; while those who have never encountered Spanish poetry before are in for an enchanting surprise.
Barnes & Noble.com
John Howard Reid
"ESCAPE TO PARADISE AND OTHER POETIC FANCIES" is a collection of 96 poems by John Howard Reid, including 21 translations from Spanish masters and a translation from the Greek of Jesus Ben Sirach's grandson. Of the 74 original poems, 30 won prizes and/or were first published under John Howard Reid's "Tom Howard" pseudonym. This includes the title poem. So as not to confuse the issue any further, the whole collection has therefore been issued under the "Tom Howard" signature.
"Escape to Paradise" is one of my favorite poems. I wrote it when I was only 18 years old. I entered the poem in a Contest, and it won a prize. Not a First Prize, but Fourth! So I then wrote another poem, "This Scene", and it too was published, this time in a prestigious British magazine. My poetic career was launched!
There have been years since when I wrote very few poems, but I've always returned to my first love.
Some of my own poetry, such as "A Deserted Whistle Stop in Durango State", "Mexico City" and "A Tide of Roses" have obviously been deeply influenced by my Spanish experience.
But of course there are many poems in this very varied collection that spring entirely from the well of my own being.
LENI OF THE BLUE LIGHT, RIEFENSTAHL OF THE BLACK
Count the seasons, add up the scores of war:
Number the Jekylled faces hiding in France.
Total the German might, perjured on stakes
of madness, disguised as patriotic ideals.
Take a restless respite from the rites of war.
Figure a lonely Leni dancing dreams and light
upon a fixated Fuehrer and link-to-lies Goebbels.
What hints of charm disarm Leni of the lilacs
as quavering voices tingle in the unholy wind,
masked by passions of conquest in this sluice
of autumn breeze, in that final flower of Fall?
Whichever waysome way the figures tumble,
Leni herself is counted an aberrant treasure,
a skein of clay misplaced as silver. Delayed,
the dreamer disappears: her friends dissolve;
enemies rate her talents zero, her ideals dust.
Perhaps in transfers over time, when Riefenstahl is linked
more to holy mountains, sacred flames – white and blue,
and tolls have ransomed token memories and mistakes,
she will rise again in triumph? Perhaps! but I doubt it. | <urn:uuid:0579f24f-2e2f-400f-9773-0a0e85152f54> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewwork.asp?id=37340 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944355 | 704 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Project Lead the Way and Gateway to Technology teacher Bill Rae spent a week in Cap-Haitien from Dec. 31, 2008 to Jan. 6, 2009, working with his church group at an orphanage and giving much-needed dental support to children and adults in the third-world country.
Cap-Haitien is about 100 miles north of where the 7-magnitude earthquake hit hardest in the nation’s capital, Port-au-Prince.
“They did feel tremors there,” Rae said. “All the kids (in the orphanage) were scared... as far as they can tell, they have no structural damage.
“We were very concerned about all the people that we met there, very relieved to hear that they were OK.”
Rae said he and staff members at Lake Fenton Middle School are planning a fundraiser to help support the island nation.
“We’re trying to figure out the best way to do that,” Rae said. “We don’t have anything concrete yet. It may just be helping the people of Haiti, not just sending (aid) to the earthquake area. In a country where people are eating once every three days, they’re weak and deprived of food as it is.”
Lake Fenton Middle School students have a history of generously supporting charitable causes. In both 2008 and 2009, students about doubled the monetary goal staff members set for the Christmas giving tree.
Rae said he hopes to return to Haiti later this year with the Otisville Church of Christ. | <urn:uuid:8a0172e4-ee27-4b3c-9c4d-1353ccc8f522> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2010/01/lake_fenton_middle_school_to_p.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977281 | 332 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Diana Peterfreund wrote an awesome blog post today about Bad Boys vs. Nice Guys (part I of more to come) in fiction. In addition to being an interesting examination of the appeal of the Bad Boy, it’s also a defense of the Nice Guy.
Peterfreund brings up some really great points, including how the Nice Guy seems to be much more palatable as the protagonist rather than as the romantic lead. When seen as the Everyman, the Nice Guy suddenly becomes our proxy: the underdog, the ordinary fellow reaching for his dreams. She cites Lloyd Dobbler from Say Anything as a film example. Take your pick of John Green’s protagonists for a literary example.
However, when viewed through a romantic lens, the Nice Guy seems to fall short compared to the Bad Boy. Why? Is it because he’s considered “weak”? (Whatever that means.) Harmless? Boring?
The truth is, the Nice Guy is none of those things—when written well. When written well, the Nice Guy is every bit as selfish and awkward and painfully true as a person as well as a trope. It’s just that when pitted against the Bad Boy in a love triangle, he is bound to lose. (This may be part of the reason I hate love triangles—the one I want to win never does!)
Why is that? Everyone finds danger exciting, of course, but I think what makes the Bad Boy so appealing is that he could hurt you—he just won’t because he lurrrrves you. He may have had a dissolute/criminal/murderous past, but it doesn’t matter now: he’s changed because of his love for you—for you. This is what makes the Bad Boy so exciting; you are the special and unique snowflake for whom he makes an exception to every rule. This is the archetypal reason so many people find this character trope appealing.
On the other hand, you have the Nice Guy. He’s not in the least bit dangerous. He brings you soup when you’re sick, he tells your favourite jokes, he lends you his shoulder to cry on. He might a little stubborn, a little selfish, and a little oblivious to, well, everything, but he’s steadfast and true and you can trust him. But…but…why does he love you? What’s so special about you? What is he giving up to be with you?
You can guess where I fall on the Spectrum of Bad. I prefer the Nice Guy, but this isn’t always true. This bothers me a little, especially when I consider the Problem of the Rogue.
So I’m a total sucker for rogues. Total, complete, absolute sucker. You name him, I’ve probably crushed on him at some point. George Cooper from Tamora Pierce’s SONG OF THE LIONESS quartet? Peter Warne (as played by Clark Gable) in It Happened One Night? Han Solo from the Star Wars movies? Gambit from The X-Men? But why? I mean, isn’t the Rogue just an aspect of the Bad Boy?
For a while I struggled with this because if we’re going with a dissolute/criminal/murderous past (or present), he’s definitely firmly on the Bad end of the Spectrum. The rogue is also unabashedly an asshole. (And I love it.) And yet. I don’t think I’ve come across stories where the rogue gives up his rogue-ish ways for love. His dame is may be a headstrong, independent woman, but she ain’t no unique and special snowflake; she’s just a dame and he loves her, even if it makes him a bit screwy.
But when it comes down to it, you can trust the rogue. Well, with the things that matter, if not your wallet. The same way you can trust a Nice Guy. And trust is really important to me, as both a reader and as someone in a relationship. As far as him being an asshole, I enjoy honest dickery as much as I love unabashed bitches. Honesty, even if it’s blunt, is preferable to beautiful lies. So if that means letting the douchewad out because that’s who you really are, by all means, let him out.
The rogue also has a crucial element missing in other Bad Boys: a sense of humour. I don’t mean a rapier wit that hides a broken soul (like Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer)—I mean a sense of humour. The rogue doesn’t take anything too seriously, least of all himself. To classify a rogue as a Bad Boy is a mistake; he’s a class unto his own and closer to the Nice Guy on the Spectrum of Bad (in my opinion).
While the Bad Boy is popular, most people steer clear of the extreme end of the spectrum. The whole point of the Bad Boy, after all, is that he is redeemable. His lurrrrrve for you is where he finds salvation and redemption. The Bad Boy might be dangerous, but he’s not scary. He is after all, still ruled by his heart, even if that heart was utterly broken in the past. The Bad Boy is like a roller coaster: exciting, thrilling, but ultimately, still safe.
I play on the Nice end of the Spectrum of Bad, but I really, really can’t explain my gleeful delight in characters on the Evil end.
…I got nothing. | <urn:uuid:e7b56fc3-b13f-4fee-877c-04a84c5f0e9a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sjaejones.com/blog/2009/the-spectrum-of-bad/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9586 | 1,191 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Donald Yam-kuen Tsang
Tsang, Donald Yam-kuen, 1944–, Hong Kong government official and political leader. He joined the Hong Kong colonial civil service in 1967, and served in a variety of posts concerned with the economy and trade; he also worked on Hong Kong's transfer from British to Chinese rule. In 1995 he was appointed Hong Kong's financial secretary; he was knighted in 1997 for his services to the colony. Tsang remained financial secretary after Hong Kong's transfer (1997) to China, becoming chief secretary for administration in 2001. When region's chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, resigned in 2005, Tsang succeeded him, as acting chief executive until he was elected to the office. He was reelected in 2007.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Chinese, Taiwanese, and Mongolian History: Biographies | <urn:uuid:c0199477-8173-4d88-9c17-734d9aec2459> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/people/tsang-donald-yam-kuen.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96587 | 197 | 1.875 | 2 |
By Bucky McMahon
Seated in a snug circle in the stern of the dive boat, we five Westerners all bow ceremoniously to our respected divemaster, Kanai-san, who, gracefully kneeling on the Astroturf deck, has bowed to us, and who now returns our bows, so that we feel inclined to bow to her once again: Ah so! Done bowing, we're all ears for the dive briefing-though I still find it difficult to tear my eyes away from the hundred-foot-tall cliffs that soar above the pitching boat. You'd be hard-pressed to imagine a more dramatic dive site. Here at the southernmost tip of Japan's Yonaguni Island, where the East China Sea surges and gnaws, powerful currents have undermined the massive mudstone cape so that it broods out over the foam like a giant face. Think Skull Island. Think Kong.
This would be a cool dive if there were nothing down below but rock spurs and fish-very cool, indeed, if its sapphire waters were populated by a swirl of breeding hammerhead sharks, which is what Kihachiro Aratake, a local dive operator, was hoping to find when he first scouted the spot in 1985. What he found instead gave him goose bumps of awe. He had back-rolled practically on top of an enormous pyramidal structure that began quite near the surface, and then plunged, by distinct, terraced stages, to a depth of about 100 feet. Immediately apparent was the hand of man-of many men!-in the uncanny regularity of the level terraces, in the perfect right angles of the steps that climbed to the top of the temple-like monolith. At the base of the structure there seemed to be a cobbled road that looped around it, and beyond the road a stacked-stone wall like the first line of defense in a fortress complex. Aratake was convinced that he had chanced upon the remnants of a lost civilization. He named the site Iseki-or "Ruins"-Point. As Aratake sought advice from experts, word spread of an underwater discovery in remote Yonaguni, potentially many millennia old, an Atlantis of the East.
In subsequent dives, new features were revealed-an arched entranceway, twin obelisks, a turtle carving. These and other features of the Yonaguni "Monument" (as it is now locally known) Kanai has sketched for us on her erasable slate, pretty much previewing the entire dive in her chirpy, rapid-fire Japanese-translated for us gaijin by Lisa Slater, an adventurous 32-year-old Brit whose love of the language, culture, and especially the diving in the Ryukyu Archipelago (Okinawa and points south) led her to start a one-woman travel company, Open Coast. It's a thorough briefing, keeping Lisa plenty busy, including how we will enter-giant striding after the count of three-and how we will come up-together, forming a pod at the surface, everyone holding on to each other. They are very conscientious divers, the Japanese.
"Let's go diving!" Kanai says at last, in English.
We finish gearing up and fin-slap to the transom, all of us brimming with anticipation about what looms below, visible only as shifting patches of darkness in the bright blue.
"Ichi, ni, san...!"
We congregate on the bottom at about 60 feet in a world of giant stones. OK? Kanai signals. OK. OK? OK. OK? We're all OK. This then is "The Arch." Kanai has sketched it again on her slate, and gestures charmingly-part geisha, part Vanna White-toward the stacked stones. It's a crude arch at best, the five stacked stones impressively large but not seeming carved at all. Yet kicking through the narrow passage I feel a chill, like entering a gloomy tomb. Beyond rise the "Twin Towers," the matched obelisks. These do appear shaped-and very exactingly at that. Two perfect rectangles, more than 20 feet tall, they seem aligned, like the megaliths of Stonehenge, for some astrological purpose. In fact, the foremost expert on the Yonaguni Monument, Professor Masaaki Kimura of the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, believes the four-inch gap between the obelisks may have channeled a shaft of sunlight signaling the autumn equinox.
Next we view "The Chapel," a platform on which is incised-or eroded-a dubious cross. Then we turn a corner and behold-with surprise, despite the briefing, and a measure of the same awe Kihachiro Aratake must have felt-the main monument itself. It is an awesome sight: so massive, the stone so dark against the sea, the edges so uncannily carved. You immediately think of Maya temples, the ziggurats of Sumer. It makes you dream of deep, deep time. And yet, like an optical illusion, the closer you get to it the more it changes. What seemed from a distance so apart from its surroundings seems from up close more of a piece, though certainly the most extreme geological expression of Yonaguni's bedrock stones. Kneeling on a terrace, sighting along a wall, I see the perfect edges blur. I touch the dense Brillo-like surface of encrusting sponges and algae and wonder: Is it this growth that creates the illusion from afar of perfection, of artificially shaped edges? At the same time, the growth so obscures the face of the stone that any evidence of human craft would be difficult to find.
We spend a good 20 minutes kicking around the ruins, enjoying ideal conditions (the current can be wicked). I loiter at the monument's summit, admiring the play of sunlight through crashing waves above "The Turtle." The mythology of Japan, according to Kimura, features magical guiding turtles, but this "carving" is a stretch. Could be anything, I'm thinking. On the other hand, if you were going to display a sacred loggerhead, this altar on the summit terrace would be just the place. Nearby is a cavity in the rock, maybe 20 feet deep and somewhat rounded like a well. Professor Kimura calls this a tida hole-tida being the sun, and the hole the place from which it rises and disappears. Tida holes are features of other gusuku-which are palaces, fortresses and sacred sites all rolled into one-found in Japan. Another charming myth of the distant past.
Kanai has come to fetch me, pointing up. Soon we're gathered in our companionable pod on the surface, waiting while the boat backs up to us. The wind has come up, creating a feisty chop, and it's chilly aboard when we peel out of our wetsuits. One of the crew bustles about, distributing hot barley tea in little silver cups. Ah! Arigato! Lisa Slater, visibly revved by the dive, can't believe how lucky our little group has been. After all, we-Shelly and Michael, a married couple, both physicians, from D.C.; and Lee, Lisa's boyfriend, a film editor in L.A.; and me, the first dive journalist from the West to visit the ruins-arrived at Yonaguni (following three superlative days of diving in the nearby Kerama Islands) in a near gale. The weather has cleared right on schedule.
"So," Lisa asks me, beaming, "what do you think?"
For a blunt instrument some 500 feet long by 80 feet wide and eight stories tall, the Yonaguni Monument is an effective cutting tool: It seems invariably to divide its viewers into skeptics and believers. Our group splits right down the middle. Me, I'm a skeptic. For starters, I wonder what the monument is doing down there in the water instead of up on top of the cliff, which is where I would build my ziggurat. I would soon hear a theory countering that objection, via e-mail from Aratake-san, who compared the YUP (Yonaguni Underwater Pyramid) to the giant Buddhas of Afghanistan, carved into the rock face from forms suggested by nature-a pretty good theory. But for the moment I'm still under the spell of a highly qualified fellow skeptic, Boston University geologist Robert Schoch.
Dr. Schoch is doubly persuasive because he's both an academic and an iconoclast whose best-known work argues for the pre-dynastic antiquity of the Great Sphinx. Another of his books, Voyage of the Pyramid Builders, credits our early civilizers with a much greater seafaring mobility than they are conventionally allowed. In short, pushing the clock back is a professional passion for Schoch. If the YUP were manmade-or even somewhat altered by man-the work had to have been done while much of the oceans waters were still locked up in the glaciers of the last Ice Age, probably as much as 10,000 years ago. So he came to Yonaguni in 1997 hoping to find the smoking gun of a sophisticated antediluvian enterprise. Instead, he found "a wonderful little island, and a fabulous place to dive." But nothing that couldn't be explained, "much more parsimoniously"-as he told me in a phone interview-"by natural processes." In fact, his hopes crumbled before he even got in the water, as he watched a typhoon tear away at the coast and observed how the rock broke apart along horizontal bedding planes, creating those level terraces and vertical steps.
"As geologists, we're used to working with rocks that have incredible regularity," he told me. "If I want to find perfect angles, I'll look to minerals." Still, Schoch feels the YUP is a fantastic structure, more exciting to him, from a geological point of view, than even the Grand Canyon. But not manmade. He won't believe it until somebody finds that smoking gun.
On the other hand, Professor Kimura can be equally convincing as he marshals his evidence: stone tools, post-holes, wedge marks on the stone, a stone tablet with incised markings recovered under a collapsed portion of the wall-to name just a small portion. Kimura's persuasiveness lies in his deep knowledge of Japanese anthropology and that people's ancient and abiding love affair with stone, whether as sacred mountains or megalithic shrines, or deftly manipulated garden sculpture. In one of his many expeditions to Yonaguni, beginning in 1992, he brought along traditional stone masons as consultants. At his Okinawa office, where his assistant serves me (and my translator) green tea on a patch of desk temporarily cleared of high stacks of papers, Professor Kimura tells me he was skeptical himself for the first five years of his research, and came around only reluctantly. It was the stone tablet that changed his mind. He opens a file cabinet and extracts a box in which, protected by bubble-wrap and swathed in purple cloth, lies a replica of the tablet. On it are carved a "+" sign, two "O"s and a ">". In Kimura's opinion, this is the smoking gun.
On my way out, the professor takes me to a workshop across the hall to look at his newly completed scale model of the monument. Ten years in the making, it is exactingly, obsessively accurate. I can't help thinking of the Richard Dreyfuss character in Close Encounters and his model of Devil's Tower. If this true believer sees a turtle carved on the summit, who am I to say I'm not the blind one. Kimura's parting words: "Until someone shows me proof that it's not manmade, I will believe that it is."
On our next to last night on Yonaguni, Lisa, Lee and I go looking for evidence of the island's antiquity in the town's oldest bar. The proprietress, the town's oldest barkeep, showers us with attention and serves us delicacies. Mostly, though, the missus offers us talk, her life story. "This used to be a lonely island," she says. It's not exactly bustling now; we were the only ones on the street and it's by no means late. But point taken: Yonaguni is modern now, with some small factories, a big harbor project underway, a big hotel coming, they say. In her youth it was all rural; she was a farm girl who escaped that life by traveling to Okinawa where she worked and saved money. But she missed the island and so came back and opened this bar.
"But what about before then, in her parents' and grandparents' day?" Lee wants to know. "Ask her where her ancestors came from."
"Ah, the old days," she says. "In the old days in Yonaguni there were only beautiful women and dogs. Then men came. When the men came, they killed the dogs."
"I swear that's what she said," Lisa says.
But it's not entirely surprising. That day we toured the island with our dive guides, and wherever we stopped-at a cave high on the cliffs, by a pinnacle of rock in the sea, or a crack in the earth-we encountered more myth than history. There were obelisks elaborately inscribed, but in a Japanese either too archaic or too arcane for any of our group to read. And there was an ancient graveyard beside the sea, overlooking a gorgeous fringe of reef, where every tomb was a unique work of art, whether of recent vintage in flowing forms of cement, or of unknown antiquity, simple catacombs hewn into the bedrock, but so aptly carved they looked not just as if they had always been there, but as if they had always belonged. Yonaguni is a place where history shades into mystery, and stone weathers into art-or back again into rock.
Before we have to leave Yonaguni we manage to make a couple more spectacular dives-one on a deep-water wall topped with a coral garden, a paradise for several varieties of "Nemos," as Kanai calls the anemonefish; and one at a maze of bedrock spurs, full of caves and graceful arches reminiscent of those tombs. We make it back to Iseki Point one more time, too, the Gothic cliffs above, the black stone giant below. Again the bowing. For me there'll be the moment of awe, and again the creeping doubt. And afterwards, shivering, the silver cup of hot barley tea-the whole experience a ritual I've come to love just as it ends.
Beyond Yonaguni: Diving the Kerama Islands
A life-sized statue of a humpback whale, made entirely of recycled tires treads and other cleverly employed leftovers, greets you at the Zamami harbor like a kind of lighthearted ambassador for the Kerama Islands. Located 20 miles southwest of Okinawa-a 40-minute excursion by high-speed, air-conditioned ferry-Zamami is the most (not very) populous of the Keramas, a cluster of 22 sunbathed, lushly forested islets dotting the East China Sea. Near the ersatz humpie is a bronze shrine erected in honor of Marilyn, the celebrity dog of the Keramas whose canine true love nightly swam across the channel in response to her howled avowals.
The whole place seems imagined by Japanese animation master Miyazaki, and the sense of whimsy only increases under water with dive sites that are generally shallow, super-clear and bursting with color. Somehow, despite their proximity to Okinawa, and an obvious wealth of white-sand beaches, the Keramas have said no to every big-time developer. The happy results are a thriving traditional culture, family-run dive operations and pristine marine life. A typical Keramas dive is a slow kick around a truly massive coral head, dizzyingly animated with blue-green chromis, purple queen anthias, leaf scorpionfish, and many other eye-popping oddities of the macro realm. You'll think you've been spirited away.
Getting There: Fly into either Narita airport (Tokyo), Osaka's international airport or the airport in Nagoya. Then take a domestic flight to Okinawa or Ishigaki (about two hours) and then on to Yonaguni (about 30 minutes from Ishigaki and 1.5 hours from Okinawa).
Entry Requirements: Valid passport.
Climate: Mild winters and hot summers. Average air temperature is 73 degrees, with the highest average at 80 degrees in summer. The best months to visit are April, May, October and November when there is less humidity.
Water Temperature: 72 degrees in winter to 86 degrees in summer.
Accommodations: Accommodations on the larger islands range from luxury all-inclusive resorts to camping. On the outer islands, typically modest, family-run operations.
Money Matters: Local currency is the yen (115 yen = US$1). Credit cards are not accepted on the outer islands. A service charge is often included at hotels and restaurants. Gratuities are not encouraged throughout Japan. Gift giving is appreciated.
Getting Around: On Okinawa Island, car rental is useful. On the outer islands, your hotel or tour operator will usually provide transportation. Driving is on the left side and an international license is required.
For More Information: Open Coast Travel (for dive packages to Japan), 866-OCT-DIAL, (310) 433-6653, www.opencoastravel.com; Okinawa Convention & Visitors Bureau, www.ocvb.or.jp; Okinawa Prefectural Government, www.pref.okinawa.jp/English; Japan National Tourist Organization, (213) 623-1952, www.jnto.go.jp. | <urn:uuid:71eef358-b785-49f2-a173-463378961fed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scubadiving.com/travel/japan/secrets-yonaguni | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955021 | 3,763 | 2.28125 | 2 |
The Plucky, Yet Unfortunately Imaginary, Cranky Fitness Research Assistant
Would you like to know some of the exciting develoments now taking place in The Cranky Fitness Laboratory? (Which I feel should be pronounced la-BOR-a-tory, the way it is in old horror movies; it's that kind of place).
The Cranky Fitness Laboratory is situated on the campus of Frittering-Dawdling University, should you ever care to visit. The lab's Research Director, Professor Crabby McSlacker, will be happy to show you around! However, be sure to call in advance, because Professor McSlacker is a busy little nutball. She is always experimenting and tinkering and inventing things. Her research interests include exercise physiology, nutrition, psychology, and, depending on how piggy she's been lately, weight loss.
Let's find out what's going on in there, shall we?
Reinventing Science Itself With the McSlacker Method© of Data Analysis!
Traditional health and psychological research is not just problematic because it keeps changing its mind all the time. (Speaking of which, are multivitamins good for you or bad for you this week? I can't remember).
The real problem is that scientific research is too picky and too boring and it takes forever! Using the old fashioned scientific method, you are supposed to measure the impact of one variable at a time and hold everything else constant.
Suppose you want to find out whether drinking the blood of virgins will really reverse the aging process. Well, then you wouldn't go try those resveratrol capsules you've been curious about at exactly the same time, or start sleeping with that new hot Cardio Kick Boxing instructor at the gym.
Why not? Because then if you looked in the mirror and your wrinkles had all disappeared, how would you know if it was due to the virgin blood or the resveratrol or the martial arts inspired whoopee? Under the traditional method, you'd have to hold off on the resveratrol and roundhousing until you knew exactly what the deal was with the virgin blood.
