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Twenty-three years ago today, CI was founded by a group of dedicated conservationists who believed that true sustainability of the Earth’s resources depended on a combination of rigorous science, local knowledge and the informed and engaged participation of people all over the world.
For its first major project, CI set out to protect 728,000 hectares (1.8 million acres) in and around La Amistad International Park on the border between Costa Rica and Panama. Partially funded by McDonald’s, this initiative emphasized local community participation in economic growth, seeking not only the conservation of biodiversity, but also the protection of the watersheds essential for Costa Rica’s hydroelectric development and other benefits to human well-being.
Today, CI has grown to include over 30 country field offices with over one thousand government, business and nonprofit partners worldwide. In the last five years alone, we have engaged countless communities in conservation efforts, discovered more than 400 species and helped increase global protected area coverage by 63.6 million hectares (nearly 250,000 square miles – an area the size of Texas).
As we reflect on how far we’ve come, CI is focused on the future. We will continue to work for the protection of the natural ecosystems which form the building blocks of all life on Earth so that humanity and all life can continue to thrive. | <urn:uuid:07639ed8-bb8a-467b-a9e2-d4682387ffeb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.conservation.org/2010/01/a-groundbreaking-birthday/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921872 | 276 | 2.5625 | 3 |
KOLKATA: Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, the nodal agency in charge of safety at Indian airports, perceives a 'real' threat to the NSCB airport from ISI agents and Myanmar-financed militant groups of the North-East.
Senior BACS officials said that the airport in Kolkata had been categorised 'sensitive' following intelligence reports of increased movement of Pakistani agents and ISI-sponsored terrorists in the state.
"In recent months, there have been specific reports on infiltration from Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan. Bangladesh-based agents enter through the eastern border. Others use entry points in north Bengal. They also use the porous Nepal-Bihar border and make their way into the state," a senior official said.
Admitting that security agencies were on heightened alert, BACS deputy commissioner (security) Ardhendu Deb stressed that adequate anti-sabotage and anti-hijack measures were in place at the airport.
"Though there have been no attacks on the Kolkata airport yet, security agencies remain wary as it is difficult to predict terrorists' moves. From a subdued presence, they might get aggressive tomorrow," he remarked.
Acknowledging the threat, Central Industrial Security Force commandant Sanjay Prakash expressed concern on the mushrooming of guest houses on VIP Road, which could be used as hideouts for terrorists.
"Kolkata, being the gateway to South-East Asia, militants set up base here before flying out at an opportune moment," Prakash said. The CISF has asked the North 24-Parganas police to maintain a strict vigil on mini-hotels and inspect the boarder list on a regular basis.
Meanwhile, BACS officials comprising Army personnel on deputation, have intensified training to CISF jawans on detection of weapons and improvised explosive devices (IED).
Following the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organisation's latest updates on suicide bombers in Chechnya and Palestine, BACS is wary of terrorists in the region adopting it.
"We have to be extremely careful when frisking passengers and checking baggage. Some sheet and plastic explosives are extremely difficult to detect. Our efforts are, therefore, channeled at detecting detonators, both chemical and electronic," Deb said.
The BACS has also asked CISF officials manning the X-ray machines to be extra careful about pineapples that are often found in the baggage of passengers from the North-East.
A seven-inch knife inserted into the pineapple can go undetected in X-ray checks. Security personnel have been ordered to manually check pineapples and ensure that there is no cut or incision in the fruit. | <urn:uuid:55472d54-ad0e-4e0e-8512-63ba8ca9550d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2003-07-10/kolkata/27187054_1_kolkata-airport-cisf-central-industrial-security-force | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953605 | 557 | 1.59375 | 2 |
West Virginia tops list for deer collisions
Pennsylvania remains in top 5
State Farm says West Virginia continues to be the state where a vehicle is most likely to hit a deer.
The Mountain State tops State Farm's annual list for the sixth consecutive year. The Bloomington, Ill.-based insurer released the latest list Tuesday.
State Farm says the odds of a deer-vehicle collision over the next year are 1 in 40 in West Virginia.
Pennsylvania is 5th with odds of 1 in 76.
Virginia is ranked 10th with odds of 1 in 103.
Hawaii motorists are least likely to hit a deer with their vehicles. Hawaii's odds are 1 in 6,801.
Nationwide, State Farm says client data show 1.23 million collisions between deer and vehicles between July 1, 2011, and June 30, 2012. That's up 7.7 percent from the previous one-year period.
