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Midlife women suffer throat polyps at double the rate men the same age do, thanks to our more delicate (and thinning) vocal cords and higher occurrence of acid reflux disease. Typically, benign, precancerous and small cancerous polyps are removed in a surgical procedure that requires general anesthesia and sometimes an overnight hospital stay. But there’s an alternative: unsedated office-based laryngeal laser surgery (UOLS).
During this procedure, the doctor sprays a topical anesthetic on the vocal cords, places a small flexible scope down the patient’s nose, then activates a pulsed-dye laser to treat the polyp or other growth to be removed. “The laser destroys only the abnormal tissue, which is why the complication rate is very low,” says Jamie A. Koufman, MD, director of the Voice Institute of New York. Patients can go back to work, pain-free, the same day. “Our study of over 400 procedures found the results are superior to surgery that requires anesthesia, and patients overwhelmingly prefer it,” Koufman says.
The problem: Insurance companies haven’t yet created a UOLS code, so it’s a battle for doctors to be reimbursed (though they will get paid eventually). As a consequence, many stay away.
If your doctor recommends surgery to remove throat polyps, get a second opinion from an otolaryngologist who does UOLS. You’ll have to call around, but Koufman says these specialists practice in most major cities.
Endometrial Ablation: Stops excessive vaginal bleeding
Women in their forties and early fifties are increasingly prone to menorrhagia, a condition in which the uterine lining grows, causing heavy and painful bleeding. When hormone treatments don’t relieve the problem, women may undergo a hysterectomy, the surgical removal of the uterus (and sometimes the ovaries, too). Fortunately, there’s a much less drastic way to stanch the blood flow: endometrial ablation, a procedure that heats up and destroys much of the uterine lining.
“Over the last decade our options for how to treat the lining have multiplied—and now include a heated balloon, radio frequency waves and microwaves, among others. All reduce or eliminate the lining and thereby curtail the bleeding,” says Charles Cash, MD, chair of ob-gyn at Oakwood Hospital and Medical Center in Dearborn, Michigan. The procedure, which can usually be performed in the doctor’s office, is short (patients are in and out in a couple of hours), painless and has a quick recovery period; you’ll probably be back to work in a couple of days.
“Older doctors in particular don’t offer patients this option because they’re used to performing hysterectomies
to deal with bleeding problems,” Cash says. Some also worry that a woman will end up needing a hysterectomy later on, but a recent Kaiser Permanente study found that’s much less true for women 40 and older than their younger counterparts.
If your doctor recommends a hysterectomy for your bleeding, consult with a gynecologist who performs ablations to discuss whether that treatment might be right for you.
Hip Resurfacing: Treats hip joints damaged by arthritis | <urn:uuid:dc8d209f-05ba-4a9b-8c99-190ebdeb2fbc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.more.com/health/wellness/are-you-missing-out-most-date-procedures?page=2&quicktabs_2=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924979 | 716 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Through writings and speeches, protests and fasts, Mahatma Gandhi sought to change much of the world around him: not just British rule in India, but relations between men and women, Muslims and Hindus, and injustices at all levels of society. Implied in all of those goals is a fundamental rethinking of our individual conduct. To the skeptics who insisted that they could not change unless the world changes first, Gandhi replied, "No, the world will not change if we don't change."
How do we change ourselves or "be the change?" That's a question we all have to answer individually, over and over, probably for the rest of our lives.
To that end, we invited Idealist.org, Global Exchange, and Let's Go to share their expertise and offer sound advice on how to maximize our interactions with other cultures and people - through travel, studying, and volunteering. | <urn:uuid:988bc563-bdda-4bed-8b2a-3ec56d1e84b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pbs.org/kcet/globaltribe/change/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949528 | 183 | 1.992188 | 2 |
Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn, who was on Guam this week to sell the buildup, said the U.S. will incorporate "green technology" to help meet the military's needs.
"Our collective investment in wind, solar, hydroelectric and wave-generated power will make Guam an environmental leader among Pacific islands," he said, according to a DOD press release.
I seriously doubt it.
Let’s start with wind power.
Guam is small and wind turbines are huge. (The photo above shows a 747 superimposed on a prototype offshore wind turbine: Source.)
Offshore wind turbines will likely be visible from the island. (And how far offshore can they built considering ocean depths?) The generators may also make enough noise to be audible from land. The tourism industry won't be happy.
Some other questions: Will offshore windfarms impact coral or ocean life? Close some areas for boating?
Onshore wind turbines seem unlikely because of their height, in the range of 200 to 260 feet. Onshore or offshore, a wind turbine will be the tallest structure Guam has ever seen.
Solar power is by far the best option, but has the DOD incorporated solar in its planning? Can DOD officials point to any buildup-related construction that has begun or will soon begin with solar planned?
Solar has so much potential. In this year’s Solar Decathlon sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy sponsors, student teams from around the globe built 20 solar power houses on the National Mall of their own design. The technology is astonishing, and the enthusiasm of the young students I spoke to gave me genuine hope for our future.
But solar panel technology is expensive. A 2-kW system “which will offset the electricity needs of an energy efficient homes, will cost about $8 to $10 per watt ($16,000 to $20,000),” according to DOE.
Wave energy is interesting but may raise some environmental issues, including conflict “with other sea space users” such as recreational boaters; the potential for toxic release or accidental spills from fluids used in these systems, among other things. (Source cited below)
And where would the wave energy systems be built? Along DOD property or in areas in civilian control?
Lynn’s remarks may sound good but these are not easy to adopt alternatives. Technical, policy and emotional issues abound, assuming the military actually seeks the opinion of Guam's residents.
I write about Guam from a Washington DC perspective, my current home. This blog focuses on policy issues, the military and the build-up, economics and environment. The links column is intended to provide pathways to help people understand Guam and the issues affecting it. I lived on Guam as part of nearly three year Navy tour there. I've been back since for a short visit and hope to make another soon enough. In the meantime, this blog is a simple way to write about one of the world's most beautiful and friendly places, and to help draw attention to U.S. role on the island. | <urn:uuid:af4fc63a-fa5a-4732-a3b3-175dd8061a0c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://guamblog.com/2010/07/green-guam-dont-bet-on-it.html | 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 | 0.950866 | 632 | 2.46875 | 2 |
By JESS BRAVIN
Soon after launching his presidential campaign, Sen. Barack Obama gave a half dozen top legal thinkers a homework assignment: Write a speech outlining how his administration would balance liberty and security.
He didn't need the help. The lawyers and scholars spent weeks on a draft. Sen. Obama joined them for a May 2007 meeting, apologized for not studying their draft -- and launched his own discourse on constitutional history, from the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 to post-9/11 policy.
On legal matters, including Supreme Court appointments, an Obama administration would likely be shaped by its leader's strong convictions on constitutional law. As in other areas, Sen. Obama's jurisprudence points to a change from the "strict constructionist" philosophy advocated by Republican presidential contenders from Richard Nixon to John McCain.
Precedents, text and other legal tools can provide a just outcome in "95% of the cases," Sen. Obama said before voting against confirming chief-justice nominee John Roberts. But for the "truly difficult" cases that remain, the "last mile can only be determined on the basis of one's deepest values, one's core concerns, one's broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one's empathy."
That belief puts Sen. Obama, a former Harvard Law Review president and University of Chicago instructor, in line with liberal Supreme Court justices such as Stephen Breyer, who contends that judicial interpretation should be informed by "context, history and the practical outcomes of a decision."
On the other side are conservatives like Antonin Scalia, who argues that the only approach is to follow what he believes a text meant when it was written.
John McCain: Looking to the Framers
In judicial nominations, McCain is likely to rely on advice from the Republican legal establishment, which has helped pull the court to the right in recent years.
"I appreciate the temptation on the part of Justice Scalia...to assume" that if the 18th century text is followed "without question or deviation...all good will flow," Sen. Obama writes in his book, "The Audacity of Hope." "Ultimately, though, I have to side with Justice Breyer's view of the Constitution -- that it is not a static but rather a living document."
As a result, Sen. Obama's advisers say, he may look beyond the courts for candidates to lawyers with practical, political or scholarly experience. Names mentioned in Democratic circles include federal appeals judges Merrick Garland and Kim Wardlaw, Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, and Profs. Cass Sunstein of Harvard, Kathleen Sullivan of Stanford and Harold Hongju Koh, dean of Yale Law School.
Conservatives are skeptical. Sen. Obama has "a vision of the Supreme Court that I think is deeply wrong," says Edward Whelan of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a former Scalia clerk. "I see that as a graver danger than someone who might be less knowledgeable about the court."
Former Bush Solicitor General Theodore Olson, an adviser to Sen. McCain, says the Democrat "is looking for someone who would make judicial decisions based upon emotions and sympathy and picking the underdog, rather than applying the law."
Sen. Obama "has noted that only one of the justices who sat on Brown v. Board of Education had judicial experience before getting to the court," says one of Sen. Obama's Harvard professors, Laurence Tribe, describing the unanimous 1954 decision that ruled segregation in public schools unconstitutional, despite the fact that the Framers practiced racial discrimination themselves.
The Democratic nominee has cited the author of the Brown opinion -- the late Chief Justice Earl Warren -- for bringing broad experience to the high court without ever having been a judge. Mr. Warren had been a prosecutor and governor before becoming chief justice.
Sen. Obama wants judges who won't "think, in 1954, of 'separate but equal' in a very formalistic way," but rather recognize that in practice segregation is "inherently unequal," as Chief Justice Warren wrote, says Danielle Gray, an Obama campaign aide and former Breyer law clerk.
Ms. Gray, who attended the May 2007 meeting, says a case handed down days later, Ledbetter v. Goodyear, exemplified Sen. Obama's concerns. Justice Samuel Alito's majority opinion threw out a female employee's claim that she was paid less than men performing the same job because she hadn't complained within the law's 180-day time limit which the majority said should run from her first unfair paycheck. She discovered the disparity years later.
Sen. Obama agreed with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who, writing for the four liberal dissenters, argued that Justice Alito ignored "the realities of the workplace," and that the clock should run from the last unfair paycheck.
Sen. Obama aims to find judges equipped to make abstract rights concrete realities, advisers say. That doesn't always lead to liberal outcomes, says Martha Minow, another of Sen. Obama's Harvard professors, who has advised her former student on religious freedom issues. For instance, Sen. Obama has said the Constitution anticipates religious imagery in "the public square."
Prof. Douglas Kmiec of Pepperdine Law School, an assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration, initially backed Republican Mitt Romney in his presidential bid. Prof. Kmiec later endorsed Sen. Obama, after hearing him speak on the Constitution's religion clauses.
Mr. Kmiec thinks it would be "healthful" to see more liberal nominations to a conservative dominated bench. "I don't think we have been honest entirely to recognize the limits of our own methodology, nor have we acknowledged the virtues of competing methodologies."
Write to Jess Bravin at email@example.comPrinted in The Wall Street Journal, page A22 | <urn:uuid:c68dea26-5c48-4e2b-9a03-c2a06896d707> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://s.wsj.net/article/SB122333844642409819.html?mod=article-outset-box | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960341 | 1,195 | 1.921875 | 2 |
|Geology and Geophysics of an Arc-Continent Collision, Taiwan|
Edited by Timothy B. Byrne and Char-Shine Liu
The Taiwan orogenic belt, which straddles the plate boundary between the Eurasia and Philippine Sea plates, represents one of Earth’s only active arc-continent collisions; as such, it provides a unique natural laboratory for understanding orogenic processes. The 14 papers that constitute this volume are organized around five research themes, followed by a synthetic interpretation of the subduction-collision transition in southern Taiwan.
The five themes are: the role of extensional structures before and during thrusting in the fold and thrust; the relation between tectonically driven uplift, river terraces, fold-and-thrust development, and global positioning system data; deformation patterns and strain compatibility in the exposed, internal parts of the orogen; the geothermal structure and the role of synorogenic extension in the internal parts of the orogen; and the integration of geologic and geophysical data sets with finite element models to understand the three-dimensional evolution of the orogen, including the subduction-collision transition. A common theme of the papers is the authors’ desire to document the three-dimensional architecture of the orogen and to understand its spatial and temporal evolution using a variety of techniques. As a result, the papers provide new insights on the evolution of the orogenic belt and lay the groundwork for future studies. | <urn:uuid:595a0cf9-92ef-4dd3-9bf6-4d6f8bbe4349> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.geosociety.org/bookstore/default.asp?oID=0&catID=9&pID=SPE358 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908182 | 306 | 2.171875 | 2 |
Praise be to Allaah.
The mahr is
the woman’s right in her marriage, because Allah, may He be exalted, says
(interpretation of the meaning):
to the women (whom you marry) their Mahr (obligatory bridal money given by
the husband to his wife at the time of marriage) with a good heart”
those of whom you have enjoyed sexual relations, give them their Mahr as
should be made on the mahr and it should be mentioned in the marriage
contract; if no agreement has been reached and it is not mentioned in the
marriage contract, the marriage is still valid and the woman should have a
mahr like that of her peers.
You did not
explain in your question whether agreement had been reached on a specific
mahr or nor, or whether it was to be paid immediately or deferred. If there
was agreement on something specific, it is obligatory to adhere to that and
in that case what was written in the contract about you having received the
mahr does not count for anything.
The wife has
the right to demand her immediate mahr and to refuse to let her husband be
intimate with her until he has given her her mahr. As for the deferred
portion, she should not demand it unless the time for it comes.
(may Allah have mercy on him) said: If she refuses to let her husband be
intimate with her until she has received her mahr, and it is due to be paid
immediately, she has the right to do that. Ibn al-Mundhir said: All of the
scholars from whom we acquired knowledge are agreed that the woman has the
right to refuse to let the husband consummate the marriage with her until he
gives her her mahr. … if some of it is to be paid immediately and some is
deferred, then she has the right to refuse to let him be intimate with her
before receiving the immediate portion, but not the deferred portion.
from al-Mughni, 7/200
See also the
answer to question no. 127325
have to do is fear Allah, may He be exalted, concerning yourself and your
husband, and to pay attention to his rights, and not let what you have
mentioned make you hate him.
deal with this problem by finding out about the reasons for it; your
guardian may have received the mahr or he may have agreed with your husband
that the mahr is to be deferred, or some other arrangement. Deal with the
matter calmly and with deliberation, protect yourself and your husband, try
to be gentle and loving at all times, and seek your shar‘i rights without
impinging on your husband’s rights.
And Allah knows best. | <urn:uuid:73736163-c88c-42ee-ad07-e51333e5ceb9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://islamqa.com/en/ref/170782 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976799 | 596 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Adding itself to the ever-growing list of performance boosting software that is available for Windows, eBoostr harks back to the days of Windows 95 and Windows 98 when memory management tools were all the rage. Something that is frequently said about computer is that it is not possible to have too much memory. To supplement any RAM you have installed, Windows 7 introduced ReadyBoost which allowed for the use of a USB drive as virtual RAM.
eBoostr is a memory and cache management tool that can be used to configure up to four devices to be used in a similar way – and you can use USB and non-USB devices. The program work by essential pre-caching the files used by the programs you used most frequently so they can be loaded faster when they are needed. This is nothing new but eBoostr does add the ability to choose which of your programs should be given the highest priority.
While there is some benefit to using the app, some of its claims are a little far-fetched. The program’s web site correctly points out that 32-bit versions of Windows are not able to access more than 3.25GB of RAM, and goes on top suggest – although not explicitly – that eBoostr can make use of RAM beyond this limit. This is simply not the case and it is one of the reasons software that makes performance boosting claims have been regarded as snake oil. Techniques can be used to emulate use of this memory, but little more than this.
If you view the program as a slightly more intelligent version of Windows’ own ReadyBoost feature, then you’re not going to be too disappointed. Benefits can be gained by laptop users as making use of USB drives is far less power-hungry than running a standard hard drive. There is a trial version available that enables to test out the features of the program for two hours at a time, but your time and money would most likely be better invested in buying additional RAM and a solid state drive for your computer. | <urn:uuid:61c53e8c-f652-465a-9283-d5c18e890680> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.downloadcrew.com/article/27557-eboostr_45_pro | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95511 | 408 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Barron and Larcher's textiles are very English in feel, and quite distinct from the few other contemporary British hand-blockprinted textiles around, such as those of Alec Walker for Crysede or Joyce Clissold at Footprints, where designs are often on a smaller scale and generally busier and more colourful. (No. 1) Enid Marx (1902-1998) joined Barron and Larcher's studio in Hampstead in 1925 and worked with them for a year before setting up on her own. When the Crafts Study Centre was founded she gave the collection a representative selection of her lengths, samples and blocks from the late 1920s-30s (No. 2).
Susan Bosence (1913-1996) first met Barron and Larcher in 1951, having been inspired to start textile printing on seeing their work at Dartington Hall in Devon. She was involved with the Crafts Study Centre from its inception and, together with family and friends, donated and bequeathed not only a substantial collection of her hand-blockprinted textiles and resist-dyed cloths from the 1960s onwards, but also her sample book, blocks and papers (No. 3) She taught for many years at the art college in Farnham (now the Surrey Institute of Art & Design, University College) and there met Sally Greaves-Lord, Diana Harrison and Linda Brassington whose textiles are amongst the more recent acquisitions of the Crafts Study Centre. (No. 4, 5, 6) | <urn:uuid:32f5cc10-5855-4257-9663-497f90039fb4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vads.ac.uk/learning/learndex.php?theme_id=cscu3&theme_record_id=cscu3cscint&mtri=cscu3csc&cpic=t_75_19 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969817 | 309 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Aidan O’Neill QC
Arabella Thorp and Gavin Thompson, researchers in the International Affairs and Defence Section and the Economic Policy and Statistics Section of the House of Commons Library Research have jointly authored – for the benefit of UK Parliamentarians – a short paper entitled Scotland, Independence and the EU. The authors consider the possible legal consequences for the EU and the UK of Scottish independence and state:
“This is a major question in the independence debate, and one to which there is no clear answer. There is no precedent for a devolved part of an EU Member State becoming independent and having to determine its membership of the EU as a separate entity, and the question has given rise to widely different views.”
They note that there are at least three different possibilities under international law:
(i) Scotland is to be regarded as a wholly new State, with the remaining Union of England Wales and Northern Ireland (EWNI) being treated in international law as a (territorially decreased) continuation of the UK. The authors cite the precedents of the 1947 partition of India and the creation of Pakistan, and of the 1962 translation of Algeria from a series of départements integrated into metropolitan France to an independent State.
(ii) Scotland and EWNI are each to be regarded as successor States to the divided UK. The authors refer in this context to the de-merger of the short-lived United Arab Republic (1958-1961) back into its original constituent States of Syria and Egypt
(iii) neither Scotland or EWNI are to be regarded as successor States to the dissolved UK. The authors here allude to the birth, in 1993, of two wholly new States, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, from the territory of the former Czechoslovakia.
On the first scenario (which Thorp and Thompson term “continuation and secession”) EWNI as the “continuing UK” would retain the UK’s pre-secession treaty obligations and its membership of international organisations, including the EU and NATO, the Council of Europe, the UN and the IMF. Scotland would start with a blank slate in terms of treaty rights and obligations, and would have to apply to be admitted in its own right as a new member of all and any international organisations.
On the second scenario (which they call “separation”) Scotland and EWNI would each succeed to the UK’s existing international commitments, and would each automatically accede to the international organisations of which the UK was a member, but now as two States rather than as one.
On the third scenario (which the authors describe as “dissolution”) neither Scotland and EWNI would succeed to any of the UK’s international obligations or memberships. Both States, newly independent of each other, would have to sign anew any treaties they wished to be bound by, and enter into negotiations with any international organisations they wished to be members of.
Of course, as the precedents of the break-up of the former USSR and the break-down of the former Yugoslavia show, the reality is likely to be more complex and one which may change over time. In international politics, just as much as international law, context is everything. Thus, some States and international organisations may choose to recognise EWNI as the “continuing UK”, or as the sole successor State to the UK. Others might prefer to hold both EWNI and Scotland to the UK’s prior obligations and memberships. And yet others could seek to take advantage of what they would characterise as the “dissolution” of the UK to escape the international obligations formerly owed to it, and/or to declare the UK’s previous membership of international organisations to be void. This is, in a sense, where international law runs out and international Realpolitik takes over. Everything depends on the particular terms of constitutions of international organisations, the extent of international recognition and the degree to which an international consensus is reached as to the status to be accorded to an independent Scotland and/or to a continuing UK shorn of its northern territories. | <urn:uuid:0a6c89b8-4c20-4f5b-aa1b-f8cc4cabf68c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://eutopialaw.com/tag/aidan-oneill/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953819 | 852 | 2.3125 | 2 |
A lock of hair is a traditional lovers’ token. But this most everyday and intimate part of the human body can also be used in a more sorrowful context.
It is easy to miss these four little brooches, tucked away as they are in the far corner of Medicine Man alongside Egyptian canopic jars, mortuary crosses and even a shrunken head. But these examples of European mourning jewellery demonstrate an ambiguity at the heart of Henry Wellcome’s collection – the potential for the human subject to become material object after death.
Medicine Man is full of curios serving as literal or metaphorical extensions of the human body, and, like most medical collections, also features artefacts formerly part of the body itself. These brooches are no exception, each containing samples of human hair, neatly arranged and set behind glass.
Hair is certainly a material that occupies the narrow ground between person and thing – in life as much as death. Although it is ‘dead’ matter (as only the follicle contains living cells), once separated from the body, our hair is capable of outlasting us. These qualities of durability, alongside the fact that it is easily removed from the body and can be manipulated into almost any shape, led to the widespread use of hair in the 18th and 19th centuries as a tangible way to remember an absent loved one. Encased in a locket, ring or brooch, a lock of hair stood in for the recently departed, whose memory, it was hoped, would endure for as long as the jewellery itself.
But detached hair, alienated from its natural location on the body, can also provoke disgust – a reaction any of us who have found a stray hair in our food can identify with. The anthropologist Mary Douglas proposed that any ‘matter out of place’, including hair, becomes dirt, posing the threat of chaos and disorder unless carefully gathered and contained (1966).
As loose hair clippings might otherwise prove disturbing (especially those taken from a dead body), a process of transformation was necessary in order for them to become effective memory objects. ‘Working’ the hair into jewellery achieved this in various ways. Hair was coaxed into beautiful forms; fixed permanently into neat loops, curls, or weave, it was presented as a controlled and manageable substance, as it would have been on the body in life. It was then often mounted within gold or silver casings, and embellished with pearls – enduring materials that again acted to disguise the body’s frailty. Such opulent surroundings helped to showcase the hair (and, by extension, the person it represented) as precious and sacred.
Along with much of Wellcome’s collection, accurate catalogue entries for these particular items were never recorded. We can’t even be sure if they are all mourning pieces, despite their inclusion in the ‘End of Life’ case. Oblong brooches or ‘pins’ were very popular in the early 19th century, often set with gemstones, which coded for sentiments such as ‘love’ or ‘dearest’. Unless set with jet or black enamel, or engraved with an inscription honoring the deceased, they may well have been love tokens. The garnets used in one piece (centre foreground) indicate truth and virtue, and on close inspection the hair panel appears to have been plaited from two distinctly differently coloured strands of hair – possibly those of lovers?
The largest brooch, by contrast, is typically Victorian in style and probably dates from the second half of the 19th century. Featuring a graveyard scene, and the dedication ‘In Memory of A.G.’, the hair – presumably that of ‘A.G.’ – has been glued to form the branches of a weeping willow, a common analogy for the grief-stricken mourner. A third brooch, from a similar period, comprises two individual locks of hair, teased into waves. A larger, darker lock encloses a tiny, platinum blonde curl, the fine strands of which may well have been cut from the head of a child or infant. The hair is secured with gold thread and seed pearls, often used to represent tears.
But the smallest piece of jewellery overtly demonstrates another crucial function of hairwork – to act as memento mori, a reminder of the inevitability of death. By far the earliest example of the four, the reverse of the oval slide is engraved with the initials ‘W.H., 1689’. This locket incorporates a miniature skeleton, holding a scythe and an hourglass, alongside a bed of woven hair. In contemplating the remains of another – once person, now object – the wearer is prompted to consider his or her own similar fate.
During the 17th century mourning jewellery was largely confined to the European elite. Usually rings, these were produced to commemorate the death of influential individuals and served as status symbols, being distributed at funerals to secure the memory of the deceased. Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) willed that 129 mourning rings be given away at his funeral, in three grades of different quality. The most valuable rings were reserved for those with the closest relationship to the deceased, or the highest social status.
In contrast to the earlier pieces, the value of 18th and 19th century mourning jewellery was attributed to the unique sentimental worth of the hair itself, rather than the materials surrounding it. New techniques for working hair had contributed to its rising use, but it was the death of Prince Albert in 1861 which led to a real explosion in its popularity. Queen Victoria commissioned jewellery in Albert’s honour almost immediately, and continued to observe mourning for the rest of her life, a decision that was to have considerable influence on the wider population. Books of stylish patterns in hairwork were published, and machinery was developed to weave unprecedented quantities of the material. Soon the jewellery became so fashionable it became possible to buy ready-made pieces reasonably cheaply – ironically losing the intimate personal connection that had popularised the use of hair in the first place.
Hair jewellery was increasingly produced in the home in an effort to re-personalise the trend, by individual women following patterns in manuals and popular magazines. Creating the pieces oneself also guarded against the substitution of ready-worked hair by unscrupulous jewellers.
Although we are of course distanced from an era that considered the wearing of hair to be acceptable and tasteful, some of the original power of these objects does comes across. Despite the anonymity of these few strands, we can speculate on the stories surrounding them – the lives of those they once belonged to, those who wore them, and how they went on to become part of Wellcome’s collection. | <urn:uuid:e6c6bc2a-1687-46ad-a291-c2ab4c2dd44d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://xmorbidcuriosityx.tumblr.com/tagged/mourning-jewellery | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972303 | 1,402 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Category Archives: Soviet Cinema
Cinemetrics is the statistical analysis of film style (Salt 1974), and has the potential to make a significant contribution to film studies in identifying trends in film style (shot length distributions, shot scales) that will allow scholars to explore questions of individual style, genre, studio style, national differences, and changes in style over time. However, the potential of cinemetrics is hamstrung by the poor quality of the statistics practised by film scholars. For example, in a discussion of Salt’s (2006) survey of shot length distributions, Buckland (2008) recently confused the coefficient of determination (R2 as a measure of goodness-of-fit of a regression line) with the correlation coefficient (r) – although the two are intimately related. Similarly, O’Brien (2005: 88-93) has argued that the introduction of sound technologies in Hollywood and France in the late-1920s led to an increase in average (mean) shot lengths (ASL) but does not employ any tests (e.g. t-test, one-way ANOVA, chi-square, or their nonparametric equivalents) to determine if changes in ASL are significant, does not provide confidence intervals for estimates of ASL in a particular country or time period, and does not consider the use of the median as a measure of central tendency or data transformations for skewed shot length distributions. Here I discuss a particular mis-application of statistics in the analysis of film style: the so-called Heftberger Correlation between cutting rate and type of motion represented in Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929).
The Heftberger Correlation
The herculean effort of a meticulous statistical analysis of Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (MWMC) offers the potential for a rich and detailed understanding of this complex film’s intricate style, and has been undertaken by Yuri Tsivian, Adelheid Heftberger, Barbara Wurm, and Gunars Civjans. As a part of this project, data has been produced that covers the distribution of shot lengths for each reel and for the film overall, for the use of point-of-view shots, and for the relationship between shot length and the type of motion represented by the film. It is as a statistic of this last element of film style that the Heftberger Correlation (HC) has been proposed as a measure (Cinemetrics 2008).
The researchers hypothesised that the cutting rate would increase with the intensity of movement within a shot, which was defined as belonging to one of seven categories: black frames (BF), fast motion (camera) (FastC), fast motion (naturally) (FastN), freeze-frame (FF), no motion (NM), normal motion (naturally) (NormalN), and slow motion (camera) (SMC). Once the dataset employed was reduced to exclude the category BF, it was claimed that there is a correlation between cutting speed and intensity of motion. For MWMC, the value for HC including NM is 0.2, and excluding NM it is 0.4. A further step was to remove the category FF, so that only data for shots with movement were included to give the Particular Heftberger Correlation (PHC), and is was claimed that this produced a stronger correlation but no figure was supplied. The conclusion arrived at by the researchers is that (1) the HC exists; (2) the HC for MWMC is weak and nonlinear; and (3) the PHC is MWMC is stronger than the HC and is linear.
It is far from clear what statistical processes have been used in the calculation of the HC and the PHC, and I have been unable to reconstruct the process by which the above quoted values for HC were derived. The researchers themselves acknowledge that the processes involved in producing the plots of shot length and intensity of movement in Figure 1 are not ‘mathematically sound,’ and it is precisely these plots that are employed as justification that the HC exists. It does not appear to have occurred to anyone involved that the lack of mathematical ‘soundness’ would present a problem in employing a statistical analysis.
Figure 1 The Heftberger Correlation in Man with a Movie Camera (1929) (Source: http://www.cinemetrics.lv/movie.php?movie_ID=2311, accessed 9 April 2009)
What is clear is that correlation is not an appropriate statistical method to be employed in this analysis. Correlation is a method of analysing if pairs of variables are related and the strength of that relationship. The pairing of the variable is important: each point on the graph represents a value on the x-axis and a value on the y-axis For example, if we measure the height and weight of ten people, we will have ten pairs of data, with each pair consisting of a measure of height and a measure of weight – it is the relationship between these measures that we call a correlation. The Heftberger Correlation does not exist simply because it is not possible to calculate a correlation for pairs of data when the number of categories of motion intensity is seven and the number of shots in the film is 1729 – there are no pairs of data to correlate. Data does not appear to be ordinal – although order exists for some categories (FastC is quicker that SMC) it does not exist for others (BF) and the distinction between some categories is not ordinal (FastC and FastN). The data labels used in Figure 1 must be considered nominal and a re not tractable. The decision to proceed despite the lack of mathematical ‘soundness’ is compounded by a lack of understanding of the mathematics of correlation.
The appropriate statistical approach to be used in analysing the relationship between shot length and motion intensity is to look at the variance of shot lengths in each category. In this case the data does not meet the requirements for a parametric one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), and a logarithmic transformation of the data is no help either. The best approach, therefore, is to employ a nonparametric analysis of variance of ranks using a Kruskal-Wallis test and Mann-Whitney U as a post-hoc test (α = 0.05).
Shot length data was sorted by category of motion intensity, and the descriptive statistics are presented in Table 1.
Table 1 Shot length data for motion intensity in Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
In analysing this data I include only four of the motion categories: FastC, FastN, NM, and NormalN. The distribution of shot lengths in these categories are represented in Figure 2.
Figure 2 Distribution of shot lengths in FastC, FastN, NM, and NormalN in Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
BF is excluded as the data includes several shot lengths of 0.0 seconds (due to a technical error in data collection); while the number of shot lengths in FF (13) and SMC (32) are too small to be reliable. The results show that there is a statistically significant relationship between shot length and intensity of motion (Hc = 289.7, P = <0.0001); and the post-hoc tests show that each category is significant different from one another (Table 2).
Table 2 Pairwise comparisons of shot length/motion intensity data for Man with a Movie Camera (1929) (Mann Whitney U, P-values only (Bonferroni Corrected α = 0.0083))
These results show that Tsivian, et al. were correct in their hypothesis that there is a relationship between shot length and motion intensity in Man with a Movie Camera; in fact, the results presented here indicate that this relationship is stronger than that identified by the HC. Focussing on the median shot length (see Table 1), we can see that FastC (0.4 seconds) has a quicker cutting rate that FastN (0.9s), while NormalN has a value of 2.8s. Although they were not included in the above test, median shot length increases as motion slows in SMC (3.7s) and FF (4.0s), and this confirms the overall relationship between shot length and motion intensity. Only NM does fit this overall pattern, with a median shot length of 2.2s. Data for BF is unreliable at the low end where shot lengths equal 0.0s.
Ben Goldacre, the GP and journalist who publishes the Bad Science blog (see Goldacre 2008), has made a distinction between scientific medicine and alternative therapies that employ scientific terms inaccurately to sound ‘sciency.’ The Heftberger Correlation sounds good, it sounds scientific, it sounds statistical; but it is not based on a sound understanding of statistical methodology. Following Goldacre, I think this use of statistical terminology should be labelled ‘sciency’ rather than science and film scholars should be discouraged from declaring the existence and relevance of such ‘statistics’. It is incumbent upon film scholars to understand the statistical methods that they wish to employ in cinemetrics and to respect the use statistical terminology. Cinemetrics can make a positive contribution to film studies, but before it can be good film studies it must first be good statistics.
Buckland, W. (2008) What does the statistical style analysis of film involve?,
Literary and Linguistic Computing 23 (2): 219-30.
Cinemetrics (2008) http://www.cinemetrics.lvmovie.php?movie_ID=2311, accessed 9 April 2009
Goldacre, B. (2008) Bad Science. London: Fourth Estate.
O’Brien, C. (2005) Cinema’s Conversion to Sound: Technology and Film Style in France and the U.S. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Salt, B. (1974) Statistical style analysis of motion pictures, Film Quarterly 28 (1): 13-22.
Salt, B. (2006) Moving into Pictures: More on Film History, Style, and Analysis. London: Starwood. | <urn:uuid:0c081440-bd7f-4c84-9bd7-e42300b2022e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nickredfern.wordpress.com/category/soviet-cinema/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934051 | 2,109 | 1.929688 | 2 |
Summer Institute Invitation Letter
May 7, 2010
From: Dr. Matthew Young, Associate Professor and Chair of History at Marietta College
To: K-12 educators
Greetings! I am pleased to invite you to apply to take part in an Ohio Humanities Council-sponsored K-12 Teacher Institute on Ohio in the 1930s: the Depression and New Deal during the week of July 26-30, 2010. Twenty teachers will be selected to participate in a series of workshops designed to deepen their understanding of the impact this tumultuous decade had on Ohioans. This institute was originally scheduled for mid-June, but received a poor response. We have worked hard to reschedule for later in the summer, with the hope that the new time will work better with teachers’ schedules.
Over the course of the week, leading historians from around Ohio will lead sessions on different aspects of the era:
Dr. Stephen Ortiz (PhD, University of Florida) will examine the economic impacts of the Depression and New Deal. Dr. Ortiz is a member of the History Department at Bowling Green State University, and has published in the field of American social and military history. His research examines US veteran's policy and the political activism of military veterans during the 20th century, and his book From the Bonus March to the GI Bill: How Veteran Politics Shaped the New Deal Era was recently published by New York University Press.
Dr. Janet Rozick (PhD, University of Toledo) will help to make sense of the “alphabet soup” of New Deal programs in the state. Dr. Rozick serves as the Historic Programs Manager for the Toledo Metro Parks system, where she oversees the operation of several historic sites: The Fallen Timbers and Fort Miamis National Historic Site, and the Manor House and Oak Grove School at Wildwood Preserve. She recently finished her dissertation, ‘Citizens for Metroparks:’ The Evolution of the Metropolitan Park District of the Toledo Area, which deals largely with the involvement of the CCC and WPA in the development of the metropark system.
Janet will also serve as our guide on an afternoon tour of New Deal sites in and around the city of Marietta. Like many communities throughout Ohio and the rest of the country, the New Deal left an indelible imprint on the local area. City Hall (with murals depicting scenes from Marietta’s early development), Municipal Stadium, Muskingum Park (with its Start Westward monument, by Mount Rushmore sculptor Gutzon Borglum), water control systems along the Muskingum and Ohio Rivers, and Wayne National Forest were all products of various New Deal agencies.
Dr. Ken Bindas (PhD, University of Toledo), Professor and Chair of the History Department at Kent State University, will examine the rich cultural life of the 1930s, with an emphasis on Depression-era music. Dr. Bindas has published several books on related topics, including Remembering the Great Depression in the Rural South (2007), Swing, That Modern Sound (2001), and All of This Music Belongs to the Nation: The WPA’s Federal Music Project and American Society, 1935-1939 (1995).
Dr. Matthew Young (PhD, Bowling Green State University) will serve as the institute director, and also run a workshop devoted to the ways Ohioans thought about America’s place in an increasingly dangerous world. This stems from my own current research on George White, Ohio governor from 1930-34, as well as the colorful life of his eldest son, David McKelvy White, a member of the Communist Party and veteran of the Spanish Civil War. My publications include articles in the area of American and Sino-American foreign relations.
The focus of the institute will be on equipping teachers with a deeper understanding of the 1930s on the state and local level. Workshops will provide participants with primary source materials they might adapt for use in their own classrooms, as well as the opportunity to do some research on their own localities in the college’s new Legacy Library Special Collections facility. The institute will consist of two daily sessions each day for five days, with the morning session running from 9am to 12pm, and the afternoon session running from 1pm to 4pm.