But let's say you are a neurotic health nut with an internet connection. Then not only are there your own weird inventions to test, there are also hundreds of promising theories, shortcuts, supplements, routines, diets, visualizations, workouts, gadgets and hacks to tempt you every day.
If your goals are, for example, (1) to find the most delicious and healthy food items you can eat all day long in unlimited portions; (2) have an awesome physique capable of incredible feats of strength and endurance; (3) be astonishingly productive yet still blissfully happy; and (4) live forever, it would take approximately 370,000 years using traditional scientific methodology to discover the best ways to do all this.
But see the problem? You'd be dead first. And being dead would significantly compromise your ability to enjoy your success.
The McSlacker Method© is New and Improved Science and it's much faster!
Here's how it works:
You just do everything that sounds hopeful all at once. Wait a few days, and then try to get a vague sense of whether things are getting better or worse. Next, just leap to whatever conclusions make you the happiest! Then stop doing anything you don't like doing much, and keep doing the things you like.
Doesn't that sound like more fun?
Okay, I just remembered I promised you a tour of the lab, but since there are dozens and dozens of experiments going on at any one time, I'll just highlight two of them.
This is a new product invention inspired by my
The "Slog" is a Shoe that has been cleverly hacked to be more like a Clog. (Shoe + Clog = Slog!). And yeah, this just means I take the shoestrings out of the top couple sets of holes and lace up at midfoot rather than at the ankle. This allows my heel to rise out of the shoe a bit as I shift my weight forward, and magically induces my lazy feet and calf muscles to function more actively instead of behaving like they are made of cement.
(As I mentioned in that post, with my plantar fasciitis issues, there's no way in hell I'm going to give up cushioning in my shoes).
The Hoist Roc It Mini-Review:
So I returned to San Diego a couple weeks ago to discover that my gym had apparently adopted the theory that stretching is unnecessary. They virtually eliminated the stretching area while I was gone, but they did ad some new gadgets, including a whole circuit of Hoist "Roc-It" machines.
These use "dynamic adjustment," so your whole body moves as you complete the exercise. According to the Hoist people, "the ROC-IT line embodies a unique training experience that achieves the unrestricted joint movement and core activating benefits of functional training coupled with the stabilizing benefits of machine-based equipment."
This sounded like a nice way to pretend I was doing functional fitness like the cool people do, while still getting to be a mindless robot moving from machine to machine, hooray! And a great new opportunity for off-site experimentation.
Of course I went roaming around web in search of Hoist "Roc-It" reviews, to see what experts thought about this technology before I invested time with it myself... but didn't find much not actually written by the Hoist folks themselves. Sensing a search engine opportunity to exploit, here is the Cranky Fitness quick and dirty version.
Hoist "Roc-It" review:
Pro: These are slightly more fun that your average isolation-type weight machine. At least until the novelty wears off and you realize it's just a boring-ass strength training workout, not an actual ride.
Pro: They do seem to give you the ability to target a particular muscle and make it hurt like hell the next day, while at the same time using some core muscles, although not enough so you really notice it much.
Con: They don't provide the lateral instability of a free weight, so you aren't getting better at the sort of stabilizing and balancing required to lift physical objects in the non-gym universe, where objects are not all helpfully attached to big machines.
Con: The handles seem built for big giant Man-Hands, turning the row machine, for example, into a hand/forearm workout, which is not actually what I was looking to accomplish.
Con: The machines do not start administering electric shocks to people who hog them for ages; this is a feature they really need to look into.
But anyway, here's another related invention, which like most of my inventions, no doubt already exists under some other name but I'm too lazy to google.
LazoMatic Gym Machine Protocol:
Note: This works on all gym strength training machines, not just the Hoist.
The problem is that if you're isolating particular muscles, there are quite a few of these machines you need to get to. And in my case, I still do my own little weird functional fitness medicine ball workout after I'm done with the machines, so the thought of doing multiple sets on each one makes me suicidal.
The alternative to multiple sets? The Super-Sucky-Set!
I do one set on each machine. However, I start with a weight so heavy I can only manage it for a rep or two. Then, without stopping, I move the little pin thingy down one notch for another few reps, till I can't eke out any more, and so on, until I've done 12 Extremely Unpleasant repetitions if it's an arm exercise, or 15 Extremely Unpleasant Reps if it's a leg machine. I figure I'd only be getting that many maximully awful reps in 3 conventional sets, right? And anyone who actually knows something about exercise physiology may want to pop into the comments and tell me that this is stupid.
The hardest part about this Super-Sucky-Set method? It's not moving the pin back to the highest weight when done, thus allowing the person who follows you to think the very lowest weight was the one you used the entire time. Seriously, for someone who claims I don't give a crap what others think of me in the gym, that's the hardest freakin' part.
So do you guys do your own health, nutrition, and fitness experiments and tinker around with different approaches? Are you the least bit scientific about it?
Laboratory: Library of Congress
Water Photo: David Reeves | <urn:uuid:1058c028-be61-4372-92d5-fb720cacc161> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.crankyfitness.com/2012/11/in-cranky-fitness-laboratory.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952509 | 1,799 | 1.679688 | 2 |
What’s interesting about the two projects is that while they are about same man, they focus on different aspects of his life. Damast’s film is about the famed composer organizing “illegitimate daughters of courtesans” and training them to become an orchestra that eventually played for the Pope. Riggen’s take will be of a more personal nature, focusing on Vivaldi’s side career as a Catholic priest and the conflicts that it caused with both his music and the woman he loved.
OK, y’all – dream casting time. Who should play Antonio Vivaldi, the famous “red-headed priest” of the 18th century?
I mean, seriously, has anyone ever seen a picture of this composer wherein he did NOT look like a woman?
Since the trumpet is the major feature of this week’s concert, which features the brilliant playing of CSO principal trumpeter Christopher Martin, I thought we might take a further look at the history of the instrument and why there are so very few trumpet concertos in the repertoire.
Trumpet were in use at least 3,500 years ago, and from there earliest days, they had a regal association. How do we know? Well, two of the earliest trumpets that we have come from the tomb of King Tut. They were played on a special broadcast by the BBC in the 1930′s:
Notice that each of those trumpets sounds about three or four notes. This is an inherent physical property of the trumpet – and of any vibrating body, really – that without recourse to keys or valves, it is limited to the notes of the harmonic series. So for an awfully long time, trumpets – even of the European variety – were limited to sounding about five notes with any consistency. Hence the very familiar sound of the trumpet fanfare.
Around the time of Bach, however, some very diligent players developed a technique known as “clarino” playing. This takes advantage of the fact that the higher up you play on the trumpet, the more notes become available. The ascent in pitch is a perilous one though: the higher the note, the easier it is to crack, slip, or outright miss. The practice of clarino playing lasted from perhaps the High Renaissance to the High Baroque, and it is a fortuitous fact of history that it coincided with the lifespan of one Johann Sebastian Bach.
Because of this, we are left with such gems as the second Brandenburg Concerto (check out the third movement which starts at about 3:40):
Nota bene, the group playing above is called the Freiberger Barockorchester, a so-called “period instrument” ensemble. However, there’s a dead give-away that the trumpeter here is playing on a modern recreation of a trumpet from Bach’s time rather than an original instrument. Do you notice little holes that the trumpeter covers with his fingers while he plays? Those little finger holes are a modern improvement that allow the trumpeter to play the high notes more in tune, and they are not an original feature of the trumpets of Bach’s time.
Now, make no mistake – the bearded gentleman above is a complete virtuoso, and he is in fact using the very same clarino technique that was used by the players of Bach’s time. This little enhancement simply makes the notes sound more mellifluous to the ears of the Auto-Tune Generation.
[Full disclosure: There is significant debate about just what sort of instrument Bach composed this part for. Some people think it was a written for a more horn like instrument. Toscanini, for some reason, had it played on a piccolo clarinet.]
The Keyed Trumpet
The first step towards the modern valve trumpet was an endeavor called the “keyed trumpet”, invented by (or perhaps, for) the great Anton Weidinger, trumpeter of the court orchestra of Esterházy family, who also happened to employ one Franz Joseph Haydn. So it’s no surprise that Haydn himself wrote the first major piece for this new instrument, his Trumpet Concerto in E-flat Major. Incidentally, this is also the first major concertate piece for the trumpet that is still played today (excepting Bach’s second Brandenburg Concerto).
[Like all esoteric brass instruments, the keyed trumpet has a major following in Britain. This web site is sort of amazing - whoever wrote the text of the front page did everything in his or her power to make you follow the link to the rest of the site.]
The keyed trumpet never gained traction, despite the concertos written for Weidinger by Haydn and his successor at the Esterházy court, Johann Nepomuk Hummel. The instrument was said to have sounded like a “demented oboe”. The English trumpeter Crispian Steele-Perkins, one of the few contemporary champions of the instrument, does at least as well as that in his recording of the Haydn Concerto:
The modern trumpet is really an amalgamation of the old trumpet and the piston cornet. The cornet is a slightly obsolete instrument now – most listeners can not distinguish its sound from that of the modern trumpet. Earlier in the past century though, before trumpets were regularly made with valves, the cornet was a highly prized virtuoso instrument. Hence the dazzling solo that Igor Stravinsky wrote for it in his 1911 ballet Petrushka:
This blog hasn’t had a game in a while, so it’s time for everybody’s favorite: Is it Schnittke OR Sondheim?
See, Stephen Sondheim was born in 1930 and became the USA’s greatest composer. Alfred Schnittke was born in 1934 and became the USSR’s greatest composer. They both lived and worked in the 1970′s. It was during that decade that they both rocked the exact same, shoulder-length straight hair cut: | <urn:uuid:a77a6b7c-a6d2-44a1-865f-129900a7e698> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.willcwhite.com/2011/05/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974402 | 1,262 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Choose Your Course Vince Carter
Since his arrival to the NBA in 1998, Vince Carter of the Toronto Raptors has become one of the most popular players in the NBA. His high-flying dunks amazing aerial maneuvers have earned him the nicknames Vinsanity and Air Canada. So how did Vince Carter go from being a regular kid in Florida to a household name? In Choose Your Course, Vince Carter talks about the important choices he made on his way to becoming one of basketball's most exciting superstars.
Vince Carter - Choose Your CourseChoose Your Course is one of the latest books in the Positively For Kids series of autobiographies of professional athletes. In Choose Your Course, Vince Carter tells readers about the road he took and the choices he's made on his journey since childhood. From playing college basketball at North Carolina, to winning the NBA's Slam Dunk Contest, to his recovery from knee surgery in 2003. The book looks at some of the important life choices Vince made such as staying away from drugs, leaving North Carolina early to play in the NBA and going to his college graduation in 2001, just hours before a crucial NBA playoff game.
Choose Your Course - The Road To The NBAChoose Your Course is a neat story with some great lessons. While you probably know about Vince Carter's highlight-dunks, and his struggles to turn the Raptors into a playoff powerhouse - you may not know much of the story of his childhood, the life struggles his brother went through or the work he now does for charity. Choose Your Course also has lots of great pictures of Vince Carter, when he was a kid. You'll laugh when you see the one of Vince wearing a pair of dorky glasses and a nerdy marching band uniform. Could that really be the same guy you've seen hanging on top of the rim in the NBA?
Vince Carter - Fun Facts
What sort of things have helped you choose the right course in life? What are some of the things in life that keep you going and get you excited about life? Tell Positively For Kids how you chose your right course and you could win a trip to Toronto to see Vince Carter's Charity All-Star Game! Just click here to enter. | <urn:uuid:21870508-3134-49a2-946d-65b2e734a9d1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kidzworld.com/article/4562-choose-your-course-vince-carter | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967193 | 447 | 1.835938 | 2 |
On what led to the find
In 1984, GSI started an excavation in Gujarat and unearthed several dinosaur nesting sites. One nest had bones entangled with a crushed egg and a dinosaur baby. Palaeontologist Jeffrey Wilson’s analysis showed the fossil to contain a snake with a head atop. Wilson had been in India to study the similarity between fossils of Australian and Indian reptiles. This is because the Indian plate was joined to the Australian landmass until the dinosaurs’ era.
On the implication of the find
About 70 million years ago (the late Cretaceous period), a global mass extinction wiped out dinosaurs. One school of thought blames a meteor for it. The other view stresses on the Deccan volcanic eruption. Our study says dinosaurs existed in India even after the period of extra terrestrial impact which is 67 million years ago. The Deccan volcano eruption started 69 million years ago and ended 61 million years ago. It stands to reason the eruption annihilated dinosaurs from the face of this earth.
On what is next on agenda
Several other prehistoric reptiles like crocodiles and turtles existed around the late Cretaceous period. We want to excavate more potential sites in Gujarat and Central India. | <urn:uuid:f6e386d6-6689-4b02-9abf-7dc6e559a5c0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.downtoearth.org.in/node/177 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937548 | 244 | 3.9375 | 4 |
Most observers of the global warming phenomenon have an awareness of its somewhat controversial nature. And the framework of a move diplomatically to contain the problem exists in the form of the 2005 Kyoto Accord, with 120 signing countries not including the United States. The problem and any proposed solution, however, contain few uncomplicated elements, according to the authors of this perceptive analysis.Ed.
It appears that every generation needs a holier-than-thou ideological mantra (or a new national symbol) with which to wrap themselves virtuously while belaboring their opponents as the political equivalent of demonically possessed.
Was Jesus Christ entirely mortal, entirely divine, or simultaneously entirely mortal and entirely divine? Is "the Union" forever one and inseparable or are the rights of states paramount? Is fascism, communism, Islamic fundamentalism, or vegetarianism the ism-wave of the future? Is pregnancy a question of "choice" or "life"? Is alcohol "Demon Rum" or does a glass of red wine not just enhance but prolong life? Is smoking a cigarette in a restaurant worse than snorting cocaine in its restroom? Can one suffer a Holocaust denier?
Pick your weapon/words and come out slanging.
In this regard, the Kyoto Agreement and global warming have become among the most knife-edged shibboleths of the current culture wars
To complicate matters, global warming and its political surrogate (the Kyoto Accord) appear to have become aspects of bilateral differentiation between nationsdistinguishing the moral, environmentally conscious, energy-conserving Kyoto cultists from the right wing, gun-toting yahoos and Kyoto-deniers epitomized by the United States. And Kyoto would be, if not easy, at least defensible if it were truly effective. Canada, for example, would certainly find Kyoto's provisions easier to achieve without economic pain if it had Californias climate. Luxembourg might be less enthusiastic if it were 100 times larger. The United States might have found it more attractive if it had Saudi Arabia and Canadas combined energy resources to tap and only half its current population. Indeed, there are supportable extrapolations from the Kyoto Accordthose that would result in serious conservation, better R&D, and investment in engineering efficiencies directed at conserving nonrenewable resources for our economies.
In North America, for example, it will take the combined efforts of both Canada and the U.S. to conserve existing continental energy resources and develop alternative energies. Fighting over the intractably hard-to-prove global warming theories or over Kyoto generates gigantic political angst to little practical purpose. Rather than enshrining Kyoto shibboleths, governments should be seeking pragmatic problem-solving approaches. Global warming should not become another facet of culture wars.
No one wept when the League of Nations was replaced by the United Nations. Somewhere in the distant future, the U.N. might in turn evolve into a more effective organization (lets say a global equivalent of the European Union). The League/U.N. are Kyoto/post-Kyoto analogues. The general, global United States effort to advance Kyoto alternatives driven by private industry efforts deserves more than the out-of-hand dismissiveness it has generally met. Specifically, in North America, the United States and Canada together have the wealth, weight, will, and technology to form something better than Kyotofor their own sake but from which others could benefit.
Start by Understanding Our Limits of Understanding: Global Warming Science and Global Warming Theories Are Just That.
Nor are scientists saints; indeed, they are as bureaucratic and self-seeking as any professional group. If the funding available is for global warming, then research proposals will be cast as applicable to global warming. If any mention of global warming or global disaster gets more attention in science journals, the topic will be more mentioned. If there is strong hostility to anyone who goes against the current dogma, then those who have yet to receive tenure will be very cautious in commentary. Scientific training forces you to look at other possibilities, and thus honest scientists will often sound like champion diplomatic prevaricators, qualifying their third subtended clause with a fourth. But "honest science" and "politics as usual" are rare bedmates.
Based on work in 1963 by Edward Lorentz of MIT, James Gleick in Does God Play Dice detailed this conundrum. Lorentz calculations yielded results that varied enormously and unpredictably with the most minute change in initial conditions. He called this the butterfly effect (the butterfly flapping in Tokyo creates a Florida hurricane) when he found that the results of one computer run could not be duplicated even when the same data was fed into the systembecause, in his case, putting 0.506000 instead of the original 0.506127a difference of one part in a thousandresulted in vastly different results.
Gleick explained the implications. Climatologists using global computer models to simulate the long-term behavior of the earths atmosphere and oceans know their models allow for a dramatically different equilibrium. " this alternate climate has never existed, but it could be an equally valid solution to the system of equations governing the earth. It is what some climatologists call the White Earth climate: an earth whose continents are covered by snow and whose oceans are covered by ice." Computer model designers are aware of this possibility, but avoid it as too unpredictable. To explain large changes in climate, they look for external causeschanges in the earths orbit around the sun, for example. Yet it takes no great imagination for a climatologist to see that "almost-intransitivity" (another Lorentz hypothesis in which a system fluctuates within certain bounds for long time, but then, for no reason whatsoever, shifts into a different behavior, still fluctuating but producing a different average) might well explain why the earths climate has drifted in and out of long Ice Ages at mysterious, irregular intervals. If so, no physical cause need be found for the timing. The Ice Ages may simply be a by-product of the underlying complex nonlinear relationships or chaos.
In sum, the underlying mathematics and modeling, the immensely complex interactions mean that, while we can try to extract support for this or other trend, in our very, very short timescales, we cannot prove any of the theories. Even attempts to backcast with models where we have data can do little. We could be in the midst of a major warming trend that will have orchids bloom in the Arctic. Or we could be in a small warming trend with our descendants valiantly fighting glaciation in New York City. Or everything could swing back to the 1900 average.
Some Humility Is Appropriate: The Ice Ages Came and Went and Dinosaurs Roamed the Antarctic with No Help from Us
At the same time, close to half of all deep-sea animals went extinct, asphyxiated in the suddenly warmer and stagnant deep waters.
Now for a change of pace and to look at nearer to our time changes:
The point of these "tip of the iceberg" citations is simply to remind of the geological scales of real climate change. We still cannot prove our theories of global warming or cooling in the past because we cannot time travel to the past and measure the real changes; and, even if we measured the real changes, we would still be ignorant of the complex mechanisms then affecting earths climate. We are not much farther ahead today, despite our best wishes or best models.
We need to emphasize the requirement for perspective when viewing global climate change data. So far much of studies are akin to deducing all of human history by studying only the cells of the pancreas. The solar system has and will continue to change over time. Meteors and larger objects will continue to strike the planets. A wandering comet that visits Earth once every 100 million years can have an effect we can't predict. The "Gaia" enthusiasts treat Earth as a closed system in permanent (they hope) dynamic equilibrium and exclude consideration outside perturbation. Along these lines, it is not irrelevant to recall that once Earth had much more oxygen in its atmosphere (ergo dragon flies with meter-long wing spans).
The "League of Kyoto." Thus our arguments with "Kyoto" are less its idealism than its ideology and impracticality. Following World War I, the allies created the League of Nationsan idealistic exercise that failed ultimately on virtually every test of political reality. So, analogously, is it with the "League of Kyoto" whose failure to construct formulae even vaguely acceptable to the USG (hence the 95-0 Sense of the Senate rejection of Kyoto in 1997) defined its irrelevance before its inception. The creation of parameters satisfactory to small European states or failed communist economies while excluding massive, rising economies such as China and India suggested that Kyoto was an attack on the U.S. economy rather than a realistic proposal to limit "greenhouse gases." Consequently, the likelihood that the U.S. will accept Kyoto strictures is zero; no number of unprovable doom warnings on global warming is likely to convince U.S. leadership to eviscerate the economy. A recent study, for example, by the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council of the minimalist McCain/Lieberman plan, and the Bingaman proposal suggested annual GDP declining by 1.9% in 2020 under McCain/Lieberman, with accumulated job losses topping 1.3 million, while the Bingaman plan would reduce GDP growth by 0.4% in 2020 and the lost job total hitting 326,000. Not political "best sellers" to be sure.
The League of Nations hoped, ineffectively, to prevent warpresumably a human activity that might be subject to human control. The League of Kyoto seeks to prevent what looks far more to be a geological and natural circumstanceand to attempt to do so with mechanisms that are unproved, improvable, and unacceptable to significant human actors. Moreover, Kyoto has created a mental block that stifles creative thinking. While quietly there is recognition by all but the theologians of the "League" that Kyoto goals are unobtainable, the you're-with-us-or-against-us rhetoric has created dichotomies that make some prefer to "burn" rather than admit that an opponent might have a "cool" thought.
There may be no "answers"; indeed, the best results from enduring global warming may be no better than human survivala not trivial consequence to be sure, but an outcome that would be easier to navigate if the approaches were technical rather than ideological.
Addressing the Problem.
That range of political attitudes in a democracy will require politicians to follow the State Department's unofficial motto: "Don't just stand there. Do something." Yes, do something, but what?
One thing we do knowthe earths population will continue to increase, barring major plagues, asteroid strikes, and cataclysmic seismic events. The Chinese term for population is renko or "people-mouth"a very pragmatic appreciation of demographic burdens on the ecosystem. Indeed, there are some ecologists who argue that the current global population is not sustainable, let alone the projected rates of increase. And that conclusion has nothing to do with global warming. Fossil fuels will not increase. Nor will natural gas increase as a resource. By definition such nonrenewable resources will not increase, and thus we have good reason to conserve. One observer commented that burning natural gas for heat was akin to washing windows with champagne. Even renewable resources, such as waterespecially potable watercan become very scarce for more and more of the population. Although there are renewable sources for methane such as rotting vegetation and flatulent sheep, these are not significant. An even worse case, a seaquake that massively releases methane clathrates from the deep seabed could overpower all the carbon dioxide emission cuts.
Instead of arguing over the "models" or whether the fact that year X is 0.001 percent higher than year Y, we should seek agreement that the precautionary principle could be a point of agreement on all sides. To make any progress, we must avoid the classic case of making the "best" the enemy of the "good enough for now." It is worthwhile noting that so long as global GDP grows, world carbon dioxide production should rise; there are some estimates, notably by the International Energy Agency in Paris, that with modest growth, energy use and greenhouse emissions could more than double by 2050. Consequently, there will not be a neat mathematical model with independent variables. In the end, our concern is not the abstract geological future for a warming or cooling cycle that might (or might not) last 100,000 years, it's the next generation that we need to consider; the next generation whose energy needs and hopes of a higher standard of living will depend on new sources of abundant and cheap energy. No currently available renewable resource will perform this trick. Economist Robert Samuelson has observed, "The trouble with the global warming debate is that it has become a moral crusade when it's really an engineering problem. The 'inconvenient truth' is that if we don't solve the engineering problem, we're helpless."
Both bilaterally and multilaterally the United States is seeking pragmatic, engineering/technical, essentially voluntary approaches to reduce energy waste and increase fuel efficiencies. It is not a question of who has (or lacks) that mythical "global conscience." Rather it is a question of recognizing that market forces and pure pursuit of profit can create desirable results. The U.S. national vehicle fleet miles per gallon measurement has risen over a generation while household appliance efficiencies have risen. Likewise, concern for national security is a driver for seeking alternate energy sources. But legislating ecological purity is like legislating morality: "those convinced against their wills remain unconvinced still."
We should not be in the position of picking winners so far as endorsing one or another energy-associated technology. Nuclear energy or gerbils on exercise wheels charging nanotech batteries may both be relevant. However, any effort needs to be done for sound economic reasons and with a clear understanding of the costsnot driven by global climate change theology where demons, legends, and damnation all are used to threaten the ordinary folk. Perhaps it is easier for populations to worry about global warming and live the illusion that they can control it rather than deal with the fact that we will die, the Earth will die, and the sun will dieor the plagues could returnthan to address the prospect that an Earth with a population of 6 billion, 8 billion, or 10 billion may make its inhabitants conclude that global warming is a tertiary concern.