Copyright 2012 by WTAE.com The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:aa413624-3806-4172-8ee3-90900842739e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wtae.com/news/local/West-Virginia-tops-list-for-deer-collisions/-/9681086/17099798/-/view/print/-/10mu50hz/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957547 | 222 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Via Latin Gregorius from the post-classical Greek name Gregōrios ‘watchful’ (a derivative of gregōrein ‘to watch, be vigilant’). The name was a very popular one among the early Christians, who were mindful of the injunction ‘be sober, be vigilant’ (1 Peter 5:8). It was borne by a number of early saints. The most important, in honour of whom the name was often bestowed from medieval times onwards, were Gregory of Nazianzen (c.329–90), Gregory of Nyssa (d. c.395), Gregory of Tours (538–94), and Pope Gregory the Great (c.540–604). A famous bearer of the name in modern times is the film star Gregory Peck (1916–2003). The name has traditionally been popular in Scotland, where it is often found in the form Gregor. | <urn:uuid:ab85857f-be8c-4768-af0e-106ba732d2db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://names.whitepages.com/Gregory/Marder | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971298 | 189 | 2.6875 | 3 |
19.12.2012Ansar Dine's religious leader Chérif Ousmane Haidara''This is not Sharia, but banditry''
Ansar Dine is the name of a popular Sufi movement in Mali that has two million members. Charlotte Wiedemann spoke with its religious leader, Chérif Ousmane Haidara, about a stolen name, his anger with the Islamists and on a new alliance against Wahhabism
The political conflict here in Mali is complicated, and it has not been adequately reported upon in the Western press. For instance, the media frequently refers to a small armed group calling itself Ansar Dine, i.e. 'Defenders of the Faith'. Yet, for years, this name has belonged to your Sufi movement, Ançar Dine Internationale. Now, in some European newspapers, you have been referred to as an offshoot of the Islamists in northern Mali.
Chérif Ousmane Haidara: That is terrible! These armed individuals in the north are not Muslims at all. They are bandits with weapons! And they have stolen our name. Our organization has existed for 22 years. Of course, they have known this. How can they call themselves using our name? The Wahhabis are behind it. They want to harm us.
Do you consent to being called a Sufi?
"We live here together as Muslims, Christians, and unbelievers. And this earth, this ground, is for everyone, as it is from God." -Chérif Ousmane Haidara, religious leader of Mali's Ansar Dine Ssufi movement Haidara: Why not? In fact, all Muslims are Sufis. This is how Islam began. Today, all those who are not Wahhabis are Sufis.
Your organization is based upon formal membership. Members swear an oath and pay a monthly fee. How many members does Ançar Dine have?
Haidara: Two million members in Mali. In addition, we are represented in 24 countries, from France to China. Our members include Malians, Senegalese, Ivoirians, and people from Burkina Faso. We are autonomous – we do not receive funding from Arabs or Westerners. Our membership fees finance madrassas and health centres.
There are many women among your followers. Both men and women swear an oath (baya), in which they commit themselves to upholding six moral rules, including refraining from engaging in adultery. Why is such an oath necessary? All your members were already Muslims before joining.
Haidara: Islam has the task of educating its followers. Many Muslims here pray – and then they go off and steal, commit adultery, or evade paying taxes. Many people think that whoever prays and goes to the mosque is thereby a Muslim. This is not true! I can have prayed a thousand times, but if I sleep with someone else's wife or lead a corrupt lifestyle, this is not Islam. There are even those who kill, like terrorists. This is forbidden in Islam!
Early on, you distanced yourself from the violent implementation of the Sharia – Hudud punishment – as practiced in northern Mali. Unfortunately, hardly anyone outside of Mali is aware of this.
Haidara: Anyone who takes up a weapon in the name of Islam is a bandit. These people claim to act in the name of Islam, but they only act in the name of their weapons. Hacking off hands and feet is completely mad and has nothing to do with Sharia.
Certain criteria must be observed in practising Hudud. If someone has stolen something, he is first asked why. An attempt is made to understand what has really taken place. Perhaps the thief did not have enough to eat. That is not a reason for cutting off someone's hand.
"Anyone who takes up a weapon in the name of Islam is a bandit." Al Qaeda-linked Mali Islamists armed with Kalashnikovs and pick-axes began destroying prized mausoleums of saints in the city of Timbuktu on June 30, 2012. The radical Ansar Dine group backs strict Sharia and considers the shrines of the local Sufi version of Islam idolatrous How do you respond to the destruction of mausoleums in Timbuktu?
Haidara: Islam forbids such action. The Prophet was first buried in the room of his wife and then later in a mosque. We will rebuild the mausoleums.