Review of applications will begin immediately, and notifications of acceptance will be made shortly thereafter. All participants will receive a stipend of $300 upon successful completion of the institute to cover expenses (meals will not be provided and there may be a small charge for books and materials). For those who wish to receive graduate credit, three hours are available at a discounted tuition rate of $1080 (this option will require additional reading and written work, but no further time in attendance at Marietta College). Several scholarships to cover partial tuition (up to $500) may be available for participants who demonstrate exceptional need and/or particularly appropriate classroom application of Institute content. Determination of scholarships will be made by Friday, June 11. Verification for CEUs will be supplied upon request. Lodging on campus is available at $20 per night (4 nights total, in a single air-conditioned room with a shared bathroom). In order to reserve a place in the Institute, a $50 registration fee must be received within two weeks of notification of acceptance.
I hope that you will consider participating, and share this invitation with a colleague. If you have any further questions, please contact me at firstname.lastname@example.org, or 740.376.4627. Our department website will also be continually updated with relevant information: www.marietta.edu/~hist.
Dr. Matthew Young
McCoy Associate Professor of History | <urn:uuid:82177410-839b-4846-99f0-e7ddb2377e7c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.marietta.edu/departments/History_and_PolySci/summer_institute.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950318 | 1,176 | 1.625 | 2 |
Some commentators have suggested that the financial problems confronting Social Security are overblown because the large balance building up in the Social Security trust funds will carry the program for decades. Projections made by the Social Security trustees show that the balance of the trust funds will grow from $1.7 trillion today to $3.9 trillion in 2022 and when joined with the flow of ongoing tax receipts, there would be ample resources to pay all promised benefits until 2042. Those who take this position are also quick to point out that the trust funds hold the safest securities on earth: U.S. Treasury bonds.
Armed with these statistics, the argument is made that even the youngest post World War II baby boomers--who are now just over 40 years old--are likely to get most if not all of their benefits. Do we really need to worry then about Social Security's condition? Don't we have another 30 or 40 years before there is a problem?
The answers are: yes, we do have to worry about Social Security's condition; and: no, we can't wait for decades before taking action.
No nest egg in the trust funds
The argument that Social Security is on sound footing for decades to come rests on the proposition that its trust funds constitute a nest egg of savings from which future benefits can be paid. They don't. They are simply a matter of intergovernmental bookkeeping. As explained by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO):
Trust funds have no particular economic significance. They do not hold separate cash balances; instead they function primarily as accounting mechanisms to track receipts and spending for programs that have specific taxes or other revenues earmarked for their use.
Social Security's earmarked revenues -- payroll taxes and the taxation of benefits -- flow into the Treasury and any surplus not needed to pay current Social Security benefits or administrative costs goes to pay for other government operations. This surplus is credited to the trust funds in the form of special issue Treasury bonds, which amounts to a promise from one arm of government (Treasury) to repay IOUs to another arm of government (Social Security). The trust funds are also credited with interest on their balances, but as CBO points out, “because that interest represents the government paying itself, it provides no net revenues to the government and has no effect on the total budget.”
The key point is that the same trust fund “assets” are a future liability for the Treasury. So while it may be comforting to think of the trust funds accumulating trillions in federal government bonds over the next twenty years, in reality that just means the government will owe itself a lot of money.
When the government posts one of its own securities to one of its own accounts--whether it's labeled a trust fund or something else--it hasn't purchased anything or established a claim against some other person or entity. It has simply created an IOU from one of its own accounts to another. Thus, when the Trustees say that Social Security is “solvent” until 2042 they are only saying that the program will have sufficient claims on the Treasury (i.e., taxpayers) to pay full benefits until that date. The more important issue is how much paying off the IOUs is going to cost and whether it is affordable. When the time comes for the trust fund balances to be converted into benefit payments, the relevant question will be: where does the money come from?
Absent tax increases or spending cuts, the government will have to sell the trust fund balances to the public… that is, sell the bonds to you, to me, to foreign governments, to anyone willing to buy them. Selling the bonds held by the Social Security trust funds is simply borrowing from the public, and asking people to buy them some day in the future is no different than asking people to buy government bonds today to cover budget deficits.
A widening gap between tax receipts and expenditures
Borrowing can be a useful device for governments to deal with temporary revenue shortfalls. But the Social Security problem is not temporary. Today, Social Security taxes are running ahead of benefits by about $80 billion. But by 2009, the annual excess will start to fall and by 2018 there won't be any excesses at all. From then on, widening deficits are projected for as far as the eye can see. Even if one wanted to borrow to ease the problem, you couldn't do so forever, and at some point one would have to pay back what was borrowed.
At first, the gap between promised benefits and dedicated revenues will be relatively small -- $16 billion in 2018 -- but it will grow very quickly as those who were born in the peak of the baby boom begin to retire in large numbers during the 2020s. In the Trustees' most recent projections, the annual shortfall grows to $250 billion by 2030 and in 2041, the last full year of trust fund “solvency,” Social Security faces a cash deficit of $370 billion. All told, between 2018 and 2041 paying off the trust fund bonds will require a cash infusion of $5.4 trillion. The key issue in assessing Social Security's finances is not, therefore, the size of the trust fund balance but the difference between expenditures and dedicated revenues.
When told that the system is safe until 2042, it is easy for people to dismiss the problem. Given the uncertainty in making projections, why should we take seriously something that may happen 37 years from now? Thirty-seven years is nearly half a normal lifetime and many things could change. However, if we recognize that the trust funds don't constitute a source of genuine savings that can be drawn down to meet benefit payments, it then becomes clear that a declining surplus of cash on hand is the beginning of the problem. Under current projections, that happens in 2009, only four years away. The problem gets worse when receipts are no longer enough to cover expenditures. The trustees say that will happen in 2018… only 13 years away.
The timing is uncertain but the trend is not
It is true that these are estimates and all of the specific numbers will change, but they could change for the worse as well as the better.
What is not uncertain is that we are living longer and having fewer babies… and to discount the significance of this as an enduring trend is to ignore the inevitable. Fewer people will be paying for each recipient's benefits as the ratio of workers to recipients drops from more than 3 to 1 today to just over 2 to 1 in 2025. The population age 65 and older will grow from 37 million to 62 million--an increase of 26 million people. The workforce, however, will grow by only 21 million. In effect, if these projections hold, less than one worker would be added to the labor force for each additional person joining the ranks of the aged population.
Trust fund solvency says nothing about how society will meet the growing fiscal burden reflected in these projections. Because the trust funds are primarily an accounting device for keeping track of the programs' claims on general revenues, their existence does not ease the burden of paying future benefits.
In summary, the concept of trust funds misleads people because it implies that there really are resources being held in reserve… real assets that can be used. That's the theory. The reality is that assets are not created by giving yourself an IOU and promising to sell that IOU when money is needed later. There may be a legal obligation to pay future benefits because the IOU exists on the books, but the real issue is how the government and society will afford them.
If the debate over Social Security reform is to result in a sustainable system, policy makers will have to focus more on economic and budgetary consequences than on governmental bookkeeping.
This number and all others herein are expressed as 2004 constant (i.e., inflation adjusted) dollars. They are based on the so-called “Intermediate” or central forecast of the 2004 Social Security Trustees Report. | <urn:uuid:208a4896-5b62-47f6-8e2d-524a87b665b9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://concordcoalition.org/print/publications/2005/0311/social-security-series-social-securitys-trust-funds-mask-problem | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964947 | 1,625 | 2.171875 | 2 |
We all know about the gadgets that get showered with constant praise—the icons, the segment leaders, and the game changers. Tech history will never forget the Altair 8800, the Walkman, the BlackBerry, and the iPhone.
But people do forget—and quickly—about the devices that failed to change the world: the great ideas doomed by mediocre execution, the gadgets that arrived before the market was really ready, or the technologies that found their stride just as the world was pivoting to something else.
In our last piece on gadget history, we profiled the worst products the Ars staff had ever used. Here, we celebrate the best products that are sliding slowly into the memory hole. But when they first appeared, we loved them.
The Iomega Zip Drive
In the beginning was the floppy disk. It was eight inches across, and it was... floppy. Over time, the floppy shrank to 5-1/4”, then down to 3-1/2” (gaining a plastic outer shell in the process). It eventually offered 1.44MB of portable storage. And computer geeks saw that it was good.
But then the hard disk began to grow. Backing up important files became more of a hassle as hard disks passed the 200MB mark. After I bought my first Mac desktop (a clone, actually), I found that transferring my files from an old PowerBook 145 to my new Umax SuperMac J700 was a hassle, as was ensuring that all of my important documents were backed up. Enter the Zip Drive. Bigger and thicker than the 3-1/2” floppy drive, Zip disks held a whopping 100MB of data (they would later come in 250MB and 750MB sizes).
The Zip Drive was introduced in 1994, and I purchased an external SCSI model (and I terminated my SCSI chain properly, dammit!) within a couple years of its arrival on the market. Zip disks weren’t terribly cheap at $20 each, but I eventually amassed a sizable collection and backed up to them (semi) regularly.
By the latter half of the 1990s, OEMs like Apple and Dell offered Zip Drives as options on their machines, and I briefly owned a PowerBook 1400c with a Zip Drive module. But the Zip’s reign as the portable mass storage of choice did not last. By the end of the 1990s, CD-R and CD-RW drives were increasingly available; after I used Zip drives to move files from a PowerMac G3/266 to my new PowerMac G4/400, the Zip disks were stored away in a drawer. There they remained until I moved a few years ago, when they were put out in the alley along with the other electronic detritus I had accumulated over the nine years I lived in that house.
Nowadays, I can stuff a 32GB USB thumb drive in my pocket, making the bulky 100MB Zip disks seem even more antiquated. But for a few short years, the Zip Drive hit a sweet spot in the market, which is why I still have fond memories of it. (Eric Bangeman)
The number of instances where my tastes overlapped with those of the late Steve Jobs are pretty limited, but we did share one conviction: we both thought magneto-optical drives were a really good idea. Jobs actually made them the default removable storage media for some early models of NeXT computers, a legacy that lives on only through the spinning-beachball-of-death that persists in OS X. For me, they were the answer to a rather obscure issue: how do you keep an ever-expanding collection of microscope images organized and archived?
Back in my research days, I could generate hundreds of high-resolution images in a matter of hours—then do the same thing the next day. In the mid-'90s, this created all sorts of problems. Desktop hard drives hadn't reached the point where you could just leave every image you ever took on a single machine. Hard drives failed, so I needed a backup system. Not every machine would have all the software you'd need to work with the images, so you often needed to shuffle hundreds of megabytes between desktops.
Writable CDs hit the market around this time, but the burning software not exactly user friendly, and the discs created an organizational nightmare. A given day's work might involve imagining three different experiments. You were likely to repeat all of them at different points over the next few months. If you were good about archiving to CD, you'd end up with dozens of disk with bits and pieces of different experiments scattered on each one. Actually finding the bit you wanted later was not much fun.
MO disks seemed to offer a solution for all of these issues. The 5 1/4" versions had multi-gigabyte capacities but were removable, meaning you could shift the data to any machine with a drive hooked to it. They were also re-writable, meaning that whenever you got more material from a given project, you could just drop that into the same folder that contained the rest of that work. And they were archival quality, guaranteed to retain data for decades.
Plus, all the alternatives were much, much worse. Iomega was the king of portable media at the time, but people in my building were losing data left and right to the "click of death."
About the only thing obviously wrong with them was that MO drives were slow—but less obvious things took their toll. The tech never went mainstream, so both the drives and media ended up stuck at the high prices typical for a niche product. Newer, higher capacity drives were often promised but ended up badly delayed. The hardware that did make it to market was often poorly supported and suffered from flaky drivers.
With today's cheap, massive hard drives and cheap, fast networking, I'm not sure MO drives would be a great option now even if they had caught on at the time. But their fringe status is probably a worse fate than the technology deserved. Still, I hear that, like Spinal Tap, they're big in Japan. (John Timmer)
Vadem Clio C-1050
Windows CE gets no respect. But in 1998, the Vadem Clio looked like the future—and in many ways, it still does. The MIPS-based portable computer weighed 3 pounds, had a battery life of as much as 12 hours, and was the first really successful convertible tablet/notebook, at least from a design standpoint. Its blessing and curse was that it was built for Windows CE.
Microsoft heavily promoted a class of devices built on the Windows CE 3.0 H/PC platform called “PC companions.” The draw of Windows CE to device manufacturers was, among other things, its modularity; it allowed them to bolt on functionality specific to their hardware as well as other software. In Vadem’s case, that included CalliGrapher, handwriting recognition software from Vadem’s ParaGraph subsidiary, that made it the best pen tablet of its time. It allowed pen input directly into the Windows CE version of Microsoft Word, and was good enough that I could take cursive or print notes on the screen with such a low error rate that I seldom needed to correct them.
The design of the Clio, created by frogdesign based on ideas from Vadem's engineering director Edmond Ku, was innovation in itself. It was designed to be carried, with an almost organic shape that made it easy to hold with one hand and write on in its tablet form. Unlike the other notebook-style devices that were its contemporaries, it had a screen mounted on two arms that could rotate 180 degrees on a pair of carbon-fiber reinforced arms, allowing it to flip around and lay flat, tablet-style, while concealing its keyboard, or to be rotated into any position while open for use with its built-in keyboard. That made it ideal for punching out a breaking story on a long airplane flight sitting behind someone with a reclined seat, or filing a story by e-mail from a phone booth that had an RJ-11 plug to jack its 56kbps modem into.
Considering that my “real” notebook computer was an Apple PowerBook Duo (see our “Worst Gadgets” story), the Clio saved the day for me on a regular basis.
Windows CE lives on in many forms, and Vadem still owns ParaGraph. But the Clio design and other intellectual property associated with the device were acquired by The Pinax Group, which attempted to license out the "swing arm" design to other manufacturers before slipping off into obscurity. (Sean Gallagher)
Apple PowerBook 1400
Back when I was college, from 2000-2004, it's hard to believe that laptops were still relatively uncommon for classroom notetaking, even at a large school like UC Berkeley. WiFi was just coming out, and certain classes taught in certain lecture halls could be watched online. I had a trusty laptop that was even pretty old by 2000, the PowerBook 1400.
Beyond being a decent laptop for its era, the 1400 had two features that were pretty neat, and I've been surprised that they never quite caught on. The first was functional: expandable drive bays. On the bottom of the laptop, two modular slots allowed for an extra battery, a disk drive, a CD drive, or even a Zip drive, which was awesome in that pre-USB stick era. Both slots were hot-swappable when the computer was asleep, of course.
The second, which was more flashy, was the BookCover feature, a removeable piece of clear plastic on the top of the laptop that let users put in different patterns, art, stickers, or otherwise personalize their own computer. While I didn't know it at the time, ClarisWorks had a feature that let users create and print their own, based on an included template that was bundled with the software as an "extra." (Cyrus Farivar)
Next up: Gadgets | <urn:uuid:fb87439d-97f4-4460-a0f3-5aedb1b102c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/08/our-favorite-forgotten-tech-from-beos-to-zip-drives/?comments=1 | 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 | 0.981548 | 2,089 | 1.984375 | 2 |
Flu Cases 'Widespread,' Says Red Cross
Outbreaks are earlier than normal in the area.
The Red Cross says there's still time for folks to get flu shots and be covered from what is considered to be a more active flu season.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said flu outbreaks are high for this time of the season, with "widespread activity" in Massachusetts.
How do you prevent the flu?
According to the CDC, in addition to getting the vaccine, you can:
How do you know if you have the virus?
Symptoms include: high fever, severe body aches, headache, being extremely tired, sore throat, cough, runny or stuffy nose, and vomiting and/or diarrhea (which is more common in children).
When should you call the doctor?
According to the Red Cross, if you think you have the flu, your doctor should be consulted immediately if you develop any of the following symptoms:
Did you get the flu or the flu shot? Tell us in the comments. | <urn:uuid:497407c0-6c9c-46e9-9749-2118e0b6e842> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://needham.patch.com/articles/flu-cases-widespread-says-red-cross-3d1d8c43 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942776 | 216 | 2.703125 | 3 |
In response to Ian’s post on thread.abort, Richard Blewett points out a situation when the thread you are attempting to cancel can’t check the volatile book flag to determine whether it should cancel itself or not.
An example he presents is when the thread is waiting on a synchronization primitive. The solution given is to call Thread.Interrupt.
This is a handy technique when you have a reference to the thread you wish to cancel, but this is not often the case when dealing with asynchronous method calls such as spawned by calling
BeginInvoke. You won’t have a reference to the thread that an asynchronous method call is operating on.
So what is the would be thread terminator to do? Rather than go back in time and stop the thread from being spawned in the first place (my apologies for the poor cinema reference), avoid having indefinite waits on synchronization primitives in the first place. With a
ManualResetEvent for example, you can specify a timeout for the WaitOne method. I recommend that you do so. | <urn:uuid:52325fa1-b7f4-4ef8-a6b6-9fb283e81e30> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://haacked.com/archive/2004/11/13/the-depravity-of-thread-abort.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901372 | 219 | 1.585938 | 2 |
November 02, 2010, 9:48 PM — "Virtualization is not inherently insecure. However, most virtualized workloads are being deployed insecurely."
That's what Gartner analyst Neil MacDonald wrote earlier this year in a report titled "Addressing the Most Common Security Risks in Data Center Virtualization Projects."
Planning for virtualization projects should always include the information security team, but according to Gartner survey data about 40% of virtualization projects were undertaken without the security team's involvement in initial architecture and planning stages.
Because the hypervisor has oversight over all the workloads running on a physical server, a threat "could result in the compromise of all hosted workloads" MacDonald notes. Under legacy architectures, a threat to one server would only put one workload at risk, but that is not true in a virtualized data center.
The hypervisor itself also adds to the attack surface. VMware, for example, is revamping its own virtualization architecture to get rid of a Linux-based service console in order to reduce the attack surface from about 2GB to 100MB.
While this is an improvement, customers still have plenty to think about on the security front. Gartner recommends treating the virtualization platform "as the most important IT platform in your data center from a security and management perspective."
IT shops need to establish policies regarding the consolidation of workloads of different trust levels, and when evaluating new security and management tools "favor those that span physical and virtual environments with the same management, policy and reporting framework," Gartner says.
IT must be concerned about vulnerabilities in any code installed in the hypervisor layer, including drivers, plug-ins and third-party tools, and keep everything up to date and patched, the report continues.
Even if the virtualization layer is just as secure as previous physical architectures, the tendency to provision more VMs means your footprint is larger and "whenever your footprint grows your security risk expands," Turner notes.
Turner is looking at a few systems management tools, such as Cfengine, Puppet Labs and Chef, to automate the processes of verifying patching, removing old user accounts, and ensuring that configuration files haven't been tampered with. | <urn:uuid:bf6d3d7e-afec-4e62-9ec4-48fcd53d7be0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.itworld.com/security/125101/burning-question-how-can-security-risks-be-mitigated-virtualized-systems | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942037 | 454 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Supermicro is trying to one-up IBM in a claim that they have now released the world's “densest” blade server. The new SBA-714M-T, part of their SuperBlade line, is thin enough to squeeze 10 of the units into a 7U enclosure, making each individual blade consume under a single U of rack space. That precious little space is packed tightly, too, with each unit accepting up to four Quad-core or Dual-core Opteron processors, for up to 16 cores in a single unit.
What is truly interesting is the chipset in which they are trusting to power these behemoth CPUs in such a tiny environment. They are using Nvidia's MCP55 Pro chipset, showing how vendors are beginning to increasingly trust Nvidia with “enterprise-class” hardware.
They, like many others today, are touting energy efficiency as well – with the enclosure for these servers capable of accepting up to four PSUs that they rate at 90% or higher, which is impressive on its own. You can read the full press release
at SuperMicro's site. | <urn:uuid:f71eda6f-73a2-4499-9900-1cde76145cfa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.techspot.com/news/27777-supermicro-announces-worlds-densest-blade.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954147 | 229 | 1.640625 | 2 |
A recent study by the Pew Research Center aimed to capture a snapshot of the millennial generation—the young men and women born after 1980. Among the findings? Around 83 percent of those 18- to 29-year-olds sleep with their cell phones within reach. Some out-of-touch folks are claiming millennials are obsessed with communication, but we've got some other ideas why sleeping with a cell is so common.
Sounds like it would be a pretty shocking statistic for anyone who wants to claim that we (yes, your dear blogger is a millennial herself) are too connected. But we also think that those party poopers don't realize what a multi-faceted tool a cell phone can be.
We're not sleeping with the phone on the nightstand because we're waiting for the next Facebook alert. Chances are, the millennials in the study are using their phones one of these ways:
As their only (emergency) phone.
We'd bet money that most of those 83 percent of millennials' cell phones are their only phones. While mom and pop might have rest easy knowing they could hear the kitchen's land line if a 3 a.m. emergency happened, us millennials have to keep a cell phone nearby.
As a sleep aid.
There's bagillions of apps on the market (that's a proven statistic, by the way), including plenty to help you sleep. Whether you need a noise machine, a sleep cycle aid or something to help with insomnia—say it with us... there's an app for that! | <urn:uuid:2f25b294-891a-4a5a-aaf9-8464fd8ea734> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/do-you-sleep-with-your-cell-ph-127903 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960648 | 314 | 2.09375 | 2 |
The Pirate Bay’s Next Servers Could Be GPS Controlled Drones
If there is a poster child for the fight against piracy it would have to be the constant attacks against The Pirate Bay by the entertainment industry and their trade group flacks around the world. They have tried everything from arranging to have the groups servers seized to trying every trick in the book to have the ISPs pull their access; and yet the site still lives.
However The Pirate Bay is not one to just sit and do nothing as we have seen them have their servers located in subterranean vaults to condensing the code running the site down to a point where it can fit on a flash drive.
Well it seems that they are investigating one more way to make it even more difficult for the entertainment industry to shut them down. TorrentFreak, an excellent blog that covers this type of stuff all the time, has a post up saying that The Pirate Bay is looking at using GPS controlled drones to handle their hosting.
“Everyone knows WHAT TPB is. Now they’re going to have to think about WHERE TPB is,” The Pirate Bay team told TorrentFreak. We were further informed that the first drone will probably fly above international waters.
“We’re already the most resilient and the most down to earth. That’s why we need to lift off, being this connected to the ground doesn’t feel appropriate to us anymore,” TPB told us [TorrentFreak].
As silly as the idea might sound the reality is that technology needed t o do something like this is pretty well off the shelf type of stuff now. Taking into account that the computers needed for something like this are now the size of the Raspberry Pi; which only costs $35, and that far-reaching radio equipment is almost as cheap the idea of putting together a skybourne network isn’t all that far-fetched.
Right now the folks behind The Pirate Bay are only investigating the possibilities but seriously I wouldn’t put it past them. | <urn:uuid:57506a22-5e13-4204-bd20-9500ef537971> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.inquisitr.com/207235/the-pirate-bays-next-servers-could-be-gps-controlled-drones/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972271 | 421 | 1.867188 | 2 |
(Click to enlarge spread.)
Welcome to 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks, a weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you.
I responded on a personal level to today’s featured picture book, Cinnamon Baby (Kids Can Press, February 2011) by Nicola Winstanley and illustrated by Janice Nadeau. (Wow. Check out that website for lots more art.) From a professional standpoint—as a children’s librarian, who studied children’s lit in grad school and who is always trying to separate the good children’s books from the not-so-good ones—I love it, too. It resonated with me on both of those levels, that is.
It’s the story of a baker named Miriam, who owns her own little bakery. She makes bread and makes it well: “She made a spicy bread, studded with little peppercorns and basil, and a sweet bread with ginger. She made a light, white loaf with dill, and a crusty brown one with sunflower seeds and honey.” (Mmm. See? The story had me right at the beginning.) The cinnamon bread, her favorite, she always saves for last. While baking, Miriam sings the songs her mother taught her as a child. It’s her beautiful voice and the aromas from her delicious bread that attract Sebastian one day, riding around on his bike, who asks Miriam to marry him.
Time passes. A baby is born to Miriam and Sebastian. “The child had big brown eyes and dusky skin and smelled like sweet milk.” All is well. For a while. On the fourth day, the baby starts crying and simply won’t stop. No matter what Miriam does, the baby is a scream machine, though breaks for sleeping are occasionally taken. “The baby is not sick,” the doctor tells Miriam. “I think it is simply unhappy.” But everyone is confused as to why.
One day, her sleeping baby reminds Miriam of a “little, wrinkled raisin,” and she’s struck with a good idea: Heading to the bakery in the “still-dark morning,” Miriam gets right to work, stirring, pouring, measuring, baking. The baby’s cries subside. Miriam makes just about every kind of bread she knows to make, yet it’s when the baby smells the cinnamon bread that it stops crying altogether. Everyone lives happily ever after. The end.
Now. My oldest is named Miriam, though she decided to go by her middle name when she was three, and it’s a name I don’t hear often in the South. So, that right there was my first personal connection to the book. But also: She was the world’s. screamiest. baby. I could go on (and on) about this and its great challenges, and I won’t. This isn’t a parenting blog. It’s enough to say that she wasn’t ill, and she wasn’t even colicky. This kind of constant unhappiness (whose only remedy was for mama to hold her, which meant I constantly had a baby in my arms and slept with said baby, though I hadn’t planned to) is a level of confusion and mystery way beyond simple colick (which is itself not simple to begin with). It’s very difficult to describe this kind of almost-incessant screaming (though Dr. William Sears has a name for it and a whole book about it, and just him NAMING IT was so helpful that I decided years ago that if I ever meet that man I’m gonna hug his neck). So, boy howdy and howdy boy, did this tale resonate with me on those personal levels.
(Click to enlarge spread.)
they both tucked in to bed beside Miriam.”
(Click to enlarge spread.)
See the showers of tears and actual flooding? Yup, the illustrator nailed it. (And in a very funny way.)
Also—and I suppose it could be argued I’m reading too much into it—I feel like Miriam’s story (the picture-book Miriam, that is) is more than just about the smell of bread making a baby’s cries subside. Having a baby is a huge—though happy—shock. The boot camp that is early parenthood is a ginormous life-changer, no matter how prepared you convince yourself you are. The mother, in particular, has to give herself up on multiple levels to this new human. It’s an adjustment. In my experience, going from full-time library’ing (and doing half a billion other things) to full-time parenthood was challenging (and was actually one reason I started blogging — that is, to engage in conversations again about children’s lit, while at home with a human being incapable of abstract thought). To me, what I found moving about this picture book was the notion that Miriam returned to the pre-baby love of her life: Her work. Her baking. Something at which she excelled. Something for which she felt passion. Maybe that joy is what made screamy baby unscreamy. Publishers Weekly wrote, “Debut author Winstanley’s simply-told fable offers a gentle message about the importance of nurturing the soul.” Yeah. True. But I’m talking about mama’s soul here, too — not just baby’s. I dunno. Food-for-thought anyway.
(Click to enlarge spread.)
Anywhoozles. Lovely book. I like it. Winstanley’s writing is a feast for your senses. Janice Nadeau, a Canadian illustrator and three-time recipient of the Governor General’s Award for Illustration, rendered the tale in watercolor, graphite pencil, and paper collage — all assembled digitally. Her palette is primarily composed of warm earth tones, and there are endearing, funny details for observant readers. (For one, Miriam’s hair looks a bit like a cinnamon bun.) Her textured, fine-lined illustrations on cream-colored paper have a real delicacy and charm. And bonus: I just found this March New York Times feature on the book.
CINNAMON BABY. Text copyright © 2011 by Nicola Winstanley. Illustrations copyright © 2011 by Janice Nadeau. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Kids Can Press, Tonawanda, NY.
1). I’m reading an ARC of this fabulous book, to be released in May from Feiwel & Friends. It’s so flippin’ good that it makes my day to read it. I hope it doesn’t go bad. So far, so good. The other day, reading it with my seven-year-old, I read “the sun hitched up her trousers and soldiered on up into the sky” and had to put the book down a moment and exclaim loudly and marvel, while my daughter waited patiently. Also, check out this excerpt below. By way of explanation, the protagonist, a girl named September, is trying to get to a land called Pandemonium but must first pass through the House Without Warning with a woman made of soap, Lye. Lye tells September she cannot get to Pandemonium “without having the road washed from you and your feet made soft and your spirit thoroughly scrubbed.” September takes three baths. Her courage, wishes, and luck are all washed. Here’s courage:
“When you are born,” the golem said softly, “your courage is new and clean. You are brave enough for anything: crawling off staircases, saying your first words without fearing that someone will think you are foolish, putting strange things in your mouth. But as you get older, your courage attracts gunk and crusty things and dirt and fear and knowing how bad things can get and what pain feels like. By the time you’re half-grown, your courage barely moves at all, it’s so grunged up with living. So every once in a while, you have to scrub it up and get the works going or else you’ll never be brave again. Unfortunately, there are not so many facilities in your world that provide the kind of services we do. So most people go around with grimy machinery, when all it would take is a bit of spit and polish to make them paladins once more, bold knights and true.”
Ah. Grunged up with living. So true.
2). You know when you’re having a bad day or sad day or, whatever, just a murky, not-sunny day? I was reminded this week, by hitting “shuffle” on my iPod, that songs with hand claps can help those moods. I need to make a Songs With Hand Claps mix. I really do. This song below, “Heart to Tell” by The Love Language, is one. No, really. Consider listening to it, pretty please. It’s short, and it’s a perfect little pop song. That percussion’y-hand-clappy part there that you hear about thirty seconds in and then you hear one more time later? THAT JUST MAKES MY BRAIN HAPPY.
Also in this hand-clappy category is Delta Spirit’s “People C’mon,” which I can lip sync perfectly, thank you very much (except for one tiny part with mangled lyrics during which I just resort to the ‘ol “banana banana” trick). Also, it’s good for air-drummin’. (This lip-syncing of “People C’Mon” is something I’ve practiced a lot. Maybe even very subtly while walking in the park with my iPod, which maybe even made me look like a crazy person. But there’s not much that will stop me from looking like a crazy person.)
P.S. Should I email my suggestions to Paste Magazine?
P.S. Again: The Love Language’s CD is totally named “Libraries.” Score.
3). Okay. I want to word this carefully. I don’t want to sound boastful, and well…one can sound A Bit Much, I’m afraid, when going on and on about her blog. Know what I mean? At least I try not to take it all too seriously, as I’m just a tiny speck of dust in cyberspace. Anyway. More than one person told me this week that they appreciate how 7-Imp connects them with others. Illustrators with other illustrators. Authors with illustrators. Authors with authors. And, best of all, readers with books (or authors or illustrators). And, you see, this makes me so happy. I hope I don’t sound braggy? That is the highest compliment you can give 7-Imp, though, in my book. The very highest. I like connecting people. Why else blog?
4). All I can say about this Tiny Desk Concert with Otis Taylor is YES. Just YES. And also: Why can’t these musicians with banjos have concerts at my tiny desk?
5). When people stop by 7-Imp to visit and share so generously of their time and work and talents. I’ve done enough interviews and features to be able to tell those people who think that stopping by merely means they might sell one more book and and that’s THAT (meaning they answer questions rather perfunctorily and hurriedly) from those people who really and truly love to talk about the art of creating picture books and have a real reverence for the whole process and want to communicate and share their wonder with readers. Guess which I prefer, and not just ’cause blogging is a labor of love? (This post was one of the latter, no doubt, which is one of many reasons I like it so.)
6). Are you tired of me talking about Elbow? BUT THEY’RE BRILLIANT, I TELL YOU.
“Tables are for pounding here / …And we’ve love enough to light the street / Everybody’s here.” If there’s an afterlife, I hope it’s like what’s depicted in that song.
7). A chunk of really good, super fresh bread (a sourdough or Italian loaf is best) with a piece of really rich cheese (say, some good Colby) and a glass of water when you’re super big-time hungry. Throw in a few grapes. Simple foods are best. Picnic foods. Yeah, that. Picnic foods are best.
BONUS #1: We have a teeeny-tiny extension on our final manuscript deadline for our book, meaning it will now hit shelves in Spring 2013 and not Fall 2012. Which is fine. A bit more time is good, too, though I’ll be happy when the final manuscript is turned in. You’ll hear me whoopin’ and hollerin’ this summer when we do that. I bet Cris in Italy will be able to hear me. It’ll be that loud of a whoop. ‘Cause, you see, during that (probably short) span of time between turning it in and getting edited and starting to revise, etc., I’ll have time to read a bunch of novels. I’m gonna lock myself up in the house and do so, I think.
BONUS #2: Acts of kindness go a long way.
BONUS #3: Speaking of separating the good children’s books from the not-so-good ones (as I did at the beginning of this post), here’s a wonderful way to start from author/scholar/professor/blogger Philip Nel.
THE KICK YOU CAN ASSUME EXISTS EVERY WEEK: My children are healthy and happy.
What are YOUR kicks this week? | <urn:uuid:dfeffcd9-cb17-46c2-b305-0c9353b6b2be> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blaine.org/sevenimpossiblethings/?p=2118 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956391 | 3,074 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Three simple barbecues
Lesson 2 - Steaks
Most people enjoy a steak. It is quite simple to cook and it is worth learning how easy it is to barbecue. Maybe you want to be able to cook it for yourself or surprise someone else. Pick some nice steak, rump or sirloin, about 15mm or 1/2" thick. These will be great grilled over a hot heat.
Light some charcoal in a starter chimney the amount will be determined by how much you are going to cook. To find out more about this there is a guide to lighting your barbecue. If you are going to cook some steak for upto four people 1/2 a chimney of lumpwood or a 1/3 of briquettes will be enough.Your charcoal is ready when there is a light grey covering of ash over all of the charcoal.
After cleaning the barbecue arrange the charcoal retainers to hold your charcoal in the centre of the barbecue. You can read more about the grilling technique. This will help you understand how you will be cooking your food. In this kettle grill the charcoal retainers are approximately 1/3 from the sides to give three equal areas. If you don't have charcoal retainers you will place the hot charcoal in the centre of the barbecue using a metal poker to drag any hot charcoal that breaks loose.
If you are not using a starter chimney place three pieces of firelighter on the charcoal grate. Pile some charcoal over the firelighters evenly. By placing the firelighters on the charcoal grate you will give yourself room to get the firelighters lit and the charcoal will soon get going. It is difficult to advise the amount of charcoal to use as everyone will have different ways to measure. There are some pictures to help visualise it below. If you feel you want to use more do so, you will learn how much you need depending on what you are cooking. Let the firelighters burn through and the charcoal will take. Initially it may be smoky and don't be tempted to do anything until the charcoal has a grey ash covering all over.
With the charcoal hot and ready to cook place the cooking grill on the barbecue. After a minute any residuals from previous barbecues will begin to burn. Use a wire brush to clean the grill as necessary. Let the grill get hot, 5-10 minutes will be enough. This will help to make those criss cross lines. If you are using a gas barbecue turn the burners to maximum and let the grill get hot.
For medium steaks place your steaks directly over the hot charcoal, season the steaks as you like but avoid adding salt until after they are cooked as this will draw the moisture from the steak. Place the thickest steak on first as this will take a little longer to cook than a a thinner steak to them same stage of doneness. After a minute or two turn your steak, you shouldn't see any juices coming from your steak yet. Cook for a further couple of minutes and turn again. If you want the criss cross lines make sure to look which way the marks are and place the steak accordingly. Cook the steak for a further minute. You will probably see some juices just coming through the steak. Turn one more time so that both sides have had two turns at facing the heat. After a further minute you should see some evidence of the steaks juices coming through. Rest for a couple more minutes and enjoy.
If you like your steak more or less done experiment with 30 seconds more or less. For a very blue steak a couple of minutes each side is going to be enough. Timing will vary according to the thickness of your steak. Use the juices coming from your steak to help give you an idea of when to turn. By turning the steaks twice (you could do it more frequently if you wish but the marks will not work too well) keeps the steak moise as the juices are retained within the meat.
Good job, that steak is going to taste really good. | <urn:uuid:a61b36c2-8dbf-4155-bbfb-62f297cebb3e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.simple-bbq.com/simplebbq123steak.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94073 | 827 | 1.789063 | 2 |
THE NATIONAL PARKS AND EMERGENCY CONSERVATION
THE NATIONAL PARK IDEA
National parks are distinctly an American institution. The national park idea had its inception in the United States, the first of such parks was established here, and the parks of this country have served as a model for the rest of the world. Sixty-five years ago no national parks existed. Shortly afterward the Yellowstone was created by act of Congress. Today the United States has 22 national parks. Moreover, these areas have been studied by officials of foreign governments and have served as the basis for park creation and management in Canada and South America, in Europe, and even in Asia and Africa.
Americans may well be proud of their parks. These areas contain the most magnificent scenery in a country replete with scenic features; many of them are of historic interest, some containing the ruined homes and implements of maintaining life of an otherwise forgotten people of a thousand or so years ago; and others are of such scientific interest that some of the best colleges of the country use them as outdoor classrooms in which to conduct summer schools.
More important yet, from a broad viewpoint, the national park system is a definite expression of the highest in our American code of governmentequality for all.
In the United States the best of our natural scenery and our most interesting scientific and historic places are retained in public ownership, for the benefit and use of all the people. In the Old World, before our national park idea was imported there, the reverse condition obtained.
The history of the social use of lands is interesting. Always in the early days, as one traces the rise and fall of nations, organized government meant organization for the ruling few. The choicest lands were reserved, in princely gardens and forests, for the mighty of the earth. Heavy, almost inhuman, punishments were meted out to the person of humble station who shot a bird or 4-legged animal in a well-stocked preserve maintained for the shooting parties of the lords of the manor.