Finally, if global warming activists pin all their hopes for action on a warming trend, they risk seeing support evaporate as soon as there are several cold winters akin to those we experienced in the 1970s when all the talk was of a new ice age, complete with old etchings of New York harbor frozen. At that juncture, even the disarmament scientists were busy with "nuclear winter" predictions from a global nuclear war. In short, we do not need a new "Crusade" but rather a new Industrial Revolution. | <urn:uuid:73088fb1-7790-4d82-9b56-c3bc305d1dd9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/item/2007/0103/jone/jones_kyoto.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940102 | 3,116 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Capitalism's Reality Check
The biggest political story of 2008 is getting little coverage. It involves the collapse of assumptions that have dominated our economic debate for three decades.
Since the Reagan years, free-market cliches have passed for sophisticated economic analysis. But in the current crisis, these ideas are falling, one by one, as even conservatives recognize that capitalism is ailing.
You know the talking points: Regulation is the problem and deregulation is the solution. The distribution of income and wealth doesn't matter. Providing incentives for the investors of capital to "grow the pie" is the only policy that counts. Free trade produces well-distributed economic growth, and any dissent from this orthodoxy is "protectionism."
The old script is in rewrite. "We are in a worldwide crisis now because of excessive deregulation," Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in an interview.
He noted that in 1999 when Congress replaced the New Deal-era Glass-Steagall Act with a set of looser banking rules, "we let investment banks get into a much wider range of activities without regulation." This helped create the subprime mortgage mess and the cascading calamity in banking.
While Frank is a liberal, the same cannot be said of Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve. Yet in a speech on Tuesday, Bernanke sounded like a born-again New Dealer in calling for "a more robust framework for the prudential supervision of investment banks and other large securities dealers."
Bernanke said the Fed needed more authority to get inside "the structure and workings of financial markets" because "recent experience has clearly illustrated the importance, for the purpose of promoting financial stability, of having detailed information about money markets and the activities of borrowers and lenders in those markets." Sure sounds like Big Government to me.
This is the third time in 100 years that support for taken-for-granted economic ideas has crumbled. The Great Depression discredited the radical laissez-faire doctrines of the Coolidge era. Stagflation in the 1970s and early '80s undermined New Deal ideas and called forth a rebirth of radical free-market notions. What's becoming the Panic of 2008 will mean an end to the latest Capital Rules era.
What's striking is that conservatives who revere capitalism are offering their own criticisms of the way the system is working. Irwin Stelzer, director of the Center for Economic Policy Studies at the Hudson Institute, says the subprime crisis arose in part because lenders quickly sold their mortgages to others and bore no risk if the loans went bad.
"You have to have the person who's writing the risk bearing the risk," he says. "That means a whole host of regulations. There's no way around that."
While some conservatives now worry about the social and economic impact of growing inequalities, Stelzer isn't one of them. But he is highly critical of "the process that produces inequality."
"I don't like three of your friends on a board voting you a zillion dollars," Stelzer, who is also a business consultant, told me. "A cozy boardroom back-scratching operation offends me." He argues that "the preservation of the capitalist system" requires finding new ways of "linking compensation to performance." | <urn:uuid:73a2a8b0-d0ff-4f43-974d-5ddba41a730b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/10/AR2008071002264.html?nav=hcmodule | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950219 | 682 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Today’s number brought to you by Funeral Directors of New Zealand.
Kidney Attack (aka Acute Kidney Injury) is responsible for at least 1300 deaths a year in New Zealand. It used to be said that people died with Acute Kidney Injury rather than of Acute Kidney Injury. The paradigm has shifted in the last few years. Now it is recognised that an acute attack on the kidneys is a killer all by itself. Of course, the attack is still most often precipitated by another event – heart attack, serious infection, cardiac surgery etc etc etc.
How did I come up with 1300?
A comprehensive study of nearly 20,000 hospital admissions showed that there was a 4.1 times increase in risk of death in hospital for those with Kidney Attack compared to those without. The Ministry of Health in New Zealand do not report hospital mortality data, but a very helpful MOH information analyst, Chris Lewis (thanks Chris), dug out some numbers for me. There were 7582 patients out of 548,965 discharges from public hospitals in 2011/12 who were “Discharged Dead”, Died in the emergency department, or Discharged for organ donation. This does not necessarily capture all deaths (eg Private Hospitals are not included). However, it gives me enough to go on using the proportion who died overall, the increased odds of death with Kidney Attack (4.1), the estimated number of Kidney Attack patients (30,000), and a little bit of math. The result is at least 1300 Kidney Attack deaths. | <urn:uuid:7116fd8a-51ce-4b7a-b7d3-4b3e9f4c38fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sciblogs.co.nz/kidney-punch/2013/02/20/1300/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96925 | 323 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Tze Chun's short film Silver Sling takes place in a near-future New York City and tells the story of Russian immigrant Lydia, who is considering becoming a pregnancy surrogate for the third time. In the world of Silver Sling, surrogates are given an injection that accelerates pregnancy, shortening it to three months. While acting as a surrogate comes with a good deal of money (enough so that Lydia could bring her little brother over from Russia), a third surrogate pregnancy usually leaves the surrogate sterile. Lydia struggles to balance the needs of the present (finding the money to take care of her brother) with the possibilities of the future (having children with her boyfriend Stephen).
What I liked best about this film was the way it let the technology itself be value-neutral while focusing on how our cultural and economic structure shapes the technology's use. Accelerated surrogacy is positioned as a smart choice for busy professionals; the company's promotional film contains lines like "In a world where you shouldn't have to wait for anything, why wait 9 months for your child to be born?" and "At Silver Sling, you can have the baby you've always wanted—in a time frame appropriate for the fast-paced world of today." Though this part didn't make the film, the synopsis on the film's web page says, "corporations offer financial incentives to their high-ranking female employees to pay for chemically accelerated surrogate births." The United States is economically polarized and highly focused on consumerism and convenience. It makes sense that a convenient but unnecessary service like this would be pitched to upper class women, just as it makes sense that the women hired to do the actual labor are, as the film's synopsis states, "people on the lower end of the economic spectrum—often immigrants or people looking to make their rent." Director Tze Chun said he wanted to explore how "immigrants function as a life support system" in New York City: "They cook food, they nanny children, they take out the trash. What if they literally became the life support system for the city's future generations?"
The spokesperson in the Silver Sling promotional film refers to the "reproductive revolution," comparing it to earlier revolutions: industrial, political, and sexual. Bioethics writer Kyle Munkittrick thinks this is a fitting comparison: "Just as with the earlier revolutions, though the change began with a new technology, ultimately it was the shift in lifestyles, social mores, and culture itself that had the real impact" (Science Not Fiction).
This film reminds us that as we try to envision our technological future, we need to pay close attention to who and what is valued by our culture, as that is the real indicator of how much a certain technology will change us.
- Film, images, and director quotes from futurestates.tv.
- Munkittrick, Kyle. "Get your baby quickly and easily with accelerated surrogacy!" Science Not Fiction, Discover Magazine, July 6, 2010. | <urn:uuid:28f56ba7-b2b2-49ec-a28a-b2570f2265bc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.lib.umn.edu/jcf/pretergenesis/2011/11/accelerated-surrogacy-in-silver-sling.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959718 | 610 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Adams County Solid Waste District Manager Hank Mayer reported to the district's board of trustees on Monday that the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) has backed off an earlier requirement that a passive gas study be performed at the county's long-closed south landfill.
After IDEM earlier this year had required the county to implement the additional test vents to monitor methane gas at the landfill, Mayer called the state agency to protest.
"I told them they were making us spend a lot of money for absolutely nothing, and that they should take another look" at the mandate, Mayer told the board.
The director reported that IDEM officials responded by saying that if the passive gas vents were installed as requested, the district could halt its ongoing methane monitoring at the landfill. If the new vents are not installed, Mayer said, IDEM will require methane testing for five more years.
Mayer told the board it would be more cost-effective for the district to continue its current system of monitoring methane, saving some $15,000-$20,000 in the process.
"I have canceled that project. Unless this board says differently, we're not going to do it," said Mayer.
The solid waste director also reported that an Electronics Amnesty Day will be held from 8 a.m.-2 p.m. on Saturday, October 20. Van Eichelberger will be on hand to accept used and/or broken electronic devices free of charge on that day. Additional details will be announced at a later date, said Mayer.
Attorney Tim Baker, who serves as legal counsel for the solid waste district, also reported on a pair of amendments proposed by Waste Management Inc. to the county's contract for waste disposal at the Jay County landfill.
Baker said Waste Management officials have asked the county to agree to share any future costs incurred by the landfill as the result of new state or federal mandates, and also asked the county to reduce its contractually-agreed upon landfill space of 18,000 tons per year.
Baker recommended that the board reject both requests from Waste Management, which it did. | <urn:uuid:623958e5-a214-4f9d-8c0c-db6a5cd96a5a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.decaturdailydemocrat.com/content/hank-vs-idemhank-wins?quicktabs_2=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97034 | 427 | 1.609375 | 2 |
GlaxoSmithKline's FDA approval for Cervarix, received last week as rival Merck expanded its Gardasil label, heralds a market-share battle that may hinge on science.
Cervarix is approved to protect women and girls 10-25 from cervical cancer and precancerous lesions due to HPV types 16 and 18, but the vaccine also guards against HPV types not included in the vaccine. “The vaccine's impact against the overall burden [of] cervical disease…will be critical,” said a spokesperson.
The drugmaker is looking for an edge against Gardasil, which has been on the US market for the same indication since 2006 and was just approved to prevent genital warts among men and boys. “We are not pursuing that,” the spokesperson said with regard to an indication for treating males. “GSK is committed to providing a vaccine specifically designed to protect girls and young women.”
Whether Cervarix's collective efficacy in females matters to patients or doctors remains an open question. One analysis showed the vaccine to be 89% effective against HPV type 31, the third most common cancer-causing virus type in North America. Gardasil has not been demonstrated to protect against diseases due to HPV types not contained in the vaccine, Merck's website states.
The next step for both vaccines will be a late-October meeting of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, to review Cervarix for girls and Gardasil for boys. The committee, which sets national guidelines, could have an effect on sales of both vaccines. | <urn:uuid:f35645a4-5b5f-4533-999b-9099d319c17b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mmm-online.com/approvals-put-cervarix-gardasil-in-high-science-showdown/article/155751/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952357 | 336 | 2.3125 | 2 |
The Office of Records Management works with all County and Municipal Agencies to improve the security and access for the records maintained by these Agencies. This Office was established in November of 2007 and is under the direction of Dan Freed – County Records Manager. We operate as a part of the Division of Information Technology under the Department of Central and Shared Services.
The New Jersey State Division of Archives and Records Management (DARM) sets the standards and policies that serve as the guidelines under which all records management activities are conducted. There is a wealth of information to explore within this agency and a trip to the State Archives is a great place to discover new things about the history of New Jersey.
Although Records Management sounds like a rather dry topic, there are a lot of exciting things happening within Sussex County, and across the State, which are going have a dramatic effect on the way Government manages information and makes it available to all users. Although the security of records is a key driver to protect against any type of natural or man-made disaster, we are actively looking for ways to take advantage of cost effective document management technologies. The benefits of these efforts become evident when you realize that the County of Sussex, together with its 24 Municipalities currently manage approximately 54,000,000 document pages.
Through guidance provided by DARM together with the Public Archives and Records Infrastructure Support Grants Program (PARIS), New Jersey is taking a leadership position in Records Management on a National basis. To get a better understanding of the work that has already been completed within the County of Sussex we invite you to visit the following two links. These new resources will give you a hands-on look at how the use of Electronic Document Technology is being implemented within the County.
Through the County Clerk's website users are able to go online to lookup and view any property Deed or Mortgage that has been filed with this office.
The County's Office of GIS is providing a unique online information resource that allows the user to lookup and view a specific property (find by address, block & lot, etc.) via a Countywide map. The best way to get started with this is to look up your address and turn on the aerial photography and go from there.
Try out Parcelink today (Requires Internet Explorer)
Tax Maps are available through Parcelink
(Requires Internet Explorer). Using one of Parcelink's search tools, locate the desired Parcel, click Identify in the toolbar, then click the Parcel. In the pop up window, click on the Tax Map link. | <urn:uuid:eb1d71b5-fe73-4afc-ad07-afec10060408> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sussex.nj.us/Cit-e-Access/webpage.cfm?TID=7&TPID=10990 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931228 | 515 | 1.617188 | 2 |
The pride not only for Bandraites but also Mumbaikars, the Basilica of Our Lady of the Mount, more commonly known as Mount Mary Church, is one of the major hallmarks of the city of Mumbai. One of the most prominent churches across Mumbai, come September and the feast of the Nativity (Birthday of Mother Mary) this is one church that gets devotees pouring in from all corners of Mumbai, as many believe that the statue that is venerated here is responsible for many miracles.
One of Mumbai’s most beautiful Churches, it is situated on a small hillock from where one gets a beautiful view of the Arabian Sea. Originally built in 1640, there are many legends about the Chapel of Mount Mary, the most common one being that it was destroyed after the Marathas conducted a raid here. While the Church that stands here today is just about 100 years old, the history behind the statue of Our Lady of the Mount dates back to the 16th century, when the same was brought to India by Jesuit priests visiting the country from Portugal.
In 1700, according to historians, the statue was disfigured by Arab pirates and the right hand of the statue was broken off in order to get hold of a gold / gold lined object in her hand, after which the statue was tossed into the sea. According to legends, a Koli fisherman dreamt that he would find a statue in the sea; after it was believed to have been floating around from 1700 to 1760. In 1760, the damaged chapel of Mount Mary was rebuilt and the statue was substituted with a statue of Our Lady of Navigators from the nearby St. Andrew’s Church in Bandra. It was in 1761, that the original statue of the Lady of the Mount was returned to the Church after being remodeled with a child in her arms.
Referred to as’Mot Mauli’ (meaning the Pearl Mother) by the local Koli fishermen, September the month of Mary’s birthday is celebrated with great devotion, with a 9 day novena followed by the feast of the Nativity of Mother Mary which is celebrated with great pomp on the first Sunday after 8th September.
Devotees from all over visit and venerate the statue irrespective of caste or creed offering candles which are sold by the locals. One can find a variety of candles/wax articles in various shapes, ranging from houses to babies; even wax articles shaped in various different body parts are sold here by the local vendors, the significance being they are purchased by the sick and suffering depending on their ailments and the same are offered to Mother Mary with the hope that she will grant their wish and cure them of their ailments.
Apart from this statue which is considered the main statue here, there is another statue of the Virgin Mary put up outside the church, where locals can light candles they buy as offerings while praying for their near and dear ones. Indeed devotees flock in to visit the Church throughout the year though September sees a record number of pilgrims seeking Mother Mary’s help!
The feast day is followed by a weeklong carnival known as the Bandra Fair. One of the most popular fairs of Mumbai it attracts devotees from far off places who visit the church and fair. A fair visited by thousands, it was first started when the statue was found by the Koli fisherman. The same was believed to be a miracle by the locals and a fair was held to commemorate the same. Today it has turned into a carnival of sorts, with devotees coming from far and near. Apart from the assorted wax figurines and other religious items found here, one can also find an assortment of snacks and sweets here, besides local vendors selling clothes, artificial jewellery and other knick knacks. One also finds the usual Games and Amusement Stalls not forgetting the Giant Wheel, etc.
Whether it is the interesting legend behind this Church, or the claims of the miracles and miraculous powers that are associated with the Church and the statue here, this is one beautiful Church located in Mumbai’s suburb of Bandra that has been attracting devotees and pilgrims for decades now irrespective of caste or creed. | <urn:uuid:7c1fedc1-4d48-4975-8949-0c7605657cb4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.mapsofindia.com/2011/09/08/celebrating-the-feast-of-the-nativity-mount-marys-church-the-bandra-fair/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977261 | 860 | 2.09375 | 2 |
At the beginning of the major league baseball season, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) teamed up with the Minnesota Twins to launch "Break a Bat, Plant a Tree," an innovative partnership that has given both sports fans and outdoors enthusiasts good reasons to cheer.
According to the agreement, every time a Twins' pitcher broke the bat of an opposing player during the 2010 season, 100 trees would be planted in one of the 73 Minnesota state parks and recreation areas or along one of the 21 Minnesota state trails. When the regular season ended Sunday, Oct. 3, Minnesota pitchers had broken a total of 180 bats, which will result in the planting of 18,000 trees.
"The Break a Bat, Plant a Tree partnership has been a big hit, and we're grateful to the Twins for coming up with the idea," said Courtland Nelson, director of the DNR's Parks and Trails Division. "It added an element of excitement to every at-bat, and our parks and trails will benefit greatly."
Nelson noted that the National Association of State Park Directors recognized the Minnesota Twins "Break at, Plant a Tree" partnership with Minnesota State Parks and Trails at their annual conference in September.
"The partnership was a natural fit," said Patrick Klinger, vice president of marketing for the Minnesota Twins. "The DNR wants to get people outdoors, and now that we have a new outdoor stadium, so do we. The state parks and trails contribute significantly to the quality of life we enjoy here in Minnesota, and we're glad we could help draw some attention to that during the Twins' season."
On Friday, Aug. 13, former Twins pitcher and Fox Sports North television analyst Bert Blyleven and Forrest Boe, deputy director of the DNR's Division of Parks and Trails, planted the first ceremonial tree on the Luce Line State Trail, a 63-mile trail that runs from Plymouth to Hutchinson. The rest of the trees will be planted next spring at park and trail sites yet to be determined.
Based on the success of "Break a Bat, Plant a Tree" in 2010, the DNR and the Twins plan to continue the partnership next year. | <urn:uuid:77101fca-cddf-4924-9af0-9ed778a0a1e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bemidjipioneer.com/content/dnr-broken-bat-promotion-twins-big-hit?qt-latest_trending_article_page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961345 | 443 | 1.921875 | 2 |
by PeEll 2003.12.19
What really is morality? Morality is the reservation of actions that follows a set of defined goals. These goals are usually established early in life such as survival or a positive self image. One example would be not killing people. This moral is intended to stop you from killing people, because you know that killing someone could mean your own destruction. That is why it would feel or seem wrong. | <urn:uuid:89c0a85f-e34e-4723-8541-964bc5cfe6eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mortalpowers.com/news/morality | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975294 | 87 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Under much public pressure to release data on fine particulate matter, the Beijing government has incorporated preliminary measurements in real-time. Of course, there is a lot to be desired – the PM 2.5 is labeled as “for research purposes,” and is only from one station in Chegongzhuang, which is in the Northwest corner of Beijing’s second-ring road. There is also no indication of the date of the data, although it is presumably available on a daily basis.
Part of me thinks that they were rushing to get this up before the lunar new year, as they had promised, but in terms of how useful these data are so far, they still have a ways to go. I have already heard grumblings from some that don’t believe the data are that accurate, however it’s not possible to directly compare the U.S. Embassy’s @Beijingair readings directly with the Beijing governments, because of their locations on opposites sides of town. Part of me thinks that the government did this on purpose so that direct comparisons couldn’t be drawn. However, at least the PM10 trends between the two sites seem consistent, as there is an official monitoring station somewhat close to the U.S. Embassy (农展馆).
You can see the clear spike at around 1 am Jan. 23, which is likely due to Chinese New Year fireworks.
Other cities including Qingdao, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Dalian all are supposed to start reporting PM 2.5 soon as well. However, I checked their respective websites today and wasn’t able to find similar information like Beijing’s. | <urn:uuid:517f661f-e609-44d4-9339-6f561ccb83c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hsu.me/2012/01/beijing-releases-real-time-pm-2-5-data/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976497 | 352 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Bee Hive Monitor
An open-source bee-hive monitoring system
By Glyn and Clive Hudson
Bee hives in North Wales, UK (December 2010)
Prototype system in operation
The aim of the experiment is to monitor the temperature inside the cluster of a honey bee colony and to compare this with other temperatures outside the cluster,inside the hive and outside the hive.
If successful, the second phase of the experiment will monitor these temperatures during a bee-keeping year.
A third phase will attempt to monitor the temperatures when the hive is opened for inspection by the bee-keeper.
Above: Location of a temperature sensor in the core
Data is obtained from 7 sensors (4 temperature and 3 humidity) located outside, above the crown board and below the crown board, readings are taken and saved to an SD memory card every 60 seconds.
A 3V watch battery and a real-time clock chip (DS1302) is used to time-stamp the readings with the current date and time.
A 12V car battery is used to power the logger. This gives enough power for weeks few months of logging. It is possible, but not yet implemented to put the Arduino microprocessor into 'sleep' mode in between readings. This would significantly reduce the power consumption and therefore increase the battery life. See here for more details.
(click on links for more information)
- Arduino 328
- Nuelectronics Real-time Datalog & IO Shield + SD card
- 4 x DS18B20 temperature sensors
- 3 x DHT11 Temperature and Humidity Module (only used for humidity)
DHT11 Humidity Sensor DS18B20 digital on-wire temperature sensor
To remove sensor jitter I used MATLAB to make a moving average with a window size of 100 (i.e. average over 100 readings, which taken ever 30sec equates to 5min) to filter the data. A runing average filter such as this could be implemented in run-time on the Arduino. In the prototype system the data was post-processed. Click here for MATALB code.
Above: The effect of filtering
Data and observations:
- Reasonably strong colony in a modified Commercial hive with 16"x10" brood frames
- Colony was a swarm, collected 28th June 2010 and fed with 4Kg of sugar syrup in September
- Cold settled spell with high pressure dominating the weather
- Snow with severe overnight frost was present for this period until 10th December when weather became milder
- The surprise of this data was the low temperature in the cluster, never above 11 deg C and as low as 7 deg.
- The cluster temperature rose by 1-2deg C during the day, sometimes rapidly as the sun raised the ambient and hive temperature.
- The main observation is that it says very humid in the hive
- The humidity sensors become saturated above 95% humidity this results in a horizontal line
- This hive humidity is condensation inside the hive being reduced slightly when the sun was out
- Same hive as monitored before in December which did survive the cold temperatures
- There is now sealed brood in the cluster; see photo
- Big increase in cluster temperature from December, amazingly steady at about 34deg C
- All three other temperatures follow each other very closely
- Even T1, only mm outside the cluster is hardly influenced by the high cluster temperature
- The bee cluster is amazingly well insulated, keeping nearly all its heat internal
- Humidity graph is complicated! What do you think?
- Hive humidity i.e condensation is far less than in December
Other than the facts of the temperature and humidity data that can be read from the graphs, we feel it is too soon from conclusions.
- at 10 degrees C, brood rearing stops and workers cannot fly
- at 5.6 degrees C, bees cannot move because their muscles are not warm enough
- at 4.4 degrees C, bees die
information from: http://www.beehacker.com/wp/?p=567#more-567
Here are a few things I would like to implement soon:
- Low power opperation - power the monitor from a small battery, possibly topped up with a solar cell
- Small hot-plugable LCD display for real-time feedback and error checking
- Wireless transmission + real-time online graphing. Building on this (possibly GRPS for hives far away)
- Real-time monitoring of the weight of a hive
Other work in the field for bee monitoring
Another Arduino based monitoring system (in development): http://www.beehacker.com/wp/?page_id=84
Low cost hive Scales: http://www.beehacker.com/wp/?page_id=55
On the topic of weight, here is a good looking tutorial for interfacing the Arduino wirth a load cell. Possibly taken from bathroom scales: http://cerulean.dk/words/?page_id=42 | <urn:uuid:c1a9c90f-7c59-4a26-905b-ce59d58d8de6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://openenergymonitor.org/emon/beemonitor | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915258 | 1,040 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Home to great coffee and Microsoft, Seattle is the largest city in the Pacific Northwest. It is nestled on the banks of Lake Washington, roughly 100 miles from the Canada border. It was first colonized in December 1851, by Arthur A. Denny and the "Denny party". Known first as Duwamps, later it took on its namesake from Chief Noah Sealth who was chief of the two nearby Indian tribes. Seattle has 600K residents and an approximate metropolitan area resident base of 3.5 million people. Popular neighborhoods in Seattle include: Pinehurst, Ballard, Beacon Hill, Holly Park, Mid Beacon Hill (Maplewood), Beacon Hill, Belltown, Bitter Lake, North Beach, Broadmoor, Broadview, Broadway, Bryant, capital Hill, Cascade, Central District, Cherry Hill, Crown Hill, Denny Regrade, Denny-Blaine, Eastlake, Fremont, Greenwood, Harbor Island, SoDo, Cedar Park, Matthews Beach, Meadowbrook, Olympic Hills, Victory Heights, Laurelhurst, Leschi, Madison Park, Madison Valley, Madrona, Magnolia, Montlake, Mount Baker, Northgate, Haller Lake, Licton Springs, Maple Leaf, Phinney Ridge, Pike Market, Pioneer Square, Portage Bay, Queen Anne, Rainier Valley, Brighton, Columbia City, Mount Baker, Rainier, Ravenna, South Seattle, University District, Washington Park, Gatewood, Genesee, and Windermere. | <urn:uuid:d81c6a7f-b0ec-488a-8e36-79e7aedb73f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://local.ingenio.com/Service/Limo-town-car-service-in-Seattle/9970517 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908054 | 306 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Almost nine in 10 rely on antivirus software
There seems to be at least one phenomenon that crosses cultural boundaries in the digital age—consumer concerns about online security. The population of internet users in China, which eMarketer estimates will reach 620.7 million by the end of 2013, is no different, according to the quasi-governmental agency China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC).