Some observers claim that there is a link between the armed Islamists in the north and an increasing influence by Wahhabi imams in the capital Bamako. What is the most important difference between your organisation and the Wahhabis in Mali?
Haidara: I would say: What is the difference between Muslims and the Wahhabis? (laughs) The Wahhabis say: All people are the same. Yet, the Prophet was extolled by God, although he was a man. People are therefore not all the same. God extols some, and through them, others can come closer to God.
Yet, the Wahhabis claim that one cannot receive blessings from someone extolled by God. They also do not like it when a Marabut dispenses fluids or writes down a verse from the Koran in order to heal an illness or resolve a problem. The Wahhabis would rather send people to the hospital where medicine is used – and you have no idea what it contains, drugs or alcohol.
According to your views, Islam can include traditional African customs?
Haidara: Yes. I am a Muslim, but I am not an Arab. I adhere to my culture and my customs, as long as they are not expressly forbidden. We live here together as Muslims, Christians, and unbelievers. And this earth, this ground, is for everyone, as it is from God. We live here together in peace.
Ansar Dine controls wide parts in the county's North after the March 2012 coup that toppled Mali's government. "These armed individuals in the north are not Muslims at all," says Ousmane Haidara. "They are bandits with weapons!" To say that "either you are a Muslim or I will kill you" is mad! God never said such a thing!
How can Mali escape from this crisis? Do you support negotiations with armed Islamists?
Haidara: No, I am against negotiations. As long as the bandits do not lay down their weapons, it is impossible to negotiate with them.
You hold the post of Vice President in the High Islamic Council of Mali. The President is close to Wahhabism. The relationship between the two of you is regarded as strained. Does the rise of Wahhabism worry you?
Haidara: Of course, because they have money! The Arabs give them money to build mosques and schools. And some Malians, because of their dire poverty, join forces with the Wahhabis to get money. Yet, until now, they make up only 15 percent of the population in Mali. It has taken a while until our president, a Wahhabi, finally condemned the crimes being committed in northern Mali. But he is doing it now. We have to differentiate between those who criticize the mausoleums and those who destroy them.
You are now rallying non-Wahhabi preachers in a new organization. All of the brotherhoods and traditional religious families of Mali met at a recent conference in Bamako. Will this be an alliance against Wahhabism?
Haidara: (laughs) We called together all the Sufis to reach out to one another. We want to join forces and defend authentic Islam in Mali.
Interview by Charlotte Wiedemann
© Qantara.de 2012
Translation: John Bergeron
Editor: Lewis Gropp/Qantara.de | <urn:uuid:eb81fa42-bc46-4210-95f0-bac3655e4a9d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.qantara.de/This-is-not-Sharia-but-banditry/20373c500/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965258 | 1,639 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Roommates of Students With Influenza-like Illness
If your roommate needs self-isolation because they have an influenza-like-illness (ILI - defined as fever (temperature of 100°F [37.8°C] or greater) and a cough and/or a sore throat in the absence of a KNOWN cause other than influenza), they will need to go home or stay in the dorm room until they no longer have a fever for at least 24 hours without using fever-reducing medications. Pertinent information for non-ill roommates includes:
Plan to stay with friends who are not sick for a few days as long as you are feeling well:
Influenza is easily spread, and 1current CDC guidance recommends that “ill students limit their contact with others and, to the extent possible, maintain a distance of 6 feet from people with whom they share living space. If close contact cannot be avoided, the ill student should be asked to wear a surgical mask during the period of contact.”
Since this will be a significant challenge for most roommates, finding an alternative place to stay is advisable, particularly if you have a condition that puts you at high-risk for complications from influenza. 2
Contact your Commons Office if:
You are having difficulty finding a place to stay with friends.
You have any conditions that would require special housing consideration, including conditions considered to put you at high-risk for complications from influenza. 2
If you need to get things in your room:
Call in advance and ask your roommate to wear a facemask while you quickly retrieve the things you need. If a facemask is not available, ask your roommate to cover their cough or sneeze with a tissue. Avoid face-to-face contact whenever possible.
You may have been exposed:
Sick individuals may start shedding the flu virus 1 day before their symptoms started. This means that roommates may have been exposed unknowingly, but does not mean that roommates will become ill. The best thing to do is to avoid contact with sick individuals, monitor your own health, and start thinking about what you would do if you became ill.
If you become ill:
Even though your roommate is also sick, if you have influenza-like-illness you should self-isolate by either going home if possible or returning to your room.