For instance, when at the height of their power the Kings of England had as one of their most cherished prerogatives the power to convert any area they wished into a preserve for their personal pleasure in the chase. But they went too far, and the people and the barons combined to force on King John that great constitutional code, the Magna Carta, in which were certain laws limiting the kingly powers in regard to disposal of such lands.
It was a far step, in years and in social progress, from King John's time to a day in 1870 when, out on our western frontier, a group of men voluntarily relinquished their legal and moral right to profit through private ownership of the area now included in Yellowstone National Park, and instead started a movement that two years later resulted in the creation of our first national park. Out of this movement also grew the great national forest system mentioned elsewhere in this paper.
During the first three quarters of the nineteenth century the geysers and hot springs formations of the Yellowstone region were visited occasionally by Indians and by white trappers and hunters. Stories of the wonders of the geysers and strange hot springs filtered out. At first disbelieved, eventually they resulted in the official investigation of 1870. As the explorations were about completed, members of the party gathered about the camp fire one evening, discussing the marvels they had seen. They talked of the disposition of the area, all free public lands, suggesting that the individual members file claims, one taking the geysers, another the beautiful canyon of the Yellowstone River, and so on.
Then came the momentous suggestion that resulted in our great national park system. Cornelius Hedges, a lawyer of Montana, advanced the thought that the individuals forego personal gain in order that the region, so unlike anything else in the country, be reserved as a national park for the benefit of the people for all time. The idea caught the imagination of those present and they agreed to return to their homes and work for the establishment of such a park. As a result, Yellowstone National Park was established in 1872 by act of Congress as a "pleasuring ground" for the people of the Nation.
No other national parks were created until 1890, when the Yosemite, Sequoia, and General Grant Parks in California were established, followed in 1899 by Mount Rainier in Washington. Since then the national park system has progressed steadily.
Even before the Yellowstone, however, the United States Government showed its interest in the public ownership of lands valuable from a social-use standpoint. In 1832 the Hot Springs Reservation in Arkansas was established by act of Congress, because of the medicinal qualities believed to be contained in the waters. According to tradition, even the Indian tribes of the vicinity, who had long battled for the ownership of the healing waters in which they believed the "Great Spirit" to be ever present, had finally declared a truce under which the benefits were extended to the sick of all tribes. In 1921 the Hot Springs Reservation became a national park. It can in no sense of the word be called our first national park, however, because in its early reservation there was no idea of park use; it was definitely a place for the treatment of sick people. Now, while the hot springs are still available to the people under proper regulation, the area itself is a beautiful park, with motor roads and trails winding over and around its wooded hills, and recreation and relaxation are stressed almost as much as the use of the hot waters. | <urn:uuid:2a811567-0da5-4a33-984b-bff4560df8a7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/ecw/ecw1.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972486 | 1,127 | 3.390625 | 3 |
Word 2003 Essential Training with David Rivers is a movie-based tutorial for users who are either new to working with MS Office Word 2003, or those upgrading from a previous version of Microsoft Word. This workshop begins with a basic overview of the application and quickly advances to cover text formatting, styles, automatic text features, find/replace, proofing, shared workspaces, printing (including envelopes and labels) importing graphics, working with templates, customizing the toolbar and much more. Exercise files accompany the training, allowing you to follow along and learn at your own pace.
Please Note: Word 2003 Essential Training lessons are demonstrated on Microsoft Office 2003 for Windows. Due to differences in the Windows and Mac interfaces the lessons are not entirely consistent with Office X for Mac. The fundamentals of Word are similar on both the Windows as well as Macintosh platforms, such that users of Office X Word on the Mac can still learn the fundamentals of Word from these tutorials. As well, Mac OS X customers can purchase or view this title on a Macintosh. | <urn:uuid:c640d2a5-67fe-4d1c-b267-1b20a7e29f92> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lynda.com/Office-2003-tutorials/word-2003-essential-training/80-2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918967 | 207 | 2.0625 | 2 |
World Metrology Day celebrates the signing of the Treaty of the Meter on May 20, 1875. By signing the treaty, representatives from 17 nations, including the United States, recognized the importance of worldwide uniformity of measurements and established a collaborative global framework for the advancement of measurement science. Each year, World Metrology Day is organized and celebrated jointly by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM), which serves as the hub of national metrology institutes such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the International Organization of Legal Metrology (OIML), an intergovernmental treaty organization that promotes harmony in legal metrology.
The theme of this year’s celebration is “Metrology for Safety.” Measurement plays a key role in ensuring that products—e.g. cars, paints, food and medicines—and processes such as medical procedures, are safe. As the U.S. national metrology institute, NIST creates standard reference materials, improves measurement tools, develops performance metrics and advances metrology so that the nation has the best safety measures and measures of safety.
The range of NIST’s measurement work devoted to safety is vast.
As manufactured nanoparticles become increasingly prevalent, NIST is developing the measurement technology to evaluate their impact on the environment and human health.
At the same time, NIST is also developing the measurement tools needed to unlock the therapeutic potential of nanostructured materials.
At the level of things we can see, NIST concrete, sensing and engineering research is helping to improve the safety of our roads, bridges and buildings.
NIST standards are used to calibrate millions of medical machines such as MRIs, PETs, CATs and X-rays to make sure patients are getting the proper exposure, no more and no less. NIST scientists are also looking at ways of increasing the sensitivity and accuracy of these machines.
In the area of public safety and security, NIST provides law enforcement, first responders and the military with standards, research and testing protocols to support a host of technologies that will make their jobs easier and safer and enable them to protect others more effectively. NIST research into robotics, radio communications, electronic translation, radar, explosive and chemical detection, and body armor will help to make everyone safer.
Fire research at NIST is comprehensive, including fire retardants, firefighting equipment and strategies, fire behavior, fire detection and fire investigation.
NIST’s tests of crash avoidance systems and metallurgical and metal forming studies will help to make cars—and their drivers—safer on the road.
NIST cybersecurity and cryptography efforts are vital to protecting data and securing communications in the United States and around the world. NIST administers the Secure Hash Algorithm competition; maintains the National Vulnerability Database; regulates computer security and information processing standards for the civilian federal government through a number of programs, including FISMA and FIPS; and works with industry to establish a National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC). Along with these conventional approaches, NIST is also a world leader in the development of adapting the strangeness of the quantum world to computer and communications security.
This is just a small sample of the kind of work that NIST and national metrology institutes around the world perform to make measureable improvements in safety and security.
NIST will be celebrating World Metrology Day on May 21, 2012, with a colloquium highlighting these and other NIST programs dedicated to creating a safer world. This World Metrology Day, we ask that you take a moment to reflect on how important accurate measurement is to your life and our civilized, industrial society. After all, without accurate measurement, we wouldn’t be able to say how far we’ve come.
We hope you have a safe and happy World Metrology Day. | <urn:uuid:1b281cd0-0df7-4c59-b136-68be4ceff98f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.supercomputingonline.com/this-years-stories/improving-safety-measures-and-measures-of-safety-for-world-metrology-day-2012 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928193 | 797 | 3.296875 | 3 |
SIC 27 Evaluating the Substance of Transactions Involving the Legal Form of a Lease
Last EU endorsed/ amended on 03.11.2008
•IAS 8 Accounting Policies, Changes in Accounting Estimates and Errors
•IAS 11 Construction Contracts
•IAS 17 Leases (as revised in 2003)
•IAS 18 Revenue
•IAS 37 Provisions, Contingent Liabilities and Contingent Assets
•IAS 39 Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement (as revised in 2003)
•IFRS 4 Insurance Contracts
1 An Entity may enter into a transaction or a series of structured transactions (an arrangement) with an unrelated party or parties (an Investor) that involves the legal form of a lease. For example, an Entity may lease assets to an Investor and lease the same assets back, or alternatively, legally sell assets and lease the same assets back. The form of each arrangement and its terms and conditions can vary significantly. In the lease and leaseback example, it may be that the arrangement is designed to achieve a tax advantage for the Investor that is shared with the Entity in the form of a fee, and not to convey the right to use an asset.
2When an arrangement with an Investor involves the legal form of a lease, the issues are:
(a)how to determine whether a series of transactions is linked and should be accounted for as one transaction;
(b)whether the arrangement meets the definition of a lease under IAS 17; and, if not,
(i)whether a separate investment account and lease payment obligations that might exist represent assets and liabilities of the Entity (eg consider the example described in paragraph A2(a) of Appendix A);
(ii)how the Entity should account for other obligations resulting from the arrangement; and
(iii)how the Entity should account for a fee it might receive from an Investor.
3A series of transactions that involve the legal form of a lease is linked and shall be accounted for as one transaction when the overall economic effect cannot be understood without reference to the series of transactions as a whole. This is the case, for example, when the series of transactions are closely interrelated, negotiated as a single transaction, and takes place concurrently or in a continuous sequence. (Appendix A provides illustrations of application of this Interpretation.)
4The accounting shall reflect the substance of the arrangement. All aspects and implications of an arrangement shall be evaluated to determine its substance, with weight given to those aspects and implications that have an economic effect.
5IAS 17 applies when the substance of an arrangement includes the conveyance of the right to use an asset for an agreed period of time. Indicators that individually demonstrate that an arrangement may not, in substance, involve a lease under IAS 17 include (Appendix B provides illustrations of application of this Interpretation):
(a)an Entity retains all the risks and rewards incident to ownership of an underlying asset and enjoys substantially the same rights to its use as before the arrangement;
(b)the primary reason for the arrangement is to achieve a particular tax result, and not to convey the right to use an asset; and
(c)an option is included on terms that make its exercise almost certain (eg a put option that is exercisable at a price sufficiently higher than the expected fair value when it becomes exercisable).
6The definitions and guidance in paragraphs 49–64 of the Framework shall be applied in determining whether, in substance, a separate investment account and lease payment obligations represent assets and liabilities of the Entity. Indicators that collectively demonstrate that, in substance, a separate investment account and lease payment obligations do not meet the definitions of an asset and a liability and shall not be recognised by the Entity include:
(a)the Entity is not able to control the investment account in pursuit of its own objectives and is not obligated to pay the lease payments. This occurs when, for example, a prepaid amount is placed in a separate investment account to protect the Investor and may only be used to pay the Investor, the Investor agrees that the lease payment obligations are to be paid from funds in the investment account, and the Entity has no ability to withhold payments to the Investor from the investment account;
(b)the Entity has only a remote risk of reimbursing the entire amount of any fee received from an Investor and possibly paying some additional amount, or, when a fee has not been received, only a remote risk of paying an amount under other obligations (eg a guarantee). Only a remote risk of payment exists when, for example, the terms of the arrangement require that a prepaid amount is invested in risk-free assets that are expected to generate sufficient cash flows to satisfy the lease payment obligations; and
(c)other than the initial cash flows at inception of the arrangement, the only cash flows expected under the arrangement are the lease payments that are satisfied solely from funds withdrawn from the separate investment account established with the initial cash flows.
7Other obligations of an arrangement, including any guarantees provided and obligations incurred upon early termination, shall be accounted for under IAS 37, IAS 39 or IFRS 4, depending on the terms.
8The criteria in paragraph 20 of IAS 18 shall be applied to the facts and circumstances of each arrangement in determining when to recognise a fee as income that an Entity might receive. Factors such as whether there is continuing involvement in the form of significant future performance obligations necessary to earn the fee, whether there are retained risks, the terms of any guarantee arrangements, and the risk of repayment of the fee, shall be considered. Indicators that individually demonstrate that recognition of the entire fee as income when received, if received at the beginning of the arrangement, is inappropriate include:
(a)obligations either to perform or to refrain from certain significant activities are conditions of earning the fee received, and therefore execution of a legally binding arrangement is not the most significant act required by the arrangement;
(b)limitations are put on the use of the underlying asset that have the practical effect of restricting and significantly changing the Entity’s ability to use (eg deplete, sell or pledge as collateral) the asset;
(c)the possibility of reimbursing any amount of the fee and possibly paying some additional amount is not remote. This occurs when, for example,
(a)the underlying asset is not a specialised asset that is required by the Entity to conduct its business, and therefore there is a possibility that the Entity may pay an amount to terminate the arrangement early; or
(b)the Entity is required by the terms of the arrangement, or has some or total discretion, to invest a prepaid amount in assets carrying more than an insignificant amount of risk (eg currency, interest rate or credit risk). In this circumstance, the risk of the investment’s value being insufficient to satisfy the lease payment obligations is not remote, and therefore there is a possibility that the Entity may be required to pay some amount.
9The fee shall be presented in the statement of comprehensive income based on its economic substance and nature.
10All aspects of an arrangement that does not, in substance, involve a lease under IAS 17 shall be considered in determining the appropriate disclosures that are necessary to understand the arrangement and the accounting treatment adopted. An Entity shall disclose the following in each period that an arrangement exists:
(a)a description of the arrangement including:
(i)the underlying asset and any restrictions on its use;
(ii)the life and other significant terms of the arrangement;
(iii)the transactions that are linked together, including any options; and
(b)the accounting treatment applied to any fee received, the amount recognised as income in the period, and the line item of the statement of comprehensive income in which it is included.
11The disclosures required in accordance with paragraph 10 of this Interpretation shall be provided individually for each arrangement or in aggregate for each class of arrangement. A class is a grouping of arrangements with underlying assets of a similar nature (eg power plants).
Date of consensus
This Interpretation becomes effective on 31 December 2001. Changes in accounting policies shall be accounted for in accordance with IAS 8.
- IAS 8 Accounting Policies, Changes in Accounting Estimates and Errors
- IAS 11 Construction Contracts
- IAS 17 Leases
- IAS 18 Revenue
- IAS 37 Provisions, Contingent Liabilities and Contingent Assets
- IAS 39 Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement
- IFRS 4 Insurance Contracts
- International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)
- Debt ratios
- Liquidity ratios
- Profitability ratios
- Asset management ratios
- Cash Flow Indicator Ratios
- Market value ratios
- Financial analysis
- Business Terms
- Financial education
- International Financial Reporting Standards (EU)
- IFRS Interpretations (EU)
- Financial software
Most WantedFinancial Terms
- Debt-to-Equity Ratio
- Accounts Payable Turnover Ratio
- Current Ratio
- Financial Leverage
- Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)
- Receivable Turnover Ratio
- Debt Service Coverage Ratio
- Debt Ratio
- Quick Ratio
- Statement of Comprehensive Income
Have 10 minutes to relax?Play our unique
Play The Game | <urn:uuid:93cfb5f8-833d-4384-8a4f-10b0c7e09a4f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.readyratios.com/reference/ifrs_interpretations_eu/sic_27_evaluating_the_substance_of_transactions_involving_the_legal_form_of_a_lease.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924445 | 1,899 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Mystic - While the human equivalent is best trapped in a tissue and discarded, perhaps acknowledged with a "gesundheit" for good measure, the stuff expelled from Juno's nasal passages is a precious commodity - at least to Justin Richard.
"He's one of my star mucus providers," Richard, a 31-year-old North Stonington resident and University of Rhode Island doctoral student, said of Juno, a 10-year-old, 1,600-pound male beluga whale.
On Monday, Richard was at the Mystic Aquarium for one of his weekly visits to collect the spray from the blowholes of Juno and his three companions in the beluga exhibit. Richard, who is working on a doctorate in integrative and evolutionary biology, last summer began capturing what he calls the "exhale" in finger-length tubes as part of his research into whether it can be used to assess whale health.
"It's actually very easy, and the whole collection process probably takes 20 seconds or less," he said, as he walked toward the beluga pool to meet with Juno and trainer Kathryn Kahover. "It allows you to get a lot of information without doing any harm to the animal."
Crouched at the edge of the pool, Kahover leaned over to toss capelin herring and squid into Juno's open mouth for one of the belugas' four daily feedings. Then, as Richard squatted next to her, Kahover signaled for Juno to rest his head on the edge of the pool. Richard positioned the tube a couple of inches over the blowhole, and when Kohover tapped the whale's head, Juno blew. After four blows, Richard capped his tube and headed to the aquarium's research lab.
At the lab, Richard weighed the sample at about one-tenth of a gram, then added a water-based solution.
"It helps get the mucus off the sides of the tube," Richard explained.
After that, he would mix the sample in a centrifuge and freeze it, then later take it to labs at URI for analysis. Thus far, he's shown that a whale's sex and its population genetics can be determined from the "exhale."
"The next component will be (reproductive) hormone analysis," he said.
Once the analysis of the "exhale" is complete, he'll compare the results with blood sample analysis from the same whales, to determine how the mucus is reflecting overall whale health.
"So we'll know what the exhale means," Richard explained.
Richard, whose work and URI studies are supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program grant of $30,000 per year for three years, isn't the only researcher capturing what comes from the nasal passages of the aquarium's belugas. Laura Thompson, a University of Connecticut marine sciences doctoral student, said she's analyzing samples for stress hormones. The methods most commonly used, she said, rely on blood samples, but taking a whale's blood "in itself causes a rise in stress," so results can be skewed.
Richard, who began volunteering at the aquarium when he was 18 years old and a freshman at Connecticut College, worked there as a beluga trainer for eight years before starting his doctoral quest. It took him about a week to train the aquarium's belugas to blow on command, he said. But ultimately, he's hoping the techniques he develops won't just be useful for captive whales, but can be adapted for use in the wild.
One of the first places he hopes the research can be applied, he said, is at Cook Inlet in southern Alaska, where an isolated subspecies of belugas is declining for unknown reasons.
"They've stopped hunting them, and the environmental conditions there appear to be favorable" for the population of Cook Inlet belugas, now numbering about 300, to grow, Richard said. Researchers, he added, "know the reference numbers and the rate the population should be increasing."
Since belugas periodically strand themselves, Richard said, he's hoping that his methods can be applied to capture "blow" when the whales are on the beaches and can be kept temporarily restrained from swimming away for the short time it takes to do the collection.
"The blow sampling technique could be a good way to sample many individual whales in a short amount of time," he said. "This is a neat venture between URI and the aquarium." | <urn:uuid:ec7eece8-aab1-4b85-a486-18cbbeaed26a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theday.com/article/20130123/NWS01/301239973/1070/media06 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95512 | 915 | 2.078125 | 2 |
The local elementary school recycled a total of 793,229 cans or 23,106 pounds, the most cans in the nation and the most cans per capita of any participating school in Georgia.
The $856.80 in earned recycling proceeds, along with the $1,000 prize money, will be used for educational purposes.
“This was a hard-won contest, and I couldn’t be prouder of our students and teachers,” said Dr. Dianne Steinbeck, school principal. “Through this competition, they raised awareness of the importance of recycling and at the same time raised a lot of money that will help support important activities here at Holly Springs Elementary School.”
“I congratulate the students and the community partners for their impressive showing and setting such a strong example of the importance — and value — of recycling used cans,” said Robert Budway, president of the Can Manufacturers Institute, the trade association representing can makers and their suppliers.
CMI sponsored the contest, the Great American Can Roundup — School Challenge, which drew the participation of 790 schools from 50 states.
Collectively, the schools recycled more than 131,183 pounds (4.5 million) aluminum beverage cans, which generated more than $100,591 in recycling proceeds.
CMI awarded $1,000 to the top recycling school in each state and an additional $5,000 to the national recycling champion. Schools were judged on a per capita basis, comparing the number of cans recycled to the number of students participating.
The contest period was Nov. 15 or America Recycles Day to April 22, this year’s Earth Day. | <urn:uuid:07080bb0-2e3f-4bb1-972d-63d0f0fd0266> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cherokeetribune.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Spotlight-+Holly+Springs+Elementary+wins+-for+the+state+in+national+recycling+contest%20&id=18738414 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938769 | 343 | 2.421875 | 2 |
David F. Tolin, Ph.D., ABPP
Hincks-Dellcrest Centre - Gail Appel Institute, Trauma & Resiliency Training
The aim of this workshop is to familiarize you with compulsive hoarding, a common and potentially severe mental health problem characterized by acquisition of, and failure to discard, a large number of possessions to the extent that living spaces become uninhabitable. We will review emerging data investigating the nature of hoarding, associated mental health features, and new research findings regarding brain function in people who hoard.
To date, compulsive hoarding has frustrated mental health and social service workers due to its apparently chronic and treatment-resistant nature. Many hoarders are reluctant to seek help, and even those who do seek help frequently resist therapists' efforts to intervene. Clinical studies, therefore, have consistently shown a poor response to psychological and pharmacologic treatments. Recently, however, a new model of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) has emerged based on our increasing understanding of hoarding. In this workshop, you will learn specific skills to increase patients' motivation and compliance, challenge maladaptive ways of thinking, and learn new behavior patterns. We will also discuss possibilities for further development of the CBT model, including augmentation with cognition-enhancing exercises and medications as well as the collaboration between mental health professionals and paraprofessionals.
Following this workshop, participants will be able to:
1. Discuss the epidemiology and features of compulsive hoarding.
2. Describe the economic and social impact of compulsive hoarding.
3. Describe current neurobiological models of compulsive hoarding.
4. Outline a cognitive-behavioral model of compulsive hoarding.
5. Implement motivational interviewing strategies for patients who hoard.
6. Create a cognitive-behavioral treatment plan for hoarding patients.
David Tolin, Ph.D., ABPP is the Founder and Director of the Anxiety Disorders Center at The Institute of Living and Adjunct Associate Professor at Yale University School of Medicine. He is the recent recipient of the Award for Distinguished Contribution to the science of psychology from the Connecticut Psychological Association. Dr. Tolin is the author of over 100 journal articles, books, and book chapters, and his research has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. Tolin has been a recurrent guest on The Today Show, Good Morning America, The Dr. Oz Show, and The Oprah Winfrey Show. A leading expert on compulsive hoarding, Dr. Tolin is the author of the book Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving, and Hoarding. Dr. Tolin was featured on the A&E television series Hoarders, and was featured in the VH-1 series The OCD Project in Summer 2010.
REGISTER BY MAIL, PHONE, FAX E-MAIL OR ON-LINE
Hincks-Dellcrest Centre - Gail Appel Institute, 114 Maitland Street, Toronto, ON M4Y 1E1
TELEPHONE: 416-972-1935 x 3233 FAX: 416-924-9808 E-MAIL: firstname.lastname@example.org
REGISTER ON-LINE: www.peopleware.net/2323 | <urn:uuid:1ba992ec-93f2-48b2-897f-2e92298b9d86> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cavershambooksellers.com/events/FaceyourFears:Conducti | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915024 | 701 | 2.359375 | 2 |
Farmers can lay bait for wild dogs
A captured wild dog. Photo: Supplied
FARMERS will be allowed to set poison baits on public land from next week in a new assault on wild dogs attacking livestock and wildlife in eastern Victoria.
Farmers will be able to set baits on public land at Ensay, about 75 kilometres north of Bairnsdale, under strict conditions.
The ''community baiting program'' could be copied in other farming areas hit by wild dogs.
Agriculture Minister Peter Walsh said the baiting was ''a sensible initiative'' that allowed communities affected by wild dogs to work with the Department of Primary Industries.
He said wild dogs were having devastating impacts on native fauna, livestock and the profitability of farmers.
The scheme is one of a range of measures announced by the state government in recent days to fight wild dogs.
Baiting will also be conducted deeper into Crown land in some locations, and extra baiting has begun in 12 new locations that are remote or difficult to access.
Mr Walsh said the latter measure would see a further baiting of land on top of the existing ground baiting program conducted by the Department of Primary Industries. The department had engaged private contractors to do this.
For years farmers have been frustrated and suffered financial losses as livestock, particularly sheep, were injured or killed by wild dogs.
Tallangatta Valley farmer Michael McCormack said the community baiting program was a ''major step forward''.
''It's pro-active work in destroying dogs that obviously come in and attack our livestock,'' he said.
Mr McCormack, a livestock councillor with the Victorian Farmers Federation, said the wild dog problem had ''exploded'' in recent years. ''There's dogs in areas now where there were never dogs before.''
Until the late 1990s, Mr McCormack ran beef cattle and merino sheep. But after years of wild dog attacks on his sheep, he moved out of sheep.
''We ran a flock of 2000 merinos, and the dogs just came through and slaughtered the lambs. They used to eat the lambs,'' he said.
Under the community baiting program, Mr McCormack said, farmers would be able to lay ''manufactured 1080 baits'' after receiving training and accreditation.
Baits could be laid only as part of a co-ordinated and approved local effort, he said.
Baits must be at least 250 metres apart and must be buried at a depth of 10 centimetres. Where public land adjoined farmland, farmers could lay baits only within a three-kilometre buffer inside the public land from the farm boundary fence, he said.
A spokesman for the Victorian National Parks Association, Phil Ingamells, said: ''Any extension of wild dog baiting areas into likely spot-tailed quoll territory should be accompanied by monitoring of quoll populations before and after baiting programs take place.''
Mr Ingamells said the spot-tailed quoll was a threatened species that was known to take baits. | <urn:uuid:da0a3916-745c-4779-9f52-f9f1e9ad4cee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.canberratimes.com.au/environment/animals/farmers-can-lay-bait-for-wild-dogs-20121107-28xsq.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96877 | 627 | 1.789063 | 2 |
by Peter D. Grossman, MD
The most effective method of reversible contraception is sadly one of the most under utilized methods of birth control in the United States. The IUD (intrauterine device) has a long history of use over the centuries. Designs have improved dramatically over the years making the IUD a very practical contraception option.
Two major designs are presently available. Both can be inserted in a physician's office in less than one minute without much discomfort. Once placed inside the uterus they provide uninterrupted birth control. They can be removed at anytime should a woman decide she wants to conceive. Return to fertility is almost immediate since they do not prevent ovulation like the pill or depoprovera injections.
The copper IUD can provide up to ten years of contraception. They are the most economical form of reliable contraception but often increase menstrual bleeding. Hormone containing IUD's provide up to five years of contraception. They however have the added benefit of drastically reducing menstrual blood loss. Increasingly they are used as an alternative to surgery for women who suffer with this problem.
Hormonal side effects are rarely seen with IUDs. Nausea, breast tenderness, mood changes, weight gain and decreased libido are uncommon. More importantly the failure rate with the IUD is only one in a thousand, a fraction of failure rate on the pill.
Although the manufacturer recommends use in women who have already had a baby, world literature supports the notion that the IUD can be considered by women of reproductive age before childbirth.
Dr. Peter D. Grossman, MD, received an undergraduate degree with honors in Zoology at the University of Wisconsin. After attending New York Medical College he completed his residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Columbia University. As a board certified specialist he practiced in rural Southwest Virginia. After five years he relocated to Augusta Georgia where he presently practices general Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Dr. Grossman is working diligently on a local and national level to reduce the rate of unplanned pregnancies through patient and physician education. His other professional goals are to reduce the use of hysterectomy for abnormal bleeding and to increase patient awareness of new contraceptive technologies.
Copyright © Peter Grossman. Permission to republish granted to Pregnancy.org, LLC. | <urn:uuid:0d77643d-616b-4453-ab3b-26a8a8a8507e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pregnancy.org/article/intrauterine-device | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942356 | 473 | 2.140625 | 2 |
How to Stop Innovation in Higher Ed
It may seem clear that the higher education establishment can’t avoid change for long. It’s not only the technological challenge from online education, and perhaps existentially from “massive open online courses” MOOCs. It’s also because of the mounting pressure to rein in tuition and thus operating costs because Americans these days are demanding measurable value for money.
Yet is dramatic change inevitable? Maybe. But innovation can be slowed, or even thwarted, for a number of reasons. And unfortunately there are some man-made threats on the horizon.
Innovations can take root only if they work, of course. And some agents of change are still trying to figure out exactly what business model works and how to guarantee a quality product. That’s true of MOOCs. Still, after barely a year of existence, leaders in that field are making remarkable progress in developing ways to review and grade work in huge classes, as well as assuring honesty in examinations and assignments. We are also beginning to see some interesting partnerships between online innovators and established colleges that make the business economics more feasible.
What’s likely to trip up innovators is not technical but regulatory barriers. The most obvious from the outset has been accreditation. As Lindsey Burke and I have explained, accreditation is a gate that either lets in the new idea or is slammed in the innovator’s face. And accreditation is primarily in the hands of existing suppliers of education together with change-resistant and heavily lobbied government. The good news is that innovators are finding ways to outflank this formidable obstacle. One way is to partner directly with an accredited institution. Another is for a new venture to develop its own credentialed courses which can meet the market test of acceptance where it really matters – employers. That second route is being explored by such upstarts as Coursera, edX and Udacity.
However a more serious threat ultimately may be less obvious than accreditation. It’s the danger of increasing federal and state red tape. This can suffocate a new business or entire industry. No doubt with the encouragement of established institutions, for instance, online ventures are encountering a rising tide of new regulations. Back in 2011, for instance, the federal Department of Education issued a letter explaining that recent federal regulations meant that online learning services not only had to meet the requriements of the state in which the company is located, but also the rules of each state in which a student resides. According to University Ventures, a “venture capitalist” firm for new forms of higher education, that ruling threatens enormous mischief by states trying to protect their higher education institutions from unwelcome competition. For instance, Maryland is seeking to require online colleges to meet a range of curriculum and facilities requirements. Nevada wants to regulate the qualifications of instructors.
This creeping state regulation poses a considerable threat to education reform driven by online services. At the very least, it could lead to new institutions declining to enroll certain students looking for better value for money because they happen to live in a protectionist state. At worst it could permanently stunt the growth of new ventures that may offer the best chance for millions of future Americans to obtain affordable quality higher education and a chance at the American Dream. | <urn:uuid:520dc328-2f27-4e3d-a862-8b2acbf911f1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.seethruedu.com/updates/how-stop-innovation-higher-ed | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953935 | 672 | 1.859375 | 2 |
Sustainability Sponsored by
Shiseido America Inc. is going green in its latest environment-saving initiative. The company held a dedication ceremony on Oct. 24, 2007, for a new solar-electric power roof system to kick off its global solar energy initiative. The new solar-electric power system is located in the company's East Windsor, N.J., USA, facility.
The company first adopted an eco-policy in 1997 to encourage environmentally-conscious practices. The ceremony celebrated the first solar panel roof to be installed at any Shiseido facility worldwide.
The company expects the system to subsidize more than 30% of its energy costs. The 699-kilowatt solar roof was installed this past summer, when it generated nearly 40% of the company's needs at the facility, which houses manufacturing, R&D, package engineering and production.
According to the company, the solar roof will save 600 tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere annually, which is equal to removing 59 cars from the road or planting 85 acres of trees.
The Shiseido solar panel roof is the largest single-roof solar system in New Jersey, according to the company. It covers 70% of the facility's warehouse. The company expects that the solar roof will pay for itself in six years, with estimated savings of nearly US$100,000 per year. | <urn:uuid:35405c8f-08c8-48b0-a4b4-891782275bb8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.skininc.com/spabusiness/sustainability/11853666.html?mobi=y | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942171 | 280 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Cincinnati Thermal Spray manufactures high-performance coatings for the aerospace, steel, and energy industries. The 200-employee company also exports its products to Great Britain, France, Italy, Singapore, and Turkey.
Part of a day's work? Making sure the company doesn't accidentally sell its technology to U.S. enemies overseas, giving them a technological edge or a competitive advantage that might threaten U.S. economic leadership or domestic security.
Like banks, all export and import businesses have to follow federal "know your customer" regulations to make sure they are not doing business with criminals, fraudsters, or even terrorists. Trade regulations have become more numerous and complicated in recent years, and as small businesses look overseas to boost business, they confront an increasingly challenging and restrictive regulatory landscape.
If companies don't comply, they could face hefty fines, or even imprisonment. The International Emergency Economic Powers Enhancement Act of 2007 says penalties for administrative trade violations can be as high as $250,000 per infraction. Criminal violations can be as high as $1 million, or up to 20 years in prison.
The regulations are byzantine. For example, there are separate lists of 120,000 restricted trading entities issued by different government agencies. Exporting small businesses must frequently obtain licenses to sell their prodcuts, and these licenses can include ongoing restrictions for the goods they export, which means companies must monitor where their goods ultimately wind up. And small business exporters must be careful not to sell to shell companies that are set up to disguise the intentions of owners, who could be dangerous groups or governments.
About 500,000 U.S. businesses are involved in import export trade. Unfortunately, most small businesses don't have a big staff to decipher and continuously monitor the vagaries of export control and compliance. "It is fair to say the main cause of export problems is ignorance; many companies don’t understand how they are impacted," says Don Buehler, president of Export Solutions, an export trade consultancy in Clermont, Florida.
Educate and Train
But there are ways to take control of the process. First, know which set of regulations you're dealing with. Exporters and importers must comply with both International Traffic and Armaments Regulations (ITAR) and Export Administration Regulations (EAR).
Generally speaking, ITAR falls under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of State, which deals with all exported items that could threaten national security, including armaments, missiles, handguns, nuclear weapons and soldier armaments. EAR regulations are instituted by the U.S. Department of Commerce, and they apply to trade that could threaten U.S. competitiveness. Small business owners will most likely deal with EAR regulations.
The Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security sets a number of standards that can help small businesses stay in compliance and prove to government investigators that they are operating in good faith.
For example, BIS says companies should perform a risk analysis examining the types of goods they export and their destination. Companies should also come up with a written compliance program that they communicate to senior officers and employees. The company should also teach employees what is required of them to remain in compliance.
Small business owners also need to provide proof that they screen customers and transactions, keep good records, and have an internal system for reporting export violations. Finally, companies should document if they've undertaken remedial action in response to any violations, and they should regularly review and update their compliance programs.
While that seems like a lot of hoops for a small company, there are ways to get help.
Cincinnati Thermal Spray used Export Solutions to come up with a formal compliance program about two years ago.
"We recognized there were regulations out there that we were not fully familiar with and we wanted to get familiar with them," says Dale Harmon, director of quality and training at CTS.
Developing a program required analyzing the entire production process, and took between two and three months to complete, Harmon says. First, the company wanted to determine the status of all the parts it exports, and what kind of licensing was required. Then it turned its attention to creating a documented export program and then conducted a formal training for employees in its Cincinnati, Newark, Houston, and Wilmington, North Carolina offices.
Among the most labor-intensive tasks the company performs is its annual "denied party" screening for every existing employee, customer and vendor it has contact with, making sure no one is forbidden to work in the U.S., or to trade with. For this, CTS relies on Export. There's no single source of information, so export checks databases from BIS, Office of Foreign Assets Control, and the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls.
Trust Your Gut
Even companies that export products with no obvious connection to defense or sensitive technology need to be careful.
Schilling Ventures in Naperville, Illinois, owns four companies that manufacture non-auto transportation and water filtration components in China, Eastern Europe, and India. Schilling has long relationships with its overseas partners, but it must be careful about new ones.
Recently, a company in Ivory Coast approached Schilling to purchase a component that controls the flow rates of different chemicals using complex algorithms.
Schilling founder and chief executive Paul Golden knew nothing about the company and found the request odd. The customer asked for no details about the price and didn't attempt to negotiate.
"The typical customer buying this product would be a major chemical or pharmaceutical firm looking for precision, and it was hazy as to what they were," Golden says, adding he knew of no such related industries where the company was located.
Golden decided not go through with the sale, even though it would have meant about half a million dollars in new business.
Golden says it's important to do due diligence--and to trust your gut. Its freight forwarder, for example, does credit checks and examines the businesses to which it ships, to make sure they are legitimate. Schilling also does some sleuth work of its own.
"We believe if we do our best to confirm that a particular customer is a legitimate business, for example getting a letter of credit from them from an established bank, that we are doing the right thing," Golden says.
In addition to reaching out to the Departments of State and Commerce with questions, or using the services of freight forwarders, shippers like Federal Express and UPS offer trade expedition services, and software providers Amber Road and Oracle do too, says Charles Trimarco, senior manager of North American Supply Chain Technologies at Cap Gemini, says.
"The global economy is expanding and people are shipping goods all over the world and it comes back to the question for small businesses is there a cost-benefit of doing it yourself versus having someone manage it for you," Trimarco says.
And it's not just exporters. Since 2008, importers have been subject to something called Importer Security Filings, also known as "10+2," because they require shippers to file 10 data points to Customs and Border Patrol about the origin of the goods, plus two data points about the shipper. The filings are meant to secure against dangerous material entering the U.S., such as explosives.
The Obama administration is attempting to reduce the obstacle course for exporters and importers by consolidating agencies and authority, as well as the multiple lists of restricted entities. But it hasn't happened yet.
"The Obama administration has undertaken a significant [export control] initiative we hope will simplifiy things to some extent, and not penalize American business," Buehler says. | <urn:uuid:6a8195d9-54ff-48dc-9f10-5cf8e3b7fe12> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.inc.com/jeremy-quittner/export-regulations-know-your-customer_Printer_Friendly.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967982 | 1,560 | 1.5 | 2 |
When people come to Alabama from other places and do not worship the Alabama culture, there is the appearance that Alabama has changed. In fact, it has not. The core of Alabama remains the same. Sugar-white beaches and pleasing vistas do not an egalitarian culture make; it is the thinking that makes the laws which say what a people have in their hearts.