The CNNIC, in a survey of both mobile and landline phone users conducted in September 2012, found that nine of 10 respondents thought that all internet users should be concerned about the security of their personal information, a result that is unlikely to astound anyone.
Internet users in China taking a proactive approach to security relied on a grab bag of common-sense security measures. The installation of security software was the most popular countermeasure, but internet users also commonly refrained from installing unknown software, made efforts to minimize their personal information online and avoided suspicious links. Users seemed less confident in security certificates; only about four in 10 internet users surveyed said they used them.
Respondents said that potential threats to their information came via a variety of channels. The largest group of respondents, 68.3%, cited spam emails as the most common medium of would-be thieves. More than half had received unwanted calls, and almost one in four had been the target of unwanted messages. Only about 10% said they had been subjected to malware on their mobile device, but that may be because users were unaware their phone had been compromised.
Of those mobile internet users that did install security software on a mobile phone, 42.2% did so because they had just bought a new smartphone, while 33.8% had been spurred to action after learning about mobile viruses. Interestingly, about one-quarter of those using mobile antivirus programs said the software had come preinstalled on their phones.
eMarketer estimates that the number of mobile internet users in China will grow from 492.5 million in 2013 to 631.7 million by 2016. And as mobile internet continues to grow in China, so too will concerns about the security of mobile devices.
Corporate subscribers have access to all eMarketer analyst reports, articles, data and more. Join the over 750 companies already benefiting from eMarketer’s approach. Learn more.
Check out today’s other articles, “Facebook Newsfeed Ads Get Retailers High-Value Clicks” and “To Prod Men to the Grooming Aisle, Retailers Use Digital Tactics.” | <urn:uuid:0306059f-45de-4446-b08d-a99d64081efb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Security-Concerns-on-Radar-Internet-Users-China/1009663 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957503 | 518 | 2.359375 | 2 |
Before you can travel with your kids anywhere outsides the country, you will first need to apply for their passport. This is mandatory, regardless of the child’s age, at least until it turns 16 years of age. Here is what you will need to have, so check out this article if you want that process to be smooth:
1. DS-11 Form
This is an application for the US Passport. It has to be submitted in person and at a place that is authorized for that, such as the post office. When submitting this application, both parents or guardians need to be present with the child, although there are cases when that is not necessary, in which case a court order or a death certificate need to be presented, depending on the case.
2. Proof of Citizenship
A proof of the child’s citizenship will have to be provided. This is easily done with the original birth certificate, that has the register’s signature and the multi-colored seal. This document is returned once the child gets the passport. If the child is born in another country, you will have to provide a “Report of Foreign Birth” instead.
3. Proof of Parenthood
You will have to provide some proof that you are the child’s parents. This can be a photocopy of your ID, your passport, driver’s license, military ID or and employee ID in case that you are employed by the City, State or are a Federal employee.
There are strict rules as to how the photo should look like, so make sure that you get a professional photographer to do this. Also, keep in mind that a passport photo has to be of specific size (bigger than your ID or driver’s license photo) and that, the background has to be gray. Most post offices also have a passport photo service included.
A child’s passport costs 120$ and this includes two different fees that you have to pay. The first one is the application fee itself. This one will cost you 95$, while the execution fee will be another 25$. This can be payed in cash, or you can use a personal check, credit card or money order. Some acceptance facilities do not accept cash money, so you need to check this with the post office beforehand.
6. Time and Appointment in the Post Office
Finally, don’t forget to inquire about the hours that the post office is accepting the applications. Make an appointment and then come over with all of the needed documents and copies. Fill out the form completely, but leave it unsigned. You need to do this with the acceptance agent present.
Your child now has a passport and you can all now enjoy traveling together as a family and being in another country. As you can see, you will need a few documents for the whole process to be done with, but once your child has a passport and you can all now enjoy traveling together as a family and being in another country. | <urn:uuid:89a6b10b-b22a-4adc-9172-b8637db23d59> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://passport-kids.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961066 | 612 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Class offers chance to share, craft sewing skills
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Whether to take to sleepovers, use for kneeling in prayer or to enjoy the bright colors, each of the ladies in the current sewing class at Common Ground Community Center has made their own pillow.
That was only the first project. Now they each have selected a pattern and fabric from which they are making their own clothing. For organizer Debbi Fletcher, this is dream come true.
When First United Methodist Church first partnered with the Old Town Revitalization Company to restore the building and open a community center, church member Fletcher knew she wanted to give back. Since she loves to sew, Fletcher thought sharing her knowledge and enthusiasm at the center would be perfect. | <urn:uuid:f7262761-4cdb-4153-a87c-ea0b34c5fdbc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newstribune.com/news/2012/nov/15/class-offers-chance-share-craft-sewing-skills/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969373 | 150 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Jerome Starkey, Africa Correspondent
Britain’s decision to continue giving aid to Rwanda appeared increasingly isolated yesterday after the European Union froze a £140 million programme over allegations that President Kagame’s Government is supporting human rights abusers.
Rwanda has repeatedly denied arming the “M23” rebels in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, but Sweden, the Netherlands and the United States all cut their aid to the country when a team of United Nations experts accused the President of providing covert military support.
Human rights groups have accused the M23 of committing war crimes, including rape, murder and the forced recruitment of child solders. “It was agreed to freeze the programme of budgetary assistance and to not agree to any supplementary budgetary credit for Rwanda without them giving signs of co-operating,” Jean-Michel Dumond, the EU’s Ambassador in Kinshasa, told Radio Okapi on Monday.
Britain, which is the largest bilateral donor to the small central African country, put £16 million of its Rwandan aid on hold after the allegations surfaced in June. But the Government backtracked six weeks later, claiming that President Kagame was “constructively” trying to solve the crisis.
Andrew Mitchell, then Britain’s Minister for International Development, said Britain would “partially restore its general budget support for Rwanda” in recognition of its progress towards tackling the rebellion.His assessment was at odds with many of Britain’s allies as well as independent investigators.
Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior Africa Researcher for Human Rights Watch, accused the British government of wishful thinking.
“The M23 rebels are committing a horrific trail of new atrocities in eastern Congo,” she said in a statement. “M23 commanders should be held accountable for these crimes, and the Rwandan officials supporting these abusive commanders could face justice for aiding and abetting the crimes.” President Kagame, who dismissed the UN report as rubbish, was due to hold crisis talks with Congo’s Joseph Kabila yesterday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has urged both men them to find a solution, but hopes of a deal remain modest after Mr Kabila used his address to the UN point the finger at Rwanda.
“Children are deprived of school and forced to bear and use firearms to kill their fellow humans, even their own brothers and sisters,” he said.
David Cameron and the Department for International Development(DfID) have both defended President Kagame, despite widespread allegations of abuse. Last year Scotland Yard said Rwanda sent a hit-squad to murder two prominent dissidents living in the UK.The leaders of the M23 rebels are from the same ethnic Tutsi group which controls Rwanda’s government. In the past Rwandahas used similar proxy forces to battle remnants of the interhamwe — mostly Hutu perpetrators of the 1994 genocide — who fled into DRC and formed the FDLR rebel group.
Rwanda relies of foreign aid for roughly 40 percent of its budget, but President Paul Kagame announced the start of a “dignity fund” last month to wean his country of foreign support. | <urn:uuid:30e9ee8b-a4b1-4d2d-9910-aaeec1644429> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jeromestarkey.com/post/32453670108/eu-isolates-britain-over-kagame-aid | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954349 | 678 | 1.875 | 2 |
NEW URBAN DYNAMICS:
The Culture of Change – Choice – Connection – Co-existence
CONDITIONS: How city intensifies
INTENSITY describes the state of things, literally a kind of immaterial density that pervades the city as a general culture. It is vigorous, but does not necessarily embody a physical form. On the one hand, the extreme form of urban intensity is represented by the massiveness and rapid occurrence of (and between) individual events*. This particularly refers to the events that come in a gigantic scale and disappears without any traces.
DENSITY is a term commonly used by others when referring to Hong Kong. While this is true, the often overlooked spirit of the city, lies in its intensity. Geographically and politically speaking, Hong Kong is its own boundary. There is simply no room for horizontal expansion. As a result, Intensity is more so intensified in such an environment when imposed with such a constraint.
Looking back on the histories of the dominant Chinese cities of today, their development are more or less based on simultaneous horizontal and vertical expansions. Shenzhen, a prime example of a new city which has emerged since the last twenty years, has never ceased to sprawl outwards. Historical cities like Shanghai and Beijing, in addition to their rapid redevelopment in the old city areas, they have also been incorporating their peripheral provinces to grow to such unprecedented sizes. Hong Kong, on the other hand, is a city which has continued to thrive on its own intensification, which in itself is a truly unique scenario, hence a worthwhile case study.
Below we propose a framework of reading in 4 conceptions - Change, Choice, Connection and Co-existence to further elaborate the idea of an intensified city. They are not in sequence, nor do they represent any hierarchy. Instead, they are in close relationship to one another, but the relationship is not explicitly linear.
*EVENT is any action which takes place in any space at any point in time.
Choice is a manifestation of desire, both on an individual and on a collective level. It allows for the identification of the limitations in resources and in the system, and gives room for reconfiguration. Choice can be regulated but not completely controlled. It is provided through a matrix of considerations that takes into account the existing conditions and the imposed forces. While the external and internal constraints are revealed through the reading of choices, a maximum of possibilities can also be attained through creating flexibility under the same conditions.
Choice is medium through which flexibility and adaptability are realized. To the creator of the system, sensible choices point to the addition of true-values to the system, instead of events that will further complicate the relationship matrix. It entails a thorough understanding of the relationships within the system, which hopefully will be passed onto the user, allowing the user to take command and recognize the possible changes.
Coexistence refers to the existence of a disorganized clutter of events to become an organized system by establishing relationship between the events through stressing their similarities over differences. Events are encompassed in terms of associative relationship instead of exclusion. It attempts to give sense to a collection of different events by association of similarities. At the same time, coexistence respects the essentiality of difference in acknowledging that the events are similar but different. It encourages diversity of events and seeks the neglected potential of events within the system.
The co-existence approach favors diversity instead of homogeneity, providing more choices and allowing for greater flexibility within the system. It makes possible the accomplishment of a same task through multiple trajectories. It also encourages adaptation and reuse instead of imposition and erasure. Under the parameters of limited resources and tight spaces, events are allowed to self-develop throughout their varied life spans, creating a possibility of generating a systemic value that is greater than the sum of the values of individual events.
Connectivity is about constructing relationships between systems to form a super-system. A super-system embeds a number of systems varied in scales and natures. The relationship between systems is in total fluidity, meaning that they are neither structured under a disciplined order nor a chaotic disorder, but forms a super-system with unfixed in-between space where individual systems submit to the super-structure without fixed loci. The simultaneous presence of inter-related systems, morph into a dynamic organization that perpetuates the underlying complexities in convergence.
Connectivity evokes a matrix of relationship and a platform for interaction. It results in a separate super-system that contains numerous existing systems, making possible the functioning of different systems as components that complement and supplement each other, minimizing the competition for resources while working together as the super-system. In short connectivity opts for a strategic construction to exploit complexities to their full potentials.
The above discussion is an attempt to delineate the logic of a city’s operation where efficiency and intensity are resulted through a more improvised than structured model. Though the 3-dimensional cityscape is breathtaking, it is the non-visual based pragmatism behind that affects such realization. After all, it is this 4-C approach that is able to avoid any kind of preclusive visualization of an urban landscape; and more importantly, it allows for an ultimate escape from any disguised ambition of ideal city.
-text by Gary Chang and Raymond Chan (in collaboration with Eugenia Wong) | <urn:uuid:0e5fcaea-e83d-4782-a761-95e1183c86d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.edgedesign.com.hk/en/about.php?cat1=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941396 | 1,086 | 1.953125 | 2 |
Choosing Where to Deliver Your Baby
Where would you like to deliver your baby? You have several options to choose from, and each one has pros and cons that need to be considered. Talk with your partner and health-care provider about your options. If you're not sure which is best for you, take a careful look at each choice. Ask for a tour, get to know what is offered at each site, and then make your choice. Possible sites include your own home, a hospital, or a birth center.
Postpartum is the period after delivery.
Some women feel strongly about having their babies in their own homes where they can enjoy the comfort of family and familiar surroundings. Here they are in charge and there is little medical intervention. During labor they can get up, walk around, have a cup of tea, and talk to friends on the phone. Anything goes, and this is reassuring to many women. But if you are considering this option, be sure you understand all that it entails. It is advised only in low-risk pregnancies where there is little probability that something will go wrong. Still, few licensed providers will assist at a home birth because emergency medical equipment will not be on hand if there are unexpected complications during the birth of the baby. Your delivery therefore will most likely be in the hands of a midwife who will guide you through a natural birth. If you want a home birth, be sure to find a licensed midwife who is affiliated with a back-up physician and a nearby hospital in case anything goes wrong.
Traditional Hospital Rooms
In most hospitals all deliveries are handled routinely in four different rooms:
- First you enter the labor room. Here, in a small hospital-type room or curtained-off area you proceed through early labor with your partner.
- After your cervix dilates to about 10 centimeters and the baby's head becomes visible at the opening of the vagina, your bed is wheeled into the delivery room. Picture the operating room you've seen on TV shows. This is a small room with a bed surrounded by lots of lights and medical equipment. This is where you will give birth to your baby.
- After delivery, you are wheeled into the recovery room. Here nurses monitor you for an hour or so to make sure that you have no need of immediate medical attention.
- Finally, you are wheeled into the postpartum room for recuperation. This room (which might be private or shared with other women) is like any other hospital room. It has a bed, a night table, and a small bathroom with a shower.
Many hospitals across the country are moving away from this kind of birth setting to a more relaxing one.
The Birthing Room
In most hospitals, birthing rooms are scarce and available on a first-come, first-served basis. If that's the case, don't set your heart on one, because you can't predict the moment of your baby's birth and make a reservation. Birthing room availability is one of the things you should find out in advance.
Some hospitals and all freestanding birthing centers have birthing rooms (sometimes called LDRs for labor-delivery-recovery rooms). One of the advantages of a birthing room is that labor and delivery occur in the same place, rather than in several locations, as described above. In addition, birthing rooms are usually cozier and look more welcoming than regular hospital rooms. They often have personal showers and a place for visitors to sit. To create this homey feeling, the rooms do not contain as much medical equipment as the average hospital room. Therefore, birthing rooms are usually an option for only low-risk, uncomplicated deliveries. If you would like this kind of room, check with your doctor to make sure it fits your criteria.
If you are considering a freestanding birthing center (a center not connected to a hospital), be sure you understand the medical limitations. Most are staffed by midwives only and cater to natural births. Little or no pain medication is available in a birthing center, nor can it provide for the needs of high-risk pregnancies that require the transferal of the mother and baby to a hospital if complications arise during delivery. To find a birthing center near you, log on to the website of the National Association of Childbearing Centers at www.birthcenters.org.
Excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pregnancy and Childbirth © 2004 by Michele Isaac Gliksman, M.D. and Theresa Foy DiGeronimo. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
To order this book visit Amazon's website or call 1-800-253-6476. | <urn:uuid:3e0a49fa-bb78-4cf7-827f-be22b03b33a1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pregnancy.familyeducation.com/the-hospital-stay/choosing-a-hospital/57538.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96205 | 997 | 1.625 | 2 |
A Times Editorial
Published July 12, 2006
Speaker Dennis Hastert says he is driven by constitutional principle to keep the FBI from searching a colleague's U.S. House office. But a federal judge has appropriately mocked his exalted sense of legislative self.
"If there is any threat to the separation of powers here, it is not from the execution of a search warrant by one coequal branch of government upon another," wrote U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan in a ruling announced Monday. "Rather, the principle of the separation of powers is threatened by the position that the legislative branch enjoys the unilateral and unreviewable power to invoke an absolute privilege, thus making it immune from the ordinary criminal process of a validly issued search warrant."
In other words, Hastert wants House members to be above the law. Rep. William Jefferson, who was caught in August with $90,000 in cash in his freezer, has obvious motivation to offer such an implausible argument. But why must Hastert continue to stand in Jefferson's corner?
The raid on Jefferson's House office in May was indeed unusual and perhaps unprecedented. But it was not an executive branch shopping excursion. It was the product of a 17-month criminal bribery investigation that already had led to two convictions, had Jefferson on videotape allegedly taking a bribe, and wads of cash in a freezer. The search warrant was authorized by a federal judge who reviewed an 83-page affidavit outlining the need, and the raid was monitored by special "filter teams" to narrow the focus.
Clearly, the circumstances and the manner of the search were extraordinary. Yet Hastert's attorneys are acting like a rogue agent was rifling through legislative notes in the middle of the night. Their amicus brief sounded like Chicken Little: "(This) will reduce Congress to a subordinate branch of government by opening the door to unchecked executive branch overreach and abuse."
Jefferson's attorney says he will appeal the judge's ruling, which is not surprising. But Hastert should take the time to read what the judge wrote. To claim constitutional immunity from a properly authorized criminal search warrant is the height of congressional arrogance. The only principle here is one of personal privilege.
[Last modified July 12, 2006, 05:53:13]
[an error occurred while processing this directive] | <urn:uuid:609e8aa9-2995-4b7d-8a79-e34220bc2477> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sptimes.com/2006/07/12/Opinion/Congressional_arrogan.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974375 | 478 | 1.710938 | 2 |
1. Referring to an individual who is showing attitude through facial expression (usually negative). Typically the phrase must be repeated after a brief pause.
2. Possesing a generally large face.
1. What's wrong with you? You got alota face going on..alota face.
2. Damn! Why is your head so big? You got alota face! | <urn:uuid:aef3a91d-983c-4de6-a6f4-8cca2bfe5cab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=alota%20face&defid=1723977 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908467 | 79 | 1.851563 | 2 |
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has rushed to acquire a new, multibillion-dollar version of the BioWatch system for detecting biological attacks without establishing whether it was needed or would work, according to a new report by a nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress.
The report by the Government Accountability Office says Homeland Security should reevaluate the need for the overhaul while determining whether it makes financial sense. The department has spent more than $150 million developing the new generation of biological sensors.
The report comes as Homeland Security officials try to maintain support in Congress for both BioWatch and the long-pursued makeover, called Generation 3. The report's findings — which fix blame on both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations — are scheduled to be discussed Thursday during a hearing by two House subcommittees.
The Times obtained a draft of the report, which has yet to be publicly released.
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Homeland Security has failed to follow "good acquisition practices," the report said, and has not adequately justified Generation 3, which would cost an estimated $3.1 billion during its first five years of operation. The existing BioWatch system has cost taxpayers about $1 billion.
The Times reported in July on extensive problems with the existing system and Generation 3. The existing system, first deployed in 2003, relies on units installed in cities around the country that pull air through filters, which technicians collect and bring to public health labs for analysis. The Generation 3 sensors would be automated.
The existing units have been plagued by false alarms; the GAO report confirmed "more than 100." As for Generation 3, field and lab tests found that prototypes of the new technology were not durable or sensitive enough to reliably detect a biological attack.
The Generation 3 automated sensors — each a so-called lab in a box — would sample the air and signal to authorities whether they detect the presence of anthrax or at least four other pathogens. The GAO report suggested that in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, and the subsequent anthrax letter attacks, Homeland Security officials bypassed the department's own guidelines in acquiring the original BioWatch system and planning the Generation 3 overhaul.
"None of these officials could describe what processes, if any, the department followed to determine that Gen-3 was a justified need," the report said.
The GAO found that, as of early 2008, Homeland Security leaders, not identified by the report, "had established a course" for acquiring the technology "in advance of any efforts to define the mission."
In October 2009, an Obama appointee at the department, also unnamed, supported the Generation 3 procurement without "significant data necessary" for the decision, according to the report. "In the absence of complete and reliable information, DHS had limited assurance that the acquisition would successfully deliver the intended capability within cost and on schedule."
The report's findings are at odds with past public statements by Homeland Security officials. For instance, a department undersecretary, Jay M. Cohen, told a House committee in February 2007 that Generation 3 would probably be "four times cheaper to operate," the GAO reported.
"The total annual cost to operate Gen-3 is estimated to be about four times more than the cost of the existing" BioWatch system, the report said.
On March 29 of this year, Cohen's successor, Dr. Alexander Garza, told a congressional panel that the development of Generation 3 was on track and "right where it needs to be."
The report said that Homeland Security has commissioned a federal advisory group, called the Homeland Security Institute, to help assess the Generation 3 technology. Although the assessment was supposed to be completed in July, the GAO reported that Homeland Security "has not provided us with a copy of the study or responded to requests to provide an updated timeline for the study."
As of now, the GAO said, "critical information related to both the costs and benefits of the planned Gen-3 approach remains to be explored."
A spokesman for Homeland Security, Peter Boogaard, said he was not in a position to comment on the report, noting that it had not been made public.
President George W. Bush unveiled BioWatch in his 2003 State of the Union address, saying it would "protect our people and our homeland" against a rogue state or terrorist group. Since then, the Bush and Obama administrations have deployed detection equipment in more than 30 U.S. cities and at major spectator events, including Super Bowls and national political conventions.
The existing system's repeated false alarms have triggered tense, high-stakes deliberations over whether to order mass evacuations, distribute emergency medicines or shut down major venues. In each case, health authorities decided, sometimes with great trepidation, to disregard BioWatch. No evidence of an intentional release of a pathogen has ever been found.
That history has caused state and local health officials to call the system ill-conceived or unworkable. Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told White House aides last year that they would not release emergency medications based solely on a BioWatch alert. And federal officials have given up plans to deploy the system in airports for fear of needlessly disrupting travel.
Most of the documented false alarms have involved the supposed detection of tularemia, a potentially lethal bacterium. On the closing day of the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, for example, BioWatch signaled the presence of tularemia at the convention site, threatening to disrupt plans for Barack Obama's speech accepting his party's presidential nomination.
After six hours of deliberations and further testing, state health officials decided that the alert had been erroneous, and Obama gave his speech on schedule. | <urn:uuid:c4b4cc3c-ac76-4627-9c7d-357622fad902> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mcall.com/topic/la-na-biowatch-gao-20120912,0,374657.story | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958304 | 1,185 | 1.96875 | 2 |
Gut problems? Try the worm diet
There is the Scarsdale Diet ... the Atkins Diet ... and now: the Diet of Pig Whipworms.
The parasite known as Trichuris suis has been given the okay in an unconventional experiment to tackle inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), an ailment that is on the rise in Western countries.
Twenty-nine people with a mild form of Crohn's disease, a potentially disabling IBD, were asked to swallow 2,500 worm eggs every three weeks for six months. The eggs were in a soft drink to disguise the taste.
Four patients withdrew before the halfway mark, and a fifth stopped taking the worms when she became pregnant.
Of the 24 who stayed in the experiment, 22 experienced a major improvement in their health after three months, and 19 had no symptoms at all.
By the end of the experiment, the tallies had risen to 23 out of 24 for improvement. Twenty-one of the 23 were symptom-free.
None of the volunteers reported any worsening of their symptoms, and there were no side effects.
Crohn's disease typically features cramping abdominal pain, bleeding and diarrhoea among its symptoms, which are often combatted by steroids or antibiotics.
The University of Iowa researchers note that the rise in IBD over the past 50 years in rich countries has coincided with a plunge in infections by classic intestinal parasites such as roundworm and human whipworms, driven out by better hygiene.