You can help your roommate:
- Deliver meals
- Drop off any necessary supplies such as medications or fluids
- Call to see how they are doing and if they need anything
Going back to your room once your roommate is out of self-isolation:
Once your roommate no longer has fevers x 24 hours without using fever reducing medications, the likelihood of transmitting flu virus decreases, and according to CDC guidance, self-isolation is no longer necessary.
Many people with influenza illness will continue shedding influenza virus 24 hours after their fevers go away, but at lower levels than during their fever. Shedding of influenza virus can be detected for 10 days or more in some cases. Therefore, people who have had influenza-like illness should continue to practice good respiratory etiquette and hand hygiene and avoid close contact with people they know to be at increased risk of influenza-related complications.
Studies have shown that the influenza virus can survive on environmental surfaces and can infect a person for 2 to 8 hours after being deposited on the surface. Please work with your roommate to clean surfaces in your room with standard household disinfectants before returning. CDC guidance suggests:
- Throw away tissues and other disposable items used by the sick person in the trash. Wash your hands after touching used tissues and similar waste.
- Keep surfaces clean by wiping them down with a household disinfectant according to directions on the product label.
- Linens, eating utensils, and dishes belonging to those who are sick do not need to be cleaned separately, but importantly these items should not be shared without washing thoroughly first.
- Wash linens (such as bed sheets and towels) by using household laundry soap and tumble dry on a hot setting. Avoid “hugging” laundry prior to washing it to prevent contaminating yourself. Clean your hands with soap and water or alcohol-based hand rub right after handling dirty laundry.
- Eating utensils should be washed either in a dishwasher or by hand with water and soap.
Influenza viruses typically spread from person to person when:
- droplets from a cough or sneeze of an infected person are propelled through the air and deposited on the mouth or nose of people nearby, or
- when a person touches respiratory droplets on another person or an object and then touches their own mouth or nose before washing their hands.
You are considered at high-risk for complications from influenza if:
you have chronic pulmonary, cardiovascular, hepatic, hematological, neurologic, neuromuscular, or metabolic disorders. This includes students with asthma;
you have immunosuppression (caused by medications or by HIV);
you are pregnant;
you are less than 18 years old and are receiving long-term aspirin therapy and who might be at risk for experiencing Reye syndrome after influenza virus infection. | <urn:uuid:e63a2a9a-46b1-436c-872d-4c2b9de3e1b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.middlebury.edu/studentlife/services/healthctr/panflu/sick | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948529 | 1,073 | 2.390625 | 2 |
KEENE - Officials here have made significant progress toward finding a new home for the Keene Volunteer Fire Department.
The fire station, located just off state Route 73, was destroyed Aug. 28 when Tropical Storm Irene triggered major flooding of Gulf Brook. The rushing waters washed much of the structure away, leaving behind a portion of its frame and foundation.
A building committee tasked with overseeing construction of a new fire station held its third meeting Nov. 16. Additionally, the fire department has retained the services of Sean Foran, project manager with Syracuse-based construction firm Hueber Breuer, to help with the project.
The Keene firehouse is seen Aug. 29, the day after Tropical Storm Irene caused Gulf Brook to jump its banks and wash much of the firehouse away.
(Photo — Naj Wikoff)
The new station will be built at a different site, and the building committee has narrowed a field of eight possible locations down to two.
Keene Fire Chief Jody Whitney said officials have targeted May 2012 for the start of construction, with the goal of finishing the project by early spring 2013.
Whitney said in a news release that the new station must meet post-9/11 requirements as an "Essential Facility." Emergency facilities constructed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks must be built to be the "last structure standing" following natural or manmade disasters, like flooding or earthquakes. Foran said those requirements will impact the project's costs.
According to Whitney, the department has met with representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to discuss damage reimbursements.
"We are also close to a final settlement on insurance coverage after several meetings with representatives of the Utica National Insurance group," Whitney said. "Unfortunately, the policy limits stop short of providing the resources the department will need to construct a new fire station under the requirements of the New York State Building Code."
Meanwhile, the fire department has applied for a Homeland Security grant to replace supplies and gear lost in the flood.
Contact Chris Morris at 518-891-2600 ext. 26 or email@example.com. | <urn:uuid:79426f01-8866-4079-8c45-87050c49ebc8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/page/content.detail/id/527951/After-Irene--new-Keene-firehouse-intended-to-be--last-structure-standing-.html?nav=5227 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949263 | 439 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Human runners broke the four-minute mile in 1954 and have been getting faster and faster ever since.
But the winning times for horses in classic races like the Kentucky Derby have remained surprisingly static. Secretariat's world-record-breaking Derby time of 1:592/5 , for example, set in 1973, remains unsurpassed more than a quarter of a century later. Monarchos, this year's Derby winner, clocked the second-fastest winning time in history, running the race in 1:59.97, but still did not break Secretariat's record.