Bloody Sunday in Alabama is every Sunday, and every day. Gov. Robert Bentley proved that within four hours of his inauguration. And the German citizen heard it. Lack of respect is the issue. Referring to someone as "Mr." or "Mrs." is not respect; those are unearned titles. | <urn:uuid:57a8cd20-4f19-44c1-b58b-5d9244514ace> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.al.com/birmingham-news-commentary/2011/11/your_view_immigration_law_show.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977195 | 136 | 2.359375 | 2 |
About This Condition
Jet lag is a disturbance of the sleep-wake cycle triggered by travel across time zones.
Jet lag causes a combination of symptoms, including daytime sleepiness, disorientation, poor concentration, fatigue, gastrointestinal discomfort, headaches, difficulty falling asleep, and frequent waking from sleep. The symptoms can last from a day to a week or longer, depending on the person and the number of time zones crossed.
Copyright © 2013 Aisle7. All rights reserved. Aisle7.com
The information presented in Aisle7 is for informational purposes only. It is based on scientific studies (human, animal, or in vitro), clinical experience, or traditional usage as cited in each article. The results reported may not necessarily occur in all individuals. Self-treatment is not recommended for life-threatening conditions that require medical treatment under a doctor's care. For many of the conditions discussed, treatment with prescription or over the counter medication is also available. Consult your doctor, practitioner, and/or pharmacist for any health problem and before using any supplements or before making any changes in prescribed medications. Information expires June 2014. | <urn:uuid:77deacf8-dd64-431b-ba8b-1fef1bf56608> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pccnaturalmarkets.com/health/health-condition/jet-lag/vitamins-and-supplements | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904483 | 228 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal has published an opinion on an interesting and timely topic-whether police need probable cause to obtain prospective cell site information. In Tracey v. State, No. 4D09-3565, the Court held that the police did not violate the Fourth Amendment when they used “real time” or prospective cell site information to track a suspect on public roads.
By way of background, footnotes 1 and 2 of the opinion discuss two tools which are related to cell phone use, and which allow law enforcement officers to track suspects: pen registers and trap and trace devices. Under Florida law, a pen register is defined as “a device or process that records or decodes dialing, routing, addressing, or signaling information transmitted by an instrument or facility from which a wire or electronic communication is transmitted, but such information does not include the contents of any communication.” See Fla. Stat. § 934.02(20) (2009). A “trap and trace device” is defined as “a device or process that captures the incoming electronic or other impulses that identify the originating number or other dialing, routing, addressing, or signaling information reasonably likely to identify the source of a wire or electronic communication, but such information does not include the contents of any communication.” See Fla. Stat. § 934.02(21) (2009).
Key to the Fourth District’s analysis was the fact that the police were tracking Tracey on public roads. The Fourth relied on United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276 (1983) and United States v. Karo, 468 U.S. 705, 707 (1984), where the United States Supreme Court upheld a law enforcement officer’s installation of a beeper to track a suspect’s car on public roads because the police officer did not obtain information which could not have been obtained
through visual surveillance.
Federal courts are presented with this issue much more often than the State courts. I know from my time as a Law Clerk in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida that federal prosecutors routinely apply to the Court for pen registers and trap and trace devices as part of their criminal investigations. While Judges in the Southern District require the prosecutors to show probable cause before they will allow a pen register or trap and trace to issue, it is important to note that the Federal courts do not approach the issue uniformly.
Some Federal courts have held that prospective or “real time” cell site information can only be obtained upon a showing of probable cause, contrary to the Fourth District’s holding in Tracey. See In re APPLICATION FOR PEN REGISTER AND TRAP/TRACE DEVICE WITH CELL SITE LOCATION AUTHORITY, 396 F. Supp. 2d 747 (S.D. Tex. 2005); In re APPLICATION OF THE UNITED STATES FOR AN ORDER (1) AUTHORIZING THE USE OF A PEN REGISTER AND A TRAP AND TRACE DEVICE, 396 F. Supp. 2d 294 (E.D.N.Y. 2005). Federal courts may also differ on the issue of whether a showing of probable cause is required to obtain historical cell site data. See In re Application of the UNITED STATES of America FOR HISTORICAL CELL SITE DATA, 747 F. Supp. 2d 827 (S.D. Tex. 2010); In re APPLICATION OF the UNITED STATES of America FOR AN ORDER DIRECTING A PROVIDER OF ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION SERVICE TO DISCLOSE RECORDS TO the GOVERNMENT, 620 F. 3d 304 (3rd Cir. 2010).
A note of caution: this listing of cases is only the tip of the iceberg. Florida criminal defense attorneys will have to undertake a thorough review of the facts of their cases and the relevant caselaw to determine how to proceed if they are presented with an issue regarding their client’s cell phone data. While the Fourth District’s opinion in Tracey gives law enforcement the upper hand in some respects, Florida criminal defense attorneys must keep in mind that Florida courts are bound to follow Fourth Amendment analysis as enunciated by the United States Supreme Court. See Rolling v. State, 695 So. 2d 278, 297 n. 10 (Fla. 1997); Fla. Const. art. I, sec. 12. Given the different approaches being taken by the Federal courts, perhaps the United States Supreme Court will have the opportunity to address the issue sooner rather than later. And if the Court does find that probable cause is required to obtain these types of cell phone information, that would mean a victory for the defense! | <urn:uuid:1ef995ab-0e74-454c-8001-dad850a1d25b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://appealattorneylaw.com/tag/4d09-3565/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917244 | 969 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Definition: Voice has two meanings as it concerns creative writers:
- Voice is the author's style, the quality that makes his or her writing unique, and which conveys the author's attitude, personality, and character; or
- Voice is the characteristic speech and thought patterns of a first-person narrator; a persona. Because voice has so much to do with the reader's experience of a work of literature, it is one of the most important elements of a piece of writing.
Also Known As: persona
Examples:Young writers are often urged to find their own voice in fiction, but many teachers believe that voice is something that emerges naturally as a writer develops. | <urn:uuid:e57ce066-5b96-4143-ad4f-bfa2d51f3e79> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/glossary/g/voice.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977768 | 136 | 3.890625 | 4 |
The recent Vivienne Westwood’s collaboration to rebrand the English National Ballet made me think about successful women and “girl power”, so I started fantasising about what would be my dream collaboration…with my top four women of all time!
The idea is simply overwhelming but here it goes in no particular order, Vivienne Westwood, Frida Kahlo, Yayoi Kusama and Janis Joplin!
Let’s just imagine that Kahlo and Joplin were alive, and right now this extraordinary quartet are in the same room, would it work? would they even get along? At some point Westwood would share her strong political views and talk about human rights, which I believe all four of them would quite enjoy considering they are free spirit and open minded.
Kusama and Joplin seem to have a lot in common, although there are a few years difference between them they both experienced the sex revolution and movement in the 60′s and this clearly inspired both of their careers.
In my opinion Yayoi was the queen of psychedelic art and her obsession with polka dots is her trademark, she was part of the Pop Art movement, an influence for Warhol and also the only female artist in that scene at the time. She participated in protests against the Vietnam war, which often involved nudity so it wouldn’t be a surprise if Kusama and Janis had met during one of the protests, perhaps even at Woodstock, the festival that celebrated what was happening in history at the time and which defined the 60′s.
Janis performing one of my favourite songs, “Summertime” in Stockholm 1969
The voice of this woman doesn’t cease to amaze me, it’s incredibly powerful and the spirit of blues.
Now, Westwood was clearly more interested in the 70′s Punk movement, a rebel at heart, daring and unconventional, she is from a completely different generation to Kahlo but they are both visionary, although Frida wasn’t a designer her distinctive look and style has had a impact on fashion, just as Westwood has, both are and have been an inspiration to many artists and designers worldwide.
Westwood is an intelligent and talented woman, famous for reinventing fashion by combining English traditional 17th and 18th century elements with punk, while Frida has become the universal modern symbol for female suffering, which is reflected on her self portraits, she is the only female painter whose work fetch as much as Picasso’s or Pollock’s, they are both global icons.
So what do they all have in common? they are/were strong, ballsy and talented with unconventional ideas, needed a way to express themselves and whether it was consciently or not they made a difference through their art. Decades have gone past and they continue to inspire us, in music, fashion, art, film, photography and even performance.
I can’t imagine what they would produce as a team but I know it’d be beyond expectations.They could be the fantastic four and I would quite happily live in a world ruled by these women, what a wonderful and magical place that would be!
Madame Westwood, a total visionary who changed Fashion forever.
Her bright and colourful outfits and adornments, such as the flowers and ribbons on her hair have had an impact on Fashion, she is a style icon and her image has become so powerful that she is much more than an art star.
I took this photo when I visited Kusama’s exhibition at the Tate Modern in 2012, it was a glimpse into her hallucinatory world, full of twinkling lights, dotty images and fabric-stuffed phallic objects. | <urn:uuid:f4771305-4aee-48eb-8626-fcc8bc5ae52c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thestylefactoryblog.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/madame-westwood-my-dream-collaboration/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981058 | 779 | 1.773438 | 2 |
"Wild Horses -- Wild Lands" will include works by artists from Arizona, Montana, Tennessee and Colorado. Paintings in oil and watercolor, photography, drawing in watercolor and gouache, bronze sculpture and jewelry will portray the daily lives and beauty of the wild horse or mustang. Working closely with Estes Park resident Linda Hanick, who serves on the board of directors of The Cloud Foundation, the CAC has put together a collection of artists who not only produce works of art depicting the wild horse, but also in several cases, adopt/rescue animals or use their artistic talents to further educate the public about the plight of the wild herds in America.
About The Cloud Foundation
The Cloud Foundation is a Colorado 501(c) 3 non-profit corporation that grew out of Ginger Kathrens' knowledge and fear for not only Cloud's herd but also other wild horses in the West.
"I began to realize that we were losing America's wild horses," Kathrens says. "They are rounded up by the thousand, losing in an instant what they value most -- freedom and family. I realized that even Cloud and his family were in danger."
"In Cloud's remote mountain wilderness, we have a perfect
An Emmy Award-winning filmmaker and executive director of The Cloud Foundation, Kathrens will be on hand at the opening reception, slated for Friday, Oct. 12. Kathrens has featured Cloud and his family in her three films on the PBS "Nature" show.
The exhibition will feature equine works by Alex Alvis, Colo.; Ginger Kathrens, Colo.; Janel Maher, Tenn.; Karen McLain, Ariz.; Pam Nickoles, Colo.;
Virginia Taulane, Colo., has donated an original oil, "Wild West," with 100-percent of the sale benefiting The Cloud Foundation. Some of the other artists are donating a portion of their sales, and the Cultural Arts Council will set up a donation area for the duration of the exhibition, with all contributions benefiting The Cloud Foundation.
Once Alex Alvis knew what a horse was, she drew, painted and sculpted them. Her lifelong dialogue with art, her ability to find happiness, peace and to understand herself, has always been most easily expressed through horses.
For Alvis, horses symbolize the important qualities of confidence, strength, courage and freedom, peace and beauty. Horses are naturally emotionally wise, empathic and sensitive.
It is her goal to illustrate the significance of the spirit of equine life. Her wish is that these sculptures symbolize everything horses are, and give all of that to you. For Alvis, as for many people -- you have everything, when you have horses.
Janel Maher's sculptures are known for capturing the heart, soul and very essence of one of our greatest treasures -- the horse. Maher's sculptures can be found among collections throughout the United States, Europe and South America, with two perpetual trophies in England and South Africa.
Maher's passion for capturing an individual horse's character and conformation is evident in her commissioned pieces that range from sculptures of National Champions to the life-size statue at Thoroughbred Motor Cars.
Many of Maher's sculptures are inspired by her own horses, poetry or songs brought to life as seen in Vaqueros Amigo or in the nobility of her warrior steed, Dragon Slayer.
McLain is an Arizona native, and grew up with the outdoors as the backdrop for her adventurous spirit. With a preference for being outdoors, painting the landscape en plein air was a natural choice. The excitement and challenge of changing light and demanding conditions bring immediacy to outdoor work. Working as a wrangler, and spending time with her own horses, was the beginning inspiration for painting horses from life. "Painting how the light hits the coat, the way the shadows form and color reflects is the visual part of the craft. Knowing how the horse moves, reacts, thinks and feels gives insight into my subject. Putting those two together is what I call 'Painting the Heart of the Horse.' That is what inspires me."
A lifelong resident of Colorado, Nickoles shares a home with her husband, two rescue dogs, two horses and a feral cat. Her family has also rescued and sponsors two wild mustangs that are living peacefully on a private ranch in southern Arizona. Her main passions are photography, the outdoors and animals of all varieties.
Living amidst the natural beauty of the Rocky Mountains and experiencing the appealing blend of Western cultures found in Colorado and the Rocky Mountain region, Nickoles' photography inevitably reflects her deep love for the Western legacy and natural landscape that are so characteristic of the region.
"A portion of sales proceeds from some of my photos benefit several different wild horse organizations or rescues that I have a personal connection with. Notations are made under selected photos within the various galleries. I also volunteer my photography services to local rescues," she says.
Walker's passion for photography started at an early age, with animals as her favorite subjects. She studied literature and photography as an undergraduate at Smith College, and continued her education in photography after graduating, studying portraiture and nature photography. She has traveled all over the world, photographing wildlife for the past 28 years. In 2000, she started her business, Living Images by Carol Walker, specializing in photographing horses.
Her images illuminate the relationship between horses and their people, as well as showcase the beauty of horses, with her stunning images of horses at liberty. She teaches workshops for amateur photographers on equine photography. Her commercial work includes catalogue covers for leaders in the equine industry. She has had numerous calendars published featuring her work, and she markets her fine art prints from her website, as well as in several locations on the Front Range of Colorado.
Seven years ago, she began photographing wild horses. As she followed several herds in Wyoming, Colorado and Montana, she became aware of how precarious their situation on public lands has become. Since then, she has dedicated herself to educating people with her photographs and stories about the wild horses.
Westerhoff grew up in the college community of Gunnison, Colo., which provided the grandeur and splendor of the Colorado mountains at an early age. Within that early childhood came the enjoyment of sharing time with horses and other family pets. Her interest in art blossomed, when her family moved to the suburbs of Denver, Colo., where she attended high school. She continued her art education, graduating from the Colorado Institute of Art.
Westerhoff has spent most of her life in the close company of dogs, cats and horses; and one of her greatest enjoyments is to convey the emotions and insights she has gained from these experiences into her work. Working mainly in colored pencil, she feels that she can blend these feelings into the natural beauty and grace of creatures in her images.
At the opening reception on Friday, Oct. 12, composer/pianist
Patricia Burge will perform original compositions on the CAC's 1930 Baldwin grand piano. Burge is a specialist in the performance and teaching of contemporary music, improvisation and composition and she is noted for frequent workshops in these areas. A resident of Livermore, Colo., she is known for the melding of classical and jazz styles, and has developed a love and deep concern for our Mother Earth and all the creatures that inhabit her.
Refreshments will be served, along with savories and sweets that will be donated by Sweet Basilico, Nicky's Steakhouse on the River Resort and Vic and Linda Hanick.
For more information, contact the Cultural Arts Council by phone at 970-586-9203, or email: firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:4bb0595c-547d-4e7e-87dc-30ce3b137432> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eptrail.com/entertainment/ci_21742256/cac-presents-wild-horses-wild-lands-estes-park | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963485 | 1,577 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Principles and Practice of Eastern Medicine
Donguibogam (Principles and practice of Eastern medicine) is an encyclopedia of medical knowledge and treatment techniques compiled and edited by Heo Jun, with the collective support of other medical experts in Korea. Heo Jun, a court physician, received a royal command to write a medical book to assist people suffering from famine brought about by war and drought during the rule of King Seonjo (1552–1608, reigned, 1567–1608). Heo Jun himself picked the proper medicinal herbs, which were native to the Korean Peninsula. He conducted human clinical trials to ... | <urn:uuid:dd6938e6-e9ef-404b-9fd8-0837ab378add> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wdl.org/en/search/?additional_subjects=Medicine%2C%20Oriental | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956198 | 129 | 3 | 3 |
This week, I’ll be answering your questions about Egypt’s historic presidential elections here on Rendezvous. Leave your question by using the comments box below. Feel free to respond to others’ questions. I’ll post my answers as well.
As I wrote today in the main article about the election: “With the skies clear and the weather warm, long lines of people queued at polling stations to vote in an election cast as a watershed in their political history.”
But with 13 candidates and no clear front-runner, its remains anybody’s guess who will win — and what direction the new president will take the country.
The military rulers who took over after the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak promise to hand over power to an elected government on July 1.
There have been no reliable opinion surveys, nor is there a permanent Constitution setting out the president’s duties and powers. “But the vote is widely seen as crucial in choosing a leader to influence Egypt’s course for decades to come.”
Tell me what you want to know. And what you think.
I will also be posting comments on Twitter, via @kirkpatricknyt. But send your questions here to Rendezvous and I’ll answer them here. I’m looking forward to the discussion. | <urn:uuid:d7542c67-ae78-4642-ac16-fea79c2d795c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/23/ask-about-the-egyptian-election/?ref=world | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963243 | 280 | 1.648438 | 2 |
At the moment there is no a single spokesperson for the global atmosphere; there are rather multiple competing interpretations of global warming.
Mass media constitute the arena in which these different versions are presented and discussed. “Who Speaks for the Climate? Making Sense of Media Reporting on Climate Change”, by Maxwell T. Boykoff of the University of Colorado explores the different narratives around climate change.
In Laura Caciagli’s interview, the author talks about the new role of media, highlighting the factors that influence media coverage of climate change.
Prof. Boykoff, what’s your opinion on the new role of the media in communicating climate science and what do you think about the way media representations of climate change are produced and negotiated?
In my book I analyse media coverage of climate change because of its important role in reaching out everyday people. To keep myself up-to-date about the major topics of climate change, I participate in climate science conferences and workshops; I follow climate talks and negotiations as well.
But, in reality, very few people have access to the science literature and to policy documents so they generally rely upon media representations of climate change. Mass media help to interpret and translate important but difficult information and processes.
In terms of reaching a mass audience and shaping public awareness, public engagement as well as public support for positive action, mass media play a very important role and need to be studied carefully.
What do you mean by “competing frames” in your book?
Well, there are a lot of different ways in which mass media address dimensions and aspects of climate change. When I introduce the notion of “competing frames” I want to explicitly discuss how media rely upon actively shape public discussions on climate change and its impacts. For example, a charismatic leader talking about climate change action becomes a chance for the media to cover the issue. This, in turn, shapes ongoing considerations on action in the public arena.
Statements and pronouncements of leaders, politics and policy makers often become frames.
When covering climate change mass media mainly focus on few topics such as weather extreme events or charismatic megaphones like polar bears, while some important themes – i.e. socioeconomic aspects of climate change or environmental justice – are completely ignored.
How could journalistic norms affect and influence media coverage of climate change?
In terms of socioeconomic factors I find the situation quite discouraging.
I think it is very challenging to cover stories such as those of climate change in a comprehensive, responsible way. At the moment hope is raised by some ONGs that are stepping forward to provide a connection between climate scientists and the media, although they remain small examples in a larger scene openly discouraging mass media consolidation and enduring.
As for journalistic norms, they really influence the ways in which stories are shaped and realized and how pieces of information are translated into news. In this process, the trend is to rely upon personalities and dramatic events with journalists trying to give a spectrum of opposing points of view. In this way the audience is provided with a framework of competing on the same stage but there isn’t any emerging difference if one point of view is brought into the media arena by a scientist, an opinion leader, a politician.
The journalistic norms that I have tracked on the book are personalization, dramatization, novelty, reliance on authoritative spokepersons and journalistic balance of opposing viewpoints. They all contribute to a coverage that coheres with dominant market-based and utilitarian approaches to discussing the spectrum of possible mitigation and adaptation action on climate change. The journalistic norm of balance in news reporting has in particular served to amplify outlier views on anthropogenic climate change and concurrently caused an appearance of increased uncertainty regarding this issue. This, in turn, has permeated climate policy discourse and decision-making.
Are climate experts able and effective in communicating climate change enough? Is there a way to improve their PR skills?
The role of expertise, authority and perceived legitimacy remain very important. To understand a changing climate we have to rely upon climate models and experts, whose role is critical in terms of reaching out the mass media and the public. As a scientist, I consider a duty and an extension of my work trying reach out the public and spread knowledge among the general audience.
In recent years, Internet and social media changed the situation a lot: today many people find information about climate change via Google searches, and the legitimacy checks in place there are much different than those in place in academic ‘peer review’. I think that these democratizing and complementary developments are net positive changes, with many more people discussing and participating. Yet there are costs as well. My book works through these sorts of issues in the context of 21st century climate challenges.
Why climate change has become so important in politics?
I think that climate has become very important in politics because it cuts our relationship with the environment and every aspect of daily life: how we work, travel, produce food and use land, how we play and relax. Curbing emissions has become central in considerations of critical phenomena such as poverty, inequality, justice and armed conflicts. More and more people recognise climate change as a central issue to discuss.
In your opinion, how can we improve media reporting on climate change?
Research like mine can help to re-consider media institutional practices and theirrelationship with the scientific and policy communities as well as with the public. Journalists should work to provide accurate metaphors in order to describe climate change and its impacts in a simpler and clear way.
Scientists too might improve their way to communicate this complex issue.
Media, scientists, policy actors and focus groups in the public must dialogue and cooperate to democratize these topics and inspire more reactive engagement about climate change. At the moment some media outlets are trying to connect journalists – especially those from developing countries who have no access to peer-reviewed articles – with the relevant experts in order to improve and foster the media coverage about climate change.
You may also be interested in:
- Nature’s challenges to communicate climate science – a post by TeC, the CMCC’s blog
- Maxwell Boykoff’s page at the Center for Science and Technology Policy
- The official page of the book “Who Speaks for the Climate? Making Sense of Media Reporting on Climate Change” at Cambridge University Press website
- A review of the Boykoff’s book at Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media
- Andrew Revkin’s (NYTimes) Book Report in his blog Dot Earth | <urn:uuid:90355736-b898-4529-ab7d-5835c723a21b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.climatescienceandpolicy.eu/2012/01/who-speaks-for-the-climate-boykoff-tries-to-make-sense-of-media-reporting-on-climate-change/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948066 | 1,339 | 2.28125 | 2 |
ArtTours, a special art program created at the independent information agency offers master classes and art tours dedicated to present and promote Russian traditional and contemporary art. Most master classes are taught by professors of the Academy of Fine Arts. This school is the oldest (founded in 1757) and most well-known art institute of Russia, teaching painting, sculpture, and architecture. Today it is considered one of the best art academies of Europe for studying traditional art school of realism, promoting traditional and classical fine art, and playing a key role in preservation of classical art traditions. Unlike many other art schools, its strict rules on following academic traditions allow students to get a very strong base for their future artistic development.
Most professors are:
- well-known artists of Russia
- awarded at various international art exhibitions
- exhibited by famous art museums and galleries all over the world
- published their own books in art teaching
- constantly get invited for providing master classes in other countries.
Among ArtTours artists providing master classes in crafts are those whose works can be seen in famous museums of the world. ArtTours jewelry art masters follow traditions established by Faberge. ArtTours glass masters have patents for their inventions and have been published in international art catalogs. Not to mention unique style of Russian hand-loom weavers and blacksmith workers, whose creations received awards at various international competitions.
For those interested in other art-related activities, individual art program can be created, which might include: consultation with art specialists, visiting artists' workshops, art galleries, unusual museums and exhibitions, art shopping. Artindex art catalogs (available online) are printed annually and include artworks created by established and emerging Russian artists, with complete contact information in the "index" section.
Most master classes take place either at the Academy of Fine Arts workshops or at artists private workshops (for groups no more than 5 students). Another facility is available in picturesque location of Peterhof, in former nobleman mansion (after restoration), 40 minutes from the city center.
Cost range for private lessons depends on a chosen art field, student's art background and abilities. It usually runs starting at 20.00 euro per academic hour, up to 120.00 euro/hour. All other expenses are not included. For meals, accommodations, art technical supplies, and transportation, please contact an ArtTours representative for special offers. Off-seasonal studying is recommended as the city gets overcrowded during May-September.
Joined InfoHub: Dec 2005
Client Request Served: 68
ARTINDEX is an independent information agency, created by an initiative of St.Petersburg artists in 2002. Today it is a registered trademark uniting series of informative projects in the field of culture and arts. ARTINDEX area of business includes publishing annual art catalogs, managing electronic art databases,...
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|Check out these similar vacation offers: | <urn:uuid:c9c2e7cb-cea3-4f06-affb-c2a373502679> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.infohub.com/vacation_schools/611.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939309 | 651 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Must a Child be Given his Father's Name?
Is there any ayat or any hadith or any hadith saying that in this world, children will be called by their fathers' names?
To give the child the name of his/her father is a social and not a religious tradition. The directive of the Quran, given in a somewhat related issue is that a child should not be ascribed to some one who is not his real father. The context of this directive relates particularly to adopted children (see: Al-Ahzab 33: 4 - 5). In essence, the Quran has directed us that in case of an adopted child, to avoid all the social problems that may arise in future, he/she should be ascribed to his own real father and not to the adopted father or anyone else.
Besides this verse in the Quran, which pertains only to adopted children and the social problems that may arise in future if they are ascribed to the adopted father, there is no specific directive that a child should be given its fathers name.
On the other hand, according to the social tradition of the Arabs, the child was given the name of his father. Obviously, if there was something wrong with this tradition, in the law of Allah, it would have been corrected during the time of the Prophet (pbuh). The Quran, as you know has not only accepted this social tradition but in the case of adopted children has stressed that they should only be ascribed to their real fathers. This, in my opinion, shows that there is nothing wrong in following this tradition of giving a child the name of his/her father. | <urn:uuid:816a357b-7252-47fa-b90b-57a3081e5326> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.themodernreligion.com/family/family_nameofkids.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978061 | 334 | 1.96875 | 2 |
Pat McCrory will be the first Republican governor in North Carolina in 20 years.
Unofficial results show McCrory won the governor's race on Tuesday over Democrat Walter Dalton.
The former Charlotte mayor had 55 percent of the vote compared to Dalton - the sitting lieutenant governor - at 43 percent with 2.2 million votes counted. Libertarian Barbara Howe had less than 2 percent.
McCrory is the former Charlotte mayor who ran unsuccessfully against Democrat Beverly Perdue in 2008. Perdue didn't seek re-election this year, setting the stage for McCrory. McCrory benefited from a repeat run for governor and a sizeable cash advantage over Dalton.
Jim Martin was the last Republican governor, leaving office in 1993. McCrory will take the oath of office in January. | <urn:uuid:b6cc5188-d5ea-470a-abc4-da5031277711> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wyff4.com/news/politics/election-results/McCrory-wins-NC-governor-s-race-ends-GOP-drought/-/12723274/17294188/-/gw9p1wz/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961122 | 160 | 1.546875 | 2 |
The Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints (Salt Lake City Mormons) began establishing colonies in Mexico during the 1870s. These colonies were to serve as a fall back point in case the United States government tried to aggressively crush polygamy. Mormon President Brigham Young, who brought his band of Mormons to what is now Utah to escape outside forces against the faith, realized the American West was closing and Mormon de facto independence was about to end. The Romney family, a leading family in Mormonism, were among the Mormon Mexico pioneers. Eventually the Salt Lake City Mormon church abandoned and suppressed polygamy but the colonies continued to grow.
Mitt Romney's father, George Romney, was born in Colonia Dublan, Chihuahua, Mexico in 1907. George's father, Gaskell Romney, was a Mormon colonizer who settled in 1885. George's maternal grandfather, Helaman Pratt, was one of the first Mormon missionaries in Mexico and became a Mormon colonizer in 1876. Mexico at the time did not allow dual citizenship and thus forced the Romneys to choose between Mexican and American citizenship. They chose American citizenship.
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In 1912 raiding and the threat of Mexican Revolution spillover forced most of the Romneys and many, but not all, Mormon colonial families to flee to the United States. George was able to integrate into the United States and eventual become Governor of Michigan. His son Mitt was born in 1947 in Michigan.
So how is Mitt Romney Hispanic? The 2010 United States Census states
"The terms "Hispanic" or "Latino" refer to persons who trace their origin or descent to Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Spanish speaking Central and South America countries, and other Spanish cultures. Origin can be considered as the heritage, nationality group, lineage, or country of the person or the person's parents or ancestors before their arrival in the United States. People who identify their origin as Hispanic or Latino may be of any race."
Nothing in the definition says Hispanics have to speak Spanish. This allows many Mesoamerican Indians in the remote parts of Central America to be classified as Hispanic as well as Paraguayan Mennonites. The fact that race does not matter allows Middle and South American Indians, Mestizos, pure blood Spanish-Americans, European South Americans, and Black Dominicans all to claim to be Hispanic. All this allows the Romney-Pratt family to be of Hispanic heritage. | <urn:uuid:461a8093-b76f-4683-b7cf-e126c305da97> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.geographictravels.com/2012/08/mitt-romney-hispanic.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96818 | 491 | 3.828125 | 4 |
twitter for journalists
Why Twitter matters
Some people look at Facebook and Twitter, conclude that Facebook has the larger audience, and decide to focus their efforts there. Yes, Facebook is really important, but there are good reasons to make sure you're engaging on both platforms.
First, the audiences are very different. Facebook is organized across "the social graph," which means most people follow people they've met. In contrast, Twitter is organized across "the interest graph," which means people follow accounts that provide valuable information, whether they've met or not.
Facebook is mostly about interlocking rings of privacy - walled gardens in which information gets trapped (i.e. Google can't see the vast majority of content on Facebook). But Twitter is fully public, just like the rest of the web. By definition, content on Twitter has a much wider reach - everything you post can potentially be seen by the whole world.
While Facebook has a "share" function that lets people repeat things others have said, it's not used nearly as often as Twitter's "retweet" function. One of Twitter's key functions is as a news and information amplifier, which is why news spreads so much more quickly on Twitter than on Facebook.
Will Twitter traffic cannibalize traditional web site content? Take a look at this data produced by Twitter the evening the death of Osama Bin Laden was announced:
Twitter was tracking 12.4 million tweets per hour (4,000 per second) on this topic. A very large portion of these tweets were pointing back to traditional media sources. Twitter alone wasn't enough for these readers - they were still going to traditional news sites to get the full story. Twitter was amplifying the spread of news, not replacing it.
Because of this amplification effect, Twitter has an immediacy that Facebook doesn't have. Many big news stories have broken first on Twitter. For events and crises, nothing can top Twitter's real-time effectiveness.
Because it's aligned on the interest graph, Twitter users spend a lot of energy fine-tuning and curating their information streams (Facebook users are often reluctant to unfollow people for fear of being rude). Twitter is an information fire hose in a way that Facebook is not.
As a result, many news junkies greatly prefer Twitter over Facebook. They're two very different parties - one consisting of friends and one consisting of information sources. As a journalist, you really want to be at both parties.
Since people don't have to follow you just so you can see the content they post, journalists find Twitter a much better way to track down sources, dig up more information on stories, crowdsource content, get questions answered, push out quick news blasts, and to take the pulse of a community or topic.
Most sites that have both Tweet This and Facebook Like buttons show more Facebook likes for their stories, but this isn't always true:
In most cases, these numbers have more to do with how much energy the journalist or organization puts into the respective platforms. Ignore Twitter and the numbers will skew toward Facebook. And vice versa.
If you're primarily a Facebook user and need a hand understanding how and why the Twitter ecosystem can be as rich or richer than Facebook's, see A Guide to Twitter for Facebook Users.
Fastest Way Into Search Engines
Finally, note that Twitter is likely the fastest way to get links to your site's content into Google and other search engines. Because search engines "license" the Twitter stream for their real-time results, links posted via Twitter show up on Google seconds later.
Try posting a tweet with a highly unique string, then go immediately to Google and search for that same string. After the results appear, click on More, then Real-Time in the left margin. | <urn:uuid:90afc060-d2f2-4bfe-8969-111506ce47f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/tutorials/twitter/why/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953201 | 767 | 2.171875 | 2 |
Statuto AlbertinoArticle Free Pass
Statuto Albertino, (March 4, 1848), constitution granted to his subjects by King Charles Albert of Piedmont-Sardinia; when Italy was unified under Piedmontese leadership (1861), it became the constitution of the Kingdom of Italy. Originally it was a rather conservative document that set up a strong constitutional monarchy; its spirit was subsequently altered, at first in a liberal way, to adapt it to the parliamentary government of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and then in an authoritarian direction under Benito Mussolini’s Fascist regime (1922–43).
The Statuto, which was granted by the king during the liberal Revolutions of 1848, was based on the French Charter of 1830. It ensured citizens equality before the law and gave them limited rights of free assembly and of free press but gave voting rights to less than 3 percent of the population. The Statuto established the three classic branches of government: the executive, which meant the king; the legislative, divided between the royally appointed Senate and an elected Chamber of Deputies; and a judiciary, also appointed by the king. Originally, it was the king who possessed the widest powers: he controlled foreign policy and had the prerogative of nominating and dismissing ministers of state.
In practice, the Statuto was modified to weaken the king’s power. The ministers of state became responsible to the parliament, and the office of prime minister, not provided for in the constitution, became prominent. The king, however, retained an important influence in foreign affairs, and in times of domestic crisis his role was pivotal. The social base of the constitution was gradually broadened so that by 1913 universal adult male suffrage was virtually achieved. Under the Fascist regime the Statuto was substantially modified to put control of the government in the hands of the Fascist Party. The Statuto was officially abolished when the constitution of the Italian republic went into effect in 1948.
What made you want to look up "Statuto Albertino"? Please share what surprised you most... | <urn:uuid:497fddc1-26c1-4a91-a9ef-ab30ebfc0592> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/564286/Statuto-Albertino | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97979 | 427 | 3.53125 | 4 |
Sebastian the Cat, Missing 4 Years, Returned Thanks to Microchip
Sebastian the cat is back home with his owner, thanks to an implanted microchip. Earlier this week in Racine, Wisconsin, an animal control worker picked up the big black cat after he was reported as a stray. A subsequent scan revealed a microchip which told officers that the cat's name was Sebastian and provided the contact information for his owner in Lake Geneva.
Countryside rescue coordinator Maggie Senzig says the owner was incredulous when she was informed that her cat had been found. Sebastian had gone missing when he was 7-months old. His happy owner picked him up Wednesday afternoon at the shelter.
Senzig emphasizes that micro chips are inexpensive and can be invaluable in helping reuniting lost pets and their owners.
[PHOTO CREDIT: www.mcpherson.army.mil] | <urn:uuid:b1bf3a49-d19d-4fa6-bc44-486f6c7b2510> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.catster.com/lifestyle/cat-missing-for-four-years-returned-thanks-to-microchip | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98101 | 185 | 1.570313 | 2 |
This article was originally distributed via PRWeb. PRWeb, WorldNow and this Site make no warranties or representations in connection therewith.
SOURCE: DM Systems, Inc.
Research finds heel pressure ulcers account for 23% of HAPUs, DM Systems notes.
EVANSTON, ILLINOIS (PRWEB) November 18, 2012
A recently published study provides important insights into hospital-acquired heel pressure ulcers, which accounted for 23 percent of the HAPUs identified in the research.
Courtney H. Lyder, ND, and six other co-authors reported on “Hospital-Acquired Pressure Ulcers: Results from the National Medicare Patient Safety Monitoring System” in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
“The research team’s retrospective analysis of nearly 52,000 patients highlights the necessity of national and international efforts to better monitor, prevent and treat pressure ulcers,” DM Systems founder Dr. Denis B. Drennan said.
The study’s conclusion in the journal stated: “Individuals who developed PUs were more likely to die during the hospital stay, have generally longer hospital lengths of stay and be readmitted within 30 days of discharge.”
Around 11 percent of patients with hospital-acquired pressure ulcers died in the hospital, according to the study of 51,842 randomly selected Medicare beneficiaries hospitalized in the United States in 2006 and 2007. The research also found that 15.3 percent of patients with HAPUs died within 30 days of discharge.
Other findings of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services-funded research included HAPU prevalence rates of:
Drennan agreed with the journal article’s assertion that “the data from this study revealed that HAPUs remain a significant problem for hospitalized individuals.” He also noted that the study’s strengths outweigh its limitations.
“Although the researchers were unable to draw a direct cause-and-effect relationship between pressure ulcers and increased hospital mortality rates, the study clearly outlines a direct correlation and, most importantly, provides benchmarks for hospital personnel to use in monitoring and improving their own efforts to combat heel pressure ulcers and similar pressure sores,” Drennan said.
The study abstract is available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1532-5415.2012.04106.x/abstract.
Illinois-based DM Systems manufactures and distributes heel protectors as well as a wide range of wound care products.
For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2012/11/prweb10145608.htm | <urn:uuid:5745e866-d465-4081-88d2-c0a3022b2e6c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kljb.com/story/20129048/new-study-highlights-need-for-ongoing-attention-to-hospital-acquired-pressure-ulcers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915668 | 569 | 2.109375 | 2 |
This page is provided for historical and archival purposes only. While the seminar dates are correct, we offer no guarantee of informational accuracy or link validity. Contact information for the speakers, hosts and seminar committee are certainly out of date.