In developing countries, though, these parasites are common but IBD is very rare.
Their theory is that the eradication of human intestinal parasites over such a short period is a new and potentially traumatic event in evolutionary terms.
Our immune systems developed over millions of years to cope with the presence of such parasites and without them our bowels can become overactive.
The porcine parasite seems to be in a class of its own because it restores normal gut response, but there is no evidence that it can colonise humans.
Once in the bowel, the egg hatches into the worm. Because the worm has a short life cycle, its chances of adapting and spreading to other parts of the body are minimal, they believe.
The worm eggs are shed in stools, but they cannot colonise another host unless they have been incubated in soil for several weeks - a risk that is unlikely in developed countries where IBD is a problem.
Human whipworms, however, are a different proposition. Half a billion people carry this parasite, which can cause problems such as anaemia.
The study appears today in Gut, published by the British Medical Association (BMA).
It was authorised after one of the researchers, gastroenterologist Joel Weinstock, carried out preliminary tests on volunteers with Crohn's and another IBD called ulcerative colitis.
That research was so convincing that a Germany company called BioCure (whose sister company, BioMonde, sells leeches and maggots for treating wounds) leapt into the pig whipworm business.
It has devised a drinkable mix of eggs under the name of TSO (for Trichuris Suis Ova) - presumably because DPW (Drinkable Pig Whipworms) may not be a smart branding strategy. | <urn:uuid:c8dbad25-c062-40bd-81d3-e8d0031eb021> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theage.com.au/news/Science/Gut-problems-Try-the-worm-diet/2004/12/14/1102787066810.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965791 | 670 | 3.140625 | 3 |
HUNTSVILLE, Ala., Feb. 11, 2013 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Lockheed Martin /quotes/zigman/150087/quotes/nls/lmt LMT +0.40% is awarding a $10,000 grant to Still Serving Veterans (SSV) to aid in transitioning veterans to meaningful careers.
Lockheed Martin, a member of the Huntsville community for 50 years, is partnering with SSV to support veterans' advocacy initiatives, long-term development and job placement. The grant will enhance the SSV's Workforce Community Blueprint Transition program, which provides resources for counseling, coaching, job transition and assistance in obtaining Veterans Administration benefits.
There are more than 32,000 veterans in Madison County and 430,000 in Alabama. The unemployment rate for veterans is more than twice the national average, and severely disabled veterans need significant training and assistance to find meaningful employment. Physical and mental hurdles can hamper finding work, leading to financial struggles.
"The selfless service of America's soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines assures the freedoms each of us enjoys every day. At Lockheed Martin, we are dedicated to securing opportunities for veterans when they no longer wear the uniform," said Joanne Maguire, executive vice president, Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company. "This partnership with Still Serving Veterans is one example of our commitment to honor the sacrifices and service of our veteran population by supporting their transition from military service."
SSV's focus is on empowering veterans and their families by helping them reintegrate into the workforce and community after their service to our country. "Education, stable and fulfilling employment, and access to healthcare services empower our nation's service members and their families to successfully reintegrate into civilian life and lead enriching lives," said SSV President COL(R) Will Webb. "Our heroes, veterans have done noble things in treacherous places on our behalf. After their sacrifices, a meaningful new career is the best "thank you" we can give them and their families. This partnership with Lockheed Martin will help to achieve these successes through workforce transition assistance for our community."
Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs about 120,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration, and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products, and services. The Corporation's net sales for 2012 were $47.2 billion.
Founded in 2006, Still Serving Veterans' (SSV) mission is to empower veterans, including wounded warriors and their families, by helping them reintegrate into the workforce and community. Services include outreach and education, individual case management, referral to mental health counseling with a focus on post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, long-term career development and employment placement, financial planning, and help securing VA benefits. SSV works with veteran businesses and coordinates employment opportunities with the Service Disabled and Veteran Owned Businesses in Madison County and throughout Alabama.
Lockheed Martin Media Contact: Still Serving Veterans Media Contact: Danielle Hauf Sheila McFerran 303-564-3151 256-653-1104 Danielle.email@example.com sheilamcferran@stillservingVeterans.org
SOURCE Lockheed Martin
Copyright (C) 2013 PR Newswire. All rights reserved | <urn:uuid:6174cfd7-5e85-4c31-9637-4a00e3dd302f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.marketwatch.com/story/lockheed-martin-awards-grant-to-still-serving-veterans-to-support-workforce-transition-2013-02-11?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918282 | 694 | 1.585938 | 2 |
CAMDEN — A cast of Rutgers–Camden students, faculty, and alumni are making the case for marriage equality during a staged reading of 8, a play chronicling the historic trial and federal constitutional challenge to California’s Proposition 8.
The free performance will occur on Sunday, Oct. 14 at 5 p.m. in the Black Box Theater in the Fine Arts Building on the Rutgers–Camden campus. It is being presented by Rutgers–Camden’s LGBTQ Alliance and OUTlaws student groups and the Rutgers–Camden Department of Fine Arts.
Written by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, 8 is an unprecedented account of the Federal District Court trial Perry v. Schwarzenegger (now Perry v. Brown), the case filed by the American Foundation for Equal Rights to overturn Proposition 8, which stripped gay and lesbian Californians of the fundamental freedom to marry.
Black, who penned the feature films Milk and J. Edgar, based 8 on actual trial transcripts, first-hand observations of the courtroom, and interviews with the plaintiffs and their families.
The Rutgers–Camden cast includes 21 actors and the performance is being directed by Kenneth Elliot, an assistant professor of theater at Rutgers–Camden.
A Q&A session with David M. Rosenblum, legal director for Philadelphia’s Mazzoni Center and an advocate for LGBT issues, will be held after the Rutgers–Camden performance to discuss the fight for marriage equality in New Jersey.
Tickets can be reserved by calling (856) 225-6176 or by emailing firstname.lastname@example.org. Admission is free.
For more information about Rutgers–Camden news stories, visit us at news.rutgers.edu/medrel
Media Contact: Ed Moorhouse | <urn:uuid:0bd8e306-1d78-4b21-aaa3-7d941dac5984> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.camden.rutgers.edu/news/prop-8-subject-stage-performance-rutgers-camden | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924698 | 371 | 1.585938 | 2 |
In a report of the Online Safety and Technology Working Group the internet environment for our children is described as part of the fabric of their world. “To youth, social media and technologies are not something extra added on to their lives; they’re embedded in their lives. Their offline and online lives have converged into one life. They are socializing in various environments, using various digital and real-life “tools,” from face-to-face gatherings to cell phones to social network sites, to name justa few (Youth Safety on a Living Internet).
Washington state’s Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) provides a list of various curriculum and websites to assist schools in helping students use the internet responsibly.
The Internet offers a wealth of resources and material for education. Accessed through a variety of electronic devices, it also allows for rich and diverse opportunities for 21st century communications. These devices are becoming ever more diverse and ubiquitous. They raise issues of digital / Internet safety and digital citizenship. Along with ensuring that our young people have the technological skills to effectively use digital devices, platforms, and resources for educational purposes, we also have the responsibility to teach them how to be safe and productive digital citizens of the 21st century (more on Digital/Internet Safety).
Digital Citizenship: Using Technology Appropriately updated on 10-30-12
- Link here for curriculum resources. (PDF) Common Sense Media
- More form Common Sense Media http://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators/curriculum/9-12
- GetNetWise – links on privacy (website) | <urn:uuid:79ae9de3-db1f-4580-a6d0-c83f48399faa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://everettce.com/internet-safety/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928073 | 335 | 3.671875 | 4 |
From Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia
Zodialogical Government is the matriarchy made out of the most powerful animals of each race. It is the basis for the Chinese Zodiac that everyone should know about.
edit History of Zodialogical Government
A long time ago the animals were created by God's boredom when it broke off and turned into the great beast Narylionarith (later shortened to lion). They decided that the new creation, man, should be ruled by the animals, and so chose the best of each species to go to a secret underground cavern located beneath Madagascar with a color-changing moon and peach juice with the power of immortality.
The animals later found out that one of the religious leaders of the world, Buddha, was dying, so they quickly went and murdered him. They then elected the top twelve animals and placed them in control of China. This is were the theory of Chinese Zodiac was created.
edit Changing of the Guard in Zodialogical Government
Every time there is a red and blue moon in the cavern the animals elect a new twelve to lead them. However, the original twelve decided to confuse the world by not letting the chinese tell other people the new animals. That is why the signs are almost always wrong.
edit Members of the Electable in Zodialogical Government
There are currently 38 animals that can be elected, and all of them have been elected once. There have only been three re-elections in the history of existence.
Ox Those under the ox are sold into cheap labor.
Tiger Those under the tiger are prone to move to Japan and become samurais.
Rabbit Those under the rabbit are cute and fuzzy.
Dragon Those under the dragon are usually labelled as pyromaniacs.
Snake Those under the snake are backstabbing fiends.
Horse Those under the horse are great for riding.
Sheep Those under the sheep are experts at the tastes of wool.
Monkey Those under the monkey are intelligent and can figure out the most efficient way of peeling bananas.
Rooster Those under the rooster are going to like women no matter what.
Dog Those under the dog are loyal only to man and squirrels.
Pig Those under the pig are fat.
Cat Those under the cat are to cough up hairballs.
Unicorn Those under the unicorn are pretty and sadistic.
The coolest fucking species ever Those under the coolest fucking species ever are, like, so fucking cool!
Gerbil Those under the gerbil are midgets.
Squid Those under the squid are easily startled and will shoot ink while running away.
Lion Those under the lion are the great and powerful henchmen of Narylionarith.
Clam Those under the clam are not going to let you take their shiny balls.
Wookie Those under the wookie are stupid and shout undecipherable shouts while shooting things.
Aaardvark Those under the aaardvark are the ones mosst liklly too spelll words with tooo mannnny lleetteerrss.
Llama Those under the llama are going to turn into ducks.
Duck Those under the duck are are going to kill all life.
Pigeon Those under the pigeon are going to be chased by you. In Soviet Russia, pigeon chase YOU!!
Iguana Those under the iguana are lazy bums that just suntan all day.
Pikachu Those under the pikachu are all dead.
Ostrich Those under the ostrich are fast.
Gorilla Those under the gorilla are smart and can figure out the best way of peeling bananas.
Peafowl Those under the peafowl are goinbg to clean sewers.
Borg Those under the borg are ging to assimilate the world.
Teagun Those under the teagun are sadistic beasts that care only about murder and anime.
Oompa-loompa Those under the oompa-loopa are terrible singers.
Koopa Those under the koopa are going to attack plumbers and wizards.
Cow Those under the cow are going to be generous and give fresh milk to the incompetent.
Hippocampus Those under the hippocampus are going to look like strange fusions of to completely different things and then kill seniors.
Scarab Those under the scarab are the minions of the sun god Ra.
Gibbon Those under the gibbon are not dumb and can figure out the fastest way of peeling bananas.
Velociraptor Those under Velociraptor are generally evil and very violent. They are also sick in the wrong way. | <urn:uuid:3ea20269-dfee-4bee-b545-34458c483afd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Zodialogical_Government | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945313 | 988 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Appeal against ISP snooping goes to Washington
'FCC went too far', coalition says
A group of technology companies and civil liberties groups will continue to challenge a law requiring ISPs to allow eavesdropping of customers by security agencies.
The US Government is trying to force ISPs to re-configure their systems to allow agencies to snoop on email and internet traffic. The relevant laws demand that phone providers allow such eavesdropping on voice calls, but the government and the companies dispute whether or not it allows the same actions with regard to data.
On 9 June a federal appeals court in the US ruled by two votes to one that companies would have to change their systems. That decision will now be appealed to the Court of Appeals in Washington, DC.
The coalition of groups mounting the appeal includes the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the Electronic Privacy Information Centre, Pulver.com, Sun Microsystems, and the National Association of College and University Business Officials.
Those organisations argue that the current systems have never blocked law enforcement agencies finding out information that they have needed in the past. "As far as the record on appeal reveals, 100 per cent of attempted interceptions of internet communications to date have been successful," says their brief in the case.
The coalition of groups opposes amendments to the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) being proposed by the US communications regulator the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). They argue that the FCC went too far when it framed the requirements for ISPs and argue that the FCC is demanding changes that are outside of its legal scope.
"CALEA requires telecommunications common carriers to build certain capabilities into their networks to facilitate wiretaps, but expressly excludes providers of information services," argues the coalition's brief.
The legal basis for internet wiretaps is currently in place, but the FCC is trying to standardise the methodology used, causing privacy concerns for those opposing it, as well as economic concerns about the cost of rewiring systems.
"It is crucial to remember that the issue here is not whether law enforcement can tap new technologies like VoIP, but whether they can tap it easily," said a statement from the EFF.
"Existing laws already permit law enforcement to place internet users under surveillance, regardless of what programs or protocols they are using to communicate. Industry already cooperates with law enforcement to give it all the information requested, and this will continue to happen with or without a new FCC rule interpreting CALEA."
The one dissenting judge who ruled in favour of the objections in June, Harry Edwards, called the FCC's evidence in that case "gobbledygook" and "nonsense".
Copyright © 2006, OUT-LAW.com
OUT-LAW.COM is part of international law firm Pinsent Masons. | <urn:uuid:d69d0ca6-1d11-4c3f-b383-1fccee49ad4d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/25/isp_snooping_appeal/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947088 | 567 | 1.914063 | 2 |
When bathing your newborn, this will be an essential part of making sure the umbilical cord area stays clean until the cord has fallen off (only if recommended by your baby's physician).
There is disagreement about the use of lotions, powders, oils, and other products for your baby. Some of these products may help your baby's skin, but some present a risk. In general, perfumed lotions are more likely to contain irritating chemicals than the simpler, unscented ones. Safflower oil has been used by some for babies' skin and is a relatively simple substitute for more chemically complex products. (Note: don't ever use powder on your infant as it can get into babies' breathing passages and cause problems.)
Confused about what soap to choose for your growing infant? So are many pediatricians. Soaps contain ingredients that can be drying to skin. The pH your baby is born with helps protect against germs and can be rendered too low by the use of soap. Pediatricians say you are safest using a soap made specifically for babies that has no perfumes and is hypoallergenic. And you don't need to use soap during every bath, once every couple weeks is fine until your little one is old enough to make more serious messes.
Mild, no-tears shampoo
You'll baby will only need this once or twice per week. To shampoo your little one's head, place a small bit of shampoo (only two to three drops are necessary (on the head and very gently rub the scalp.
Nail clippers or scissors
This is a good time to trim your baby's finger and toe nails. Post bath, they nails will be extra soft and easy to cut.
Comb and/or brush
To prevent or heal cradle cap (the crusty, scaly patches on your baby's head), gently use a soft toothbrush or surgical brush to clean the scalp daily, including during a bath.
Splashes happen! Have a couple extra towels at the ready to catch spills and to dry you off as well, post bath.
Blanket or post-bath clothes
For warmth and cuddling after bath.
After you've collected all of your bath supplies, make sure that you can reach everything you need so that you don't have to leave your precious little one unattended, even if your baby is with an older sibling.
Content provided on this site is for entertainment or informational purposes only and should not be construed
as medical or healthcare, safety, legal or financial advice. Click here for additional information. | <urn:uuid:1a7d040f-aea8-49a5-b32b-2a1985c0b6ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.babyzone.com/baby/baby-care/skin-care/bathing-checklist_65209-page-2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943477 | 531 | 2.34375 | 2 |
Plowable snow possible in NH this weekend?
Potential exists for significant snowfall Saturday, Sunday
Could New Hampshire be in the path of another winter storm?
This possible nor'easter would hit New Hampshire Saturday night into much of the day on Sunday.
While the storm's track is uncertain, confidence is growing that this storm may be close enough to our area to deliver plowable snow amounts.
There is always uncertainty when a storm is still four days away, and this weather system hasn’t even formed yet. If the storm takes a track farther south or east than currently thought, then amounts will be minimal.
Often times, several days ahead of a storm, our computer forecast models can be far apart, but in this case, the models have come together rather closely, a trend that gives forecasters higher confidence in future weather events.
Weather models show that the snow will likely be heavy and wet, and some areas could get a foot of snow, raising the possibility of power outages. The expected track of the storm will become clearer over the next couple days.
Copyright 2013 by WMUR.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:64b778b0-2a47-4102-9da7-e634caec6dd4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wmur.com/weather/stormwatch/Plowable-snow-possible-in-NH-this-weekend/-/17328920/18998302/-/format/rsss_2.0/view/print/-/pqkiiw/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925521 | 250 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Category:Disk file systems
In computing, disk file systems are file systems which manage data on permanent storage devices. As magnetic disks are the most common of such devices, most disk file systems are designed to perform well in spite of the seek latencies inherent in such media.
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to: File systems|
This category has the following 4 subcategories, out of 4 total.
The following 102 pages are in this category, out of 102 total. This list may not reflect recent changes (learn more). | <urn:uuid:4df1bf27-f015-4f08-8c58-f7a119a44922> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Disk_file_systems | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906015 | 110 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis in Acute Leukemia in Adult Patients: A Unique Entity?
Sophia L Yohe, Carrie Chenault, Emina Torlakovic, Sheryl Asplund, Robert W McKenna. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; ProPath Laboratories, Dallas, TX; University of Toronto, ON, Canada; Caris Life Sciences, Phoenix, AZ
Background: Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) can precede, follow or occur concurrently with acute leukemia. When the Langerhans cell (LC) lesion occurs first, the subsequent leukemia has generally been considered treatment related. However, a clonal relationship has been demonstrated in a few cases when the Langerhans cell proliferation followed or occurred concurrently with leukemia.
Design: Four adult patients with acute leukemia (AL) and concurrent (3 cases) or subsequent (1 case) LCH were identified. Evaluation of the leukemia was performed by morphology, flow cytometry, immunohistochemistry, and/or cytogenetics. The presence of LC was confirmed by immunohistochemistry for CD1a and S100. FISH was performed on a lymph node of one patient that had trisomy 21 in the leukemic clone.
Results: One female and three male patients, ages 36 to 80 (median 61), presented with AL. Three of the four presented with synchronous LCH and AL in the bone marrow and in lymph nodes. The leukemia in these three was of an ambiguous phenotype. Two had mixed phenotype AL and one undifferentiated AL. The fourth patient presented with AML with myelodysplasia related changes and developed LCH and myeloid sarcoma in the same lymph node after consolidation chemotherapy. The LC in this case expressed CD2, CD13, and CD117 which were also expressed by the blasts. In all cases leukemic blasts and Langerhans cells were intermixed in the involved tissue. One AL case with a non-constitutional trisomy 21 in the leukemic cells also had trisomy 21 in the Langerhans cells by FISH analysis, supporting a clonal relationship between the two cell types.
Conclusions: In addition to co-mingled leukemia and LCH, these cases all had lymph node involvement by the acute leukemia and three had an ambiguous immunophenotype; three unusual features that suggest a distinct entity. Furthermore, the immunophenotypic relationship between the blasts and LC in one patient and trisomy 21 in the blasts and LC in another patient support a clonal link between the two cell types. The relationship between the two processes is speculative but could result from a common tumor stem cell or transdifferentiation of one tumor lineage to another. The presence of lymph node involvement in all four cases supports a neoplastic cell with a predilection for homing to extramedullary tissue.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011 9:30 AM
Poster Session III # 235, Tuesday Morning | <urn:uuid:78c4f954-f47c-4f8b-9291-28f4aced2e75> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.abstracts2view.com/uscap11/view.php?nu=USCAP11L_1406 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949196 | 622 | 1.523438 | 2 |
The detentions are believed to be the first under Malaysia's Security Offenses Act, which was introduced last year to replace a law that allowed indefinite detention without trial.
The two men and a woman were detained on suspicion they led efforts "to recruit several Malaysians for terrorist activities," said national police Chief Ismail Omar.
He said in a statement that an investigation is continuing. Other police officials said they could not elaborate.
The statement did not identify the suspects. However, human rights group Suaram said they include Yazid Sufaat, a former Malaysian army captain who spent seven years in detention without trial after being accused of belonging to Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian militant network. He was freed in 2008 when officials said he no longer posed a threat.
Police took Yazid, now a cafeteria operator, and an employee from their workplace in Kuala Lumpur and told them they were being held under the Security Offenses Act, Suaram and human rights lawyer Fadwa Nadiah Fikri said.
Fadwa, a Suaram member, is not formally representing Yazid but went to his home while police were searching it Thursday. It was not clear when the three suspects would be allowed access to lawyers.
The identity of the female detainee was not immediately known.
The security act enables police to hold suspects for up to 28 days before they must be brought to court. Militant suspects could previously be jailed for years without court approval, but Prime Minister Najib Razak abolished that provision after decades of criticism that it was sometimes abused to target anti-government figures.
Authorities had long insisted that detention without trial kept Malaysia safe from any major terrorist incident.
Yazid was one of Malaysia's most prominent security detainees in the past decade.
He allegedly let several senior al-Qaida operatives, including two eventual hijackers in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, use an apartment he owned for meetings in Malaysia in January 2000. Officials have said the Sept. 11 attacks were not discussed there.
Yazid, a U.S.-trained biochemist, was previously arrested in late 2001 when he returned home from Afghanistan, where he was suspected of working on a biological and chemical weapons program for al-Qaida.
Yazid has not spoken publicly about many of the specific accusations against him, but in an interview with news website Malaysiakini last year he said he had met Osama bin Laden before his detention and underwent combat training in Afghanistan. | <urn:uuid:07fd2c29-e287-4352-a320-d49101a839e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.elpasotimes.com/nationworld/ci_22539064/malaysia-3-suspected-terrorist-recruiting | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981991 | 509 | 1.695313 | 2 |
To provide organizations and individuals with the knowledge, skills and inspiration to perform at their best.
Great companies have a strong sense of mission, a compelling vision, and clear values.
Great companies build and sustain prosperity on a foundation of continuous learning.
Great companies have rich cultures. Their people are well trained, highly valued, and consistently encouraged.
Great work results from people who believe that what they do is important. They are passionate, focused, and committed.
Great leaders are those who inspire others to discover their greatness.
Greatness is a possibility for every human being.
"This LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD is being presented to David McNally for his significant contribution to our success.
David, you have helped shape our culture and drive our performance. You have helped us to soar in a changing world.”
Pulte Homes, Inc.
(A Fortune 500 Company)
“Corporations are social organizations, the theater in which men and women realize or fail to realize purposeful and productive lives." | <urn:uuid:253abf84-87a6-4254-90d4-9ad330c6c239> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.davidmcnally.com/mission-and-beliefs.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954882 | 217 | 1.65625 | 2 |
By Jim Auchmutey
On a sunny autumn Saturday, half a dozen Emory undergraduates climb into a van and drive six miles east to Clarkston, an Atlanta suburb where the US government has settled thousands of refugees in warrens of time-worn apartments. The van is headed for Brannon Hill, a condominium complex teetering between despair and hope. Because of the real estate bust, boarded-up units almost outnumber ones bustling with Somali and Ethiopian families trying to get a foothold in a new country. None of the Emory students grew up in a place quite like this.
After a brief consultation with the manager, the ethics professor in charge of the group, Edward Queen, straps a gas-powered blower on his back and noisily goes to work. His charges follow with rakes and lawn bags. As they scoop up the leaves and pine straw, they look up occasionally and see children smiling and waving at them from the balconies.
After a while, a resident drives up and watches the scene through the open window of his car. He catches a student’s attention and asks an obvious question: “What are you doing?”
“Community service,” answers Mariangela Jordan 12C, a junior from Romania.
The man seems puzzled. “You’re on probation?”
“Oh, no,” Jordan assures him, “we’re doing community service.”
“But you’re on probation, right?” The man can’t seem to believe that normal young people would spend their spare time cleaning up someone else’s property unless a judge had ordered them to.
Talking about the exchange later, Queen can’t resist a quip. “Maybe,” he deadpans, “we should wear orange jump suits next time.”
The Brannon Hill excursion was one of many volunteer opportunities during Emory Cares International Service Day, the annual day of community service organized by the Emory Alumni Association. This particular group was eager to enlist: They’re part of the Ethics and Servant Leadership (EASL) program at the University’s Center for Ethics. One of the reasons they applied for EASL is because they wanted to get off campus and encounter people struggling with real problems in the real world.