The reasons, scientists say, may have to do both with the unique physiology of the horse and the nature of the sport.
Horses are designed to run, their fleetness of foot having evolved over millions of years as a strategy of escape from predators. At one hour old, a foal is on its feet; at two hours, it is ready to go. And the horse's natural running ability has been nurtured and enhanced in thoroughbreds, which have been selectively bred for racing since the 17th century.
So while people require years of training and daily practice, thoroughbred racehorses enter the world much closer to their performance limits, said Dr. James Rooney, an emeritus professor at the University of Kentucky and an expert on equine biomechanics.
''The human is not, from the point of view of construction, a particularly good thing to start with and be an athlete,'' Dr. Rooney said. ''But the horse is born to be an athlete. And the more they learn about horse physiology, the more people begin to realize that this animal has evolved to a certain point and you can't change it very much.''
It is the best racehorses, those that compete in top stakes races like the Derby, that appear to be the closest to hitting a physiological speed barrier. In a study of racing performance between 1952 and 1977, for example, Dr. Patrick Cunningham and Dr. Barry Gaffney of Trinity College in Dublin found that though winning times for elite races had remained stagnant, horses as a whole were improving, at the rate of about 1 percent a year as calculated by a formula based on handicapping.
''Even though the winners are not getting better, the losers are getting better,'' Dr. Cunningham said.
Dr. Cunningham and Dr. Gaffney speculated that the elite horses may have been limited by the rate at which lactic acid, a waste product produced in strenuous exercise, can be cleared from the muscles or oxygen circulated in the bloodstream.
Yet an equally significant reason that records are not being broken may have to do with the goals of racing itself: racehorse owners do not necessarily aim to beat the clock, or to improve the speed of the breed as a whole. They simply want their horses to beat other horses. | <urn:uuid:432bfb80-bd9a-4fa6-834b-677fae6a4916> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/08/science/born-to-run-sure-but-thoroughbreds-face-physical-limits-to-improvement.html?src=pm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964945 | 582 | 2.4375 | 2 |
Courtesy of Joe Solomon
This month's Net2 Think Tank question is: How do real-world (offline) events fit into social media conversations and campaigns?
My thinking: Social media conversations and online campaigns create whole new models for bringing together & powering the progressive movement. Although at core: People coming together in the real-world are key to fueling how we organize for change. We need real world events to be a central part of our online organizing. We need offline events to meet each other, bond eye-to-eye, and forge the collaborations that will make our social networks stronger, better connected, and ultimately transformative.
So - a major question is: How can your online community also support events in the real world? What kind of offline events are the best fit for your community? And what real world event models can you learn from or partner with? Well, let's look at five different event types and see if one or more of 'em sparks some ideas for your community!
1. Is your community all about the socializing? Then check out...
"Every month people who work in the environmental field meet up at informal sessions known as Green Drinks. We have a lively mixture of people from NGOs, academia, government and business...These events are very simple and unstructured, but many people have found employment, made friends, developed new ideas, done deals and had moments of serendipity."
I've attended Green Drinks in Vancouver & Seattle and think this event format is wonderful for socializing - if that's your cup of tea (or rather glass of wine!) Creating a space for socializing and networking is key for those "moments of serendipity" - and this model is great for those who are outgoing and excel at meeting new people.
Whatever your cause -- How would you help your online community socialize in the real world? Would Change.org's community benefit from "Change Drinks?" What about Care2 - "Care Drinks?" DonorsChoose.org - "EduDrinks"?
2. Is your community focused on accomplishing a shared agenda? Then check out ...
"We're coordinating a distributed day of events for 24 October 2009, uniting the world around a common call to action--and we're asking you to help. You don't need to have ever done anything like this before--you'll have lots of support through 350.org. And if you're stuck for action ideas, just click here. We'll soon be unveiling a full set of tools to let you manage your local event and build a strong local climate group in the lead-up to 24 October."
The 350.org model enables any individual or organization around the world to create and promote events ("actions") - with a call to action for a fair global climate treaty. The framework is super flexible - as just about any kind of action can be proposed and organized. Since all actions are focused on a shared agenda, and will occur on the same day, their cumulative affect is well-positioned to have a much bigger impact in gaining attention and raising awareness.
350.org Actions are a great example of coordinated events with a shared agenda. These may work best for an online network focused on getting legislation passed - such as certain Sunlight Foundation projects, the Genocide Intervention Network, and the Energy Action Coalition.