This talk compares two approaches to understanding how a technology is working. Evaluation typically assumes a technology design has goals, which can be compared with what users (or organizations) actually achieve. I'll talk about a student group's evaluation of the interface to a lunar vehicle as an example. Underlying processes and second order effects often are noticed but not pursued in evaluations. However, evaluations often stimulate research. Research typically assumes that underlying processes and second order effects are interesting and that understanding them can lead to generalizable concepts. I'll talk about research on "human-like" and 3-D interfaces as an example.
BS Simmons College, MS Stanford University and Ph.D. from Ohio State. Dr. Kiesler has a Ph.D. is in psychology, with a concentration in experimental social psychology.
My early work was basic research on group dynamics, communication, and decision making. When Ronald Reagan was elected president, I had just come to CMU and the NSF held up my grant on standards setting groups. So just for fun looked at decision making in electronic groups. Our experiments revealed many interesting phenonmena--processes leading to flaming, electronic group dynamics, changes in decision making, employee participation, and new kinds of teamwork. In 1991, Lee Sproull and I published Connections: New Ways of Working in the Networked Organization (MIT Press), summarizing our research.
My current projects include HomeNet, a field study of families on the Internet; a longitudinal study of how students learn technical teamwork, experimental studies of human-like computers, and studies of illusions of privacy and personal disclosure on computer forms. | <urn:uuid:9d845d91-adde-4af8-8ad8-e1806d3f0546> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/ri-seminar/www/archives/1996.spring/s96-kiesler.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959493 | 378 | 2.3125 | 2 |
In what is believed to be the biggest such theft for decades, Marino Massimo De Caro is accused of stealing a vast haul of rare books from the 17th century Girolamini Library in Naples, including works by Galileo Galilei, the astronomer.
They included “Sidereus Nuncius”, a treatise on astronomy which was first published in Venice in 1610, and “Le Operazioni del Compasso Geometrico e Militare,” written in 1606.
Mr De Caro, who was director of the library for less than a year, allegedly tried to cover his tracks by replacing the stolen Galileo volumes with remarkably authentic-looking facsimiles, produced to such a high quality that experts are baffled as to how he made them.
The looting of the collection was only discovered when Tomaso Montanari, an art historian from Naples’ Federico II University, visited the library by chance in March.
He was horrified to find books strewn around the floor and empty Coca-Cola cans and other rubbish littering the wood-panelled library, which holds around 150,000 books and manuscripts.
He wrote an indignant piece for Il Fatto Quotidiano (The Daily Fact), an Italian newspaper, which prompted 2,000 academics to sign a letter to Lorenzo Ornaghi, the minister for cultural heritage.
They asked why such a valuable library had been entrusted to “a man bereft of even the minimum academic qualifications or professional competence to honour the role”.
Mr De Caro was arrested in May and remanded in custody. He remains in jail while investigators dig deeper into the affair.
He is expected to be charged with theft, embezzlement and criminal association.
Since his arrest the scope of the thefts has become much broader.
He allegedly sold books either directly to collectors or on the open market in Italy and abroad.
A consignment of 450 stolen books which was due to be auctioned in Munich would have fetched more than a million euros, investigators believe.
Some of the leather-bound books that he allegedly purloined have turned up in London, New York and Tokyo.
Another stash of 240 books bearing the library’s distinctive stamp, which features a Madonna figure, was found in a lock-up in the former director’s home town of Verona.
It is also alleged that he stole valuable volumes from libraries in Verona, Padua and from the Abbey of Monte Cassino, the hilltop monastery that was the scene of bitter fighting between German and Allied forces during the Second World War.
It has also been alleged that Mr De Caro lied about his background and his qualifications.
A descendent of the Princes of Lampedusa line, has said the director’s claims of blue blood are false.
“The librarian’s assertions about his descent from the princes of Lampedusa are fabrications,” Prince Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi told Il Mattino newspaper.
He said he had graduated from Siena University and then lectured as a professor at Verona University. It has been reported that both claims are false.
Through his connections he was taken on as a “consultant” at various government ministries, including that of cultural heritage, prompting questions as to why his qualifications were not properly checked.
It is thought he was able to plunder the collection at will because the library has been closed to the public for decades.
He allegedly destroyed index cards in order to make the task of tracking the books much harder.
His alleged actions had “dismembered and mutilated the library, perhaps irreparably,” said Mr Melillo, the public prosecutor.
Four other people have been arrested on suspicion of collaborating with Mr De Caro, including Stephane Delsalle, a French lawyer and bibliophile, and Sandro Marsano, a priest who worked in the library and allegedly deactivated the alarm system so that books could be stolen with ease.
The pilfered books, many of them centuries old, covered subjects as varied as zoology, physics, mathematics and even an early study of Chinese acupuncture.
The thefts have shaken the rarefied world of antiquarian book dealers, with leaders in the field putting out warnings to colleagues to be extremely careful about buying books that might have come from the collection in Naples.
Arnoud Gerits, the head of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers, put out a statement about the “massive theft”.
“It appears to be clear that the stolen books were spread out, via the trade, in several countries in both Europe and elsewhere,” Mr Gerits wrote.
“We would therefore strongly advise our members to check their purchases of — mostly — Italian books from the 15th to the 17th centuries if these volumes were purchased in the time period between January to May of 2012.”
The looting of the library is the latest scandal to erode Italians’ already battered faith in public officials. The head of a tax collection agency was recently accused of stealing more than 100 million euros of tax revenue, while politicians around the country have been accused of embezzling public money to pay for property, parties and expensive holidays. | <urn:uuid:c283ee57-53ce-4f39-bed7-387f3995387b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/9596240/Italian-library-director-accused-of-stealing-works-by-Galileo-and-other-books.html | 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 | 0.977989 | 1,102 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Blightsteel Colossus is indestructible. The rules for indestructable says:
700.4. If a permanent is indestructible, rules and effects can’t destroy it. (See rule 701.6, “Destroy.”) Such permanents are not destroyed by lethal damage, and they ignore the lethal-damage state-based action (see rule 704.5g). Rules or effects may cause an indestructible permanent to be sacrificed, put into a graveyard, or exiled."
The rules for destroy says:
701.6. Destroy 701.6a To destroy a permanent, move it from the battlefield to its owner’s graveyard. 701.6b The only ways a permanent can be destroyed are as a result of an effect that uses the word “destroy” or as a result of the state-based actions that check for lethal damage (see rule 704.5g) or damage from a source with deathtouch (see rule 704.5h). If a permanent is put into its owner’s graveyard for any other reason, it hasn’t been “destroyed.”
Now, the crux of the matter. Pillar of Flame reads:
If a creature dealt damage this way would die this turn, exile it instead
Now, from my understanding of these rules, since the Colossus wouldn't die since it's indestructable, if they got enough lethal damage on it with Pillar of Flames being used on it, the colossus wouldn't be exiled since it would not die. Is my understanding correct? | <urn:uuid:8d1bd648-06bc-4c79-b6fe-42b011f1d73c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/7843/would-pillar-of-flames-get-rid-of-a-blightsteel-colossus | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926969 | 334 | 1.734375 | 2 |
It wasn’t specified if there were any kind of ceremonies for the first water being pumped from Oneonta’s new, larger reservoir in the early part of November 1887. By looking at newspaper coverage, the event quietly passed, but it didn’t stop this historian from using his imagination in a humorous way, if there had been festivities.
The new reservoir is today’s Wilber Lake, part of the city’s water supply found on Wilber Lake Road. Apparently some fish just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, according to The Oneonta Herald of Nov. 10, 1887, when some water was being released.
“So much annoyance was experienced at the new water reservoir in pumping water, by fish getting into the pipe, that the accumulated water was recently run off. Bushels of fish were captured.”
Imagine if there had been a ceremony. A band is playing, the village president throws the lever, and the crowd hears a rumbling sound, anticipating water to rush from the big release pipe beneath the dam. Then, nothing, except for a few drops of water. A water crew worker approaches the pipe, looks up and sees a bunch of fish, stuck, wiggling and staring back at him. At least some people ate well for the next few days.
Enough of the imagination. The reality was that it was a time of big growth for Oneonta in 1887, with plenty more to come in the next several years. The village needed additional water to meet the demands of more residents and new industry, as well as a new Normal School, which ground had been broken for that year.
A smaller reservoir had been completed in 1882 on upper East Street, but due to the growth of the village and a severe drought in 1886, the Oneonta Water Works, a privately owned organization, decided to expand the water supply.
Another private enterprise, the Couse Water Works, owned by William H. Couse, was also expanding that year. Couse, who owned a farm on today’s East End, supplied water to several residents of that part of the town. It was reported Couse had been laying several hundred more feet of pipe to meet an increasing demand.
According to the Herald of April 21, 1887, the new reservoir would be about two miles above the existing reservoir on Oneonta Creek, about four miles from the village. The company contracted with landowners in the Richardson Hill area, as the construction would take out four dwellings, two hop houses, a sawmill, barn, and wagon house. The capacity of the new reservoir would add about 500 million gallons of water, nearly 25 times the capacity of the present reservoir. The total cost was estimated at between $30,000 and $40,000.
Work began in May, and on July 6, The Oneonta Daily Local reported, “There are about 70 Italians at work and 20 teams drawing dirt. They expect to double this number shortly to enable them to complete it by fall.” Italian immigrants were widely used in many major construction projects of that time, such as railroads, as an inexpensive labor force.
While construction was going on, the dam building became a spectator event for visitors. “Most residents of the village have but a faint idea of the extent of the proposed reservoir,” the Herald commented, “and the visit to the place is necessary in order to properly appreciate what a vast body of water is soon to be held in reserve for the use of the people of Oneonta village.”
The Herald also suggested that the roads leading to the area of the reservoir be graded better, giving “greater the desirability of a residence along it.”
The new reservoir was functional by late 1887, but work wasn’t complete. The Daily Local said on Nov. 21 that, “On Saturday noon work was suspended … until next spring. About eight feet more of the stone work on the dam is left unfinished. The Italians have gone into winter quarters.”
The Oneonta Water Works existed until 1923, when the City of Oneonta bought out the interests of David and George I. Wilber, who had a majority control.
On Monday: a bit of life and times at Christmas in 1987.
City Historian Mark Simonson’s column appears twice weekly. On Saturdays, his column focuses on the area during the Depression and before. His Monday columns address local history after the Depression. If you have feedback or ideas about the column, write to him at The Daily Star, or email him at firstname.lastname@example.org. His website is www.oneontahistorian.com. His columns can be found at www.thedailystar.com/marksimonson. | <urn:uuid:5983201b-723f-43a8-b56f-02acd9a92343> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thedailystar.com/marksimonson/x983997532/Oneontas-water-supply-expanded-in-1887 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979944 | 1,003 | 2.859375 | 3 |
New LEED core-and-shell certification pays dividends in Chicago.
In 2000, when architects Goettsch Partners were approached to design a 1.5 million-square-foot office building in downtown Chicago, they were tasked with creating a building that would have a positive impact on the developer's bottom line, not one that would reduce impact on the environment. Developers constructing spec office buildings have had little motivation to consider the long-term implications of their methods and materials, typically leaving sustainable design up to the companies that build-out the spaces they lease.
Now savvy customers and LEED-CS, a new core-and-shell certification by the U.S. Green Building Council, are giving commercial developers plenty of incentive to help protect the planet. When it was completed in 2005, the Chicago office building at 111 S. Wacker Dr., designed by Goettsch Partners, was the first building to achieve LEED-CS Gold certification. The new certification is awarded to office buildings based on points earned for sustainable design in energy efficiency, access to public transit and building envelope construction.
The building boasts a green roof made of hardy grasses, reused caissons and foundation walls, low-flow plumbing, programmable light switches, and low-emissions finish materials – including Sherwin-Williams no-VOC Harmony® coatings, which were used on the interior.
The environmentally sensitive design evolved as the architects and developer John Buck Co. weighed the benefits of it, well before LEED-CS was offered. The developer initially prioritized real estate performance and aesthetic design over sustainability and at first wasn't convinced that tenants would pay a premium for leasing a green building, but according to Goettsch Partners' Matt Larson, the developer nonetheless decided to take a sustainable approach "because it was right."
The developer's foresight has paid off. It widely promotes its LEED certification to attract tenants – including posting a copy of the official certificate at the building's reception desk – and recently sold the building at one of the highest dollar-per-square-foot prices of any building in Chicago.
"I think tenants recognize the importance of the sustainable design," says Larson. Clearly, so do more and more commercial developers and their architectural firms. Since 111 S. Wacker earned its LEED-CS Gold certification, an additional 150 office buildings across the country have followed suit.
The "green" momentum is just beginning, says Larson. "What will be great is when everyone simply adopts sustainability as a natural and expected part of the design process." | <urn:uuid:43e782ef-7b58-415d-9368-71f8d69ed7c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sherwin-williams.com/architects-specifiers-designers/facility-solutions/commercial/project-profiles/sw-article-pro-greeningenvelop.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964405 | 521 | 1.710938 | 2 |
In a small residential community, learning happens not only in the classrooms, but also in the residence halls, on the playing fields and wherever students congregate.
To enhance both formal and informal learning opportunities, we will renew the campus by renovating classrooms, residence halls and gathering spaces. At the same time, we will develop new educational programming in the residence halls and new roles for faculty in the residences.
Students learn by facing and resolving differences, participating in the governance of the College and developing a personal understanding of the Honor Code. Our students will take the skills of citizenship to a new level – a critically important capability in an increasingly complex world.
Download the Residential Education brochure (pdf). | <urn:uuid:35bfb65c-523d-4ac8-befa-eccc3be6f581> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.conncoll.edu/campaign/campaign-initiatives/residential-education/ | 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 | 0.933523 | 140 | 1.914063 | 2 |
Beyond Interfaith Marriages to Multifaith Marriages
“Multifaith” is to interfaith as self-definition is to a throw rug. Self-definition is essential to personal maturity; a throw rug is not. Self-definition means you remain a Christian even if married to a Jew, or vice versa. Self-definition is that glorious arrangement of you being you. Socrates understood it as self-knowledge; Erikson understood identity as a certain consistency over time. You don’t blend so much as mature. You become more yourself by engaging more in articulated difference. You are not tossed about; you toss your identity freely and unapologetically into the room. A throw rug is an intentionally snarky contrast: it is lightweight. It can be moved anywhere. In the throw rug design of a room, you move things about according to the whim of the room’s use. You move it out or keep it in. You shake it out easily. In a tossed-about identity, you give permission to someone else to tell you who you are and to put you there or somewhere.
In self-definition you risk becoming yourself over time. Most people say they want to “be themselves” after they are married as though that were neither obvious nor normal. There is defensiveness to the “Be Myself” talk. Sometimes it shows up religiously and spiritually as well. We don’t have to blend or lose to marry beyond our cradle faith. Instead, we may be who we were and are and will be—while enjoying intimacy with a truly different person. Interfaith tends toward blend; multifaith turns toward self-definition, without the defensiveness. By the way, blend can be lovely too, especially if you and your partner choose so to do from the heart of themselves. Interfaith is as much a possibly chosen identity as multifaith.
Let me tell you a story. The couple involved a Palestinian refugee and a Jewish Princess. These are their words for themselves. They self-define in these ways. Her parents were divorced twice so she has a biological mother and father as well as two stepmothers and two stepfathers. His father is a non-observant Muslim, a secularized Palestinian dentist living in Detroit for thirty years. Nevertheless, this father is requiring that the bride convert to Islam so as not to embarrass the family at the wedding service. She has agreed. (We all bow all the time to all sorts of things, so please keep your holier-than-thou hat off.)
As we have struggled with the difficulty and hypocrisy of this requirement, we have had to ask the question of the First Commandment. The First Commandment for Jews and Christians is to love God above all. To what do we bow down if we are unbelievers or sort of believers or Jews whose fathers have the biggest Christmas tree in Westchester? We bow down to the God beyond God or the center that is deeper than the well. The groom in this situation tells his family that he will convert to Judaism if his father maintains the requirement that she convert to Islam. My two friends could have stopped their search for a spiritual home or something the far side of religious hypocrisy at any point. They could have said no to both of their homes because both of their homes had said no to them. Instead they said yes to both and showed me a way beyond the word “interfaith” to a better one, which is “multifaith.” Neither tossed their identity on the floor: instead, they found a good joke, that of mutual conversion, to begin the process they have now maintained in their marriage, of her being her kind of Jew and he being his kind of Palestinian.
Many people talk about interfaith marriage today as though it was the new normal. It’s not nor will it be until we change the language of faith. “Interfaith” is not something a marriage or a person can be. We are still in the twenty-first century and we have parochial homes. A cradle Christian doesn’t stop being a Christian because she marries a Jew nor vice versa. Self-definition is normal, possible, obvious—and intimately necessary.
You can’t really stop being Irish or Mexican. It is hard to leave the Lutheran or Muslim in you behind. Plus, why would you? Multifaith marriages mean that both partners stay the same and become more, not that they blend into a mush. Interfaith describes the mush that marks the typical “Ecumenical Thanksgiving” service the night before the turkey. Everybody says a little something, and nobody says much that is memorable. People stay lavender to avoid the purple. Multifaith is to interfaith as paisley is to white. Multifaith means that we do more than blanch, that Jews do more than “tolerate” Muslims, and women do more than assume “that’s just the way men are.” We deepen into ourselves and our own identity as a way to deepen into others. We become not just open but also affirming about our religious identities. Multifaith means intimacy within great diversity, not just great diversity and not just great intimacy. People add more than they give up when it comes to the world of multifaith marriages.
Ah, what about the children? There is no worse curse for a child than a faded parent. The children will be fine if and only as the parents are religiously honest. The parents have more of a chance of reconciling with their own parents if they respect their multiple origins. The words “elder” and “ancestor” come to mind. Moreover, it is the “children” who will pioneer the new way, not the parents. They will go to colleges where “Spiritual Life Centers” have replaced chapels and they will know when to take their shoes off and when to put their crosses on. Things will change religiously and our multifaith offspring will make the changes. Never forget how important people thought it was that John Kennedy was a Catholic president or that Colin Powell wanted to know “So what if he is?” when people asked about Barack Obama being of Muslim heritage. Things do change.
Multifaith marriages will bring us to the place where some of our best friends are indeed Muslim, where we befriend our own sources, and become something our ancestors couldn’t recognize. Religions, cultures, and identities are always changing and marriages are frequently the front line of these changes.
Just look back at the enormous conversation around Catholic-Protestant marriages that people knew in the middle of this century. Many people reported telling their Protestant parents that they were marrying a Catholic and watching the parents faint. The same was true the other way around. Yes, my Jewish husband’s mother took to her bed for three days when he announced he was marrying me, a cradle Lutheran. She sat Shiva. But she also got up out of her bed and blessed us. Many Catholics report having to give up their parents for years to go forward with their love. Many Protestants report that the new Catholic in their family was not “accepted” for dozens of years. Remarkably, today we still notice a Catholic-Protestant union but don’t anticipate awful suffering for those joining together. There is a success to the multifaith marriage that we have observed in our own lives: people can worship separately and live separate spiritual lives and still be married. Simultaneously, it should be noted that many people who do the “multifaith” family pattern miss each other on Sunday mornings or Friday nights or during the High Holy Days or at the Christmas mass. Couples need to know how much diversity they want as well as how much self-definition.
While multifaith might be our destination culturally and spiritually, there are steps along the way. Some couples will suffer rejection. Others will fight for family blessings. Still others will decide to blend because they don’t like being apart religiously. Many Episcopalians will tell you they are there for the blend of Protestant and Catholic, as will many Unitarians and Buddhists talk about what happened when a Christian and a Jew came together in love. There is no right way to be a multifaith couple! Missing the mass for a lifetime is not a great objective for a “mixed” marriage. Nor is “nothing” the answer when couples clash about where to baptize the children. What matters is the intimacy of the self-definition – and the freedom to say who you are to someone else. | <urn:uuid:3a017ea9-0cd1-487b-bfbb-4f19c0e9f7cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/beyond-interfaith-marriages-to-multifaith-marriages | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971131 | 1,787 | 1.898438 | 2 |
Your doctor will ask questions such as:
- When did you first notice that your skin seemed more wrinkled than normal?
- Has it changed in any way?
- Has a skin spot become painful or does it bleed?
- What other symptoms are you having?
The doctor will examine your skin. You may need a skin lesion biopsy if you have any abnormal growths or skin changes.
Tretinoin (Retin-A) or creams containing alpha-hydroxy acids may sometimes help.
Chemical peels or laser resurfacing work well for early wrinkles.
Creams with growth factors may make fine lines and wrinkles look better.
Botulinum toxin (Botox) may be used to correct some of the wrinkles that are caused by overactive facial muscles.
Some people choose plastic surgery for age-related wrinkles (for example, a facelift). | <urn:uuid:b89ee447-1f27-478e-986f-f88753ce82cb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pennmedicine.org/encyclopedia/em_DisplayArticle.aspx?gcid=003252&ptid=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909775 | 186 | 2.078125 | 2 |
ACLU Calls On Obama To Close Guantánamo On Day One Of Presidency
Group Launches Campaign Urging New Administration To Restore Fundamental Rights And Reclaim America’s Moral Leadership
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 10, 2008 CONTACT: Rachel Myers, (212) 549-2689 or 2666; firstname.lastname@example.org
Obama, as a candidate, pledged to “close Guantánamo, reject the Military Commissions Act and adhere to the Geneva Conventions.” In a full page ad in the New York Times today, the ACLU urges Obama, as president, to fulfill those promises and immediately restore
“There is no room for patience or delay in these areas. We have to hold President-elect Obama’s feet to the fire if we’re going to turn hope into reality,” said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. “We hope that President-elect Obama, as soon as he is sworn in, will take bold action and sign an executive order closing Guantánamo and ending the sham military commissions there. It is time to restore American values of justice, due process and human rights.”
In addition to ordering the closure of Guantánamo, the ACLU calls on President-elect Obama to sign Day One executive orders banning the use of torture and abuse and ending the practice of extraordinary rendition.
“We welcome the end to a Bush administration that is leaving behind a disastrous legacy of civil liberties violations, abuse of power and executive overreaching, there is no room for complacency,” said Romero. “We are hopeful that President Obama will honor the U.S. Constitution and passionately promote all the rights for which it stands.”
In addition to the ad in the New York Times, the ACLU launched a new Web site where it will premiere a series of short videos about Guantánamo produced in partnership with Brave New Foundation, a leading producer of online videos about today’s most pressing issues. The videos will feature interviews with attorneys, former prison guards and released prisoners, some of whom will be speaking publicly for the first time.
“We’ve all seen the reports in the news about the tragedy that is
On November 13, the ACLU will hold a nationwide telephone town hall with supporters and activists from across the country to discuss the state of civil liberties transitioning from the Bush administration to the Obama administration. The call will be moderated by Romero and Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. A question and answer period will follow the discussion.
More information about the town hall is available online at: www.aclu.org/townhall
The new ACLU Web site goes live with the first video today at: www.closegitmo.com
Romero has posted a statement about the ACLU’s campaign at: blog.aclu.org/2008/11/10/obama-close-gitmo-on-day-one-you-can-do-it-weve-got -your-back/
If you would rather not receive future email messages from American Civil Liberties
American Civil Liberties Union, 125 Broad Street 18th Floor, | <urn:uuid:f31b6250-e828-4fa1-97ce-01d336e6a05d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zcommunications.org/aclu-calls-on-obama-to-close-guant-namo-on-day-one-of-presidency-by-aclu | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902383 | 666 | 1.546875 | 2 |
The Obesity-Hunger Paradox
By SAM DOLNICK
Published: March 14, 2010
WHEN most people think of hunger in America, the images that leap to mind are of ragged toddlers in Appalachia or rail-thin children in dingy apartments reaching for empty bottles of milk.
But a recent survey found that the most severe hunger-related problems in the nation are in the South Bronx, long one of the country's capitals of obesity. Experts say these are not parallel problems persisting in side-by-side neighborhoods, but plagues often seen in the same households, even the same person: the hungriest people in America today, statistically speaking, may well be not sickly skinny, but excessively fat.
Call it the Bronx Paradox.
''Hunger and obesity are often flip sides to the same malnutrition coin,'' said Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. ''Hunger is certainly almost an exclusive symptom of poverty. And extra obesity is one of the symptoms of poverty.''
The Bronx has the city's highest rate of obesity, with residents facing an estimated 85 percent higher risk of being obese than people in Manhattan, according to Andrew G. Rundle, an epidemiologist at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.
But the Bronx also faces stubborn hunger problems. According to a surveyreleased in January by the Food Research and Action Center, an antihunger group, nearly 37 percent of residents in the 16th Congressional District, which encompasses the South Bronx, said they lacked money to buy food at some point in the past 12 months. That is more than any other Congressional district in the country and twice the national average, 18.5 percent, in the fourth quarter of 2009.
Such studies present a different way to look at hunger: not starving, but ''food insecure,'' as the researchers call it (the Department of Agriculture in 2006 stopped using the word ''hunger'' in its reports). This might mean simply being unable to afford the basics, unable to get to the grocery or unable to find fresh produce among the pizza shops, doughnut stores and fried-everything restaurants of East Fordham Road.
Precious, the character at the center of the Academy Award-winning movie by the same name, would probably count as food insecure even though she is severely obese (her home, Harlem, ranks 49th on the survey's list, with 24.1 percent of residents saying they lacked money for food in the previous year). There she is stealing a family-size bucket of fried chicken from a fast-food restaurant. For breakfast.
That it is greasy chicken, and that she vomits it up in a subsequent scene, points to the problem that experts call a key bridge between hunger and obesity: the scarcity of healthful options in low-income neighborhoods and the unlikelihood that poor, food-insecure people like Precious would choose them.
Full-service, reasonably priced supermarkets are rare in impoverished neighborhoods, and the ones that are there tend to carry more processed foods than seasonal fruits and vegetables. A 2008 study by the city government showed that 9 of the Bronx's 12 community districts had too few supermarkets, forcing huge swaths of the borough to rely largely on unhealthful, but cheap, food.
''When you're just trying to get your calorie intake, you're going to get what fills your belly,'' said Mr. Berg, the author of ''All You Can Eat: How Hungry Is America?'' ''And that may make you heavier even as you're really struggling to secure enough food.''
For the center's survey, Gallup asked more than 530,000 people across the nation a single question: ''Have there been times in the past 12 months when you did not have enough money to buy food that you or your family needed?''
The unusually large sample size allowed researchers to zero in on trouble spots like the South Bronx.
New York's 10th Congressional District, which zigzags across Brooklyn and includes neighborhoods like East New York and Bedford-Stuyvesant, ranked sixth in the survey, and Newark ranked ninth, both with about 31 percent of residents showing food hardship. (At the state level, the South is the hungriest: Mississippi tops the list at 26 percent, followed by Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana, the Carolinas and Oklahoma. New York ranks 27th, with 17.4 percent; New Jersey is 41st, with 15.5 percent; and Connecticut is 47th, with 14.6 percent.)
The survey, conducted over the past two years, showed that food hardship peaked at 19.5 percent nationwide in the fourth quarter of 2008, as the economic crisis gripped the nation. It dropped to 17.9 percent by the summer of 2009, then rose to 18.5 percent.
Though this was the first year that the center did such a survey, it used a question similar to one the Department of Agriculture has been asking for years. The most recent survey by the agency, from 2008, found that 14.6 percent of Americans had low to very low food security.
Bloomberg administration officials see hunger and obesity as linked problems that can be addressed in part by making healthful food more affordable.
''It's a subtle, complicated link, but they're very much linked, so the strategic response needs to be linked in various ways,'' said Linda I. Gibbs, the deputy mayor for health and human services. ''We tackle the challenge on three fronts -- providing income supports, increasing healthy options and encouraging nutritious behavior.''
To that end, the city offers a Health Bucks program that encourages people to spend their food stamps at farmers' markets by giving them an extra $2 coupon for every $5 spent there.
The city has also created initiatives to send carts selling fresh fruits and vegetables to poor neighborhoods, and to draw grocery stores carrying fresh fruit and produce to low-income areas by offering them tax credits and other incentives. The city last month announced the first recipients of those incentives: a Foodtown store that burned down last year will be rebuilt and expanded in the Norwood section of the Bronx, and a Western Beef store near the Tremont subway station will be expanded.
But the Bronx's hunger and obesity problems are not simply related to the lack of fresh food. Experts point to a swirling combination of factors that are tied to, and exacerbated by, poverty.
Poor people ''often work longer hours and work multiple jobs, so they tend to eat on the run,'' said Dr. Rundle of Columbia. ''They have less time to work out or exercise, so the deck is really stacked against them.''
Indeed, the food insecurity study is hardly the first statistical measure in which the Bronx lands on the top -- or, in reality, the bottom. The borough's 14.1 percent unemployment rate is the highest in the state. It is one of the poorest counties in the nation. And it was recently ranked the unhealthiest of New York's 62 counties.
''If you look at rates of obesity, diabetes, poor access to grocery stores, poverty rates, unemployment and hunger measures, the Bronx lights up on all of those,'' said Triada Stampas of the Food Bank for New York City. ''They're all very much interconnected.''
PHOTO: FAST FOOD: Experts say a key bridge between hunger and obesity is the scarcity of healthful options in low-income areas. (PHOTOGRAPH BY J. EMILIO FLORES FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)
GRAPHIC: Can't Afford Food: The 16th Congressional District in the South Bronx had more people reporting they couldn't afford food than any other district in the country, according to a Gallup survey. Nearby are districts at the opposite end of the spectrum; Congressional districts with the highest and lowest proportion of respondents with food hardship (Source: Food Research and Action Center) | <urn:uuid:6e1c423d-fb88-4345-b901-ecf64181fbc9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04EEDE1F3AF937A25750C0A9669D8B63&fta=y | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954188 | 1,616 | 2.890625 | 3 |
THE social and economic costs of problem gambling will be under the spotlight in a new state government inquiry.
Victorian gamblers lose $5billion a year on all gambling. They lost more than $25billion on pokies alone in the past decade.
The Victorian Competition and Efficiency Commission (VCEC) will examine direct and indirect welfare, justice and health costs, along with costs to business and the impact of gambling-related crime.
Losses from pokies in the City of Maribyrnong were more than $56million last financial year, Melbourne's third-highest rate per adult ($985).
Losses are particularly high in Braybrook ($16.6million), the second-most-disadvantaged suburb in the state.
A recent UnitingCare study showed pokies players in the Maribyrnong federal electorate lose an average of a quarter of their income on the machines.
The Productivity Commission estimates problem gamblers account for about 40per cent of poker machine losses.
Public health advocate Charles Livingstone, of Monash University, said proving the cost of problem gambling had always been a difficult task and the gambling industry was often unwilling to accept findings. "We've have a long history of having inquiries and not a hell of a lot changes. The problem is, a lot of the costs are intangible."
VCEC will consult with responsible gambling and welfare organisations, health and community groups, the gambling industry, business and relevant government agencies.
Treasurer Kim Wells said the inquiry was promised at the 2010 election. "The inquiry will contribute to an important body of knowledge and better inform the community of the costs of problem gambling, not just to individuals but to families, businesses and government."
The state government stands accused of being dependent on the proceeds of gambling taxes, due to reach more than $1.8 billion this financial year. Gaming Minister Michael O'Brien said this revenue was often the focus of debate about gambling regulation, but more needed to be known about the economic costs of problem gambling.
"We know through involvement with the criminal justice system, mental health and social welfare services, that problem gambling imposes a significant cost on government and others in the community," Mr O'Brien said.
The final report is due by December 14. | <urn:uuid:d9746454-e246-46b1-b04d-0c820947b22d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.maribyrnongweekly.com.au/story/282922/pokies-under-review/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959265 | 469 | 1.851563 | 2 |
Harrison, C. (2006) 'Rethinking Augustine's early works : an argument for continuity.', Oxford: Oxford University Press.
The following text is taken from the publisher's website. "Challenges the almost universally accepted interpretation of the development of Augustine's theology Proposes a new thesis, arguing for a fundamental continuity in Augustine's belief and practice from the moment of his conversion, and so enhances a major scholarly debate Resists the general trend to begin reading Augustine with his Confessions (396) and argues for the importance of the works written in the decade before, immediately following his conversion Carol Harrison counters the assumption that Augustine of Hippo's (354-430) theology underwent a revolutionary transformation around the time he was consecrated Bishop in 396. Instead, she argues that there is a fundamental continuity in his thought and practice from the moment of his conversion in 386. The book thereby challenges the general scholarly trend to begin reading Augustine with his Confessions (396), which were begun ten years after his conversion, and refocuses attention on his earlier works, which undergird his whole theological system."
|Keywords:||Early, Medieval church, Revolution of 386, Confessions.|
|Full text:||Full text not available from this repository.|
|Publisher Web site:||http://www.oup.com/uk/catalogue/?ci=9780199281664|
|Record Created:||28 Jul 2006|
|Last Modified:||08 Apr 2009 16:22|
|Social bookmarking:||Export: EndNote, Zotero | BibTex|
|Usage statistics||Look up in GoogleScholar | Find in a UK Library| | <urn:uuid:73f0bd1d-448a-45e4-9495-154e02960ebb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dro.dur.ac.uk/549/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922494 | 346 | 1.695313 | 2 |
IO::Pipe is available in windows with current perl version installed.
But I do not know how to use it to resolve.
Can you please let me know the design such that the same telnet object can be used in two processes?
Thanks in advance....
Note that the link you have is to a ripped off version of the old O'Reilly CD Bookshelf hosted in a country where copyright law is likely nonexistent. Some of the authors are contributors to this site. If I were you I'd remove the link. Just saying. | <urn:uuid:65269ac3-27e2-40ae-b7e6-efeffe553efb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node_id=1021777 | 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 | 0.944854 | 112 | 1.609375 | 2 |
The education research community now recognizes what many parents have long believed — namely, that of all the factors schools can control, teachers matter most. [*] Policymakers, in turn, are starting to pay attention. The No Child Left Behind Act has attempted to make teacher quality a national priority by requiring all states to certify that students are being taught by "highly qualified" teachers.
However, the characteristics that are used to designate a teacher as highly qualified may not be the ones that actually affect student achievement. While it is true that Michigan students learn a variety of skills in their time at school, perhaps the most important charge of public schools, beyond providing a safe and healthy environment, is to ensure that students are learning their three R’s. Unfortunately, the achievement levels of Michigan public school students raise doubts about the quality of public education in the state. This volume has been written to assist policymakers at the state and local levels who want to initiate and support teacher quality reforms to improve K-12 public education in the state.
Many of Michigan’s teachers are truly outstanding, and recommending that policymakers focus on improving the quality of the teaching work force is not an indictment of Michigan’s teachers. In fact, it is because we recognize how important teachers truly are to Michigan’s students that they are the focus of this work. Perhaps the best way for the state to improve education for its 1.7 million students is to institute greater competition in the form of universal school choice.[†] However, until the state amends its constitution to permit this reform, Michigan policymakers should focus on improving the input most likely to raise the return on their high level of investment in the short term: teachers. Moreover, even when high-quality school choice is more readily available in the state, the teacher quality reforms suggested in this work can be undertaken as complementary reforms. [**] School choice initiatives and reforming teacher incentives are not mutually exclusive.
In the pages that follow, I begin by describing shortcomings in public education in the state. Next, I briefly describe the research consensus that good teachers matter and explore whether certification, experience, graduate degrees, academic ability and high licensure exam scores make teachers more effective in the classroom. Before using these findings to recommend particular teacher quality reforms, I discuss whether class-size reductions and across-the-board pay raises, two other popular reforms, might be more efficient ways to improve student achievement. Ultimately, the teacher quality reforms described here should help local and state policymakers encourage good teaching and raise student achievement. The book draws on extensive research literature and comprehensive reports to remain current with the latest findings.
The first step in reforming teacher quality is to redefine what being a highly qualified teacher truly means. The words "highly qualified" should no longer refer to a teacher with extensive pedagogical training or years of experience; they should refer to a teacher whose work improves student learning. This redefinition informs our recommendations, which include the following:
Change the teacher compensation structure by instituting "performance pay" for teachers and rewarding them for gains in student achievement as measured on standardized tests. This merit-based pay structure will motivate existing teachers and attract high-quality undergraduates and career-changers.
Adopt differential pay, which provides financial rewards to teachers in high-demand fields, such as math and science.
Lower barriers to entry for career-changers through more reasonable alternative certification programs than Michigan has now.
Evaluate teachers annually based on principal observations and student achievement gains; loosen restrictions on terminating ineffective teachers; and de-emphasize professional development as it is currently conceived.
Note that these are feasible reforms. Although they may require renegotiating union contracts or changing state certification laws, they do not require constitutional amendments or statewide initiatives. They can be instituted at the first opportunity.
To that end, this book emphasizes reforms immediately available to local school boards or possible through relatively modest changes to state law. Most of these reforms therefore dwell on encouraging quality instruction — and discouraging poor instruction — once teachers have entered the school system. I spend less time on teacher preparation reforms and other restructuring that might improve the quality of candidates entering the teaching work force. Such areas of reform, while also important, would extend well beyond the public school system and require a more extensive discussion than can be provided here.