“That’s the whole idea: to get us out of our comfort zone,” says a member of the yard crew, Hannah Rogers 12C, a junior from Fayetteville, Georgia.
The center, which recently celebrated its twentieth anniversary, is one of the most significant—and misunderstood—institutions at Emory. Significant because its purpose lies at the heart of how the University envisions itself and undertakes its educational mission. Misunderstood because outsiders sometimes have trouble imagining what an ethics center is. Does it enforce the honor code? Do they sit around pontificating about lofty issues of good and bad?
Not quite, says Director Paul Root Wolpe, who is happy to explain his specialty to lay audiences.
“People tend to misunderstand what ethics really is,” he says. “Most people think it’s questions of what’s right or wrong, what’s correct or incorrect behavior. In fact, the message we’re trying to communicate is much deeper. The decisions you make every day are informed by a set of principles and values—what I call an ethical sensibility. Only when you examine that sensibility and challenge your beliefs and assumptions can you come to a mature understanding of ethics.”
Wolpe is speaking in his office at the center, which shares a sparkling new building with Candler School of Theology. A nationally known authority in the field—he serves as NASA’s first bioethicist—he came to Emory in 2008 after more than two decades of teaching bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.
The ethics center is the nexus of a broader effort that takes countless forms and reaches every corner of the campus. It starts at freshman orientation, when incoming students hear a presentation about the center and the University’s ambition to develop character as well as intellect.
The center’s seven resident faculty members and thirty-one affiliated professors infuse ethics into courses across all of Emory’s schools. They collaborate with Candler, which weaves a rich ethics curriculum throughout its theology courses, and lecture at Goizueta Business School and the School of Law, both of which have their own vigorous (and required) practice-specific ethics and professionalism training. And they share the heavy responsibility of ethics education in the schools of medicine, nursing, and public health; the School of Medicine has its own diverse ethics curriculum with deep roots in the center.
And there are more unusual examples: at Winship Cancer Institute, an ethicist on the research team fosters a vibrant ethics program in oncology research; Emory recently launched a master of arts in bioethics degree program; and there is a formal public health-focused partnership being established among the ethics center, the CDC, and the Rollins School of Public Health. Not to mention the more civic and creative outreach programs such as EASL and Ethics and the Arts, which brings artists to campus to discuss works that explore moral questions.
Most respected research universities offer an ethics curriculum these days. One of the factors that set Emory apart, its leaders believe, is the University’s commitment to ethics as an institutional value.
“I noticed it immediately when I started speaking with people about coming here,” President James Wagner says. “In my initial interviews and in reading the literature, I was impressed by the unusual facility this University has with the vocabulary of values. I decided to test it.”
Wagner spoke with about eighty people during the lengthy job interview process. He asked every one of them about Emory’s concern for ethics. Some mentioned the University’s roots in the Methodist Church, while others stressed its modern involvement with human rights issues. “Not a single person dismissed the idea,” he says. “Their attitude was: ‘Of course. How could it be any other way?’ ”
Soon after Wagner arrived, the University crafted a new vision statement, a painstaking exercise that prompted extended discussions about Emory’s values and priorities. Later research found that only one other university among eighteen top-ranked institutions considered Emory’s peers used the word “ethics” in its statement: Notre Dame. Emory has embraced the word as well, describing itself in the finished declaration as “an inquiry-driven, ethically engaged, and diverse community.”
“This is not to say that Emory is more ethical,” Wagner cautions. “But it does indicate what we expect of ourselves.”
That expectation was tested in 2009 when the worst recession in decades forced the administration to make staff reductions. Wagner summoned Wolpe to his office.
“I had no idea why he wanted to see me,” Wolpe remembers. “He handed me an article about the ethical considerations of layoffs, and we spent an hour discussing the issues. He was very concerned that a difficult situation be handled as ethically as possible. I walked out impressed that he wanted to meet with me at a time like that, when most university presidents probably would be calling in their lawyers.”
Colleges have been teaching ethics since the dawn of higher education. For most of that time, the subject was the purview of theology schools or philosophy departments. That began to change in the sixties and seventies, as medical advances such as organ transplants and enhanced end-of-life care raised new moral complications.
“The explosion in interest really started with bioethics,” says Brian Schrag, director of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, an umbrella group for ethics centers, at Indiana University. “After the Tuskegee Study was revealed, there was a rising concern about medical research ethics. Then Watergate made people wonder about the ethics of lawyers. And there were always business scandals. It made universities think they should start applying these ancient theories of ethics to practical experience.”
The Hastings Center, an independent institution widely regarded as the first bioethics center, was founded in 1969. Other pioneering centers soon followed at Georgetown University in 1971 and Indiana University in 1972.
The field remained sparsely populated when Emory began to consider an ethics center in 1990. President James Laney, a Christian ethicist by training, started the conversation.
“He invited a group of us over to Lullwater for a series of meetings to brainstorm the idea,” recalls the center’s associate director, Kathy Kinlaw 79C 85T. “There was a general feeling that we could do more to prepare students as they went out into the world. The health sciences faculty were strong participants.”
Unlike many centers, Emory’s was meant to be cross-disciplinary, touching on everything from religion and the arts to medicine and engineering. “This is one of the most holistic centers of its type in the country,” says James Fowler, a retired theology professor who served as the center’s first full-time director for more than a decade.
Since the center was founded, the number of university ethics institutions has proliferated. At the first meeting of the ethics association in 1991, perhaps twenty centers were represented; now more than a hundred attend. “They started popping up like mushrooms in the nineties,” Schrag says.
John Stuhr, chair of the Department of Philosophy, helped launch one of those centers in his last post at Pennsylvania State University. Although he obviously values his chosen discipline, he wonders whether its recent popularity has something to do with academic fashion. “At the risk of sounding cynical, it’s easier to secure funding when you’ve established a center,” he says. “There’s also a little bit of keeping up with the Joneses. If everyone has ethics centers, shouldn’t you have one? And if you don’t, does that mean you aren’t concerned with ethics?”
Stuhr also has reservations about the fondest goal of ethics education: to mold ethical adults. There’s a limit, he believes, to what a university can do.
“It’s not realistic to think that a single class can erase habits that formed over eighteen or twenty years,” he says. “Aristotle points out the difference between knowing good and doing good. We all know what he means. I imagine it’s relatively easy to pass the Georgia driving exam, but passing it doesn’t mean you won’t be a terrible driver. Universities are like that: We’re very good on the theoretical side, but translating it into practice is much harder.”
But as Wolpe pointed out, having an ethical sensibility means more than simply knowing right from wrong. Faculty at the Center for Ethics take the approach that although a student’s character may have taken root when he arrives, there is still value in teaching, exploring, and applying ethics as a discipline.
“Of course you can mold ethical adults,” says Queen, who tries to do just that as director of the Ethics and Servant Leadership program. “If we think we can mold a mathematician, why couldn’t we mold an ethical adult? To me, education is all about the formation of individuals and citizens. But you’re not going to do it well unless you accept it as part of your mission.”
Of all the center’s initiatives, perhaps none touches students as profoundly as EASL.
“It brings people together from across the University to learn about ethical leadership,” says the Reverend Lyn Pace 02T, who participated ten years ago and went on to become chaplain at Oxford College.
“I think about my experiences at Emory all the time,” says Ali Lutz 04T, who coordinates operations in Haiti for Partners in Health, a medical nonprofit. She tried out her career path as an EASL intern with the Georgia Justice Project, which provides legal services and support to poor families.
“That’s where I learned the distinction between charity and working for a more just society,” she says. “Charity is serving other people because they’re in great need. Working for a more just society is about understanding why people are suffering in the first place, and taking responsibility for it.”
EASL has two components. Lutz participated in the summer internship, in which thirty students are placed with Atlanta nonprofits, governmental agencies, or socially responsible businesses. They work off campus and spend one afternoon a week in the classroom. Pace was part of the academic-year program, known as the Forum. Fifteen to twenty students, receiving no stipend or course credit, meet weekly to learn about values-based leadership and ethical decision making. They eventually break into smaller groups to pursue their own service projects.
“It’s a shared intellectual journey focused on recognizing our responsibilities to the wider world,” Queen says.
This year’s Forum is typical: sixteen students from a variety of backgrounds and interests. The group starts the year with a team-building retreat on the Nantahala River in North Carolina. Then it settles into its weekly meetings, where the members learn to examine the assumptions they grew up with.
One of the first sessions deals with ethics and identity. Carlton Mackey, EASL’s assistant director, asks students to make a list of twenty things that come to mind to complete the phrase “I am . . . ” Then they fill out a similar list of attributes for different groups: poor people, white people, African Americans, and so forth. They compare the lists.
“What people say about themselves usually doesn’t match what others say about their group,” Mackey says. “I ask them why, and they’ll say, ‘It’s because they don’t know me.’ At that point, I don’t really have to say much else.”
In the next sessions, Queen introduces the students to critical ethical thinking. He asks them to consider a hypothetical situation, a classic ethical dilemma called the trolley problem. In its simplest version, a runaway train is barreling down the tracks toward five people. You notice a switch that could divert the train to another track, where it would strike one person. Do you flip the switch and kill one human being? Or do you stand by and watch five die?
“Most people say they’d pull the switch,” Queen says.
Naturally, the plot thickens. In the second version of the dilemma, you’re watching the runaway train approach the same hapless quintet from a bridge directly overhead. Only there’s no switch this time. Instead, you’re standing next to an extremely overweight man, and you realize—to your horror—that you could push him onto the track and derail the train. It’s the same moral calculus—saving five lives at the sacrifice of one—yet most people say they couldn’t do it. Shoving a man to his death is harder than flipping a switch.
“I couldn’t decide what to do,” says Leyla Sokullu 14C, from Turkey. “It was frustrating, knowing that you might kill five people because you couldn’t make up your mind.”
The point of the exercise, Queen explains, is to grasp the complexities of ethical decision making. “Hard decisions ought to be undertaken with humility and ambiguity. We take our best-considered position depending on what we know and understand, but we ought to be willing to change our minds if we’re disabused with new information or a better argument. We don’t know the mind of God.”
The trolley problem is only the beginning. Soon the students are discussing problems that are anything but hypothetical: homelessness, human rights, medical research, the environment, the plight of refugees.
It’s Monday night, time for the Forum. This week the students aren’t gathering in a conference room at the ethics center; they’re piling into cars and vans for another field trip. Their destination: WonderRoot, a community arts organization in southeast Atlanta that partners with the center.
The director leads the students on a quick tour of the facility, a converted bungalow that manages to fit galleries, performance space, a darkroom, and a recording studio under one humble roof.
It has been only a couple of days since some of these students did yard work at the refugee complex, and they’re still wondering what to make of the experience. During the ride to and from WonderRoot, a spirited discussion breaks out.
“I think it’s kind of a publicity thing for Emory,” one person says.
“Oh, there’s more to it than that,” someone counters.
“Yeah, I guess we can feel good about ourselves for another year,” another one jokes, drawing glares from the back seat.
So what did the students take away from those three hours of volunteer work? And what, exactly, does it have to do with ethics?
Lauren Henrickson 13C has been mulling it over.
“On one hand, we were just raking up some leaves, and that’s pretty small scale,” she says. “But on the other hand, it was making us more aware of the refugee community, and that could lead to something that isn’t small scale.”
She pauses and adds another thought that suggests she is learning one of the most fundamental lessons in ethics, not to mention life: considering other viewpoints. “I hope our being there had some effect on the residents. I keep thinking about a girl I noticed peeking at us from a balcony. I hope she isn’t too young to remember that these people who were not part of her community came in to help, that someone else cared.”
For Courtney Bell 12C, the day was worthwhile—if only as an exercise in consciousness raising.
“When you come to college,” she says, “you’re so into these books and papers and exams that sometimes you forget there’s an outside world. I don’t remember the last time I read the news because I’m always studying. So the day we raked leaves was awesome, because it took me out of Emory and into Atlanta and into the world.”
That yearning for involvement is why she gravitated to the ethics center in the first place. In fact, it’s one of the main reasons she came to Emory. “We have a duty to promote the greater good,” she says. “That’s part of the culture here.” | <urn:uuid:d9cde459-d5bb-4d1e-9537-b27105208c04> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.emory.edu/EMORY_MAGAZINE/issues/2011/winter/features/ethics.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961256 | 4,043 | 1.703125 | 2 |
There aren't many etude books written specifically by a saxophonist for saxophonists that are actually musical, fun to play and highly educational too. JSE2 covers all these brilliantly. Features include - Introductory text that helps you get the most out of the etudes. Specific goals are given for the intermediate, advanced, and professional level saxophonist. 12 etudes based on standard jazz tunes and forms (blues, rhythm changes). Real 'jazz language', containing wonderful examples. | <urn:uuid:505818d7-186a-445f-b446-e232e44673f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.boosey.com/shop/prod/Fishman-Greg-Jazz-Saxophone-Etudes-vol-2-Bk-CD/2002320 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951322 | 101 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Educational Careers and Social Inequality – Analysis of the Impact of Social Origin on Educational Career Patterns and Their Labor Market Outcomes from a Comparative Perspective
This project examines two research questions to deepen the understanding of social origin on delayed achievement of education. First, do young adults react with reenrollment into higher education on some labour market situations? Second, do returns to education on the labour market differ between different educational career patterns? The second question has important implications for the consequences of the first question in the context of intergenerational social inequality. These questions will be approached using secondary analysis of existing longitudinal micro-data. Since the moderation of the micro-processes through institutional conditions is of particular interest, the analyses will involve a comparison of both processes over three societies, Germany, Sweden and the United States. The focus will be on analysis for the German case. The comparison cases however can add additional insights on the processes in educational systems which are similar to recent developments of the German system.
In order to examine the influence of educational systems on late educational decisions we analysed longitudinal microdata sets from Sweden, Germany and the United States. In 2012, our focus was on the returns to diversified postsecondary educational career patterns in the different country contexts. Data analyses were complete and results presented in international conferences. At the moment, we are documenting the project results and prepare them for publication. | <urn:uuid:8d87e44e-9a0c-4169-8cd7-244f09eb69a4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/d7/en/projects/educational-careers-and-social-inequality-analysis-of-the-impact-of-social-origin-on-educational-career-patterns-and | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933504 | 278 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Sources of Data
Data on health and healthcare in Wales is produced by many different bodies.
Here you will find links to some of the sources of information on health and health care in Wales.
More specific links are provided from particular
The Statistics Directorate produce health and social care data including about the health of the public including births, deaths and conceptions; workload (or activity) of hospitals; primary and community health; mental health services; the performance of the NHS and the NHS Workforce and NHS Finance. Information can also be accessed through the Government’s health and care statistical publications by month of publication and a wide range of data can be accessed by the StatsWales service (information on using StatsWales).
As well as data collected from health services and sources such as birth and death registrations, the Assembly produces information from specific surveys. The Welsh Health Survey is a major source of information about the health of people in Wales
, the way they use health services, and the things that can affect people's health. Other surveys include the UK adult dental survey …
National Health Service Wales Links
NHS Wales Informatics Service (NWIS)
The Information Products Unit works to collect manage and analyse data held in a number of national databases, and to produce and distribute information derived from these databases. The Patient Episode Database for Wales (PEDW) contains all inpatient and day case activity undertaken in NHS Wales plus data on Welsh residents treated in English trusts. PEDW data on-line are annually produced downloadable tables containing headline figures relating to hospital admissions and Excel tables containing separate analyses such as diagnosis and procedural information, Healthcare Resource Groups (HRG), provider of care and regular attendance information. Health Maps Wales is an interactive mapping tool which can be use to explore a wide variety of health indicators grouped under broad categories of health such as cancer, common procedures and causes of injury. Data on hospital admissions, births, deaths and child health can currently be compared visually across different areas of Wales. The Substance Misuse reporting tool provides quarterly referrals and activity from Substance Misuse national database and is available via authorised access only.
Further data analysis tools such as specialist applications used by the NHS and Welsh Assembly Government relating to data quality and performance management; along with further resources on other NHS datasets are available to NHS staff via the All Wales intranet service.
Public Health Wales
The Public Health Observatory Analytical Team analyse information for public health purposes, including the production of profiles and health needs assessments. An interactive mapping tool gives access to themes such as demography, life style factors, and deaths.
The Health Protection service of Public Health Wales
collects and collates a variety of information on infections. This includes data on vaccine uptake and vaccine preventable disease, sexual health and blood borne viruses and influenza. Interactive trend data is available based on laboratory confirmed cases and notifications of infectious disease.
The Welsh Healthcare Associated Infection Programme publishes reports by Trust and by infection type.
Public Health Wales Observatory
The Public Health Wales Observatory Team have published reports and profiles on topics including alcohol, smoking and rural health together with Pictures of Health for different areas of Wales
Services with a remit for specific condition types
The Welsh Cancer Surveillance and Intelligence Unit
collects, analyses and disseminates information about cancer incidence, mortality and survival within the resident population of Wales
. This information is used to make judgements about the demand for screening and treatment, the effectiveness of these services, epidemiological research into the causes of cancer, research into cancer prevention, clinical research and for the education of the public.
The Congenital Anomaly Register and Information Service aims to collect reliable data about congenital anomalies that can then be used to help build up and monitor the picture of congenital anomalies in Wales; assess interventions intended to help prevent or detect congenital anomalies; plan and co-ordinate provision of health services for affected babies and children and assess possible clusters of birth defects and their causes.
The All Wales Perinatal Survey
is a continuous surveillance of perinatal and infant mortality in Wales
Information on NHS Prescribing in Wales is available from Prescribing Services.
Much of the NHS information needs are supported through the work of the Business Services Centre.
The Welsh Local Government Data Unit helps local government and the Welsh Assembly Government to use data more effectively. The Unit offers a Dissemination Tool which is powerful in retrieving, displaying and manipulating data. Data on Health is available here inluding mortality and fertility data.
UK wide statistics
The Office of National Statistics produces information including data on health and health care, population and migration, and social and welfare data. Using the 2001 census it produced a focus on health report. It also publishes Health Statistics Quarterly covering the latest trends in the UK’s health.
ONS and UK Statistics Authority
Statistics of other UK Nations
The HPA Centre for Infections (CfI) carries out a broad spectrum of work relating to prevention of infectious disease
Statistics on work-related ill-health, injuries, dangerous occurrences, enforcement and gas safety are provided by the Health and Safety Executive
The National Centre for Health Outcomes Development (NCOHD) website offers a one-stop source of all information on health outcomes. Information Services Division (ISD) is Scotland's national organisation for health information, statistics and IT services. Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) is the principal source of official statistics and social research on Northern Ireland´s population and socio-economic conditions. The Association of Public Health Observatories (APHO) represents a network of 12 public health observatories (PHOs) working across the five nations of England and produces information, data and intelligence on people's health and health care for practitioners, policy makers and the wider community. | <urn:uuid:ea704ee4-284f-4d5c-85a7-c077f844e6ff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wales.nhs.uk/statisticsanddata/sourcesofdata | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908517 | 1,175 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Benefits of beet juice
Daily dose of beet juice promotes brain health in older adults
Wake Forest researchers have shown for the first time that drinking beet juice can increase blood flow to the brain in older adults – a finding that could hold great potential for combating the progression of dementia.
The research findings are available online in Nitric Oxide: Biology and Chemistry, the peer-reviewed journal of the Nitric Oxide Society and will be available in print soon. (Read the abstract.)
“There have been several very high-profile studies showing that drinking beet juice can lower blood pressure, but we wanted to show that drinking beet juice also increases perfusion, or blood flow, to the brain,” said Daniel Kim-Shapiro, director of Wake Forest’s Translational Science Center; Fostering Independence in Aging. “There are areas in the brain that become poorly perfused as you age, and that’s believed to be associated with dementia and poor cognition.”
High concentrations of nitrates are found in beets, as well as in celery, cabbage and other leafy green vegetables like spinach and some lettuce. When you eat high-nitrate foods, good bacteria in the mouth turn nitrate into nitrite. Research has found that nitrites can help open up the blood vessels in the body, increasing blood flow and oxygen specifically to places that are lacking oxygen.
In this study, the first to find a link between consumption of nitrate-rich beet juice and increased blood flow to the brain, Translational Science Center researchers looked at how dietary nitrates affected 14 adults age 70 and older over a period of four days.
On the first day, the study subjects reported to the lab after a 10-hour fast, completed a health status report, and consumed either a high- or low-nitrate breakfast. The high-nitrate breakfast included 16 ounces of beet juice. They were sent home with lunch, dinner and snacks conforming to their assigned diets.
The next day, following another 10-hour fast, the subjects returned to the lab, where they ate their assigned breakfasts. One hour after breakfast, an MRI recorded the blood flow in each subject’s brain. Blood tests before and after breakfast confirmed nitrite levels in the body.
For the third and fourth days of the study, the researchers switched the diets and repeated the process for each subject.
The MRIs showed that after eating a high-nitrate diet, the older adults had increased blood flow to the white matter of the frontal lobes – the areas of the brain commonly associated with degeneration that leads to dementia and other cognitive conditions.
“I think these results are consistent and encouraging – that good diet consisting of a lot of fruits and vegetables can contribute to overall good health,” said Gary Miller, associate professor in the Department of Health and Exercise Science and one of the senior investigators on the project.
To make the sometimes-bitter beet juice tastier – so a greater number of people will drink it and reap its health benefits – the university has worked with a company to create a new beet juice-based beverage. The university is currently looking into ways of marketing the beverage.
Radiology professor Dr. Jonathan Burdette is senior author of the current research paper with Kim-Shapiro and Miller. Secondary authors include Tennille D. Presley, Ashley R. Morgan, Erika Bechtold, William Clodfelter, Robin W. Dove, Janine M. Jennings, Robert A. Kraft, S. Bruce King, Paul J. Laurienti and W. Jack Rejeski.
The National Institutes of Health contributed funding for this research.
The Center for Translational Science; Fostering Independence in Aging focuses on the promotion and maintenance of functional health as people age. Center researchers study how diet and exercise can change cognitive and physical function. The center’s team involves medical staff, behavioral scientists and other scientists who develop research-based interventions to help both physical and cognitive health in aging populations. | <urn:uuid:207ce691-9134-47b3-946f-21956d1dfc8a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.wfu.edu/2010/11/03/benefits-of-beet-juice/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941563 | 840 | 2.546875 | 3 |
The History of Spey Casting in the Northwest
By Amy Hazel
If you have fished for steelhead on any Northwest river in the last two decades, you have undoubtedly witnessed fly anglers wielding weapons of epic proportion. Magnetic rod racks on vehicles prowling rivers around the Northwest proudly display the fly anglers’ weapons of choice - Spey rods.
Click photos to enlarge
John Hazel teaching a Spey clinic on the Deschutes
Spey rods now come in all weights and lengths
The popularity of Spey casting, or the use of the two handed rod, has spread like wildfire across the United States and Canada over the past thirty years. Named after Scotland’s river Spey, where the two-handed technique was first developed in the 1800s, Spey casting was and still is the traditional method favored by the Ghillies and their anglers in the UK in pursuit of Atlantic Salmon. Simply defined, Spey casting allows an angler to cast a fly line out over a river with a change of direction roll cast. The long fly rod with a handle on either side of the reel makes 70+ foot casts possible in tight quarters where there is no room to back cast. Anchored in British tradition, Spey rod and line design evolved very little over a hundred years from the late 1800s until just over thirty years ago Spey rods splashed into North America.
Back in the early 1980s, a small handful of fly anglers in pockets around the Pacific Northwest began to explore the possibilities of using Spey rods in the pursuit of steelhead. The first Spey rods to make it across the pond were greenheart, split cane bamboo, and later fiberglass and carbon fiber. These Spey rods were typically 15-18 feet in length and used lines with 80-100 foot heads. To become a proficient Spey caster using the equipment that was first available to North American anglers took many months and years of practice. Some of the earliest Spey casting enthusiasts in North America were Mike Maxwell on the Bulkley, Jimmy Green and Al Buhr on the Snake River, John Hazel on the Deschutes, and a few others around the Northwest. Isolated geographically, the earliest Spey pioneers of the Pacific Northwest had no claves or gatherings at which to share Spey techniques and insight on equipment.
A full and accurate accounting of all of the influential people on the development of North American Spey casting through the 1980s and 1990s could fill volumes. This simple first-hand account will cover the evolution of Spey casting in one pocket of the Northwest led by John Hazel on the Deschutes River.