3. Does your community focus on networking with learning & sharing? Then check out...
"Every month, the NetSquared community comes together offline at Net Tuesday events to mix, swap stories and ideas, build new relationships, and collaborate. These gatherings provide a chance for all those interested in the intersection of social technologies and social change, whether you're part of a nonprofit organization or a for-profit organization, a funder or a consultant, a developer or an entrepreneur."
I am a proud member of the NetSquared community and have helped organize Net Tuesday events in Vancouver & Seattle. Events can take various shapes and sizes: usually with a socializing/networking element + presentations, group discussions, strategy sessions, or sometimes even games - whatever is a good fit for the community. By meeting in the real world - Net Tuesdays bring the frequent online "social media for change" conversations together for a more intimate, interactive, and hands-on experience.
In addition to helping communities come together around social technologies and social change, Net Tuesdays also represent a flexible way to marry network weaving with community learning and sharing. Online communities which focus on learning & sharing and social networking (like BloggersUnite, Knowmore, & WiserEarth) might benefit from learning more about how Net Tuesdays work.
4. Does your community address local issues? Then check out...
"ChangeCamp is an event format, an open community and a set of tools and ideas designed to give citizens and governments the ability to work collaboratively in new ways to make change and to better address real-world challenges in our communities."
ChangeCamps are currently a Canadian phenomenon started by Mark Kuznicki and others. In theory, though, ChangeCamps could be organized anywhere. So far, ChangeCamps are full-day events with a focus on bringing together communities to address local issues. There's also a strong technology element although the last Vancouver Change Camp proved that you could have sessions on "social networking" co-exist with sessions on "social housing." By using the open-space/BarCamp model - participants are invited to create the agenda together to share their experiences & expertise, build solutions together, and explore ways to collaborate.
This model might be ideal for online communities focused on local issues. Like Vancouver's ChangeEverything.ca and Romina Oliverio's Youth Campaigners in Toronto. You could also extend ChangeCamps with regular events, like Social Innovation Camp does with monthly meetups.
Does your community focus on collaboration and/or on collaborative projects? Then check out...
Climate Change Collaboration Initiative
"Our vision is to connect the Not-for-Profit (NFP) sector organizations that have similar mandates, in order to enable them to gain the critical mass that is necessary to bring about the desired social change objectives. To this end there are three primary objectives; to identify a single project around which a group of NFP's with similar missions can collaborate, support the initiative with an appropriate technology platform or set of tools, provide sufficient funding to hire a full time Collaboration Facilitator for the group. This model can be deployed amongst subsets of NFP's that should have overlap in their missions; fighting climate change, alleviating poverty in the developing world, etc."
This model is quite new and is being spearheaded by Suresh Fernando in Vancouver BC, Canada. While it remains untested - it has the potential to create a space for collaboration, foster alliances, and allow for sharing knowledge and resources. It also seems designed to work with any issue-focused community (not just climate change). The Collaboration Initiative could also give birth to projects that take advantage of new tools and technologies which in turn could draw on the Net Tuesday & ChangeCamp models to help your community identify and create relevant solutions.
Online communities focused on collaborative projects (like Amazee) might benefit the most from this event model. Meta-social networks (like WiserEarth) and online coalitions (like Science Commons) might benefit a lot too!
What event model is the best fit for your online community?
Since every online community is different - you'll likely have the best sense of what kind of real world events are a most-good fit. It could be a re-mix or mashup of the palette of event models above - or entirely new kinds of events! Please share your ideas in the comments!
Here are some additional questions to consider for your organization's offline event strategy:
- How would you blend the best elements of the event models described above with your ideas for creating a framework for bringing together your community in the real world?
- How do you frame events so various organization representatives within your sector feel welcome to attend and participant?
- What role does a support team and/or a Community Builder share in ensuring the success of local events and helping local communities connect to be bigger than the sum-of-their-parts?
- How do you use social media and web tools to connect different events together for shared resources, learning, and experiences?
Note: There are lots of other social change event models too!: Eco Tuesdays, Social Actions Lunches, 501 TechClubs, WebofChange, M4Changes, NetworkingforaCause, OpenEverything, Environmental Meetups, 1Sky Local Events, TransparencyCamps, Transition Towns, and more!
Also: This post was adopted from research done for WiserEarth.org - reviewing real wold events for their global web-connected community of environmental and social change makers. Join the WiserEarth convo on the WiserEarth Blog!
Joe Solomon (@EngageJoe) starts & participates in conversations, events, and projects at the intersection of collaboration, the web, and social change.