Yet an important message remains: Teachers are key to student learning. Education policymakers can no longer afford to ignore the reality that teachers respond to incentives and that policies that protect low-performing teachers at the expense of student achievement — and other teachers — need to be replaced.[‡] Michigan’s children deserve no less.
[*] Dan Goldhaber recently summarized teachers’ impact in this way: "Education research convincingly shows that teacher quality is the most important schooling factor influencing student achievement." See Dan D. Goldhaber, "Teacher Pay Reforms" (Center for American Progress: The Political Implications of Recent Research, December 2006), 4, www.americanprogress.org/issues/2006/12/pdf/teacher_pay_report.pdf (accessed June 26, 2008).
[†] For information about school choice, see Matthew J. Brouillette, "School Choice in Michigan: A Primer for Freedom in Education" (Mackinac Center for Public Policy, 1999), 1-66, www.mackinac.org/archives/1999/s1999-06.pdf (accessed May 7, 2008). See also Lawrence W. Reed, "A New Direction for Education Reform" (Mackinac Center for Public Policy, 2001), www.mackinac.org/3541 (accessed May 8, 2008).
[**] For a discussion of how other education reforms are compatible with greater school choice, see Jay P. Greene’s commentary in Jay P. Greene et al., "Is School Choice Enough?" (City Journal, 2008), www.city-journal.org/2008/forum0124.html (accessed May 8, 2008).
[‡] This report does not address the specific strategies and research related to improving teacher quality for specialized instructors including: reading teachers, ESL teachers or special education teachers. | <urn:uuid:b949198a-ff86-4587-bae0-9cf08b395ae3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mackinac.org/9577 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945255 | 1,271 | 2.375 | 2 |
President Barack Obama on Wednesday announced his support for gay marriage, becoming the first sitting U.S. President to endorse equal status for same-sex couples and responding to building pressure to clarify his position as his re-election campaign gets underway.
“I’ve always been adamant that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly and equally,” Obama told ABC’s Robin Roberts in an interview at the White House Wednesday afternoon. “Over the course of several years, as I’ve talked to friends and family and neighbors,” he said, “at a certain point, I’ve just concluded that, for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”
Even before the announcement, Obama had done more to promote gay causes than any other U.S. President. But until Wednesday, he had disappointed many supporters by opposing same-sex marriage, even as he supported civil unions and pushed policies that reversed discrimination against gays. His stance on the topic — his views were “evolving,” he said – was widely considered a hedge to avoid reigniting the culture wars during a tense campaign season. ”I had hesitated on gay marriage in part because I thought civil unions would be sufficient,” Obama said Wednesday. Despite his personal shift, Obama said Wednsday he still supports states’ right to decide the issue.
The President’s waffling did little to deter gay donors, who are donating millions to his fight against Mitt Romney. But Obama’s advisers may have decided it was unsustainable. Supporters and the media have clamored for Obama to clarify his stance in the wake of statements by Vice President Joe Biden and Education Secretary Arne Duncan in support of gay marriage. And his muddled message clashed with the image his aides want to nurture, of a President driven by moral imperatives and strong convictions rather than political headwinds.
For his part, Romney reaffirmed in an interview with a Colorado television station earlier Wednesday that he opposed the practice. “When these issues were raised in my state of Massachusetts, I indicated my view, which is I do not favor marriage between people of the same gender, and I do not favor civil unions if they are identical to marriage other than by name,” Romney said. “My view is the domestic partnership benefits, hospital visitation rights, and the like are appropriate, but that the others are not.” Romney has also pledged to support a federal constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
It seems crude to bring up electoral politics in a moment of special resonance for millions of Americans. But Obama’s vacillations on gay marriage have always been inextricably tied to his political interests.
In 1996, while running for the Illinois state senate, Obama stated on a candidate questionnaire that he “favor[ed] legalizing same-sex marriage, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.” By 2004, the year he burst onto the national stage with a stirring convention speech whose post-partisan themes exalted political independence, he had arrived at the belief that such arrangements contravened his “religious faith.” When he ran for the Democratic nomination for President in 2008, he supported civil unions. Midway through his first term, he began signaling that his position was “evolving.”
Conservative fever dreams about Obama becoming unhinged in a second term – wherein the President would steal their guns, trample liberties and so forth – have always been rooted in little more than paranoia. Gay marriage is an exception. Obama’s words and deeds in his first term have suggested he might back legalization of gay marriage in his second, when he no longer needed to keep an eye on the polls. The President began his career as a proponent of marriage equality, and has taken numerous steps during his Oval Office tenure to eradicate discrimination against gays, including instructing the Justice Department not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act to backing the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
Does it matter to gay rights activists that Obama was dragged to a momentous declaration by external pressures? Not one iota. “Everybody in politics, and in life, is entitled to their journey on this issue,” says Richard Socarides, a Democratic strategist and founder of the gay-rights organization Equality Matters. Obama’s journey just happened to be driven by political concerns.
Gay-marriage advocates hailed the decision as a pivotal victory in an ongoing fight. “The President’s support marks a historic turning point for the freedom to marry movement,” said Evan Wolfson, founder of the gay-rights group Freedom to Marry. “Yet there is much left to be done. Forty-four states continue to exclude same-sex couples from marriage and because of the federal so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the civil marriages of thousands of same-sex couples are not respected by the federal government, thus depriving families of a crucial safety-net of federal protections and responsibilities. It is time to repeal discriminatory laws that hurt families and help no one and speed passage of freedom to marry laws throughout the country.”
North Carolina’s ban, which socially conservative blacks joined Republicans in backing, maintained gay marriage’s poor electoral record. The topic has appeared 32 times on state ballots since 1998, and voters have opposed it everytime – including in comparatively progressive states like California and Oregon.
But attitudes toward gay marriages have shifted sharply during the past decade. In 2001, as a Pew study shows, Americans opposed same-sex marriage by a massive 57% to 35% margin. Today the U.S. is effectively split; last year, a Gallup poll revealed, for the first time, that a majority of Americans supported marriage equality. The concept is overwhelmingly backed by young voters who often skip state ballot initiatives – a fact that may help account for the gay-rights lobby’s miserable showing at the ballot box over the years. At the same time, polls have a history of overestimating levels of support for gay marriage, a fact Jensen chalks up to respondents’ desire to conceal their biases.
“Obama’s going to sink or swim on the economy,” he says. “I just don’t think many people are going to be voting on gay marriage this fall.” In the end, the President’s position on gay marriage may not have much affect on his political fortunes, or the legal rights of gays living in states where same-sex marriage is outlawed. But it is nonetheless a momentous milestone for millions of Americans. | <urn:uuid:17dabd61-f560-45af-9622-f1b6097917e9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://swampland.time.com/2012/05/09/obama-endorses-gay-marriage-i-think-same-sex-couples-should-be-able-to-get-married/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975089 | 1,389 | 2.0625 | 2 |
NCWO endorses Sonia Sotomayor for U.S. Supreme Court
National Council of Women’s Organizations endorses Sonia Sotomayor for U.S. Supreme Court
Susan Scanlan, chair of the 12-million member National Council of Women’s Organizations (NCWO), today issued a strong endorsement of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the U.S. Supreme Court.
“We have examined Judge Sotomayor’s record, reviewed her unparalleled qualifications, marveled at her compelling personal story, and watched her impressive performance before the Senate Judiciary Committee. She offers more experience on the federal bench than any nominee in the past century. There can be no doubt that President Obama–like Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton before him-- has chosen wisely and well in nominating her to the highest court in the land.”
Urging the Senate to swiftly approve this daughter of Puerto Rican immigrants, Scanlan noted that Sotomayor’s life represents the classic American dream: through hard work, sacrifice, diligence, determination—and despite overwhelming odds—a woman can reach the top rung of the ladder.
“What could be of greater significance to American women than confirming this superb jurist?” Scanlan asked. “In 220 years and out of 110 Supreme Court justices, only two have been women. None have been Hispanic. It’s time to balance the judicial branch, time Americans saw justice delivered by someone whose gender and cultural background comes closer to reflecting the majority.”
The more than 240 progressive women’s organizations that comprise NCWO work together to address a variety of issues, including workplace and economic equity, education and job training, affirmative action, Social Security, child care, political participation, health, reproductive freedom, and global progress for women’s equality.
July 31, 2009 | <urn:uuid:d595bac2-d947-4cf2-b65d-3adc4debc77e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.womensorganizations.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=454:ncwo-endorses-sonia-sotomayor-for-us-supreme-court&catid=4:press-releases&Itemid=43 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93165 | 392 | 1.5625 | 2 |
3. The Naked Truth of Mars
If the past is prologue Disney, currently helming the John Carter of Mars project, is not likely to rush to take up the baton of aboriginal rights. This studio ran like a scared cat to the editing room to alter a brief segment from Fantasia that featured cartoon Centaurettes. The fact faux nudity and/or characterizations of fantasy creatures in a cartoon bothered anyone would be funny, if it weren't so ridiculous. But, to be fair, that anyone felt a cartoon required editing for content is a sign of shifting attitudes. What once didn't raise an eyebrow several decades ago becomes scandalous, or politically incorrect, today and so too might attitudes that obtain today seem archaic or puritanical decades from now.
How non-Aboriginal cultures treat depictions of aboriginal cultures often reveal far more about the non-Aboriginal culture than the true state of the aborigines themselves. One need look no further than documentaries aired on channels like PBS, Discovery, History, The Learning Channel, et al to see how such programs come saddled with warnings about "indigenous nudity" and, more often than not, blurring and digital fogging. Yet the MPAA rubberstamps movies depicting amoral violence in which it's okay (by their standards) to display eviscerated human bodies and internal organs yet, unbelievably, insanely, a woman's bared breast or buttocks must be blotted out as verboten to see. What this says about our culture, and it's self-anointed blowhard watchdogs, is too disturbing to contemplate here.
Nudity, in and of itself, is neither salacious nor provocative. Nor is it pornographic or erotic. It merely is. One does not become any less human, or worthy of dignity, because one has disrobed or lacks apparel. If this were the case no one would ever take off their clothes to bathe. We are born naked, not wearing burkas. Strip us of our trappings of culture and civilization and we become little more than naked apes, do we not?
Such reflections are at the core of the Barsoom novel series. For while nude John Carter is never truly naked, for he retains his wit. Edgar Rice Burroughs novels remind us it is intellect, not clothing, or trappings of civilization, that separate mankind from primates. Yet another reason for the lack of clothing on Barsoom, besides lack of resources for extensive textile manufacture, may be environmental. Extremes of heat and humidity may make it impractical for a primitive culture- or a culture with limited agricultural resources teetering on the brink of collapse, as is the case on Barsoom- to have more than rudimentary and crude textiles. Yet this does not preclude the use of skins or furs. Such certainly seems to be the case on Barsoom, or so we can extrapolate based on the following passage from Warlord of Mars:
The moment we entered the city Talu threw off his outer garments of fur, as did we, and I saw that his apparel differed but little from that of the red races of Barsoom. Except for his leathern harness, covered thick with jewels and metal, he was naked, nor could one have comfortably worn apparel in that warm and humid atmosphere.
Remember the examples of Frazetta's artwork? They're relatively timid and decorous in comparison to the reality of Barsoom as writ. And this is what Disney is planning to adapt into a movie? It doesn't make sense. Already the speculation is circulating with articles like `John Carter of Mars': Will It Dethrone `Twilight' As The Best Romance Flick? Viz:
"While “Twilight” fends off “True Blood” for supremacy over the vampire romance market, the Stephenie Meyer-penned series might have an unlikely lovelorn competitor to contend with — the newly announced “John Carter of Mars” starring Taylor Kitsch could well be Hollywood’s next romantic hit."
As are concerns such as: Disney to Fast Track John Carter of Mars Film:
John Carter is about as Disneyfiable as Tarzan is: In other words, not very. Worse, John Carter was a filthy Confederate reb. That's part and parcel of the character, and while Carter never really shows any racist tendencies in the novel (he does, after all, get along exceedingly well with both the green and red men of Mars), it's an integral part of his character, part of what makes him unique. Disney would whitewash that. And it's hard to believe Pixar would do justice to the visceral bloodshed, violence and carnage of Burroughs' classic martian pulp novels.
The worry is Disney will treat this like the typical Hollywood "property" and hire a hack to make-up their own story, slap the Barsoom name on it, and thus exploit Edgar Rice Burroughs novels to make a quick buck. The marketing possibilities if Disney turns this into a costume epic ala Pirates of the Caribbean, as the director already has indicated is the plan, are extensive. The money Disney could potentially rake in on product tie-ins with clothing lines, T-shirts targeted at 'tweens, fast food chains, action figures and their accessories, Halloween costumes, and plush toys shamelessly targeted at children will likely be phenomenal.
Alas, with the director announcing, before shooting so much as a single frame of film, this will be rated PG-13, and a PG-13 'tween flick at that, John Carter of Mars isn't likely to qualify as a faithful representation of Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom. It may be a pallid Goldkey version but not likely the Barsoom of A Princess of Mars. This may have critics crying foul and asking if Disney hasn't purchased their MPAA rating and that's why the project, which has languished in limbo for decades, is suddenly getting "fast tracked". There's lots of money at stake, yet so too is the literary vision of Edgar Rice Burroughs.
If Disney follows the usual pattern licensed products will be pushed into retail stores all across the country as part of the marketing blitz leading up to the release of the feature film. If we're lucky this may include new deluxe editions of the novels. And, this being Disney, there may even be a John Carter of Mars ride at Disneyland. That could be fun. But Barsoom isn't a carnival funhouse, it's not a joyride, nor should it be portrayed as such.
Studios buy the rights to something and (too often) just ignore the source material and make up an entirely different story, slap on the title of the "property" and wait for the suckers to buy tickets. It's repulsive. But it's business as usual in Hollywood. Yet, if you were to pull this kind of shell game in the food industry by advertising, say, salmon on your menu but serving catfish instead you'd be put out of business and probably fined, if not thrown into jail. Is it that Hollywood doesn't care? They say they respect authors' and their work, yet the movies they produce say otherwise. It's mind-boggling.
So what if Disney isn't likely to have the moral courage to present a candid and true representation of the aboriginals of Barsoom. They're a corporation, not cultural anthropologists. Should we hate them for wanting to make money? It's not like Disney is in the business of shaking kids down for their lunch money. At least there is going to be some version of Barsoom on the big screen, that's a good thing, right?
For those interested in the real Barsoom the full text of the novel "A Princess of Mars" can be downloaded from these sites: Project Gutenberg, Books Should be Free, and can be read online here: http://www.hoboes.com/FireBlade/Texts/Princess/. Those looking for more information on Barsoom or the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs should visit the following sites: Barsoom, Barsoomia, Official Edgar Rice Burroughs Tribute and Weekly Webzine Site, or The Robert E. Howard United Press Association. There's also some old concept art for Set Sketches for John Carter of Mars (1970's version), More John Carter, More JCOM, here's a page of Rare Unreleased John Carter of Mars Illustrations and, of course, there's always the artwork of Julie Bell and Boris Vellejo:
# End of Line
Copyright © C. Demetrius Morgan | <urn:uuid:8b518567-dcbf-4edb-995c-75e8a72b6eb9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cosmic-cinema.blogspot.com/2009/06/reflections-on-barsoom-part-3.html?showComment=1246033214610 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952006 | 1,790 | 2.203125 | 2 |
Printing technologies tailored to all needs
The printing processes used in label printing have kept on developing over a long period. Letterpress printing played the leading role for many years, but this was joined first by offset printing and then by flexographic printing.
Their benefits across the entire production process have enabled flexographic and offset printing to establish themselves as industry standards. Both have their advantages and disadvantages and are used differently depending on the requirements.
Different printing processes place different demands on presses – demands that the press mechanisms, control systems and designs need to satisfy. Common to all printing processes, however, is the requirement for top quality, reproducibility and cost-efficiency.
Gallus systematically focuses its developments on this requirement, thereby delivering success and security for the label printer. | <urn:uuid:45acee1b-28c3-45bb-9482-1ebb67612e59> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gallus-group.com/gallus/label/printing-processes.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955204 | 155 | 1.914063 | 2 |
House passes text-reading ban; Senate to vote Mon.
The House of Delegates has approved a ban on reading text messages while driving that would broaden a writing and sending prohibition the legislature passed two years ago. It would apply not just to texts, but to electronic data such as Facebook and Twitter updates.
The Senate, which debated the proposal yesterday and today, is set to weigh final approval on Monday. Today, Sen. Allan H. Kittleman abandoned his attempt to include not just electronic messages, but newspapers. The Howard County Republican offered the amendment to draw attention to the many ways drivers can be distracted.
He also offered a tongue-in-cheek amendment to ban eating while driving. It failed 6-41.
Before the House voted overwhelmingly in favor of the plan, several Republicans said it is futile to legislate driving habits. Del. Mike A. McDermott, a new Eastern Shore Republican and longtime police officer, said officers have plenty of tools already to curb bad driver behavior.
This year, lawmakers have considered making several changes to the state's relatively new cell phone driving laws. A ban on talking on hand-held cell phones passed last year, but it is a secondary offense, meaning officers can only issue citations if they spot another infraction such as speeding. | <urn:uuid:f14f49b9-7af2-461c-9071-d0014066ea8c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/local/politics/2011/03/house_passes_textreading_ban_s.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965045 | 262 | 1.5 | 2 |
The St. Augustine Fire Department was called to the front of the Cathedral-Basilica of St. Augustine at about 7 p.m. Tuesday although there was no fire. Two obelisks on the spire of the bell tower of the church were seen swaying in the wind, which prompted church officials to call the fire department to remove for safety reasons, said John Garofalo, parish coordinator. Firefighter Pete Weiland climbed a ladder truck to top of the bell tower to remove one obelisk. After it was safely on the ground, the ladder was moved and he went up for the second one. The second was much more secure and could not be removed. The obelisk that was removed appeared to be a piece of metal, most likely copper, formed around a wooden stake attached to the bell tower. By Lawrence Peck, email@example.com.
Click photo to view larger image. | <urn:uuid:9f0ff1f4-7cab-4094-bdc2-954b76607b47> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://staugustine.com/stories/092105/new_cathedral.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980419 | 194 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Men who consume large amounts of dairy foods may increase their risk of developing Parkinson's disease, says new research.
Researchers in the US made the link by analysing data on more than 57,000 men and 73,000 women compiled over nine years between 1992 and 2001.
Their work, published in the May edition of the American Journal of Epidemiology, adds another twist to the dairy health debate.
Women who ate dairy did not appear to significantly increase their risk of developing Parkinson's, but a clear link was drawn for men on a high dairy intake.
Previous studies have also indicated a link between dairy and Parkinson's, although it has remained unclear how products such as milk and cheese may act as catalyst for the degenerative disease, which attacks the nervous system.
"More studies are needed to further examine these findings and to explore underlying mechanisms," the US team said, led by Dr Honglei Chen, a researcher at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
"Further considering some of the health benefits of dairy consumption, it is not wise to make advice to consumers based on this finding," Chen told DairyReporter.com.
The UK Dairy Council called for caution on the research, highlighting that researchers had been unable to physically examine those included in the study.
"It is interesting to highlight that the link for women was weaker than for men, showing factors other than diet and milk intake may be potentially responsible for the results of this study," said Dr Alice Cotter, a Dairy Council nutritionist.
"In reality there is no definitive link between dairy/milk, or any other food group, and any chronic disease. In fact a variety of studies suggest that milk may have a protective effect on our health."
Debate over the potential health risks and benefits of dairy products has escalated over the last couple of years, with some high-profile celebrities advocating dairy-free diets.
Top dairy firms, including Arla Foods, Campina, Fonterra and Dairy Farmers of America, recently fought back by establishing a Global Dairy Forum to drive a new wave of publicity about the health benefits of dairy.
Source: American Journal of Epidemiology
Published online ahead of print, doi:10.1093/aje/kwk089.
"Consumption of Dairy Products and Risk of Parkinson's Disease."
Authors: Honglei Chen, Eilis O'Reilly, Marjorie L. McCullough, Carmen Rodriguez, Michael A. Schwarzschild, Eugenia E. Calle, Michael J. Thun and Alberto Ascherio. | <urn:uuid:edb5d7cf-1d85-49d5-838e-f3ed16d45e41> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/R-D/Dairy-linked-to-Parkinson-s-disease-study | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958384 | 526 | 2.609375 | 3 |
The World Gold Council had some words of advice for central banks around the world: It may be time to diversify away from the U.S. dollar.
While the dollar remains the world's main reserve currency, the WGC said in a research report that its "optimal" strategy would involve, what else, but gold.
Along with the dollar and the euro, gold is one of the traditional reserve assets that central banks hold.
But the WGC said central bankers should also consider a number of alternative assets, including those priced in the currencies of Canada, Australia and China.
Central banks in emerging markets have been diversifying away from the U.S. dollar for some time, as the outlook for the currency remains uncertain. According to the International Monetary Fund, the dollar's share of total central bank reserves has decreased to 54% from 62% over the past 12 years.
"This analysis looks at the optimal allocation for emerging market central banks as they continue to reduce their allocation to dollars and euros," said Ashish Bhatia, manager for government affairs at the World Gold Council.
In its study, the council assumes that central banks hold 65% of their reserves in dollars and euros, the second-largest reserve currency.
The remaining 35% is made up of a mix of assets, which traditionally has included investments priced in Japanese yen and the British pound, as well as gold.
Japanese government bonds and gold are both "practical and sound solutions for central banks," said Bhatia. But he said there is no clear evidence that central banks have increased their exposure to Japanese assets, "whereas they have been buying gold."
Beyond that, the council said assets priced in Australian and Canadian currencies are good candidates for central bank reserves. Unlike the United States and most euro area economies, both Canada and Australia still have AAA credit ratings.
The Chinese renminbi is another asset that central banks could add to their portfolios, said the WGC. Following years of robust growth, China supplanted Japan as the world's second largest economy in 2011.
"China's rise in the global economy has forced central banks to seriously consider renminbi denominated assets," said the council in its report.
However, the Chinese market remains difficult to access and there is "significant uncertainty" regarding Beijing's foreign exchange policies, noted the WGC.
In addition, the Canadian and Australian markets are comparatively small, said Bhatia.
The market for Australian assets, for example, is worth about $500 billion, he said. That compares with more than $2 trillion in assets held by central bank overall.
"The central banks could buy the entire market in a few days," said Bhatia. | <urn:uuid:e708c3c8-223b-4416-bdfa-0d5cd90beda2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ktvz.com/news/money/Central-banks-souring-on-the-dollar/-/4894452/19313888/-/4ygpgr/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973994 | 555 | 1.953125 | 2 |
After four months of debate on whether the publication of the controversial research on a mutant bird flu strain that can spread easily between mammals should be allowed, the journal Nature has finally published the first of two studies on the experimental deadly influenza virus that U.S. biosecurity experts had feared could be used as a bioterrorism weapon.
The publication of the research by Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, on Wednesday comes after months of fierce debate between advocates for science to be free of censorship and those who felt the need to protect the public from a potentially devastating influenza epidemic.
The controversy started in December when two teams of researchers in the United States and the Netherlands said that they had created a mutant form of the H5N1 avian virus.
Researchers explained that the goal of their studies were to understand how the H5N1 avian virus, which is highly contagious among birds but is not easily transmitted to mammals, could mutate to spread rapidly between people, and could provide scientists and health officials more information in case of a flu epidemic.
However the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, an expert panel that advises the U.S. government, called for Nature and Science, two journals that planned on publishing the flu research, to delete certain parts of the original studies before it should be published.
The board feared full disclosure of the two papers could help bioterrorists make a highly contagious form of the virus that no one is immune against, possibly triggering potential danger of “unusually high magnitude,” to the public.
Many scientists criticized the board’s recommendation and said that it was an attempt for government to censor scientific discourse and stifle advancement.
Since then, both Nature and Science had put publication of the papers on hold while experts around the world reach a consensus on how to proceed with the publication of the studies.
The British journal Nature finally published one of the studies online on Wednesday, and the journal said that “the essential scientific elements (in the original text) were unchanged” after the British journal had received and reviewed "several independent pieces of biosecurity advice".
The published study revealed that four mutations in a key hemagglutinin gene of the mutant strain of the avian flu allowed the bird flu to adapt to mammals.
Kawaoka and his team and developed the mutant strain by combining the hemagglutinin gene from the H5N1 virus to the pandemic strain of the 2009 H1N1 swine flu virus, and after adding four other gene mutations and some spontaneous alterations that occurred in the ferrets, the virus started to successfully spread among ferrets, which are the best model for predicting whether the virus is capable to spread among humans.
However a modified virus, which combines the modified H5N1 gene and seven genes from the human H1N1 pandemic, was not lethal to ferrets used in the experiment, and researchers are still unsure whether the H5N1 viruses that already exist in nature that contain one of the mutations they found, will soon evolve to be easily transmitted among humans.
"One of the mutations we identified is already circulating in viruses in the Middle East and Asia, so there is concern about these viruses in nature acquiring more mutations and becoming transmissible in mammals," Kawaoka told the Guardian. "If surveillance teams know which mutations are important … they can be alert for the emergence of viruses with pandemic potential and inform authorities to take appropriate precautions."
Infected ferrets could easily infect other animals through respiratory droplets, which proves that the new virus was airborne and could spread through coughs and sneezes, the hybrid virus did not kill any of the ferrets that contracted it.
The mutant strain was spread slower than the 2009 pandemic H1N1 strain, cause less harm in the lungs and was susceptible to both the front-line drug Tamiflu and a prototype vaccine against H5N1.
Nature magazine had showed journalists a report from "a bio-defence agency outside the US" which it did not name, that indicated that the benefits of publication outweighed the risks, according to AFP.
"This information could be used by an aggressor and shows one of the building blocks for the development of a potential BW [biowarfare] weapon," the report said. "[Such skill] is a demanding capability, probably beyond the capacity of the majority of those groupings of concern," it said.
"On the other hand, not publishing this information would slow, or even block, the development of a vaccine against a virus that still has the potential to mutate naturally to a pandemic form, which could cause huge numbers of fatalities worldwide,” according to the report.
Nature said that while it was “desirable” to have a forum like the NSABB, it has been made clear that the “committee's original deliberations were too limited, especially given the enormous implications for flu research of a recommendation against publication.”
"There are justified concerns among the research community about the NSABB's processes, and these processes should be reviewed," the journal said.
The other study, which would be published by the U.S. journal Science, is by researcher Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam.
"We had originally hoped, as a public service, to be able to publish Dr. Fouchier's paper simultaneously with the similar research by Dr. Kawaoka. But appropriate review and editing of the manuscript is the primary goal," spokeswoman Ginger Pinholster for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which publishes Science, said, according to AFP.
Published by Medicaldaily.com | <urn:uuid:964f6151-e5c7-4cb0-ba2f-1b9dbab568d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.medicaldaily.com/articles/9746/20120502/mutant-bird-flu-influenza-controversial-study-national-science-advisory.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966505 | 1,187 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Choosing the Right School for Your Child
- Wednesday, July 18, 2007
The real determining factor is what is going on inside the heart of your child. Apart from their surrender to the work of the Holy Spirit, the greatest influence on your child’s heart is you, the parent.
So whether you teach your children at home or send them to a Christian or public school, these actions will not play the most important role when it comes to developing them spiritually. That role will be played by you. How? By creating a passionate, grace-based environment where they can see a genuine faith lived out in your home and heart – a heart that directly reflects the love of God. The more you play your role effectively, the more any of these educational options become a positive part of your children’s academic success.
© Copyright 2005 Dr. Tim Kimmel and Family Matters®
Dr. Tim Kimmel, author of Grace Based Parenting and Why Christian Kids Rebel, is one of America's top advocates speaking for the family today. He is the Executive Director of Family Matters® whose goal is to equip families for every age and stage of life. Tim and Family Matters® conduct conferences across the country on the unique pressures that confront members of today's families. Over the past few years, Tim has spoken to millions of people throughout the country. He has spoken for Promise Keepers, Focus on the Family's Life on the Edge Tour, and he and his wife, Darcy, are speakers for FamilyLife Ministry's Weekend To Remember. Visit the Family Matters website at www.familymatters.net.
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Listen to Your Favorite Pastors
Add Crosswalk.com content to your siteBrowse available content | <urn:uuid:bd63449d-fba6-4052-a07b-47da29503f23> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.crosswalk.com/family/parenting/choosing-the-right-school-for-your-child-1338142.html?p=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935379 | 383 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Currently I am working on automatic feature extraction for protein-protein interactions. My study includes why protein interacts and how to predict the interaction within protein to understand the biological fuction performed by different proteins. Different type of preprocessing and freature selction method is also a part of my current study. I work on different type of protein properties like disolvation energy, solvent accessible surface area, conservation score, electrostatic energy, hydrophobicity etc. Differenty type of proteins like homo-hetero, obligate-transient, polar-nopolar, hydrophobic-nonhydrophobic. I am working to find best feature sets to differentiate those type of proteins pairs. The accuracy of any classification lies on the input feature vector. So, I am working to find an automated process which will generate the best feature sets based on different property of protein so that the classifier can differentiate different types of proteins.
A part of my study is to understand the four types of structure of protein ( primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary ). The idea of finding best features for classificaton will help to identify the types of different proteins and their compositions and the functions that they can perform. | <urn:uuid:cfd9703a-6d79-4c56-b29c-4dfe2a499dbf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cs.uwindsor.ca/~azizc/rint.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925231 | 247 | 1.75 | 2 |
PM announces $60m for Laos programs
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced $60 million in assistance for a number of programs to help impoverished people in Laos gain skills and have access to small business loans.
Ms Gillard, in Vientiane for the 9th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), was set to hold a series of bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the summit.
Ms Gillard met with Laotian Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong on Sunday night.
The assistance packages announced on Monday provide $41.5 million for a rural livelihoods program.
More than 360,000 children under the age of five in Laos - half the childhood population - are stunted through malnutrition and about 1.8 million people do not have access to adequate nutrition.
The program aims to boost economic security and is expected to provide 350,000 people with access to financial services including loans.
Another $20 million will be provided to establish a new Laos-Australia Institute, which will provide training to help the country tackle key developmental challenges.
The institute will open next year.
Ms Gillard has a number of other bilateral meetings scheduled for Monday, including talks with Burmese President Thein Sein.
It will be the first time an Australian prime minister has met with the leader of Burma since 1984.
Brought to you by | <urn:uuid:9901d4e9-e588-431f-974c-b6ac9eab1809> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.canberratimes.com.au/breaking-news-world/pm-announces-60m-for-laos-programs-20121105-28tk9.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94456 | 278 | 1.65625 | 2 |
2 October 2012
Posted by rajesh
National Security or Scientific Research?
Imagine if India was being invaded by one of its neighbours. Not in the traditional way – marching in with armies and tanks. But in a very subtle way. Imagine if Myanmar (to choose one neighbour) moved the 1,643 km border into Indian territory stealthily a few inches at a time. Yes, we could see the results over time, in a year would notice that the border had moved several meters in and we had lost many square kilometres of area to the enemy.
What would our nation do in this case? Would we send a few people to figure out how they did it? Would we give them a decade to study if they were moving a millimetre a minute or an entire meter at one time? How many resources would we provide so that they could graph how much area we were losing on a daily and annual basis? Would we forecast the outcome over five years or more? Would we spend years debating what to do?
Or would we be outraged and move the nation to put an end to this invasion?
The invasion described above is happening, it is real. However, the invader is not one of our land neighbours but the seas surrounding India.
With 1,600 km of coastline, Gujarat has one third of India’s coastline. For the past few decades, the Arabian Sea has been invading Gujarat. Subtly. Seawater has been encroaching into the freshwater aquifers along the coastal belt. Saltwater adversely affects human life and human activity, especially agriculture. This invasion has already caused debilitating salinity problems along a 15-25 km coastal belt. These problems are progressing inland at a rate of 500 meters annually (more than a meter a day!) and, over the next few years, will adversely impact the health, social, and economic factors of one fifth of the population of the state living in about 1,500 villages.
This invasion has not gone unnoticed. The people of the coastal belt have noticed it. Some government agencies are fully aware. One response was created in 2002 by the Agha Khan Rural Support Program (India), Ambuja Cement Foundation, and the Sir Ratan Tata Trust. They came together to seed the Kharash Vistarotthan Yojana: the Coastal Salinity Prevention Cell (CSPC). The role of CSPC is to facilitate the networking of civil organizations, government and local populations to study the issue, design responses, trial them and then take them to scale to combat the salinity problem.
For a decade CSPC has documented how salinity has increased and is impacting 10 million people living in 1,500 villages. Over the past few years, CSPC has built labs to monitor the salt-water encroachment and other pollutants to the water table. They do not have the resources to get data collated properly, analyse it and showcase it. They do not have the ability to map out the 600 sqkm. lost to salinity every year. With help from Indian and foreign foundations they have managed to support a few local organizations in doing water projects to ensure some steady supply of non-saline and even drinkable water.
Invasion? I Meant “Invitation”
Very few are studying, much less addressing the root cause of the issue. The Arabian Sea is not invading – it is being invited in. By extracting water from our fresh-water aquifers at an every increasing pace, we are creating a strong suction force. We are giving no choice to the ocean but to flow in. We are gifting our land to our saline neighbour. This is happening in Gujarat and also all along India’s coastline. And all around the world, even in California.
Can we see the real problem? The enemy is us. We cannot point to an external enemy. And thus we cannot unite quickly. And respond decisively.
The Only Way to Fight Back
A response involves acknowledging that we are the enemy and revisiting our new model of development, our new lifestyle.
Our ancestors successfully used aquifers to keep the salty sea out, resisting an urge to deplete them. They lived in harmony with the land and water. But they did not live in poverty and ‘backwardness’.
In Gujarat, they created the most beautiful forts, palaces, temples, havelis, and even amazingly decorated step wells all lasting hundreds of years – magnificent creations we are unable to replicate today. And their vibrant society was filled with dance, music, food, fashion, crafts – all of which are still part of today’s society. Their poor lived in better conditions than the millions living in the slums today. Instead of dismissing our elders as backward and their lifestyle as ‘old’, we need to learn from their wisdom that sustained their society and allowed it to thrive for hundreds of years.
Today, we have to stop sucking water out of our aquifers immediately. We have to recharge them with fresh water and push the saltwater back. We have to balance our consumption of our aquifer resource with its replenishment. That is the only way to push the Arabian Sea out and keep it away. And make our lands and waters healthy for us and for our children. And make our ancestors, who bequeathed us enormous resources, look at us with pride. | <urn:uuid:6723fc87-1c3a-498d-ac33-442512050b4a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.peerwater.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968304 | 1,107 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Growth of Mormon Church in India expands two districts into five
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Growth of the Church in southern India was indicated by the formation of three new districts in the India Bangalore Mission on Sunday, Oct. 11. They bring to five the total number of India districts in the Mormon mission, which also has a district on the island nation of Sri Lanka.
India Bangalore Mission President Melvin R. Nichols conducted the organizing meeting that was broadcast via the Internet for viewing by members gathered in 14 meetinghouses in India and Sri Lanka. Elder Kent W. Watson of the Seventy, first counselor in the Asia Area presidency, oversaw the meeting linked by the Internet from Hong Kong. The meeting was attended by approximately 1,978 members, believed to be the largest gathering of Latter-day Saints in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in India.
The three new districts are located in the cities of Coimbatore, Chennai and Vishakhapatnam, key cities in the region. There are two branches in the Chennai District, four in the Coimbatore District and six in the Vishakhapatnam District. The two original districts — Bangalore and Hyderabad — were organized in the early 1990s and have four branches each. Total membership in the five districts is slightly more than 5,300.
During the meeting, President Nichols said, "This reorganization will allow local leaders to concentrate on the members located nearby and eliminate a great deal of travel for training and oversight of their branches, thus increasing the effectiveness of these brethren and their ability to bless the lives of the Saints."
He also said, "Now is the time to increase our focus on building stakes. A stake is the gathering place for the Saints of Zion, and Church leadership is focused upon the local members when a stake is created. In order for us to work toward having a temple in India one day, we must first have stakes."
The new districts are seen by the local members as the building blocks for the stakes of the future in south India. The India Bangalore Mission anticipates between 550 and 600 convert baptisms during 2009, a significant growth rate as compared to prior years and, therefore, expects similar reorganizations to occur in the future.
President Nichols concluded by saying, "We are now well positioned to continue the growth of the Church in south India. In addition to this reorganization, we have beautiful new meetinghouses in Coimbatore and Hyderabad that can someday serve as stake centers. We have similar meetinghouses under construction in Chennai and Negombo, Sri Lanka. I call upon each member to use this historic event to recommit to strengthening yourself, your family and the Church."
In northern India, the India New Delhi Mission has the New Delhi India District.
Missionaries were sent to India as early as 1852, according to the Deseret News 2010 Church News Almanac.
The first branches were organized in India in 1980 during a time when the country was administered by the Singapore Mission and the International Mission. The India Bangalore Mission established in 1993 and the India New Delhi Mission in 2007.