In 1980, while he was guiding and teaching schools for Kauffman’s Streamborn, John Hazel and a couple of fellow shop employees got their hands on a 14 foot three piece Hardy fiberglass Spey rod with a diameter equal to that of today’s cork Spey handles. As they began playing around with this huge rod trying to figure out how to cast it (their only references were line drawings in books published in the 1800s) their riverside attempts to simply roll the line out were far from pretty. Before long, Randy Stetzer shook his head and walked away from the Spey folly –but John Hazel and Kerry Burkheimer hung on tenaciously to the idea that this long rod could be a great tool for covering water on a river like the Deschutes with little to no back casting room.
Driven to find a method that he could teach to guided clients, John tossed aside the old greased line from the UK and started to build his own Spey lines out of 11 and 12 weight double taper lines. Fellow fly shop employees laughed at John as he spent hundreds of dollars on brand new fly lines only to chop them to pieces in a splicing and dicing quest for a better Spey line.
Kerry Burkheimer, fresh from a fly rod building apprenticeship under Russ Peak, started to build some of the very first American made Spey rods in his garage, and he and John spent hours, days, months, and years designing and testing two handed rods. The prototype rods were unsanded, cosmetically blank, and had the guides and crude cork handle simply taped to the shaft. As they flailed with the Spey cast on the banks of the Deschutes, rods shattered and lines collapsed, but Hazel and Burkheimer persevered in their quest to build a great Spey rod.
Over the decade of the 1980s, things in the North American Spey world progressed quite slowly because there were so few anglers interested in or even aware of this foreign method of casting the fly. A few American rod companies dipped their toes in the new pond - Orvis came out with a carbon fiber 13 foot, 9-10 Spey rod, and Jimmy Green (working at a brand new fly rod company named Sage) came out with a 10 weight 15 footer. The few rods that were available were very expensive, and quite difficult to cast with the lines that were available from Europe. But Spey rod design was evolving, and line design was soon to follow.
John Hazel, now becoming known to his guide buddies as Speyzel, continued to chop and splice lines in the back of Kauffman’s fly shop and was soon selling his custom built multi-tip Spey lines to his clients for $250 each. These lines were five times as expensive as the average trout line, and were part of the economic barrier that kept the large majority of fly anglers from getting into the Spey game. However, these hand-built lines along with the fledgling CF Burkheimer Spey rods made the once daunting task of using a two-hander a little bit easier and actually fun.
By the late 1980s John was teaching a fair number of Spey Casting clinics on the Deschutes as well as on other rivers around the Northwest. The clinics attracted attention wherever they took place as fellow anglers would stop and stare, mouths agape, at the crazy anglers swinging long thick fly lines off the end of massive fly rods – attempting and sometimes succeeding at rolling those lines out across the water.
Through the early 1990’s John Hazel and Kerry Burkheimer continued to collaborate on Spey rod design and the trend towards lighter and shorter rods grew. As rods became lighter and shorter, line design began to follow suit, and soon mass produced lines became available at a price far lower than John’s custom built lines.
The first Northwest-grown fully fledged Spey line came to the table from a small line company in Idaho with the name Rio. The Rio Accelerator Spey line was a traditional long bellied line which sold like wildfire to the growing number of anglers discovering the long rods. Significant casting skill was essential to make the long lines perform well. Thus, anglers spent many days and years practicing with their Spey rods in order to achieve a long beautiful cast.
In 1994 a young guide with a love of Spey casting named Dec Hogan began to work with John on the Deschutes. Fourteen years after first picking up his first Spey rod, John was now able to work with a fellow guide who shared his passion for the two-handed rod. John and Dec kept themselves quite busy on weekends teaching Spey clinics to droves of anglers and filled their weekdays with guided steelhead float trips during which they introduced many an angler to the excitement of hooking and playing a chrome bright fish on the long rod.
One of the few outfitters sharing the waters of the Deschutes on a daily basis with John and Dec and the only other guide out there at the time who was fully invested in the Spey rod was Brian Silvey, the southpaw of Spey. John, Dec, and Brian got together on their rare days off to test the prototype Spey rod designs sent to them by CF Burkheimer, Sage, G. Loomis, and others. Their push for shorter and lighter rods that were more client- friendly resulted in the introduction of seven and eight weight rods less than 14 feet in length.
The late 1990’s brought the most revolutionary Spey line design yet, the Rio Windcutter. The Windcutter was far more compact than any Spey line North Americans had ever seen, offering interchangeable floating and sinking tips in a “one line that can do it all” fashion. As the first Spey line that didn’t require an Olympian effort to control and maneuver, the Rio Windcutter line opened the door to the Spey world for the majority of fly anglers – and they came flooding through that door in droves.
Spey casting became more than just the obsession of a few grizzled fly fishing guides, it became something that could be accomplished by a gal in a pair of waders. That gal came along in 1999 when I began guiding for John Hazel, whom I would marry four years later. To say that I had a head start on the Spey game with John Hazel and Dec Hogan as my full time instructors, would be an understatement.
In 2002 we filmed our first instructional Spey casting video, “Introduction to Spey Casting with John and Amy Hazel”, which was produced by and segments of which were broadcast nationwide on Fly Fishing Television. Fly anglers around the country witnessed, many for the first time, the beauty of launching a long Spey cast out across a glassy piece of water. In 2003, as Spey casting was exploding in popularity, we opened our own fly shop in Maupin, Oregon on the Deschutes River and used our Spey knowledge as the cornerstone to building Deschutes Angler fly shop.
While teaching and giving Spey seminars across the country, John and I met international Spey gurus from around the world. In 2004, we were invited to give a presentation at the first annual Jimmy Green Spey O Rama at the Golden Gate Casting Club in San Francisco. This is where we had our first experience casting shooting head line designs from Scandinavia. When we saw the ease with which the Swedes and Norweigians were casting their shooting heads, we knew instantly that shooting heads would be the way of the future for North American Spey casters.
John imported hundreds of Spey lines from Finland and went back to his mad-scientist days: measuring, weighing, cutting and dicing the lines to form a better product. We sold custom cut Scandi lines in our fly shop for five years until a few of the major fly line companies hired John to design the American version of Scandinavian shooting heads.
Spey casting technique, line design and rod design continue to evolve in North America. A cast that once took the Pacific Spey pioneers months of practice to perfect can now be learned in a day, thanks to rods and lines that have been modified through the years and to the wide availability of quality Spey casting instruction. Though the lines and rods of today make it easier and easier to cast a fly with a two-handed rod, John makes it a point in all of our Spey clinics to emphasize that learning all of the casts and especially the single Spey cast is essential to becoming a well-rounded Spey angler.
The intuition that John Hazel had back in 1980 when he first picked up a Spey rod has finally come to fruition – Spey casting has become the preferred method for steelhead anglers in all of North America. Spey casting provides fly anglers, many of whom had grown weary of dredging a nymph and staring at a bobber, with a exciting new way to present a fly to a fish.
I was a fly angler but not a Spey caster before I met John Hazel, but his passion for the two-handed rod was as mesmerizing to me as it was to his hundreds of Spey converts. Through his stories and teachings I came to value the history, the complexity, the depth, the tradition, the challenge, and the beauty of casting a fly with a Spey rod. The evolution of Spey casting as we know it today could not have come as far nor would have gained the popularity that it has without the influence of John “Speyzel” Hazel.
Back to Top | <urn:uuid:8a471f3a-77af-4f65-84f2-bae3d70468a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.deschutesangler.com/retail/common/community/article.asp?store_id=207&journal_store_id=201&id=431 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972484 | 2,527 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Afghan refugee urges Australian forces to stay longer
Afghan refugee John Nazary has slammed the Australian government's decision to pull out most soldiers from Afghanistan earlier than expected. He says the Taliban will quickly reclaim territory once Australia leaves. John Nazary has told the ABC his family and friends back in Afghanistan don't believe the Afghan National Army is sufficiently trained to cope with the exodus of foreign forces.
Source: The World Today | Duration: 4min 8sec
KIM LANDERS: NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) foreign and defence ministers are set to meet in Brussels over the next two days to refine plans for withdrawing combat troops from Afghanistan.
The meeting, which will be attended by Defence Minister Stephen Smith and Foreign Minister Bob Carr comes on the heels of the Prime Minister mapping out Australia's revised exit plan from Afghanistan.
But one Afghan refugee now living in Australia disagrees with the new withdrawal timetable.
John Nazary is one of dozens of Afghans living in Katanning south of Perth.
He's been in Australia since 2004 first arriving by boat as an asylum seeker.
He's told the ABC's Andrew Collins that Australia's decision to leave Afghanistan earlier than planned is not the right one.
JOHN NAZARY: I think myself there, Afghanistan population is there. I'm happy about that decision.
ANDREW COLLINS: Prime Minister Gillard says security has improved in Afghanistan, which is a major reason for this decision for the early exit. What's your take on security there? Do you agree with that view?
JOHN NAZARY: No, no, 100 per cent I not agree with that. I believe each day there are Australian soldier come out from Uruzgan and Uruzgan completely, or maybe 95 per cent of Uruzgan they go into Taliban hand. Promise that and then you watch what happening. Australian troops come out from Uruzgan and maybe one day after that, or it start that day, and 95 per cent of the Uruzgan they go into Taliban hands or al-Qaeda.
ANDREW COLLINS: So you're saying only one day it will take for the...
JOHN NAZARY: That's right.
ANDREW COLLINS: ...Taliban to regain control over most of the country?
JOHN NAZARY: That's right because already they came from different country in the world to support al-Qaeda. Already they are turned out, they are waiting that time 'til Western soldier or Australian soldier they come out from Afghanistan and they start acting.
ANDREW COLLINS: Where do you get your information from for those fears John? Is it from friends and family or where do you get it from?
JOHN NAZARY: I'm watching news all the time. I can't take in Afghanistan with the power of my family there. And of course a lot of my friends which live here in Australia and we have contact with each other, what happening there.
I know the Afghanistan people, I know their country situation and I know al-Qaeda, what they want what they're doing. So I think this is not good idea to take out the Australian soldiers from Afghanistan before 2014.
ANDREW COLLINS: Do you have much contact with family and friends in Afghanistan?
JOHN NAZARY: Yes.
ANDREW COLLINS: What are they saying?
JOHN NAZARY: They are not happy. They are unhappy. They were happy to western soldier or Australian soldier they stay in the area, they control the area. They was happy and not many attacks from al-Qaeda and Taliban. Different country they have al-Qaeda, they kind of sloppy to attack in Afghanistan.
ANDREW COLLINS: Do you have faith though that the Australians and the Americans and others have trained the Afghan National Security Force to a level where they could defend against another Taliban invasion?
JOHN NAZARY: They did train, yes, they did train, but not that far to control outside or inside the country. Just for domestic control is alright, little bit is okay, much better than before. But not that high to they control from al-Qaeda completely and the country.
ANDREW COLLINS: The news of a 2013 exit versus a 2014 is just one year. Do you think one year will make much of a difference?
JOHN NAZARY: Of course - one month will make much difference. One month. If you want to teach someone one year less training and how long they say, longer one year and they train more and they understand more, they learning more how to secure the country.
KIM LANDERS: Afghan refugee and now resident of Katanning in WA, John Nazary, speaking with the ABC's Andrew Collins. | <urn:uuid:b9e24512-c19d-4191-a677-939a22e7220b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-18/afghan-refugee-urges-australian-forces-to-stay/3958216 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96596 | 988 | 1.539063 | 2 |
One of the biggest questions the DataPortability project has grappled with (and where the entire industry is not at consensus), is a fairly basic question with some profound consequences: who owns your data. Well I think I have an answer to the question now, which I’ve now cross-validated across multiple domains. Given we live in the Information Age, this certainly matters in every respect.
So who owns “your data”? Not you. Or the other guy. Or the government, and the MicroGooHoo corporate monolith. Actually, no one does. And if they do, it doesn’t matter.
People like to conflate the concept of property ownership to that of data ownership. I mean it’s you right? You own your house so surely, you own your e-mail address, your name, your date of birth records, your identity. However when you go into the details, from a conceptual level, it doesn’t make sense.
Ownership of data
First of all, let’s define property ownership: “the ability to deny use of an asset by another entity”. The reason you can claim status to owning your house, is because you can deny someone else access to your property. Most of us have a fence to separate our property from the public space; others like the hillbillies sit in their rocking chair with a shot gun ready to fire. Either way, it’s well understood if someone else owns something, and if you trespass, the dogs will chase after you.
The characteristics of ownership can be described as follows:
1) You have legal title recognising in your legal jurisdiction that you own it.
2) You have the ability to enforce your right of ownership in your legal jurisdiction
3) You can get benefits from the property.
The third point is key. When people cry out loud “I own my data”, that’s essentially the reason (when you take out the Neanderthal emotionally-driven reasoning out of the equation). Where we get a little lost though, is when we define those benefits. It could be said, that you want to be able to control your data so that you can use it somewhere else, and so you can make sure someone else doesn’t use it in a way that causes you harm.
Whilst that might sound like ownership to you, that’s where the house of cards collapses. The reason being, unless you can prove the ability to deny use by another entity, you do not have ownership. It’s a trap, because data is not like a physical good which cannot be easily copied. It’s like a butterfly locked in a safe: the moment you open that safe up, you can say good bye. If data can only satisfy the ownership definition when you hide it from the world, that means when it’s public to the world, you no longer own it. And that sucks, because data by nature is used for public consumption. But what if you could get the same benefits of ownership – or rather, receive benefits of usage and regulate usage – without actually ‘owning’ it?
Property and data – same same, but different
Both property and data are assets. They create value for those who use them. But that’s where the similarity’s end.
Property gains value through scarcity. The more unique, the more valuable. Data on the other hand, gains value through reuse. The more derivative works off it, means the more information generated (as information is simply data connected with other data). The more information, the more knowledge, the more value created – working its way along the information value chain. If data is isolated, and not reused, it has little value. For example, if a company has a piece of data but is not allowed to ever use it – there is no value to it.
Data gains value through use, and additional value through reuse and derivative creations. If no one reads this blog, it’s a waste of space; if thousands of people read it, its value increases – as these ideas are decimated. To give one perspective on this, when people create their own posts reusing the data I’ve created, I generate value through them linking back to me. No linking, no value realised. Of course, I get a lot more value out of it beyond page rank juice, but hopefully you realise if you “steal” my content (with at least some acknowledgement to me the person), then you are actually doing me a favour.
Ignore the above!
Talking about all this ownership stuff doesn’t actually matter; it’s not ownership that we want. Let’s take a step back, and look at this from a broader, philosophical view.
Property ownership is based on the concept that you get value from holding something for an extended period of time. But in an age of rapid change, do you still get value from that? Let’s say, we lose the Holy War for people being able to ‘own’ their data. Facebook – you win – you now ‘own’ me. This is because it owns the data about me – my identity, it would appear, is under the control of Facebook – it now owns, that “I am in a relationship”. However, the Holy War might have been lost but I don’t care. Because Facebook owns crap – as six months ago, I was in a relationship. Now I’m single and haven’t updated my status. The value for Facebook, is not in owning me in a period of time: it’s in having access to me all the time – because one way they translate that data into value is advertising, and targeting ads is pointless if you have the wrong information to base your targetting on. Probably the only data that can be static in my profile, is birth-date and gender – but with some tampering and cosmetics, even those can be altered now!
Think about this point raised by Luk Vervenne, in response to my above thoughts on the VRM mailing list, by considering employability. A lot of your personal information, is actually generated by interactions with third parties, such as the education institution you received your degree from. So do I own the fact that I have a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Sydney? No I don’t, as that brand and the authenticity is that of the university. What I do have however, is access & usage rights to it. Last time I checked, I didn’t own the university, but if someone quizzes me on my academic record, there’s a hotline ready to confirm it – and once validated, I get the recognition that translates into a benefit for me.
Our economy is now transitioning from a goods-producing to a service-performing and experience-generating economy. It’s hard for us to imagine this new world, as our conceptual understanding of the world is built on the concept of selling, buying and otherwise trading goods that ultimately ends in us owning something. But this market era of the exchange of goods is making way for “networks” and the concept of owning property will diminish in importance, as our new world is will now place value on the access.
This is a broader shift. As a young man building his life, I cannot afford to buy a house in Sydney with its overinflated prices. But that’s fine – I am comfortable in renting – all I want is ‘access’ to the property, not the legal title to it which quite frankly would be a bad investment decision even aside from the current economic crisis. I did manage to buy myself a car, but I am cursing the fact that I wasted my money on that debt which could have gone to more productive means – instead, I could have just paid for access to public transport and taxis when I needed transport. In other words, we now have an economy where you do not need to own something to get the value: you just need access.
That’s not to say property ownership is a dead concept – rather, it’s become less important. When we consider history as well, the concept of the masses “owning” property was foreign anyway – there was a class system with the small but influential aristocracy that would own the land, with the serfs working on the land. “Ownership” really, is a new ‘established’ concept to our world – and it’s now ready to get out of vogue again. We’ve now reached a level of sophistication in our society where we no longer need the security of ownership to get the benefits in our life – and these property owners that we get our benefits from, may appear to yield power but they also have a lot of financial risk, government accountability and public scrutiny (unlike history’s aristocracy).
Take a look at companies and how they outsource a lot of their functions (or even simplify their businesses’ value-activities). Every single client of mine – multi-million dollar businesses at that as well – pay rent. They don’t own the office space they are in, as for them to get the benefits, they instead simply need access which they get through rental. “Owning” the property is not part of the core value of the business. Whilst security is needed, because not having ownership can put you at the mercy of the landlord, this doesn’t mean you can’t contract protection like my clients do as part of the lease agreements.
To bring it back to the topic, access to your data is what matters – but it also needs to be carefully understood. For example, access to your health records might not be a good thing. Rather, you can control who has access to that data. Similarly, whilst no one might own your data, what you do have is the right to demand guidelines and principles like what we are trying to do at the DataPortability Project on how “your” data can be used. Certainly, the various governmental privacy and data protection legislation around the world does exactly that: it governs how companies can use personally identifiable data.
Incomplete thoughts, but I hope I’ve made you think. I know I’m still thinking. | <urn:uuid:f09081fe-7e5b-4923-9ffd-5e1a0b15c60f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://eliasbizannes.com/blog/tag/property/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957209 | 2,160 | 2.125 | 2 |
epilepsy develops between ages 12 and 18. People with
the disorder tend to have seizures that cause jerking in the shoulders or arms.
Generalized tonic-clonic seizures and absence seizures may be present along
with myoclonic seizures. Seizures often occur early in the morning.
People with juvenile myoclonic epilepsy have normal intelligence and
do not have other brain or nerve disorders. A family history of myoclonic
seizures is present in about half of the people with the disorder. But the exact
cause is unknown. Most people require lifelong treatment with
How this information was developed to help you make better health decisions. | <urn:uuid:ffe5a7b1-54a1-43a1-9c0c-f9223dd620aa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cancer.dartmouth.edu/pf/health_encyclopedia/d23739645 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919407 | 135 | 3.46875 | 3 |
Posted in Chairmaking, Polelathe, Uncategorized, What's in the shed today?, tagged bodgery, chair making, elm, greenwood working, Polelathe, steam bending, windsor chair on August 28, 2011 |
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My visits to the bodgery last week were squeezed in between bookings for demonstrating and teaching polelathe turning at the Weald & Downland Open Air Museum (of which more later) but I am very grateful to Derrick for getting full steam up and pushing me to make the missing part, namely the comb, for my comb-back windsor side chair.
The steam chambers are simple plastic drainpipes heavily lagged by old carpet and braced with battens. The steam source is a wallpaper stripper or kettle heating element in a plastic water reservoir.
Having steamed the beech comb for just over an hour we placed it in the jig and applied the pressure using a simple pipe bending vice.
Once bent the comb stays in the jig until it’s cooled right down.
Now I have the comb and the back sticks all I need is the time to finish the assembly!
My chair was only one of many on the production line during the week and I counted parts of at least a dozen chairs and stools in progress and perhaps equally enjoyable was the sheer diversity of style and design.
Derrick and Veronica are working with Este on her Elm seat base. My side chair is unconventional in that the comb and seat base are made from beech rather than elm. My choice, and entirely because I have access to beech that I planked up a couple of years ago from fallen trees on the commons. Elm rarely comes my way, let alone in chair seat diameters.
Derrick is something of an Big Elm connoisseur. For example the new workbench in the workshop is one huge slab of elm.
Somewhere in a store not far away there is a stash of monster Elm planks, but as this is valuable stuff I shan’t reveal it’s exact location nor it’s owner. At least not until I’ve had a chance to save up and raid my piggy bank!
Thanks to Derek, Veronica, Sue and all at the Stratfield Saye Bodgery for the help and encouragement!
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Posted in Chairmaking, Polelathe, What's in the shed today?, tagged bodgery, bodging, chair making, crafts, greenwood working, rounding planes, windsor chair on August 24, 2011 |
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The last week of August is Full Steam ahead – literally – at the Bodgery. Where Derrick kindly allows a group of chair makers of varying talent and experience to invade his workshop. This lovely set of spindles is destined for a child sized chair – unfortunately not my work, but it does inspire me, and is one of the reasons I enjoy taking part in this week at the bodgery. Unfortunately demonstrating and courses on the weekend before and the coming bank holiday weekend have limited my ability to join in this year – and I’m keen not to make the same mistake next year!
Derrick has had something of a clear up and change around in the workshop and it enabled 9 of us to work on various parts of stools and chairs at the same time. As always the floor is liberally carpeted in shavings – we keep telling him that there is gold in them there shavings !
I’m making some sticks, spindles and the comb for the back of a Windsor chair.
For making the straight sticks a shaved blank is turned down using a rounding plane. Derricks Ashem crafts rounding planes were getting plenty of use making sticks for a range of chairs.
At this point Derrick and I noticed that our Ashem crafts planes are very different. It looks as if one is an earlier design – but which one? I think it’s Derrick’s and he thinks it’s mine (on the left). A Quick google reveals that Derrick is right and mine appears to be an earlier design. Does this make it a collectors piece? And why did the design change?
Read Full Post » | <urn:uuid:1fb131e2-ea73-44ef-81d7-791f2ea3ada2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://woodlandantics.wordpress.com/tag/chair-making/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954056 | 880 | 1.632813 | 2 |
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Model - Wedding Cake, Neighbours, 2000 Reg. No: HT 19111
- Model wedding cake made in 2000 by David O'Grady for inclusion in the inaugural Melbourne exhibition at Melbourne Museum. It is an exact replica of the cake used in the Neighbours TV series in 1987 during the episodes involving the wedding of Scott Robinson and Charlene Mitchell.
According to the program's prop master the original cake was designed and made by a cake shop in Burwood, Victoria, to give it authenticity in relation to the demographic where Neighbours is set. To decrease its weight to give it stability, only the bottom tier of the original cake was real (as it had to be cut during the Reception episode), while the top two tiers was constructed from polystyrene and plaster to match the bottom tier.
This replica was produced to be displayed in the refrigerator of the original Robinson Kitchen Set, which was part of the Melbourne Suburban Life display in the Melbourne Exhibition at Melbourne Museum, Museum Victoria (2000-2007).
- The model consists of three cake tiers, constructed of an unknown synthetic material, with the two top tiers sitting on four plastic cake columns. Each tier sits on a foil-covered board, and is decorated with an band of apricot ribbon tied in a bow (to match the bride's dress) and a posey of fabric flowers. On the top of the cake are cartoon-style figures of a bride and groom sitting on a bench kissing.
- Statement Of Significance:
- In the 7 years that the exhibition was running, the wedding cake (and the Robinson Kitchen Set) received much publicity, especially through publications and internet sites for Neighbours devotees and younger travellers and backpackers heading to Melbourne. The interest level amongst visitors to Melbourne was so high, that the Museum was included as a drop off point for the many thousands of participants in the daily Neighbours bus tours. The book `Neighbours: 20 Years of Ramsay Street' includes a chapter about European Neighbours devotees visiting the Museum, and refers to the Robinson Kitchen refrigerator containing the wedding cake as their `two door shrine'.
The model represents the inaugural Melbourne Exhibition, which was launched when the new Melbourne Museum complex opened in October, 2000. It will also come to represent the exhibition methods used by Museum Victoria at the time.
It illustrates the introduction of `popular culture' into history museums, and the controversy this development produced. The cake model represents arguably one of the most memorable, as well as one of the most watched, moments on Australian Television, the wedding of Scott and Charlene, an image which was ultimately exported around the world.