This post was originally published at NetSquared | <urn:uuid:e325397d-bee4-4fca-a930-055fb230dfa6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/net2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935367 | 1,876 | 1.835938 | 2 |
One in ten in Houston County below poverty level
By Clay Schuldt
As the holiday season approaches many people are in the spirit of giving, and today more than in the past there is a greater need for goodwill and charity. With an ongoing economic recession and continued budget cuts to state-funded programs, the number of requests for assistance is expected to rise.
The U.S. poverty rate is currently estimated at 12 percent. In Houston County 1,750 residents live under the poverty line. With a total population of nearly 19,000, Houston County is doing better than both the national and state average, but this still means one in 10 people in the community have trouble getting by on a day-by-day basis.
Bluff Country Family Resources Executive Director Robin Yaffe Tschumper estimates 36,000 cases of people needing assistance will come forward in the coming year and the county may not be prepared to handle the increase.
“From my perspective it seems worse because we’re getting more and more calls every day,” Tschumper said. “There’s just less assistance out there. We had a 46 percent cut in our program budget. We lost our Children Funding completely.”
Since the state only accepts competitive funding every five years, children’s programming will be on hold for awhile.
The major concern is the program will be defunct in that time and will be difficult to start back up. “We are looking for additional funding for that,” Tschumper said “but there just are not many grants out there.”
As a part of her position Tschumper works with the Women’s Resource Center and explained that one of the many side effects of a down economy is a rise in domestic abuse. “There are lots of people who don’t believe there is as much domestic violence in this county than there is, and we don’t have enough room to serve everyone who comes through our door.”
Often those fleeing domestic violence do so without any financial support, and the first obstacle is coming up with funding for a security deposit. “There is no funding anywhere for security deposits. When people are homeless that is a big blockade.”
Family Resources, SEMCAC (Southeastern Minnesota Citizens Action Council) and/or the county could provide support for a month’s rent, but many agents have turned away from assisting with the initial security deposit. Tschumper noted that without a place to live it is impossible to find a job to raise the necessary funds for a deposit.
Another group facing challenges are veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. The veterans coming back from overseas are demonstrating a higher rate of disability, substance abuse and mental conditions.
In September Tschumper informed the Houston County Board that the only workable plan is to raise awareness. In order to combat these problems a Homeless Response Team was created in the county. The team is tasked through Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to have a response to homeless as part of the Hearth Act. Of course, one the biggest goals is to keep the public aware of the problem of poverty.
People wishing to help out in Houston County are encouraged to donate to their local food shelf. In addition, Family Resources is often in need of simple household supplies. “We need new or gently used household goods, even paper goods, those things not covered by nutrient support.”
Donations could be brought right into the Bluff Country Family Resource Office at 114 Main St. in Hokah.
Those wishing to learn more about the Homeless Response Team may contact Jennifer Slabaugh at the SEMCAC Office at 138 East Main St. in Caledonia. | <urn:uuid:4360f532-7ba1-4819-bade-d92bf8e0c060> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hometownargus.com/2012/12/11/one-in-ten-in-houston-county-below-poverty-level/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954761 | 765 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Sudan, Darfur rebel factions reach deal: UN
The government of Sudan and one of the Darfur rebel factions agreed Thursday to a framework for continuing peace talks aimed at ending a decade-long war, a top UN official said.
Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Edmond Mulet had just briefed the Security Council on recent flare-ups of violence between Darfur rebels and Sudan's forces when he received word of the development from Doha, Qatar, where talks were under way.
Mulet took the floor again, breaking into the Sudanese ambassador's presentation, to inform the Security Council of the agreement between the government of Sudan and the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM-Mohammed Bashar).
They "have just, a few minutes ago, signed a framework agreement. This document sets out the basis upon which the parties will negotiate over the adoption of" the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur, Mulet told the council.
Sudan's Ambassador Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman welcomed the news, and later told reporters that the peace agreement was with a "splinter faction from the Justice and Equality Movement. This is good progress. It shows that the peace process is going very well."
Until Thursday, only one Darfur rebel group, the Liberation and Justice Movement, had signed the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur with the Sudanese government. The document lays the groundwork for a peace process and focuses on seven areas: human rights; power-sharing; wealth-sharing; justice and reconciliation; compensation of refugees and internally displaced persons; cease-fire and security arrangements; and internal dialogue and consultation.
A group of rebel negotiators have been meeting with Sudanese representatives and a UN mediator in Doha since January 20, Mulet said.