There are more than 7,500 members in 28 branches in India which has an estimated population of 1.16 billion, according to the almanac. | <urn:uuid:91544cbf-fcff-479e-995f-1323bb16eeab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/58262/Growth-of-Mormon-Church-in-India-expands-two-districts-into-five.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969583 | 695 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Here is an uncial style reading of Paul’s letter to Philemon that I decided to create. The script type is in the style of the Alexandrinus manuscript (from Linguist Software). I decided to mimic ancient New Testament manuscripts with the exception that I used spaces between the words. I attempted to retain the nomina sacra as faithful as possible. Below is a download of the PDF.
A screenshot sample.
It appears quite well on a tablet… about the size of some of the old manuscripts! In my opinion, it has a P66 feel to it.
Download: Philemon uncial PDF
I posted this back in March 2011 on a different blog.
Photo credit, Ferrell Jenkins
Richard Bauckham has been traveling in the U.S., giving lectures at various places (see his lecture schedule), as various bibliobloggers have pointed out. I had the chance to visit one day of the lectures at SBTS in February. See below for the links.
During the first lecture, there was one particular point in which Bauckham, when discussing the gospels as biographies rooted in the narrative of biblical history, caused me to reflect upon Homer’s Iliad. He mentioned that Matthew’s genealogy lists all those names to remind readers of key developments throughout the biblical story of Israel. At that point I was reminded of Homer’s catalogue of ships in Iliad 2.484-785. There is a long list which, at first, seems to be a long, boring list of data of the ships from different places and regions. But if you think about it, Homer’s first readers would have been excited to hear of a ship from their own region or hometown — that their roots were somehow involved in an inevitable epic war. That is an aspect we may easily overlook. And, in a way, like Homer, Matthew reminds his readers of Jesus’ roots which trace back to key figures in biblical history.
I’m not sure how much of that thought would really relate, but it was an interesting thought nonetheless. I mentioned this very briefly to Prof. Bauckham when he was signing my copy of his Eyewitnesses book, but there was no time for real discussion since there was a long line of people behind me.
Lectures at Heritage Christian (via Jim Davila)
Lectures at Southern Seminary (via Clifford Kvidahl)
It’s time to get back into the blog!
Photo credit: Jeremy O'Clair
There is a conference scheduled at Harding School of Theology in Memphis, TN, May 2012: “Ephesus as a Religious Center under the Principate,” in honor of Richard Oster, professor of New Testament at HST. As time passes I’m sure more detail will emerge. It looks like it will be an interesting meeting.
Steve Friesen— University of Texas at Austin
Ulrike Muss— University of Vienna
Elisabeth Rathmayr—Austrian Academy of Science
Peter Scherrer— University of Graz
Dan Schowalter— Carthage College
Greg Stevenson— Rochester College
Jerry Sumney— Lexington Theological Seminary
Christine M. Thomas— University of California Santa Barbara
James W. Thompson— Abilene Christian University
Trevor Thompson— Abilene Christian University
Hilke Thuer— Austrian Academy of Science
Paul Trebilco— University of Otago, New Zealand
James Walters— Boston University School of Theology
The lovable crutch, Latin WORDS for Mac (the studious Latin student shouldn’t use it!) is not supported with the new Mac OS X Lion upgrade. If you rely on this application, the web version will have to be the default choice until there is an upgrade for Whitaker’s WORDS. I doubt it will happen.*
* Update: Read the comments below about Interpres (or click here).
Via rougeclassicism I discovered recent podcasts on Vergil’s Aeneid made available by Bristol University.
I’m grading tests for Latin 1 and I found some of the students’ conjugation of esse interesting:
!!! Although I didn’t give them any points, it made me smile. Or maybe it should make me cry. | <urn:uuid:66f6a214-2d0a-4c1f-9bde-48ec92df2591> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ancientstudy.wordpress.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93697 | 909 | 1.945313 | 2 |
The Dark Continent: Hitler’s European Holocaust Helpers
Piotr Bein 27.05.2009
Will international independents also react to this, yet another manipulation of the Holocaust by the Judeocentric Power Complex (JPC)?
Spiegel article www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,625824,00.html looks like a large-scale, Judeocentric propaganda campaign, similar to one regarding Polish “co-reponsibility” for Shoah and pogroms around WW2. Granted, the degree of willing participation in the Holocaust has differed between the nations, but Spiegel’s propagandist manipulation is obvious from the timing of the campaign — decades after the facts could and should have been exposed. JPC has adopted the same tactics in the “Polish” cases of Jedwabne and Kielce massacres of Jews. This time, group responsibilities of Ukrainians, Hungarians, Romanians, Slovaks and the Baltic peoples are sought, and a joint “European” (Christian?) responsibility is suggested. Europe is called the Dark Continent, as if JPC has not instigated both world wars, the hatreds and the Holocaust.
JPC’s anti-Polonisms, and concurrent demonization of Serbs in JPC media and by JPC-inclined politicians, have demonstrated that Judeocentric distortions of history and fact precede a major assault on a nation. The Serbian nation has been ethnically cleansed and partitioned between several new states, and Serbian ancestral lands have been taken over by force. For Poles, recent Judeocentric campaigns meant fraudulent, multi-billion dollar restitution claims by the Holocaust Industry, direct invasion of Israeli nationalism onto Polish sovereign soil (annual Marches of the Living at Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial), and major falsification of Polish national history and identity with loss of national self-esteem, further Judaization of the Polish society and severe undermining of patriotic-Catholic-nationalist centres as a result.
The strategy signaled in the Spiegel article would serve several Judeocentric goals:
- Keep Jewish suffering in focus while de-focusing from Zionist masterminding and carrying out of Shoah.
- Prepare world public opinion for Holocaust Industry’s restitution claims and possibly Judeopolonia-type re-colonization in the remaining Eastern European countries. For a century, Judeopolonia has been a concept of a Jewish state in Eastern Europe, from the Baltic to the Black Sea.
- Strengthen the case for European Union and against nation states.
- By spreading German nation’s co-responsibility on other nations, continue Judeocentric manipulation of appeasing German revisionism, expansionism and revanchism.
- Soften world public opinion before next, major Israeli assault on Arabs and/or Muslims.
- Further undermine Christianity by presenting it as the cause of anti-Semitism and foundation of hatred against Jews in the Holocaust.
- Control “the truth” on Holocaust in Eastern Europe, eyeing manipulation of the nations concerned to Judeocentric divisive and anti-Russian goals in the region.
The Spiegel article might thus signal a number of significant assaults of international significance, with potential negative effects on peace and security not only in Europe. Our independent, Polonia leadership (do we have one?) together with patriotic circles in the countries concerned should work out a strategy of response, e.g. counter-propaganda campaign in independent media internationally, comparative research and a symposium of independent international historians and genocide scholars. Perhaps a proven independent scientific body under the direction of Professor Christian Scherrer, the International Comparative Genocide Research (ICGR) project at the Hiroshima City University, could take a lead in the latter. ICGR’s primary goal is mass crime prevention. Despite clear signals in Judeocentric mainstream media who have been demonizing Serbs since the late 1980s, repeated waves of violent mass crimes on different ethnic groups have not been prevented in the Balkans. The mass crime of intimidation of the Polish nation and taking their real estate assets have not been prevented, either, despite obvious, easily identifiable demonizations in the JPC-led, global media.
For starters, our best researchers and historians (JR Nowak, IC Pogonowski, S Pagowski, J Peczkis…) could prepare a (joint?) counter-article to Spiegel’s on points relating to, or similar to the Polish case (falsification of history for material-moral gains, Judeocentric vs. national interests in war time, Jewish Zionists as enablers of the Nazis and willing executioners of Jewish masses, Jewish denouncers of Jews, Einzatzgruppen forcing locals to co-operate under a gun, Nazi camouflaging the mass murders as revenge of local populations on Jews who had collaborated with the Soviets, post-war Jewish Communist regime collusion and cover-ups…).
My paper with Stefan Pagowski on the Polish case, prepared for the ICGR project, has used research results from the above mentioned Polish researchers:
Revisionism, Role Reversal and Restitutions: The Polish-Jewish Case
Starting on page 25, you can read about Judeocentric spin on Jedwabne and Kielce massacres, e.g. that Germany’s June 1941 invasion of Eastern Poland began mass murders of local Communists and Jews, being disguised as Polish acts of revenge for NKVD (Jewish-dominated Soviet internal security apparatus) killings aided by local Jews during Soviet occupation since September 17, 1939. The spin worked, because Poles despised Communism and many Jews collaborated with the Soviets.[Ben‑Cion Pinchuk "Shtetl Jews Under Soviet Rule" Blackwell Publishers 1990; Eva Hoffman "Shtetl" Mariner Books 1998]. You will also find in the paper how NKVD masterminded and commanded the July 1946 Kielce “pogrom”, how it served Zionist policy of driving Jews out of Europe to Palestine, and how post-WW2 Poland’s regime led by Jewish Communists participated in the pogroms and then covered them up as Polish acts of hatred.
Spiegel article reeks of Judeocentrism, for example:
- Total silence on the masterminds and enablers of Nazism and the Holocaust — the international Zionists, i.e. the core of JPC at the time, including the bankers. The JPC has financed and manipulated governments to Judeocentric goals of pitting goyim nations against each other and creating Jewish martyrology (Shoah) as a moral foundation for Israel’s creation and existence in Palestine, in accord with earlier pronouncements of Zionist leaders such as Herzl, on using anti-Semitism to achieve Zionist goals at the price of Jewish lives. Instead, Spiegel gives the advance into USSR as the Nazi motivation for extermination of Jews starting two years after the war began.
- Restricting Holocaust to Jewish suffering, as designed by the new, Judeocentric religion, Holocaustianity, for the purpose of the Holocaust Industry, anti-goyim racist laws, consolidation of Jewish action under constant reminder of a threat (as in Talmudic rabbinism), and silencing critics.
- Trivializing the Jewish dominance in the Soviet totalitarian machine to “some areas of the Soviet bureaucracy”.
- Attributing between-war anti-Semitism solely to racism. In fact, all Jewish groups in Poland and international Zionists have opposed Polish independence after WW1. Do Jews expect Polish love for that? On top of it, Jews have dominated commerce, professions and other spheres in difficult economic times, so the Polish government took measures such as restriction of university quota to the proportion of Jews in the Polish society. Anything wrong with that? Yet, this fact is given as an example of Polish irrational, blind anti-Semitism.
- Equating Poles with pathological killers of Jews. Poles, as the only ones besides Serbs subject to death penalty for doing so, have risked lives of own families and whole villages to save hundreds of thousands Jews. But the article praises Danes who without any risk have transported their 5000 Jews to safety. So why are Poles the most numerous national group distinguished by the Israeli Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem for saving Jewish lives in WW2? And not all Polish rescuers have been, or have wished to be, identified.
- Emphasizing denouncement of Jews in Holland and France (obviously a marginal phenomenon), but silence on rescuers in those countries. In Poland, Zionist Jews themselves have denounced other Jews to the Nazis with whom they co-operated on the street, in Jewish ghetto councils and in Jewish police. Not a word about it in Spiegel.
- Painting alleged post-WW2 pogroms (staged by JPC to drive Jews out to Palestine) as a by-product of quests for national states. In fact, Judeocentric regimes (e.g. Poland, Hungary) have suppressed any national-patriotic tendencies in a ruthless systematic manner, while assuring implementation of parasitic Jewish interests.
- Foggy naming of “Balkan countries” as culprits. After recent demonization of Serbs, JPC media cannot point fingers at extreme Croats and Albanians only, leaving Serbs as obvious suspects in the mind of uneducated reader (the majority nowadays). Recent JPC’s anti-Serbian propaganda campaigns have white-washed Albanian extremists’ crimes against Jews and helped clean Croat nationalist conscience of the guilt for hundreds of thousands Serbs murdered in WW2 while keeping the number of Jews killed by Ustashe unchanged. | <urn:uuid:47003761-579f-4e1a-8c2d-53c9bfed646a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://piotrbein.wordpress.com/2009/12/30/the-dark-continent-hitlers-european-holocaust-helpers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918839 | 2,007 | 1.804688 | 2 |
The Secret History of Procopius, tr. by Richard Atwater, , at sacred-texts.com
The deeds of Justinian were such that all eternity would not be long enough in which to describe them adequately. So a few examples will have to suffice to illuminate his whole character to future generations: what a dissembler he was, how he disregarded God, the priests, the laws, and the people who showed themselves loyal to him. He had no shame at all, either when he brought destruction on the State or at any misdeed; he did not bother to try to excuse his actions, and his only care was how he might get sole possession of all the wealth of the world. To begin:
As bishop of Alexandria he appointed a man by the name of Paul. At this time one Rhodon, a Phoenician, was Governor
of that city. Him he ordered to serve Paul with all zeal, and to allow none of his instructions to be unfulfilled. For thus he thought he could associate all the priests in Alexandria under the synod of Chalcedon.
Now there was a certain Arsenius, a native of Palestine, who had become one of the most useful intimates of the Empress Theodora, and consequently after acquiring great power and wealth, had been raised to senatorial rank, though he was a disgusting fellow. He was a Samaritan, but so as not to lose his official rank and power, became a nominal Christian; while his father and brother, encouraged by his authority, continued in their ancestral faith in Scythopolis, where, with his consent, they persecuted the Christians intolerably. As a result of this, the citizens revolted and put them both to a most shameful death. Many later troubles afflicted the people of Palestine because of this. At the time, however, neither Justinian nor the Empress did
anything to punish Arsenius, though he was principally responsible for the whole trouble. They merely forbade him entrance to the palace, to get rid of the crowds of Christians complaining against him.
This Arsenius, thinking to please the Emperor, soon after went to Alexandria with Paul, to assist him generally and in special to help him get the good will of the Alexandrians. For during the time he had been barred from the palace, he affirmed he had become learned in all the Christian doctrines. This displeased Theodora, for she pretended to disagree with the Emperor in religious matters, as I have told before.
As soon as they arrived in Alexandria, Paul handed over a deacon by the name of Psoes to Rhodon to be put to death, on the charge that this man alone stood in the way of the accomplishment of the Emperor's wishes. And following instructions in letters from the Emperor, which came frequently and cogently, Rhodon ordered the man to
be scourged; after which, while he was being racked by the torture, he up and died.
When news of this reached the Emperor, at the Empress's instigation he expressed horror at what had been done by Paul, Rhodon and Arsenius: as if he had forgotten his own instructions to these men. He now appointed Liberius, a patrician from Rome, Governor of Alexandria, and sent certain priests of good reputation to Alexandria, to investigate the matter; among these were the Archdeacon of Rome, Pelagius, who was commissioned by Pope Vigilius to act as his legate.
Paul, convicted of the murder, was removed from the bishopric; Rhodon, who fled to Constantinople, was beheaded by the Emperor and his estates confiscated, although the man produced thirteen letters which the Emperor had written him, insisting and commanding him to serve Paul in everything and never to oppose him, so that he could fulfill his every wish in religious
matters. Liberius, at Theodora's order, crucified Arsenius, and the Emperor confiscated his property, though he had no charge to bring against him except that he had been intimate with Paul. Now whether his actions in this matter were just or otherwise, I cannot say; but I shall soon show why I have described the affair.
Some time later, Paul came to Constantinople and offered the Emperor seven gold centenaries if he would reinstate him in the holy office from which, he claimed, he had been illegally removed. Justinian genially took the money, treated the man with great respect, and agreed to make him Bishop of Alexandria again very soon, though another now held the office; as if he did not know that he himself had put to death Paul's friends and helpers, and had confiscated their estates.
So the Augustus zealously extended every effort to arrange this matter, and Paul was generally expected to regain his
bishopric one way or another. But Vigilius, who was in the capital at the time, decided not to yield to the Emperor's command in such a case; and he said he could not annul a decision which Pelagius had given as his legate. And the Emperor, whose only idea was to get the money, dismissed the matter.
Here is another similar case. There was a certain Faustin, born in Palestine, and of an old Samaritan family, who accepted a nominal Christianity when the law constrained him. This Faustin became a Senator and a Governor of his province; and when his term of office expired a little later, he came to Constantinople, where he was denounced by certain priests as having favored the Samaritans and impiously persecuted the Christians in Palestine. Justinian appeared to be very angry and outraged that during his rule over the Romans, anybody could have insulted the name of Christ.
So the Senate investigated the affair and by the will of the Emperor, punished
[paragraph continues] Faustin with exile. But the Emperor, after getting from him the money he wanted, straightway annulled the decree. And Faustin, restored to his former rank, and the Emperor's friendship, was made Count of the imperial domains in Palestine and Phoenicia, where he fearlessly did as much harm as he wanted. Now in what way Justinian protected the true interests of the Christians may clearly be seen in these instances, few of them as I have had time to give. | <urn:uuid:1259557f-ce2b-4c2d-89f9-5c43a45c9aa4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sacred-texts.com/cla/proc/shp/shp30.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990699 | 1,290 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Benjamin Franklin Butler was born in Kinderhook Landing, New York, in December of 1795. He studied at the Academy in Hudson, New York, read law with Martin Van Buren, and after being admitted to the bar in 1817, became his partner. Butler was district attorney of Albany County from 1821 to 1824. He was appointed one of three commissioners to revise the State statutes in 1825. Butler was a member of the State legislature from 1827 to 1833. In 1833 he served as commissioner for the State of New York to adjust the New Jersey boundary line.
On November 15, 1833, President Jackson appointed Butler Attorney General of the United States, from which office he resigned in 1838. From that year until 1841 he was United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Butler was made principal law professor at the University of the City of New York in 1837. On November 8, 1858, he died in Paris, France.
Stanley was a portrait and landscape painter who specialized in scenes of Indian life in the West. Born in New York, he travelled extensively throughout the West and settled in Detroit in 1834 where he took up portrait painting. After 1850 he deposited his "Indian Gallery" at the Smithsonian Institution in hopes the Federal Government would purchase it. His hopes were not realized, but he remained in Washington, D.C, for the next decade. Tragically, his collection was almost totally destroyed by fire while being exhibited at the Smithsonian in 1865.
Stanley’s portrait of Attorney General Butler was copied from one painted by Charles Bird King. | <urn:uuid:44dfae7c-1640-43f7-a966-573d3444ef50> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.justice.gov/ag/aghistpage.php?id=11 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986557 | 329 | 3.03125 | 3 |
American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons
The latest source for orthopedic legislation, education, health care policy and research information. The site includes the bylaws and position papers of the AAOS, and the latest federal and state laws enacted that pertain to the practice of orthopedics and medicine.
American Association of Hip & Knee Surgeons
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American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine
Founded in 1972, AOSSM is a national organization of orthopaedic surgeons dedicated to sports medicine.
American Society for Surgery of the Hand
Founded in 1946, it is an academic organization dedicated to excellence in hand and upper extremity care.
American Spinal Injury Association
The Mission of the American Spinal Injury Association is to promote and establish standards of excellence for all aspects of health care of individuals with spinal cord injury from onset throughout life, to educate members, other healthcare professionals, patients and their families as well as the public on all aspects of spinal cord injury and its consequences, to foster research which aims at preventing spinal cord injury, improving care, reducing consequent disability, and finding a cure for both acute and chronic SCI, and to facilitate communication between members and other physicians, allied health care professionals, researchers and consumers.
The mission of the Arthritis Foundation is to improve lives through leadership in the prevention, control and cure of arthritis and related diseases. The foundation provides information on non-operative means of treating arthritis, and provides local resources that are available for patients.
Arthroscopy Association of North America
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Cervical Spine Research Society
The Cervical Spine Research Society is a multidisciplinary organization that provides a forum for the exchange of ideas and promotes clinical and basic science research of the cervical spine. The organization values collegial interaction and strong scientific principles.
Joint Replacement Resource Center
Is joint pain crippling your life? Do you sometimes think, “Maybe I’m ready for joint replacement?” With pain that bad, you may be ready now. Click to find out more information.
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North American Spine Society
NASS is a multidisciplinary medical organization dedicated to fostering the highest quality, evidence-based, and ethical spine care by promoting education, research, and advocacy. NASS is comprised of more than 5,000 members from several disciplines including orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, physiatry, neurology, radiology, anesthesiology, research, physical therapy and other spine care professionals.
Scoliosis Research Society
The Scoliosis Research Society is a professional organization, made up of physicians and allied health personnel. Our primary focus is on providing continuing medical education for health care professionals and on funding/supporting research in spinal deformities. Founded in 1966, the SRS has gained recognition as one of the world’s premier spine societies.
Spinal Cord Injury
This website was created to help Spinal Cord Injury patients and their families and friends with up-to-date information about spinal cord injuries (SCI). We have a summary of the type of injury, its classification and prognosis based on the severity of the injury. We have also gathered vital information on coping with the personal and financial effects of a spinal cord injury, which may be difficult to deal with without the proper preparation.
What’s a Hand Surgeon: Introduction to Hand Surgery
Watch this video, produced by the American Society for Surgery of the Hand, to learn more about the subspecialty of hand surgery.
Welcome to WebMD Corporation: The leader in providing services that help physicians, consumers, providers and health plans navigate the complexity of the healthcare system. | <urn:uuid:d965728c-a3c1-492c-bb8a-83fe309d717b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://manhattanorthopedic.com/patients/useful-links/ | 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 | 0.921661 | 846 | 1.695313 | 2 |
|The Worst Jobs in America|
by Jeremy Caplan and Laura Fitzpatrick, Time Magazine
July 30th, 2007
A lot of congratulations were passed around by lawmakers a few weeks ago when the federal hourly minimum wage was increased to $5.85, a 70 cent uptick. But wages are just part of the problem for workers in bottom-rung jobs. Health hazards, lack of insurance and labor law violations are among the on-the-job inequities faced by these workers, according to industry experts interviewed by TIME, as well as a new report from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. "This is incredibly important because we're talking about people who, for whatever reason, have been pushed to the fringes of society," says policy analyst Liana Fox of the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based research group.
What are the worst jobs in America? Things are especially tough for service workers in three low-wage U.S. industries: laundry services, supermarkets and nail salons. Industry representatives argue that conditions in these jobs are no worse than those in other competitive service sectors. But these are trades that often go unnoticed. Unlike many manufacturing jobs, these positions aren't vulnerable to outsourcing, but they're losing protection as domestic unions lose sway. "There's no reason these jobs have to be unsafe or very low-wage jobs," says Fox. "These could be good jobs. And these are all jobs that are more or less here to stay."
INDUSTRIAL LAUNDRY AND DRY CLEANING WORKERS
Garbage collectors have historically set the bar for messy jobs. But laundry workers, particularly in hospitals, deal with a more perilous kind of waste. When bio-hazardous materials aren't disposed of properly, they sometimes find their way into laundry rooms. "They have blood, needles, body parts, bits of fingers, everything in those bags," says a worker quoted in the Brennan Center report, "Unregulated Work in the Global City," referrring to the bags of hospital linens that he is required to wash.
Exposure to toxins is another danger for the 235,000 laundry and dry-cleaning workers nationwide, Forms of nonyl phenol ethoxylate (NPEs), chemicals commonly found in U.S. detergents, have been shown to cause fish to change gender and are banned in the European Union and Canada. On June 5, laundry workers petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to provide health and safety protections from NPEs. Currently, the EPA's guidelines on chemicals date back to 1985, and do not reflect recent research on NPEs.
Dry-cleaning workers, too, are at risk from prolonged exposure to chemicals. The National Institute of Environmental Health Services reports that in high concentrations, perchloroethylene (PCE) — the dry-cleaning chemical used as the primary solvent in more than 90% of the estimated 50,000 dry cleaning stores in the U.S. — can harm the central nervous system. According to the Centers for Disease Control, studies show that PCE may be a factor in the increased risk for cervical cancer among female dry-cleaning workers. Tom Kelly, director of the indoor environments division of EPA, confirmed that PCE may be dangerous, particularly in residential buildings, and can be a factor in both cancer and non-cancer illness. Nora Nealis, executive director of the National Cleaners Association, responds that, while conditions vary from plant to plant, the industry has made great strides in protecting workers. "With proper training," says Nealis, "especially with all the technology available, I wouldn't say that dry cleaners are exposed to any untoward risks."
In the non-union laundry plants that make up 70%-80% of the industry, workers earn the minimum wage or just above it. Coin-operated laundries often pay less, sometimes as little as $3 an hour. Dry cleaners' wages average between $250 and $400 a week for about 60 hours. Workers are often pressured into reporting that they've worked fewer hours than they have, and non-union workers are forced to skip meal breaks.
Baggers have it bad. They're on their feet all day, repeatedly lifting loads as heavy as 80 lbs., which puts them at risk for musculoskeletal disorders. As for safety, they're largely on their own. In 2001, Congress axed regulations proposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) that would have required employers to provide safety training and to compensate injured workers. Instead, OSHA issued voluntary safety guidelines that employers can legally neglect. Yet the official tally of injuries and illnesses among supermarket workers has declined, according to the Food Marketing Institute, which attributes that change in part to improved safety measures and employee training.
Grocery store workers earn an average of $332 a week, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, compared with average weekly earnings of $529 for all workers in the private sector. But some baggers don't even make $300, because they are paid only in tips. But according to Jill Cashen, spokesperson for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, grocery store jobs, when unionized, can be stable enough to support a family. "From baggers up to meat department managers," Cashen says, "workers can look at their union grocery jobs as career positions that provide financial security."
While chains like Whole Foods are making inroads across the U.S., independent, non-union grocery stores are proliferating too, and many lag on labor standards. On June 19, for example, the New York State Labor Department learned of potential labor violations at one of the grocery stores in the Manhattan-based Amish Market chain. The Department sent investigators to all 11 of the chain's outposts, and the preliminary findings suggested minimum wage, overtime and tip-credit violations, according to Commissioner Patricia Smith — charges that Amish Market downplayed, calling the investigation routine.
Smith's department has also started performing random searches in an effort to combat other labor problems, not just wage violations. "In the past, if there were violations we didn't have jurisdiction over, we would just ignore them," she says. Now, Smith instructs inspectors to alert relevant agencies. Worker advocates argue that broader enforcement of existing regulations nationwide could help improve conditions for more than 2.5 million supermarket workers.
NAIL SALON WORKERS
Manicurists and pedicurists in the U.S. number 155,000, and the industry has tripled over the last two decades. Forty-two percent of nail technicians are Asian immigrant women, according to industry estimates, and many have little recourse when exposed to dangerous health conditions. Cosmetics ingredients don't fall under the jurisdiction of either the EPA or the Food and Drug Administration, and many such products sold in the U.S. today contain known toxins. Formaldehyde and toluene, both identified by the EPA as carcinogens, are part of the mix in many common cosmetics, as are phthalates, chemicals that have been linked to birth defects. For the average consumer, opening a bottle of nail polish once every so often is a negligible risk. But for professionals exposed to them consistently, it can be a bigger problem.
According to a 2006 report by the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, 89% of the 10,000 chemicals used in nail-care products have not been safety tested by an independent agency. Since 2001, the Environmental Working Group, a public health watchdog, has been studying many of those same ingredients, with disturbing results. The group has noted that one common brand of nail glue contains ingredients linked to cancer and reproductive defects, a significant finding given that more than half of Asian immigrant women working in nail salons are of child-bearing age. Hannah Lee, executive editor of Nails Magazine, an industry publication, says that safety fears are often overblown. "If you follow all the rules that are out there, it's a perfectly safe job," Lee says. "There's no research that suggests that the amount of chemicals that nail technicians or maniurists are exposed to on a day-to-day basis is a problem."
In 2005, California, which is home to 21% of all nail technicians nationwide, passed a Safe Cosmetics Bill, requiring cosmetics manufacturers to disclose dangerous ingredients to the State Department of Health and Human Services. Disclosure, though, doesn't mean mandated elimination of those chemicals, leaving the onus on workers to reduce their exposure. "It's as safe a job as you can make it," says Lee. | <urn:uuid:ccdfe001-73c7-4825-8d79-0464a118190c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://safecosmetics.org/article.php?id=95 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968767 | 1,765 | 1.929688 | 2 |
A few days ago I finished writing a short story, the kind that might be filed under the slip-stream genre.
So I finished the story, did the rewrites, edited the whole thing and left it alone for a while as I often do. I feel that the words get acquainted with the page and with each other better this way. Fine, maybe it's the distance that gives me a new perspective.
Today I got back to it and I was horrified. It's not that the story was bad, not at all. However, right at the very beginning I introduced a cat and throughout the story the cat was mentioned until the very end. The problem? you ask. The problem is that the cat didn't play any role in the plot. It was a red herring and as such was drawing attention from the main issue - the story, the theme.
Two options - the first is to delete any and all references to the cat (maybe not so dramatically, but severely), the other is to integrate the cat into the plot.
And that brings me to one more piece of advice - don't get attached to your writing. Learn to delete. Remember the plot structure we've talked about a few weeks ago where we discussed how plot should advance the story forward. Therefore, anything that doesn't do that - kill it. No mercy. It's for the best... | <urn:uuid:2a79b1d9-87c4-4053-8511-205a902693b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://allkindsofwriting.blogspot.com/2005/05/plot-issues-beware-of-red-herrings.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985119 | 282 | 1.5 | 2 |
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Dr. Knee's article "Land use and water quality in a rural cloud forest region (Intag, Ecuador)" is forthcoming in River Research and Applications.
Dr. MacAvoy and colleagues have published a paper titled “Anadromous fish as marine nutrient vectors” in the journal Fisheries Bulletin (107:165-174).
Dr. Culver and colleague published a book titled “The Biology of Caves and Other Subterranean Habitats.” The book provides an authoritative and up-to-date overview of the field, covering a range of biological processes, including evolution and adaptation, ecosystem function, community ecology, biogeography, and conservation. The book also includes a global range of examples and case studies from both caves and non-cave subterranean habitats. The book is published by Oxford University Press.
Dr. Kim was a co-author on a report published by the National Academies titled “Tackling Marine Debris in the 21st Century.” According to the report, current measures to prevent and reduce marine debris are inadequate, and the problem will likely worsen. | <urn:uuid:5de494f0-e2d6-4807-bfc6-27efaa96d256> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.american.edu/cas/environmental/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924084 | 306 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Who’s Driving the School Bus Anyway?
Perched up high in our beloved 11 passenger van, I sat with eyes shut tight, one hand gripping the side of my seat, the other reaching frantically for the non-existent bar above my window. “Please don’t drive so close to the edge,” I cried out to my husband, who, in fact, seemed oblivious to any danger on the two-way highway. Just when I started to relax, I saw the red taillights of the vehicle in front of us. I cringed as we drew closer to the other car’s bumper before stopping abruptly. “Why do you have to get so close and wait so long to stop?” I wailed as I pulled my sweater up over my head.
I was not really asking for the reasons why; I was merely signifying that he must have temporarily lost his head and forgotten the rules of the road. My husband patiently explained that the car ahead should have started moving sooner and that he was just hoping not to waste the van’s energy by stopping sooner than necessary. I wasn’t laughing.
My stomach finally started to relax its churning when I noticed that we were not taking the route that was familiar. “Shouldn’t you be turning here?” I submissively suggested. No. Not today. We were taking the scenic route. And, it is usually very scenic.
With all my commenting about his driving, it’s a wonder that my husband makes it to work and back everyday without me!
Just why are men so aggressive when it comes to driving? All the books on men tell us that it is because they are born to lead and made to race. Well, okay, but not when I am in the car, please. I think the better question here would be just why is it that I think that my husband must drive like I do or else he is not driving the right way?
The physical example of trying to “drive” our husbands finds its way into our home and homeschools as well, doesn’t it? Do you find yourself questioning your husband’s leadership abilities? Do you think he has forgotten to look ahead, or forgotten to look behind, or maybe even forgotten the direction you’re supposed to be going?
I have too, from time to time, and in my arrogance, I’ve let him know a thing or two about how much help I could use and why doesn’t he see the needs as clearly as I do. I have wondered (loudly) if he will ever takeover some of the schooling responsibilities or at least care enough to look at what I’m trying to do with the kids. What a putrid attitude and how despicable in the eyes of God! So just what is valuable in the sight of God?
“Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.” 1 Peter 3:3, 4
In learning gentleness and quietness, I have also found much more peace. I am learning to hang on for the ride and trust the Lord to arrive at the end of the journey safely.
So how am I learning these things? Usually the hard way. In looking back, I have seen that I’ve not always honored my husband’s plans, rather than the false assumption that he has not always helped me with my plans. Let me explain.
Over the years there have been a few things the Principal of this school has specifically asked that I make happen. Many times I didn’t really want to hear what he had to say, (the pride in me causes me to secretly be upset that he thinks anything needs changing at all) I just wanted him to see my agenda and agree with it. Poor, foolish teacher.
“Be not wise in thine own eyes, fear the Lord and depart from evil.” Proverbs 3:7
Let me get transparent and demonstrate where I have failed and where I have triumphed in allowing my husband to drive this school bus.
The principal believed it was really important to make sure that math assignments were graded regularly. Can you believe that! On top of all the bazillion other things I had to do? Couldn’t hubby just do that one thing? Looking back, I realize how wrong my attitude was compared to what the Lord desired in me. And, looking back, if I had stayed on top of grading the math lessons (which I didn’t), at least one of my children wouldn’t have strayed so badly in his math progress. My child has had to pay the price of my lack of respect in honoring the desires of my authority. An even higher price to pay has been re-teaching him to respect my authority when he didn’t see me respecting my own authority. Ouch.
“Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.” 1 Peter 5:5
I hated history in school. But, knowing I had to teach it in my own homeschool, I tried a lot of different curriculum. Everybody I knew was using a certain “highly praised” book and I thought I needed to as well. I asked the principal his thoughts. He said to teach history starting with the Old Testament. Humph. I didn’t even like to read the Old Testament. How could that possibly be what was right? Lest you think this teacher is a total loser, I did actually try and teach them from the Old Testament and boy did we learn a lot! What I thought would be boring actually taught me so much for life and godliness! We learned that the foundation of our faith was based on believing the Bible to be true from the very first verse, starting with creation. We learned about the Kings of Israel and what happened when they followed God or simply did what was right in their own eyes. We learned all those cool stories about the Judges sent as deliverers. And, we learned the cycle of history that repeats itself even to this day: when people or governments forsake God and turn to idolatry(whatever form that may take), they are eventually sent into bondage. From there, they learn repentance. God hears their cry and delivers them, and they find rest. Idolatry, Bondage, Repentance, Deliverance, Rest. Look at all the major civilizations and peoples to whom this has applied. The cycle continues to repeat itself, sometimes even in my own life or in the lives of my kids.
As we took the scenic route through the Old Testament, my children learned to enjoy reading the Bible and they continue to see its relevance for today! Amazing what the Word of God (and a little humble submission to my authorities) could do in teaching me to do what was right in the sight of God and not in my own eyes.
“In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” Judges 17:6
“Open Thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things in Thy law.” Psalm 119:18
This was my specialty and I knew how to teach it, thank you very much. The principal allowed me to drive as long as I also taught the kids Latin and Greek. Right. Well, I bought the material and started it a few times, but never completed the task-ever. The kids still don’t know any Latin or Greek. The fruit of my disobedience has been guilt on my part, knowing I have disappointed the Principal and His God. And on the children’s part, some have poor spelling and all lack the ability to decipher a word by knowing its Latin or Greek roots. I know that if I would have honored the principal’s request in this area, he would have felt respected and my children would have gained valuable knowledge. I think I better humble myself, repent, and get that curriculum out and finally follow through with it. I think the Lord just might bless that.
And, lest you think my husband is a tyrant or expects too much, I want you to know that he has been full of grace and not ever mentioned my failures. You see, it’s not about whether I teach my kids Latin or Greek or not, and I wouldn’t even go so far as to say that you should teach it to your children. It’s about my attitude of respect before my husband and am I willing to let him lead. If I do not respect my husband’s leadership how can I expect my children to respect their father?
If you view yourself as having failed, humble yourself. If the road looks too hard for you; cast all your cares on Jesus. He will make a way where there seems to be no way. Feeling low? He will lift you up in due time.
“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.” 1 Peter 5:6, 7
I used to always say, “I need help!” “I can’t do this all by myself!” “I can’t physically keep up with all that is demanded of me!” When I am tempted to say these things now, here is what I do:
Instead of saying, “I need help!” First, I ask the Lord to show me how to fulfill my role as being the helpmeet. My husband is not the helpmeet–I am. Maybe I am putting too much burden on myself and what my husband is asking is really easier. Then, I humbly go before my husband and listen to his advice.
Instead of saying, “I can’t do this all by myself!” I am learning to say, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” The right curriculum doesn’t strengthen me. The right method doesn’t strengthen me. Christ strengthens me when I come to Him.
Instead of saying, “I can’t physically and emotionally keep up with all that’s demanded of me!” I yoke up with Jesus who said He will teach me to be gentle and humble and promised rest for my soul. Instead of needing more hands, I need more of Him. And, when I draw near to Him and ask for wisdom and strength, He provides it. Are you weary and heavy laden with the burden of homeschooling? Get to know Jesus Christ; He wants to teach you that He is gentle and humble of heart and you will find rest for your soul.
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30
I have one child that tends to take up a lot of time and energy. For years I struggled with this child to stay with the program. God created this one different and I had no idea the road to take. What worked for the other kids didn’t work for this one. This required many trips to the principal’s office. He kept saying that all he wanted from that child is for them to be able to read, write, do math and love the Lord. Through this they would learn order and character. Why did I keep making it so difficult on myself and the child by expecting more? I finally listened, relaxed and slowed down. Amazingly, they have now gained speed, improved in character, and are ready for more. All that worry and anxiety for naught, when I could have been happy with the principal’s wisdom.