It also a poignant symbol representing the institution of marriage, and how it was celebrated in Melbourne in the late 20th Century.
- Acquisition Information:
- Transfer from Museum Victoria History & Technology Department, 2007
|Dimensions:||560 mm (Height), 380 mm (Width)|
|Tagged with:||rituals, weddings, tourism, australian television industry, television production, boxer rebellion china 1899-1901, china, ceramic|
|Themes this item is part of:||Domestic & Community Life Collection, Information & Communication Collection, Leisure Collection|
|Secondary Classification:||Television Programming & Production|
|Tertiary Classification:||studio sets|
|Modelmaker:||David O'Grady, Australia, 2000|
|Commissioned By:||Museum Victoria - Melbourne Museum, Carlton, Victoria, Australia, 2000|
|Place & Date Exhibited:||Museum Victoria - Melbourne Museum, Carlton, Victoria, Australia, 2000-2007
Displayed as part of the Melbourne Suburban Life section in the Melbourne Exhibition at Melbourne Museum
|Other Association (See Comments):||Victoria, Australia, 1987
The cake this model is copied from was used in the Neighbours TV series during the episodes involving the wedding of Scott Robinson and Charlene Mitchell, filmed in 1987.
|References:||Various websites looking at Neighbours and visiting Melbourne (copies printed for Supp File); `Neighbours: 20 Years of Ramsay Street' (News Custom Publishing, 2000)| | <urn:uuid:dc7da057-551d-461b-bb71-3ff3b2e85fa8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/items/1367405/model-wedding-cake-neighbours-2000?image=596128 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921494 | 868 | 1.960938 | 2 |
December 10, 2009 12:00 AM
A . A . A
Red Toolbox Birdhouse and Red Classic Toolbox: $27 and $28, respectively
As more schools cut shop class, it's increasingly up to parents to teach hands-on woodworking skills. Red Toolbox's beginning woodworking project kits, such as the wooden toolbox and birdhouse--come with easy-to-follow directions and precut pieces of wood. Once your kids have mastered these projects, they can graduate to intermediate and advanced ones--such as soapbox-derby-style go-karts, a model catapult and art-deco-style shelving--that hone a young carpenter's measuring, cutting and drilling skills. The instructions are a bit brief at times, but that's just an opportunity to step in and show your kids how it's done. | <urn:uuid:c0f9d0b2-ecff-4ea5-8609-f372cb1e3b12> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/how-to-plans/woodworking/4339416 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945438 | 176 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Sydney, Australia: Proteome Systems (ASX:PXL) today announced a collaboration with Prince Henry's Institute Medical Research (PHIMR) to combine their IP and expertise in ovarian cancer for the discovery and development of novel diagnostic markers.
- If ovarian cancer is detected early there is a very good prognosis for full recovery. Currently, there is no test for early detection of ovarian cancer.
- PXL has patented several protein and carbohydrate candidate markers for the development of an ovarian cancer diagnostic test.
- Melbourne-based PHIMR has previously developed a test to detect ovarian cancer in post-menopausal woman, a significant sector of the target population.
Of all the gynaecologic cancers, ovarian malignancies represent the greatest clinical challenge. Around 1 in 56 women will develop ovarian cancer during their lifetime. Due to the absence of clear symptoms, ovarian cancer is usually detected when it has already spread beyond the ovary. At this relatively late stage the 5 year survival rate has decreased to ~30% while if the cancer is detected when confined to the ovary, the corresponding 5-year survival rate is >85%. This has led to the need to develop markers that can detect ovarian cancer at this early stage.
Proteome Systems has discovered and patented novel markers for epithelial ovarian cancer using its proprietary proteomic and glycoproteomic technology platforms. The company is actively seeking partnerships with academic and clinical groups with expertise in ovarian cancer to further expand its portfolio of ovarian cancer markers and clinically evaluate these for the development of a diagnostic test.
Associate Professor David Robertson leads the team at PHIMR that has previously developed a test to diagnose ovarian cancer (Robertson et al., 2002; Robertson and Oehler, 2005). The test is useful for initial diagnosis and monitoring recurrence of the disease in post-menopausal women, but it does not have the required specificity and sensitivity for application to diagnosis of early stage disease. Consequently, there is a need to identify new diagnostic markers for the development of a highly sensitive test for early stage ovarian cancer. PHIMR bring complementary technology in proteomics and reproductive biology, as well as clinical expertise in ovarian cancer, for the discovery and evaluation of new diagnostic markers.
Dr Jenny Harry, Deputy CEO and Head of Diagnostics at Proteome Systems said she "is delighted to be working with an outstanding team of scientists at PHIMR who also have strong commercial focus. The identification of diagnostic markers for the early stages of ovarian cancer will provide the basis for the development of a screening test and lead to a better prognosis for women with this disease. Women would be able to regularly screen for ovarian cancer as is currently possible for breast and cervical cancers."
Source: Eurekalert & othersLast reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 21 Feb 2009
Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved.
A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
-- Sir Francis Bacon | <urn:uuid:e57424da-0a3a-435b-bdea-048fac71c38b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://psychcentral.com/news/archives/2005-10/ra-pss101205.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 | 0.937784 | 609 | 1.914063 | 2 |
A couple in Tennessee got a huge surprise, literally, when contractors digging to construct a pool in their backyard discovered a dinosaur. And not just a little thing -- possibly a triophodon, a distant, and extinct, cousin to the elephant. The fossils they found could be anywhere from 30,000 to 2 million years old.
It makes you wonder what folks years down the road are going to think about us based on what they find in the backyard.
Growing up, we always buried our pets in the backyard -- out behind the barn underneath the pecan trees near the fence that separated our yard from the neighbor's. Marked by crosses made from small rocks or two sticks tied together with string, the final resting place of our dogs, mostly, was a peaceful one.
There were other things buried in our backyard.
The story of the dollhouse was around for years -- the Christmas that our father had so much trouble putting together a plastic dollhouse for my sister that he gave up and buried it in the backyard. I never figured out if it was really true or not, or if it was just one of those family legends that gets passed down through the years, like my brother's pet monkey that climbed the Christmas tree or my sister dropping me on my head.
OK, so that one may be true.
I know for a fact, however, that my brother buried things under the house. I know this because, well, I watched him from afar one day when he thought nobody was looking and then the next day when he wasn't around I crawled under there and took a peek. It wasn't much but a rusty old box filled with loose change and bottle caps and other tiny treasures only a middle school boy could love. I felt bad after I spied, but that's all a part of having a little sister, I suppose, and I'd have hated for him to be begrudged of the complete little sister experience although, to my knowledge, he never found out I dug up his box and looked inside because if he had I would have been in big trouble and probably would have been dropped on my head... again.
When my own children were small we bought hermit crabs at the beach, complete with the little box and rocks and everything required for the perfect hermit crab condo. Unfortunately, they apparently weren't condo kinda crabs because they didn't live much past a month or so once we got them home, despite our rapt attention. We buried them in the backyard underneath the azalea bushes. The kids wanted to keep the hermit crabs' shells to remember them by so with much ceremony we placed them on the shelf in the den.
(Insert creepy, escalating horror music here)
I woke up the next morning to find our hermit crab friends on the back steps staring up at me. I lost my mind for a second and thought they had crawled from their graves in search of their beloved shells, but then I noticed the cat -- whose nickname was aptly "Satan in a Catsuit" -- sitting coyly nearby. Before anybody else woke up, I buried them in a roll of toilet paper in a box in a Piggly Wiggly paper sack in the hobo. RIP.
Needless to say, I never found, or buried, anything quite so interesting as an extinct elephant cousin in the backyard. Seeing as one was found as close as Tennessee, though, it could be possible there's one out there right now. Sad thing is, if I did find an extinct, mammoth, million-year-old creature buried underneath my patio, nobody in my family would believe me.
I was dropped on my head, you know.
Contact columnist Mandy Flynn at email@example.com. | <urn:uuid:c70abec4-ce57-4161-b4ab-2ece7e8b12c3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.albanyherald.com/news/2010/jul/10/some-things-are-just-best-left-buried/?features | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980163 | 769 | 1.9375 | 2 |
Dr. DeLeuw continued in practice at Milwaukee until about 1854, then removing to Madison County, Ill., sojourned there for a time, but later changed his residence to Alton, where he resided with his family until the outbreak of the Civil War. They then removed to Carlinville, Macoupin County, and thence in 1865, to Jacksonville. Here the father established a drug business in connection with his practice, but in 1870, selling out both practice and store, took up his residence in the city of St. Louis, Mo., where he followed his profession until his death, which occurred in 1887. The mother had died in Carlinville in 1863.
The parental family included seven children, six of whom are living, named respectively, Oscar A., Hattie L., Josephine, Huldah, Guido and Charles. Edmund J., the eldest born, died at the age of thirty-one years. He also was a practicing physician, and at one time hospital steward in the Government service on the Mississippi River, in the 133d Illinois Infantry. He also carried on a drug store at Jacksonville. He remained in the service until the close of the war, and died in 1878. Guido, a resident of St. Louis, Mo., is agent for the Missouri Pacific Railroad. Charles is a merchant and resides at Rochester, Minn.
The subject of this biography attended the common schools of Madison County, the High School at Alton, and the Blackburn Theological Seminary at Carlinville. He was a lad of fourteen years at the outbreak of the Civil War, and in the year of 1863 enlisted as a Union soldier in Company A., 122 Illinois Infantry, being on detached duty. Later he was transferred to the 121st United States Infantry, and promoted to First Lieutenant. After the close of the war he was mustered out and received his honorable discharge at Louisville, Ky., Oct. 5, 1865. He met the enemy in the smoke of battle at Tupelo, in Mississippi; was present at the storming of Spanish Fort and the city of Mobile, and traveled over a goodly portion of the State of Kentucky, fighting guerillas and bushwhackers. With the exception of a slight wound over the eye with a piece of shell, he escaped uninjured.
In the year of 1866 Mr. DeLeuw entered the law school at Harvard, Mass., from which he was graduated in 1868. The year following he was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois, and established himself at Jacksonville, of which he has since been a resident. Here he was elected City Attorney in 1871, serving one year. He was married in August, 1872, at the home of the bride, in Winchester, to Miss Bessie M. Tribbey, a native of this county, and the daughter of Dr. George S. and Eleanor (Stratton) Tribbey, who were natives of Kentucky, and are not deceased. Mrs. DeLeuw was born Sept. 14, 1850, and by her union with our subject became the mother of six children, who are named respectively, Oscar, Johanna M., Eleanor S., William L., Georgiana S. and Elizabeth T. They form a bright and intelligent group, and are all at home with their parents. The family residence is pleasantly located at No. 817 Routt Street. Mr. DeLeuw is a Republican in politics and occupies a good position among his legal brethren in Morgan County. | <urn:uuid:00beb2f2-90e4-45b8-a57c-c03bdddc9d9f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ilmaga/morgan/1889/deleuw_oscar.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984863 | 726 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Memorial & Museum
The World Trade Center (WTC) Memorial design, Reflecting Absence, will consist of two voids on the footprints of the original Twin Towers. Surrounded by a landscaped plaza filled with oak trees, each void will feature rings of cascading water falling into illuminated reflecting pools. The names of the 2,979 who perished in the September 11th attacks in New York City, Washington, DC; and Pennsylvania and the February 1993 WTC bombing will be inscribed around the edge of the memorial waterfalls.
Reflecting Absence was created by architect Michael Arad and landscape architect Peter Walker and selected from a design competition that drew more than 5,200 entrants from 63 nations.
Complementing the memorial, a state-of-the art museum designed by Davis Brody Bond will offer visitors an opportunity to deepen their experience at the site. Accessed through an entry pavilion designed by Snøhetta, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum will help facilitate an encounter with both the enormity of the loss and the triumph of the human spirit that are at the heart of 9/11. Visitors also will be able to view a section of the massive slurry wall that held back the Hudson River during the attacks.
Construction to build the National September 11 Memorial & Museum began in March 2006.
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum, formerly known as the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, is the not-for-profit corporation that began operations in 2005 to realize the memorial quadrant at the WTC site. As owner of the memorial and museum, the Foundation is responsible for capital and annual fundraising, finalizing and maintaining the integrity of project design, programming of the memorial and museum, and ongoing operations.
To date, the foundation has raised more than $300 million towards its $350 million fundraising goal to support capital and planning costs and start an endowment. The foundation has received more than 33,800 contributions from all 50 states and 25 countries. The foundation is receiving $250 million from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC). To contribute to the construction of the memorial, please click here
With its spectacular soaring design, the new World Trade Center (WTC) Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) Transportation Hub promises not only to bring architectural beauty to downtown Manhattan but also to significantly improve mass-transit connections throughout the region. Designed by celebrated architect Santiago Calatrava, the transportation hub will feature pedestrian concourses to existing and future transportation services. Construction on the project began in September 2005, and according the Port Authority, it will be operational by 2011.
Located close to the northeast corner of the WTC site at Church and Fulton Streets (between Towers 2 and 3), the transportation hub is designed to accommodate 250,000 pedestrians per day - which corresponds to projected ridership numbers for 2025. (The temporary station can accommodate up to 50,000 daily pedestrians.) The transportation hub's innovative design features retractable 150-foot-high, glass-and-steel "wings" that will allow natural light to pass through to the rail platforms 60 feet below street level.
The new WTC Transportation Hub will include
A multi-story central transit hall designed in the style of Grand Central Terminal, incorporating a lower concourse, an upper (balcony) concourse, a public waiting area, and first-class retail amenities.
Enhanced permanent PATH facilities and services incorporating three full-service extended 10-car platforms, as well as an additional platform to accommodate service needs and five tracks.
An integrated network of underground pedestrian connections from the lower and upper concourses, which will lead to adjoining New York City Transit subway stations and the proposed MTA Fulton Street Transit Center through the Dey Street Corridor. Pedestrians also will be able to access locations on and around the WTC site, including the five WTC office towers, the Memorial and Museum, Hudson River ferry terminals, the World Financial Center, PATH trains, 13 subway lines, and the proposed JFK rail link.
Retail facilities of approximately 200,000 square feet within the transit hub and the pedestrian concourses to accommodate a wide variety of restaurants and stores.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Transportation through the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), is building the 800,000-square-foot hub. The FTA has committed approximately $1.92 billion toward the more than $2 billion project, with the Port Authority investing the difference. The full-service, regional transportation hub will replace the temporary WTC PATH station currently in place. A slurry wall currently being built around the PATH station will provide the foundation for the transportation hub's below-grade levels.
In 2003, the Port Authority opened its first temporary entrance to restore service to the WTC site. In June 2007, a second temporary entrance opened on Church Street, replacing the initial entrance. This entrance will be in place until early 2008, when it in turn will be replaced by a third temporary entrance on Vesey Street near West Broadway. The shifting of the entrances allows the Port Authority to maintain consistent service to the WTC site during construction of the permanent transportation hub's main, ground-level structure. | <urn:uuid:e2803ce6-6a1f-4f77-9746-04c9547b29bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?mode=hybrid&t=158432 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938768 | 1,064 | 2.484375 | 2 |
Today’s post is from an email that I got that really had some good tips. While most people who read this blog would have younger children now, eventually they will get older and (hopefully) go to college. So, it’s good to have a plan in place before that time on how you and your child will handle the issue of credit cards. Education now, even as your child is in middle school, can pay big later.
Parents are the primary models for their children in spiritual things, so it only makes sense that you teach good financial habits, too!
College Kids and Credit Cards: A Deadly Duo
Less than ten percent of college kids carried credit cards in the 1990′s. Approximately 70 percent carry these little gems today. Those that have credit cards don’t just carry one card; five is the average.
The most striking aspect of this decline into indebtedness is that many of these young people are using their long-term college loan money to pay off short-term plastic debt. Many young adults are coming out of college with so much debt they will likely be in debt for the rest of their lives! Unless they make a u-turn in a New York minute, many will never be able to save for their own kids’ college educations, give to others, or prepare properly for their own retirements.
Frankly, I get angry at colleges (even Christian colleges) that let the credit card companies set up their little card tables on campus loaded with $3.00 gifts: tee-shirts, Frisbees, and coffee mugs. All they have to do to get one of these fabulous gifts? Sell their soul and accept a credit card. In many cases, under present law they don’t even have to show a source of income.
With all that said, I am not suggesting that it’s always a mistake for a college student to carry a credit card. I am saying it’s time for parents to get involved, and stop letting the inmates run the asylum! If you want to let your Joe Cool go to college with a credit card, fine. But consider doing five things first:
1. Set a low spending limit. In most situations, a card with a $500 or $1000 limit is more than adequate.
2. Decide what the card can (and, cannot) be used to purchase. Is it just for emergencies? Can she buy gas with the card? What about cloths or books? Make a list (hopefully a short one) and have both parties sign off on it.
3. Determine to pay every penny every month — no exceptions. This is the time when life-long habits are being formed. A “zero tolerance” plan makes great sense here. A credit card is not a magic carpet ride. It is simply an instrument for paying bills and keeping records. Using a credit card to buy stuff we don’t have the cash to pay for is the beginning of a train wreck.
A little further education here: It would be wise to help your son or daughter understand that one of the reasons merchants like credit cards is because they know plastic spending is less painful to the spender than using real money. People using credit cards will spend on average 12 to 18 percent more than they would if they were using cash. The goal is to avoid the urge to splurge.
4. Every month, within 24 hours of the time the student receives his credit card bill, he promises to fax you a copy to review.
5. If any of the provisions in 2, 3, or 4 above are broken — the card is closed and canceled. No exceptions.
Tough love? Maybe. But there are millions of young American adults today who now wish someone loved them enough to apply these five simple rules a few short years ago.
Steve Diggs presents the No Debt, No Sweat! Christian Money Management Seminar at churches and other venues nationwide. Visit Steve on the Web at www.stevediggs.com or call 615-834-3063. The author of several books, today Steve serves as a minister for the Antioch Church of Christ in Nashville. For 25 years he was President of the Franklin Group, Inc. Steve and Bonnie have four children whom they have home schooled. The family lives in Brentwood, Tennessee. | <urn:uuid:719ccf45-2b94-41cd-827d-48ce94155209> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://devinkroner.com/2012/04/page/3/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96671 | 901 | 1.960938 | 2 |
Philosophy of Medicine and Medical Ethics in Denmark
Participant in the network is University of Copenhagen.
Unit of Medical Philosophy and Clinical Theory, Institute of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Copenhagen. The faculty includes 2 associate professors, 1 post.doc. and 2 Phd students. In addition 28 external lecturers and teaching assistants contribute to the programs.
Current research topics are justice and priority-setting in health, informed consent in medical therapy and research, naturalized ethics and morality in an evolutionary perspective, evidence-based medicine and alternative and complementary medicine, and medical knowledge and the challenge of social constructivism. Some of those topics are approached both from a theoretical and empirical perspective. The educational focus is on philosophy of medicine, including medical ethics, clinical decision theory and research methodology. Obligatory courses in those subjects are given for students in medicine, odontology, molecular biomedicine, pre- and post graduate students in public health, and several courses for post graduate students every year.
The group leader Peter Hancke Rossel is associate professor. His research has focused on informed consent in medical therapy and research, comprising both empirical and theoretical studies, e.g. the normative justification of informed consent in different settings. His current research interest focuses on priority setting in health care and especially the growing field of experimental, naturalized ethics in an evolutionary perspective.
Last updated: 2012-01-12 | <urn:uuid:3fb48de5-9524-4e0f-8e22-fd35aad75fbd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.imh.liu.se/avd_halsa_samhalle/nnpmme/countries?l=en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917605 | 290 | 1.75 | 2 |
“When things must be, they will be”
Though the prospect of a different kind of Greek tragedy is one that is dominating our headlines at the moment, the ancient Greek kind remain an enduring presence in our theatres. Sophocles’ Antigone is the latest to re-emerge at the National Theatre with director Polly Findlay using Don Taylor’s version of the play, originally done for the BBC in the 1980s. Her production locates this version of Thebes somewhere in the North of England in the late 1970s (at least that’s when I reckoned but others in the group were less sure) in which Jodie Whittaker and Christopher Eccleston take the leading roles.
Thebes has been wracked by civil war and turmoil and in the aftermath of a particularly bloody struggle between the two brothers fighting over the throne, Creon seizes control and becomes king. To stamp his authority on the city, Creon opts to bury one brother but leaves the body of the other more rebellious one to rot outside on the battlefield. This horrifies Antigone, sister to the men and niece to Creon, and despite a royal decree forbidding anyone to touch his body on the pain of death, she sets about doing what she thinks is right.
Whittaker rises to the challenge of the lead role beautifully. Her righteous anger at the indignities imposed on what remains of her family burns fiercely, especially in the face of her sister Ismene’s meek compliance (Annabel Scholey in fine form), as she unremittingly pursues her own path, to fulfil her own beliefs, at whatever cost. If there is any weakness, it is that Findlay seems too keen to make Antigone the sympathetic heroine here, the production is weighted a little too heavily in her favour where I think the point that Sophocles is making is that there are two sides to fundamentalism: Creon’s tyrannical obduracy is horrific, but it is exacerbated by a woman utterly unprepared to compromise in her own beliefs and this headstrong nature is never really interrogated here.
Eccleston slips into the shoes of his unreconstructed 70s man with consummate ease, perhaps a little too comfortable of a characterisation initially at least, but he really sparks into life with an impassioned, physical debate with his son Haemon, the fresh-faced Luke Newberry, about the nature of autocratic rule and the dangers of failing to listen to all sides. Adamant about the supremacy of the state and in his personification of said state, he is most convincing as the too-proud dictator and as this was an early preview, I’m sure he’ll dig a little deeper to expose more raw grief in the final moments to really highlight his tragic fall.
Jamie Ballard (fortunately released by the early closure of Written on the Heart) seems to be developing a bit of a fetish for latex prosthetics as his forthright prophet Teiresias is mightily disfigured (and bizarrely attached to his boy guide) and persuasively well spoken (even if I’m not sure the interpretation really allows for an effective shift into the gods-fearing spiritual). And Zoë Aldrich’s Eurydice weaves through the production wordlessly until it is her turn to contribute to the vengeful retribution against Creon, though one does wish Sophocles had constructed more for so central a character.
But her wordlessness works perfectly with Findlay’s representation of gender relations in this world. Aside from the fundamental issue of Antigone and Ismene being subjugated to the will of their uncle and the above-mentioned largely silenced Eurydice, the only other women in the play are a secretary and a cleaner and in one of the show’s most powerful sequences, the men of the office all stop to leer over the cleaner sweeping up some broken crockery in a deeply uncomfortable but horribly believable moment.
The 9-strong chorus are also effectively portrayed here, made up of the ministers, flunkies and office functionaries around Creon and with an intriguing mixture of loyalties towards their new master. Even as they are hailing the new leader and his hard-line policies, the hints of ambiguity are still present and only grow bigger as Creon’s obstinacy leads him astray. Luke Norris’ soldier adds another subversive note, although comically lighter, with an enjoyable performance.
In Soutra Gilmour’s revolving set of an open plan office with smoked glass office cubicles at the back, Findlay has teased a strong set of performances from her ensemble and I can only imagine these will improve. Where I’m not so sure she’s as strong is in the directorial flourishes she has imposed: scene changes are needlessly extended with wordless, almost balletic sequences of people rushing about which add little when all is said and done; and the opening tableau with its evocations of the table watching the capture of Osama reaches for a timelessness which the rest of the production doesn’t reflect and ultimately is quite the red herring.
Ultimately I rather enjoyed this version of Antigone which has much to commend it and was thought-provoking in ways in which I had not anticipated, especially in its gender relations. It’s not perfect by any means and memories of recent productions, or more accurately certain aspects of them – the modern-day Middle Eastern setting of the Southwark Playhouse’s Antigone or Moira Buffini’s creation of a fully-rounded character for Eurydice in Welcome to Thebes – did make me wish I could create my own pick’n’mix version. But as part of the Travelex season, you can’t really go wrong with a £12 ticket here.
Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes (without interval)
Programme cost: £3
Booking until 21st July | <urn:uuid:3acd4bc6-bfab-44a6-882b-ccdb825be90b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://oughttobeclowns.blogspot.com/2012/05/review-antigone-national-theatre.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960562 | 1,250 | 1.789063 | 2 |