“Happy is the man that finds wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding.” Proverbs 3:13
This was seriously hard for me to let go. I really believed I could do it better and faster than allowing the little ones to “help”. After all, they never did it quite right. I argued with the principal, but due to his long-range vision, he continued to have the children take on more and more chores. I had to admit his genius when I came to really need all of their help during future pregnancies and other unknown stresses. He saw the future benefit of teaching children to work when I had only seen the immediate result. The fruit is even evident at church and in the neighborhood as our children are not averse to work, but apply themselves with fervor and excellence wherever needed. I would have made wimpy, useless children had I driven that one.
“There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Proverbs 16:25
The Road Ahead
My husband sees more of the big picture of our schooling than I do. I am usually stuck in the details of working it all out. He sees a goal and lays out the direction we are to go, even if he has no clue of the streets or cities we must pass, or the mountains we must climb, let alone any curriculum choices. But in seeing the goal, he is able to keep us focused on the road ahead. Some husbands want their wives to drive the bus all the time. Hey, he’s the principal, so get behind the wheel and drive!
Although I have felt the failure of my attempts to drive this homeschool bus when I shouldn’t have been driving, I have also learned many lessons on what is really required of me. It is really quite simple:
“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” Micah 6:8
To do justly, I must walk in submission and obedience to God and my husband.
To love mercy, I must not be puffed up with pride in my own agenda or decry my husband’s seeming lack of knowledge.
To walk humbly with my God is to also walk humbly with my husband whether he asks me to drive the bus for him, or help him read the map.
There have been times where neither of us has known exactly which way to go and we have learned to put the following Scripture into real practice together:
“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” James 1:5
Who’s Driving the School Bus Anyway?
And just in case you were wondering who the real driver of the bus is, look here:
“Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.” Psalm 37:5
“A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.” Proverbs 16:9
So rest in peace, knowing the Lord will direct your homeschooling steps. It’s time to move over and let Him drive.
Copyright, 2009. All rights reserved by author below. Content provided by The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC. | <urn:uuid:40bc1572-649f-429e-af64-eafbb62c808d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://creation.com/whos-driving-the-school-bus-anyway | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980501 | 3,335 | 1.617188 | 2 |
all students are capable of excellence
"all students are capable of excellence" - Brock Dubbels
I read about award winning teacher, Tim Rylands, a while back. Tim uses the game Myst "to inspire childrens creative confidence in many areas of the curriculum including creative writing, speaking and listening, music and art".
I have just read of Brock Dubbels. He has been getting kids to write game design documents to enhance literacy:
"We first studied games as new narratives and looked at issues related to narrative analysis and film analysis, and then we focused on usability.
This was used to develop comprehension and elements of narratives for critical thinking and to accelerate kids beyond the standards. They were basically extending genre study.
Our next step was to create a design document that represented the creation of a game based upon the modern day Odyssey using the concepts from our game analysis assignments.
In this case, Odysseus was put off the bus (poseidon bus lines) and had to find a way to get home based upon the story of the Odyssey as it would happen in their "hood."
Brock believes that learning can be fun, that the academic rigour can still be there, "behind the curtain so that we can enjoy the magic of the illusion of the presence of the wizard"
"it is also important to remember that people want to be involved in something relevant and exciting. They want fun and inspiration. What this means is that I begin by emphasizing the fun and inspirational, and I embed the process and reflection into the assignment. The standards and cognitive processes are stealth objects; things are designed into the
activity and then realized through structured reflection and then shared through presentation and/or composition"
He recognises that kids learn in different ways and makes allowances for it. It's not learning on rails.
"I understand that I should allow for variation-- this is creativity and is one of those things where you know it if you see it. But, I can give them a framework to create in a manner that is reflective of their learning style. Whether they want direct instruction; if they want to build off of someone else's ideas through watching someone else for a while if they want to seek other sources and example on the web to build off of, and then do their own thing; or if they just want trial and error until something emerges."
He recognises that kids given an authentic and relevant task and access to the tools at home will put in many hours at home.
"The latter often takes the most time, but this is what happens when kids engage and they have the tools to work on the project outside of my class." | <urn:uuid:4efd5608-aeed-42dd-b0f1-03edd9948e4f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tonyforster.blogspot.com/2007/06/all-students-are-capable-of-excellence.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967879 | 542 | 2.90625 | 3 |
How far can a public safety officer — police officer or firefighter — go in exercising his or her First Amendment “free speech” rights? And how far can a fire chief or police chief go in limiting those rights?
Given the fact that free-speech issues are complex outside a public safety context, it's no surprise that the answers to the questions posed above are equally complex. Two cases illustrate this point.
The first is Pappas v. Giuliani, No. 00-9487 (2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, May 13, 2002). When New York Police Department officer Thomas Pappas received charity donation requests, he would sometimes use the business-reply envelope to mail racist and anti-Semitic materials back to the charity.
When the Mineola (N.Y.) Auxiliary Police Department sent Pappas a request for support, Pappas filled the business-reply envelope with fliers that “… asserted white supremacy, ridiculed black people and their culture and warned against the ‘Negro wolf … destroying American civilization with rape, robbery and murder,’ and declaimed against ‘how the Jews control the TV networks and why they should be in the hands of the American public and not the Jews.’”
When the Mineola Auxiliary Police Department received the envelope, department representatives turned it over to the Nassau County (N.Y.) Police Department. NCPD conducted a new mailing, using coded business-reply envelopes to see if the sender could be identified. One of the coded business-reply envelope was mailed back, again filled with racist and anti-Semitic flyers. NCPD traced the code to a post office box in the name of “Thomas Pappas/The Populist Party for the Town of North Hempstead.”
When NCPD investigators learned that Pappas was an NYPD officer, they notified NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau, which developed and carried out a continuing coded-envelope sting operation. Internal affairs investigators then confronted Pappas, who admitted that he had sent the materials: “I was protesting and I was tired of being shaken down for money by these so-called charitable organizations. And it was a form of protest, just put stuff back in an envelope and send stuff back as a form of protest.”
Pappas was charged with dissemination of defamatory materials in the mail, found guilty and fired. He sued Mayor Rudy Giuliani and NYPD Commissioner Howard Safir in U.S. District Court, alleging violation of his First Amendment free-speech rights. The judge ruled in favor of Giuliani and Safir. Pappas appealed to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.
In 1968, the U.S. Supreme Court wrestled with similar issues in Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563 (1968). In reaching a decision, the court came up with a method of analyzing public employee free-speech cases “… to arrive at a balance between the interests of the … citizen in commenting on matters of public concern and the interest of the … [public] employer in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees.” Here's the Pickering test:
A public employee has a protected right under the First Amendment to comment on “matters of public concern,” no matter what the employer thinks.
If the employee's comments aren't on a “matter of public concern,” those comments are not protected.
(A tip for fire service managers: Most often when the court determines that speech isn't a matter of public concern, it's because the court has found that the employee has taken a private grievance public.)
If the employee's comments are on a matter of public concern, then the employer must demonstrate that the speech would “potentially interfere with or disrupt the government's activities, and can persuade the court that the potential disruptiveness” outweighs the employee's First Amendment rights.
For purposes of legal analysis, the judges who made up the 2nd Circuit panel assumed that Pappas' “speech” was on a matter of public concern. This allowed the judges to go straight to the question of whether Pappas' speech “potentially interfered with” or “disrupted” the NYPD's activities. They agreed with the district court judge; the Pickering balance, they ruled, leaned in favor of the employer.
Did it matter that Pappas conducted these activities off-duty? No, said the court, the potential interference and disruption effects on the employer were the same.
What about the fact that Pappas mailed the materials anonymously? The court distinguished Pappas' mailings from a diary or confidential conversation with close friends. “Had [his views] become known accidentally, or through a breach of confidence, that case would present different considerations. We do not speculate how such a case would be decided. But those are not the facts we deal with here…. Although Pappas tried to conceal his identity as speaker, he took the risk that the effort would fail.” (Emphasis added.)
Although Pappas was a sworn officer, did it matter that he was assigned to NYPD's Management Information Services Division and had virtually no contact with the public? To answer that question, the court had to explain why Pappas was different from Ardith McPherson.
McPherson was an unsworn deputy constable in the Harris County (Texas) Constable's Office when an attempt was made to assassinate President Ronald Reagan. She didn't like Reagan, and commented to a co-worker, “If they go after him again, I hope they get him.”
In Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U.S. 378 (1987), the U.S. Supreme Court held that McPherson's speech didn't interfere with or disrupt the Constable Office's activities because McPherson's statement was not a criminal threat and because her status as a clerk required no public contact. The court ruled that McPherson's statement was unlikely to impair “discipline by superiors, or harmony among co-workers, [cause] a detrimental impact on close working relationships for which personal confidence or loyalty are necessary, or impede the performance of [McPherson's] duties or interfere with the regular operation of the enterprise.”
As for Pappas, the court found that his status as a sworn officer outweighed his lack of contact with the public: “If the press became aware … of his dissemination of racist diatribes, it would report that this was done by a police officer — not a person … work[ing] on Police Department computers.” The court also noted that, while McPherson was overheard speaking privately to a co-worker, “Pappas disseminated his diatribes publicly,” and finally said that, while McPherson was making a very ill-conceived and ill-phrased political statement, Pappas was “venting his personal racial bias.”
Did Pappas' speech tilt the Pickering scale in favor of the employer's interests in acting in response to the “disruptiveness” and “potential interference” of Pappas' speech? Absolutely, said the court:
“An ordinary police officer's distribution of these bigoted hate-filled materials reinforces [the] perception [that ordinary police officers are biased], and thus harms the effectiveness of the Police Department. Further, for police officers of one race to express hatred and scorn for members of another race obviously fans anger, dissension and racial tensions among officers of different races and thus inflicts harm of a second kind on the Department's performance of its mission.” (Emphasis added.)
As to the burden of proof on NYPD to show evidence of the disruptiveness and interference of Pappas' speech, a “governmental employer's right to discharge an employee by reason of his speech in matters of public importance does not depend on the employer's having suffered actual harm resulting from the speech. The employee's speech must be of such nature that the employer reasonably believes that it is likely to interfere with the performance of the employer's mission.”
Contrast what happened in Pappas with this case. Late last year, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a decision in another public-employee free-speech case, Washington v. Irwin, No. 00-3828 (Nov. 5, 2001.)
Joseph Washington was assistant chief and a 25-year veteran of the Normandy Fire Protection District in St. Louis County, Mo. On March 26, 1999, he appeared on a radio talk show as a “senior advisor” to an organization called FLAME, the Firefighter's League for the Advancement of Minority Employees, in support of a candidate for a position on the Fire District's Board of Directors. (The 8th Circuit judges noted that the district had no rules prohibiting such activities.) During the interview, Washington noted concerns with fire department response and fire department membership:
“To highlight [his] concerns, Washington described an incident in which an unidentified white firefighter refused to follow standard operating guidelines in fighting a fire because he was unwilling to ‘climb over fences in Pinelawn through debris, trash, garbage and whatever else to get to a back door to push (sic) a fire out and save someone's home.’ Washington also opined that ‘You have a better chance of getting on at Normandy Fire Protection District's fire force if you stay in St. Charles County and you are white than you would if you stayed in a community and you were a black person and paid taxes. It is just a fact of life.’”
Immediately after the radio show, IAFF Local 2665 shop steward John Irwin filed a complaint with the fire district grievance committee, alleging that Washington's remarks “created a ‘hostile environment’ for the District's white employees.” The chief of the district denied the grievance as without merit, stating that Washington's comments were expressions of his personal opinions during a “political” interview.
The fire district board held its own hearing on the grievance, without Washington. The board met three days later in closed session with Washington. On a 3-2 vote, the board demoted Washington from assistant chief to private. Washington left on sick leave, and after disagreement on documentation of his medical status, the board fired Washington.
Washington sued, arguing that he was demoted and then fired for exercising his free-speech rights. The board of directors argued that, as elected officials, they had “qualified immunity” from suit, and asked the U.S. District Court judge to, in effect, let them out of the lawsuit.
The judge denied their motion, so the board appealed, conceding that although Washington's speech was on a matter of public concern, his speech was so disruptive that “reasonable public officials would not have concluded that the … action taken violated [his] rights under the First Amendment.”
With the defendants conceding that Washington's speech met the Pickering public concern test, the court went right to the defendants' Pickering disruptiveness/potential interference defense. Did it matter that the fire chief had dismissed the Local 2665 grievance in determining the potential for disruption? Absolutely.
“The directors contend that no showing of actual disruption is necessary, pointing to our statement that the potential for disruption is accorded particular weight ‘[w]hen lives may be at stake in a fire [and] an ésprit de corps is essential to the success of the joint endeavor.’ [Quoted by the court from another classic fire service free-speech case, Janusaitis v. Middlebury Volunteer Fire Department, 607 F2d 17, 26 (2nd Circuit, 1979).] True enough, but we went on … to point out that the fire chief in that case reasonably believed that the speech in question had led or would lead to disruption in the department, a showing that is absent in this case….” (Emphasis added.)
The court also noted that the defendants had not met the Pickering standard for potential disruption either, but it is clear from the court's opinion that the fire chief's reaction played a significant role in the court's Pickering assessment:“[I]n the absence of such a showing, Washington's speech may not be punished.”
Pappas and Washington were argued before panels of circuit court judges within months of each other. Why was Pappas' firing upheld on the strength of potential disruption to NYPD, and Washington's firing overturned?
Although police officers share the public safety mantle with firefighters, courts generally hold police to a higher standard of free-speech consequences than other public-safety workers.
In the absence of a (presumably constitutional) district or department rule limiting political commentary, the reaction of the fire chief to Washington's speech was critical. The chief's dismissal of the grievance put a very heavy burden on the board, which it couldn't meet in the absence of actual disruption.
The content of the speech had a different impact. My guess is that, had the 8th Circuit felt that a close analysis of Washington's speech was required, the court would have found it less like Pappas' rants and more like typical firehouse arguments that don't interfere with a department's ability to function.
Public-employee free-speech cases are very difficult to call. Based on Washington, Pappas, Pickering and other cases like them, here's my advice:
As a chief officer, when you hear about some particularly choice “free speech” on the part of one of your members, count to one hundred before acting. If you feel you must act, a suspension with pay is the best short-term solution until you can get some good legal advice.
You can be publicly criticized by any of your members, be they full-time, part-time or volunteer, for just about any of your official acts — and the more controversial, the more First Amendment protection the member has. The general legal theory is that the public's interest in how public dollars are spent and public safety decisions are made is very strong, and public employees are in a very good position to address those public interests.
Don't count on your town, city or fire district attorney to be a quick-draw First Amendment expert. First Amendment law is very complex and there are few easy answers. If you guess wrong, you could be looking at a very uncomfortable rehiring or reinstatement, a very large damage award, or a personal-liability situation.
John Rukavina is director of public safety for Wake County, N.C., and holds a law degree from the University of Minnesota School of Law. He was a 1993Fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and is a graduate of the National Fire Academy's Executive Fire Officer Program. He has taught for the National Fire Academy, at ICHIEFS conferences and for the Institutes of Government at the universities of North Carolina and Georgia. | <urn:uuid:36d34098-0a29-407c-81ca-de8375c22493> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://firechief.com/mag/firefighting_pickering_rules_roost | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971119 | 3,145 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Governor Romney's Tax-Free Savings Plan For The Middle Class:
Today, Governor Mitt Romney Outlined His Middle Class Tax Savings Plan. Governor Romney's plan will allow middle class Americans to save tax-free by changing the tax rate on interest, capital gains and dividends to absolutely 0%. By helping more Americans save and invest, we can meet the challenges of an aging population and ensure the financial security of America.
- Governor Romney's Plan Will Allow Over 95% Of American Families To Save And Invest Tax-Free. Any taxpayer with Adjusted Gross Income of under $200,000 would pay a tax rate of absolutely 0% on all of the income they earn from their savings, capital gains and dividends.
- With Tax-Free Savings, More Americans Will Join The Investor Class. In recent years, over half of adult Americans have participated in the stock market either directly or through pension plans and mutual funds. Tax-free savings will encourage more families to build wealth by saving, investing and participating in the stock market, which will help grow the economy.
Governor Romney's Plan Will Help Millions Of Taxpayers Save And Invest Tax-Free. Based on 2005 tax returns:
- 56,148,740 Taxpayers Who Earned Interest Could Have Benefited From This Tax Break.
- 28,351,341 Taxpayers Who Earned Dividends Could Have Benefited From This Tax Break.
- 23,316,273 Taxpayers Who Earned Capital Gains Could Have Benefited From This Tax Break.
Governor Romney's Plan Will Help Americans Build Wealth And Become Homeowners:
Governor Romney's Plan Will Help Families Save For New Homes. Recent housing market difficulties offer an important reason for helping more Americans save and invest. As the market softens, credit has tightened. Therefore lending standards will become much tougher. As exotic loans become less widespread, the traditional practice of saving for a home down-payment will be the new standard. Governor Romney's plan will help Americans save for down-payments and achieve the American dream of home ownership.
- Governor Romney's Plan Will Put More Money In The Hands Of Existing Homeowners. By providing taxpayers with a 0% tax rate on savings, the plan will help homeowners meet their current mortgage payments. This tax cut will put more money into the hands of American homeowners.
Governor Romney's Plan Builds Upon And Extends Pro-Growth Tax Policies:
Governor Romney's Plan Builds On Pro-Growth Tax Policies Initiated In 2003. In 2003, the United States passed major cuts in the tax rate on capital gains and dividends, instituting a new, lower top rate of 15%. These tax cuts galvanized our economy. Americans were able to keep more of their capital gains and reinvest in the economy:
- The Rate Of Growth In Our Economy More Than Tripled, Going From 0.8% In The Two Years Before The Rate Cuts To 3.1% In The Two Years Following The Tax Cuts.
- Following The Capital Gains Tax Rate Cut In 2003, Capital Gains Tax Receipts Actually Increased From $58 Billion In 2002 To $103 Billion In 2006.
Governor Romney's Tax Relief On Capital Gains Alone Will Lead To Savings For The Middle Class. In 2004, the median family income for a four-person family in the United States fell within the $50,000 to $75,000 tax bracket. That year, this income group paid over $796 million in taxes on capital gains. Under Governor Romney's plan, capital gains taxes paid by this income group would have been zero.
Governor Romney's Pro-Growth Tax Agenda:
Governor Romney Has Proposed A Strong Tax Relief Agenda To Strengthen American Families. Governor Romney will make the Bush tax relief permanent, cut tax rates for all Americans, abolish the death tax, and make the corporate tax rate more competitive with the rest of the world.
- Click Here To Read Governor Romney's Plan To Cut Taxes.
By Making The Bush Tax Relief Permanent, Governor Romney Will Preserve Tax Relief For Millions Of Americans:
- 108,950,000 Total Taxpayers Benefited From The Tax Relief In 2006.
- 97,024,000 Americans Benefited From The Rate Reduction In The Lowest Tax Bracket In 2006.
- 34,080,000 Couples Saw A Reduction In The Marriage Penalty In 2006.
- 27,975,000 Taxpayers Benefited From The Increased Child Credit In 2006. | <urn:uuid:87b515a0-4e89-49ac-aa55-90d97fcb2d4a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://illinoisans-4-mitt-romney.blogspot.com/2007/09/tax-free-savings-for-american-families.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904962 | 919 | 1.765625 | 2 |
The holiday season can be a time of added pressure as we all attempt to find or make the “perfect” gift for all those special people on our list. For the truly crafty it can be a time filled with hours of quality sewing and creative time. For many others there is a desire to have a homemade element to their Christmas, but a lack of sewing and crafty abilities sees them heading to the shops or online stores instead. I have an alternative middle ground to share -”semi-handmade”.
Semi-handmade is creative gift giving for the less crafty (or those who are time poor and wanting to ease up their handmade goals). It involves taking some bought element and adding a homemade or crafty touch to create a unique gift not to be found in the shops.
Some ideas that fall in the semi- handmade camp are:
- Cooking / food related: jams, chutneys, flavoured oils and vinegars
- Soaps, creams and lip balms
- Alcoholic beverages : flavoured vodkas, homemade sangria, beers from around the world
- Stationery items: notebooks that you cover with fabric and add nice pens and accessories, bookmarks etc
- Gift baskets or hampers around a theme such as: BBQ (food items and tools) , for the coffee lover, wine (a couple of bottles, plus olives, cheese, crackers and nuts), movie-focused (DVDs or movie passes + snacks)
- Photographs – you can turn any photo into a mug, mousepad, canvas, create a photo book or calendar with highlights from the year (great for grandparents)
With many of these ideas being consumables you are also creating a less cluttered Christmas as well.
If you need some ideas to get the semi-homemade juices flowing here are 20 tutorials for everything from a BBQ gift basket and kids’ gifts, to bath salts and decorative candles. None of the gifts require a degree in sewing and many are low cost and great to create in bulk for many people on your list (it is easy to make variations to keep it personal if you don’t want to give out five identical gifts). | <urn:uuid:9f474f8b-1973-46ae-995f-06a3b6a6403e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.kidspot.com.au/villagevoices/easy-homemade-christmas-gifts/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929223 | 456 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Walter S. Wyman, Augusta, ca. 1925Item 74736 info
Maine Historical Society
Walter Scott Wyman (1874-1942), one of the two founders of Central Maine Power, is among many men and women who contributed to the electrification of Maine.
Wyman was born in Oakland (then West Waterville). He studied electrical engineering at Tufts University and in between terms worked as a telegraph operator. During the summers he managed the Western Union office in Bar Harbor.
Wyman left Tufts before his senior year, and soon became general manager of the Waterville and Fairfield Railway and Electric Company.
In 1899, Wyman left the Railway and Electric Company and, along with his friend Harvey Doane Eaton, formed his own business that eventually became Central Maine Power. | <urn:uuid:bdae84f2-0c4f-4ea0-8b44-34bd8a7d4dc0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mainememory.net/sitebuilder/site/2134/slideshow/1262/display?use_mmn=&prev_object_id=3535&prev_object=page | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97452 | 168 | 1.851563 | 2 |
Taking pictures is more than just pointing the camera and pressing a button. To get the kind of photos you really want, you'll need to learn a little bit about your camera. You can transition from taking snapshots to producing inspired images that you will cherish forever. It's not hard, we'll show you how. The Jumpstart DVD guide for the Nikon 1 Series J1 and V1 cameras will teach you everything you need to know in about 75 minutes.
Run Time: 1 hour and 16 minutes
This JumpStart Guide to the Nikon J1 & V1 covers: | <urn:uuid:59a3cc18-1e0b-4ddd-9481-4b3df9640e02> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.abesofmaine.com/item.do?item=JSNJ1-V1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900998 | 116 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Kick Ass in College: A Guerrilla Guide to College Success | Rated #1 How to Study in College Book… for $0 + free shipping
#1 How to Study in College Book
77 Ninja Study Skills Tips and Career Strategies [Kindle Edition]
Although Fox, a "person young enough to have college in his rear-view mirror," has branched out into law and real estate, he did develop a study program for "at risk" students at the University of Texas and still runs series of lectures for prospective students. There's nothing new in his pushing "serious, steady effort" ("professors want some pain"), time management, and disciplined study strategies (limit TV, and no music while working, not ever), but he goes a bit further than most to counsel kids about getting to know campus services, finding mentors, and becoming involved in extracurricular activities. Salient points appear in boldface, and key ideas are listed at the close of each chapter, making skimming easy. The focus-on-studies-and-the-future approach will appeal to parents; kids will come away with a few helpful hints to get the job done. | <urn:uuid:900bb66f-3b4f-44b3-818c-16244ae8f917> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://deals.woot.com/deals/details/187e81b7-7840-4c5d-ac0a-6e7ca64747ba/kick-ass-in-college-a-guerrilla-guide-to-college-success-rated-1-how-to-study | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96068 | 239 | 1.984375 | 2 |
As speculated earlier this week, Google has officially managed to escape a nearly two-year U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigation without paying any fines.
Instead of paying fines, the FTC made Google promise that it would stop scraping reviews and information from other websites, stop requesting sales bans when suing companies for patent infringement and allow advertisers to export data in order to evaluate advertising campaigns.
The decision to not fine Google after such a long investigation surprised many rival companies, but FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz said it was in the best interest of all involved.
"Even though people would like us to bring a big search bias case, the facts aren't there," said Leibowitz. "The changes Google have agreed to make ensure that consumers continue to reap the benefits of competition in the online marketplace and in the market for innovative wireless devices they enjoy."
The competition doesn't seem to agree with Leibowitz. Companies like Yelp, Nextag and Microsoft have complained that the FTC is basically letting Google get away with its practices, and by simply receiving promises, Google has greater flexibility to make any changes on its own terms and pace.
"The closure of the commission's investigation into search bias by Google without action ... represents a missed opportunity to protect innovation in the Internet economy," wrote Yelp spokesman Vince Sollitto in an email. "We look for the regulatory bodies continuing their investigation to have greater success."
Just yesterday, Dave Heiner, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of Microsoft, wrote a post about the fact that the FTC is not doing enough to force Google to conform with antitrust laws. More specifically, Microsoft is upset that Windows Phone still cannot get a full YouTube app while the competition (Android and iOS) are able.
Today, Heiner wrote yet another post in response to the FTC's decision. He called the resolution "weak" and addressed Microsoft's main issues with Google, such as the fact that Google doesn't offer data portability to advertisers so that they can use data on other platforms (like Bing) other than just Google's; the fact that Google promotes its own services in search results; Google's abuse of standard essential patents, and again, Google's failure to offer Windows Phone a full-featured YouTube app.
"The FTC took steps today to address some of Google’s improper business practices," said Heiner. "We find it troubling that the agency did not adhere to its own standard procedures that call for the agency to obtain industry input on proposed relief and secure it through an enforceable consent decree. The FTC’s overall resolution of this matter is weak and—frankly—unusual. We are concerned that the FTC may not have obtained adequate relief even on the few subjects that Google has agreed to address.
"There appears to be no reason, despite the FTC’s optimistic statements this morning, to believe that Google recognizes its responsibilities as an industry leader. That is certainly consistent with the lack of change we continue to witness as we and so many others experience ongoing harm to competition in the marketplace.
"The good news is that other antitrust agencies, within the United States and overseas, are still examining Google’s conduct. In Europe Vice President Almunia has made clear that he will close his investigation of Google only with a formal, binding order that addresses search bias and other issues. We remain hopeful that these agencies will stick to their established procedures, ensure transparency, and obtain the additional relief needed to address the serious competition law concerns that remain."
Despite the criticism, the FTC stands by its decision and insists that the investigation required nothing further.
"This was an incredibly thorough and careful investigation by the commission, and the outcome is a strong and enforceable set of agreements," said Leibowitz. | <urn:uuid:44b9774c-c3c2-4c18-b558-ce48a89a8405> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=29551&commentid=830213&threshhold=1&red=5121 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968767 | 767 | 1.570313 | 2 |
|Gasification & Pyrolysis the Answer for U.S. Waste Plastics?|
25 April 2012
A new study showing has shown that emerging new technologies designed to convert waste into fuels or raw materials offer environmental benefits and cost savings over landfill disposal.
The study - Environmental and Economic Analysis of Emerging Plastics Conversion Technologies - has been The American Chemistry Council's (ACC) Plastics Division and conducted by RTI International - an independent, nonprofit institute that provides research, development, and technical services to government and commercial clients.
The research examined two types of advanced conversion technologies: gasification and pyrolysis.
According to the ACC, although both technologies are capable of processing a wide range of wastes, the study looked specifically at gasification technology that accepts all municipal solid waste (MSW), including non-recycled plastics; and pyrolysis that handles non-recycled plastics only.
In performing the study, RTI said that it conducted a search of the published literature on waste conversion technologies coupled with a survey of companies known and identified to be developing, or having deployed, waste conversion technologies.
When compared to landfill disposal, RTI found that gasification of MSW saves 6.5 to 13 million Btu per ton and 0.3 to 0.6 tons of carbon equivalent emissions per ton (1 ton = 907 kg).
Similarly, pyrolysis, which converts plastics to oil or gas, saves 1.8 to 3.6 million Btu per ton and 0.15 to 0.25 tons of carbon equivalent per ton over landfill disposal.
RTI identified 41 advanced conversion technology facilities that are under development or undergoing demonstration in North America that that will accept MSW or non-recycled plastics as feedstocks.
According to the study, due to their benefits - such as the potential to produce a range of energy, fuel, feedstocks, and chemicals, as well as waste diversion benefits - these waste conversion technologies are expected to become much more attractive in North America in the next five to ten years.
However, the study also found that plastics-to-oil pyrolysis technologies are generally closer to full scale commercialisation than MSW based technologies (typically gasification), in part because of the more consistent feedstock composition and supply for the former.
The key drivers for conversion technologies identified by the research include the alternate costs for disposition of the waste (generally landfill costs), meeting waste diversion goals and targets, and developing alternative energy sources.
Significantly, the study showed that that in some regions waste conversion technologies are already able to produce fuel outputs at lower costs than landfill.
According to RTS, survey data indicates that the cost to process the waste is approximately $50 per ton (for pyrolysis and gasification technologies), and is generally related to the cost of electricity or fuel required to run the process. For comparison average U.S. costs for landfill disposal and recycling range from $30 to $75/ton depending on region.
"This study is the latest in a growing body of information showing that many of the things we've viewed as waste actually have tremendous potential as energy resources," commented Steve Russell, vice president of Plastics for ACC.
"As a complement to a robust recycling infrastructure, conversion technologies offer environmental benefits and cost savings over traditional waste disposal processes," he added.
However, the authors do also point direct comparisons of the costs and environmental benefits of gasification and pyrolysis technologies are not recommended due to differences in the energy value of the different feedstocks they use and differences in beneficial offsets.
These beneficial offsets are explained in further detail in the study [JBI is mentioned]. | <urn:uuid:a9417576-0a8e-4e31-9f29-38a4b70d839b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=28104963 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935269 | 755 | 2.625 | 3 |
BioM: Wolf, Hulda
(Marriage - 1908)
Surnames: NEFF WOLF
----Source: CLARK COUNTY REPUBLICAN & PRESS (Neillsville, Wis.) 10/01/1908
Wolf, Hulda (Marriage - 30 Sep 1908)
Mr. Harry Neff of the town of Levis, Clark County and Miss Hulda Wolf were married at the home of the bride’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. J. Wolf in the town of Grant at noon, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 1908, Rev. W.P. Burrows officiating. The wedding was a family affair, only relatives of the young people being present. After the ceremony a wedding dinner was served and the young couple took the evening train for Pasadena, Cal., where they expect to make their future home.
The groom is one of Clark County’s finest young men. He is possessed of more than ordinary talent, a young man of industry and good habits and one who has and deserves the respect of everyone.
While the writer is not acquainted with the bride and cannot thus speak from personal knowledge, she stands high in the estimation of her many friends, and is known as a lady in the best sense by all her acquaintances.
With them on their western journey goes the good will of many here.
© Every submission is protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998.
Show your appreciation of this freely provided information by not copying it to any other site without our permission.
A site created and
maintained by the Clark County History Buffs | <urn:uuid:a3df2d45-2ff3-4c20-b9b2-3729b389e91c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wiclarkcountyhistory.org/0data/1/1266.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95657 | 331 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Many of the 1.5 million people who were diagnosed with cancer last year would probably say they did everything right — they never smoked, they ate well and they exercised.
With some forms of cancers on the rise, especially among children, even as our awareness of healthy lifestyle choices improves, we need to ask ourselves a tough question: What are the hidden causes of illness that we have ignored?
With its recent report, “Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk,” the President’s Cancer Panel has taken an important first step toward answering that question, asserting that our broken federal chemical policy is costing Americans their health.
Analyzing the prevalence of environmental toxins, the report cites a “growing body of evidence linking environmental exposures to cancer” and it goes on to single out one dangerous chemical in particular: bisphenol-A (BPA).
BPA is not only a dangerous chemical, it is everywhere. Once considered for use as an estrogen replacement therapy, it is now a building block in polycarbonate plastic. It is found in many consumer products, including baby bottles, sippy cups and the linings of food cans. It remains unregulated in most states, despite the growing link between BPA and several diseases, including breast and prostate cancer, learning and behavioral disabilities, diabetes and obesity. In fact, the evidence against BPA is overwhelming.
That’s why I was struck by the brazen protests of the international chemical lobbyists as Maine’s Board of Environmental Protection heard public comments on the proposal to make BPA Maine’s first priority chemical and ban its use in food and beverage containers.
The lobbyists each stepped to the microphone and questioned the scientific studies that continue to link BPA to a host of health problems. Their reckless tactic of delay puts Maine children at extreme risk and is exactly the wrong way to look at this equation. We need to shift the balance of power back toward consumers and shift the presumption of safety in their favor.
If it seems like it might be toxic — don’t use it.
The ban being considered would apply to the use of BPA in reusable food and beverage containers and is the first test of Maine’s 2008 Kid-Safe Products Act. This new law creates a process to identify the most dangerous chemicals used in children’s products, name the worst-of-the-worst as priority chemicals, and require manufacturers to provide consumers and retailers with good information.
Priority chemicals also can be restricted, phased-out and replaced with safer alternatives. It’s a common-sense law and a national model for successfully preventing disease and reducing health care costs. And it’s working.
I’ve taken a stand on toxic chemicals because in 2006 I was one of 13 Maine residents who participated in a “body burden” study. I was tested for more than 100 chemicals — from Teflon to mercury to flame retardants to phthalates. When my results came back, I found out that my body was filled with all of the chemicals they had tested for, including BPA. Some of those chemicals were at dangerously high levels.
The sad fact of the matter is that generations of Americans have been saddled with toxic chemicals in their bodies that will affect our health for a long time to come.
Worse yet, because many of the negative health effects of these chemicals can take years to develop, identifying them as a cause of illness can be extremely difficult.
It’s time to require chemical companies to demonstrate that their products are safe before we, and our children, are exposed to them.
Maine has taken bold action, but our work is far from over. We need the Maine Board of Environmental Protection to support the phase-out of BPA in children’s products. It is the first necessary step in protecting ourselves from harmful chemicals.
Hannah M. Pingree currently serves as the 99th Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives. She has been the sponsor of numerous Maine laws to phase out the use of toxic flame retardants and of Maine’s 2008 Kid-Safe Products Law. | <urn:uuid:0a3cb521-961a-49e3-98ae-2c65b768cf21> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kjonline.com/opinion/MAINE-COMPASS--Maine-bureau-can-fill-crack-in-federal-chemical-policy-on-BPA.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962923 | 852 | 2.484375 | 2 |
1985 Film Illustrates the Historic Howard Theatre's Prominence in the Shaw Neighborhood's Collective Past
In just a little less than a month, the famed Howard Theatre at 620 T Street, NW will reopen its doors for the first time since the 1980s. The venue was once the site of performances by the likes of Pearl Bailey, Roberta Flack, and Washington's native son -- Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington.
The theater was founded in 1910 and contributed to the Greater U Street area's emergence as a hotbed of nightlife and entertainment. The Howard was DC's answer to Philadelphia's Pearl and New York's Apollo, and during the theater's heyday, U Street famously became known as "Black Broadway."
When segregation ended in Washington, and many middle-class African American families began patronizing downtown businesses for the first time, the popularity of the Howard began to wane. The theater's decline quickened following the 1968 Riots in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. The Howard closed its doors in 1970, but the Howard Theater Foundation, a group dedicated to restoring and reopening the venue, was organized just three years later; an eagerness that seems to demonstrate how large the theater loomed in the memory of the community.
The Foundation was briefly successful, and the Howard reopened and played host to a number of significant R&B acts and became very important to DC's local Go-Go scene throughout the 1970s and into the 80s, but was eventually forced to close again. But even as it's once great facade began to crumble and fade, it remained an important symbol of pride for the longtime residents of the Shaw and Greater U Street communities.
In the mid eighties, the Humanities Council funded a documentary film entitled, "The Howard Theater: a Class Act." The documentary traced the history of the venerable old building and outlined contemporary efforts to restore it. The film is now part of the DC Digital Museum and is available for loan.
In 2010, the longtime mission of Howard Theater Restoration Inc. became was realized. Then DC Mayor Adrian Fenty was on hand as the group broke ground on a multimillion dollar restoration project headed by Ellis Development and Whiting & Turner Construction. The recently completed renovations included a full reconstruction the 1910 facade giving the theater the same majestic appearance it had when it opened its doors over 100 years ago.
On April 9, 2012, the Howard Theatre will hold a community day during which they hold a ribbon cutting, officially opening the restored facility. That event will be free and open to the public. The festivities will continue with a grand opening gala and benefit concert on April 12th to raise funds for the Howard Theatre Culture and Education Center. | <urn:uuid:2c94c2ba-bedd-4ed2-9983-c2d7328aab6d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hcwdc.blogspot.jp/2012/03/from-dc-digital-museum-howard-theatre.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970881 | 554 | 2.359375 | 2 |