Osman said he urged the Security Council "to exercise all pressure on the remaining movements who are still refusing to join the peace process." | <urn:uuid:fe609bf1-f7ff-4dc9-b090-eafaf3a572d4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.timeslive.co.za/africa/2013/01/25/sudan-darfur-rebel-factions-reach-deal-un | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940407 | 398 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Last week, I helped arrange a tour of recently-burned oak woodlands at Indian Cave State Park, an eastern Nebraska site owned and managed by Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. Indian Cave State Park is one of very few deciduous woodlands in Nebraska that is managed with prescribed fire. The Nature Conservancy’s Rulo Bluffs Preserve is another, but while we started using fire back in the mid 1990′s, we’ve not been able to use it as consistently as we’d like. Seeing the results of four years of annual burning at Indian Cave State Park was a good incentive to keep trying to find ways to increase our burn frequency down at Rulo. You can read here about a fire we conducted at Rulo last year.
The tour was led by Gerry Steinauer (state botanist for Nebraska Game and Parks) and Kent Pfeiffer (Northern Prairies Land Trust), who have been leading the charge for woodland burning in eastern Nebraska. In addition to Kent and Gerry, and several other Game and Parks biologists, the tour group included staff from the Nebraska Forest Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
We started by talking about why Game and Parks is implementing prescribed fire at Indian Cave State Park. Some of those reasons include:
- Fire topkills small understory trees and shrubs, and repeated fire can eventually kill them completely. Mature trees – especially oaks – are largely immune to even frequent fire, so they survive, keeping the canopy of the woodland intact. The end result of frequent fire is a more open woodland structure that promotes herbaceous plants such as grasses, sedges, and wildflowers of all kinds. Kent and Gerry are aiming for something around 80% canopy coverage of mature trees, with very few understory trees, so that as the sun moves across the sky, woodland plants receive a mixture of sun and shade off and on during the day. This keeps those woodland plants cool enough to survive, but gives them enough light to thrive. Since the majority of woodland species (plant and animal) live in the herbaceous community, maintaining a diversity of plant species at the ground layer is particularly important.
- Fire removes leaf litter, as well as understory brush, and allows more light to hit the woodland floor. This helps oak seedlings survive – a critical component of woodland ecosystems, because without that regeneration of oak trees, there will be no oaks to replace the mature trees as they die out.
- In addition to the habitat and plant community benefits, there are benefits to human visitors as well. A woodland with an open understory is much more pleasant to walk through, making hunting, birding, or hiking easier and more fun. Kent talked about how much nicer the temperature is in burned oak woodlands on summer days because the open understory allows a breeze to come through and prevents the kind of stifling heat found in unburned woodlands. Plus, woodland burning suppresses poison ivy, which most hikers appreciate…
While those justifications are all good, Kent pointed out that there is a more comprehensive question that we need to answer in Nebraska. If we want to have oak woodlands 50 years from now, we have to make that decision now, and start changing the way we treat our current sites. Most oak woodlands in the state are essentially unmanaged. Another couple of decades of that kind of hands-off approach, and many of the mature oak trees will die without replacing themselves, allowing the current understory of hackberry, ash, white mulberry, and other tree species to become the new canopy. Those tree species don’t create leaf litter that can carry fire, so fire will no longer be a management option – meaning that it will be nearly impossible to create the kind of woodland habitat structure that birds and other woodland animals, as well as most plant species, depend upon. The forest will still support life, but it will be a dramatically different community than we have now. We have to decide as a society whether we value oak woodland enough to do what we know is necessary to maintain it into the future.
Nebraska is a little late to the party in terms of burning oak woodlands. Other states like Missouri and Wisconsin (among others)have a strong record of utilizing fire to manage their woodlands. You can also read here about the innovative work Bill and Sybilla Brown are doing in Iowa. In those other places, the discussion revolves around how often to burn – not whether or not to burn in the first place. Here in Nebraska, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in the use of prescribed fire to manage grasslands over the last decade or two. Now we need to shift some of our attention to oak woodlands as well – and we need to do it before it’s too late. | <urn:uuid:3507ca5c-8c36-4b02-963e-37d27c5c938d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://prairieecologist.com/2012/05/15/saving-nebraskas-oak-woodlands-by-burning-them/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956253 | 985 | 3.125 | 3 |
Filmmaker Explores India’s Complex Identity
| September 20, 2012
In "The World Before Her," Nisha Pahuja looks at the extremes of India's evolving notions of gender.
When Canadian filmmaker Nisha Pahuja went back to her native India to do research for her first documentary, "Bombay Bound," she got invited to an event, a sort of homecoming party for a Miss World winner. The reaction of people at the party made a big impression on her.
“It really struck me how there was a tremendous amount of euphoria and pride,” she said. “It was sort of like an athlete had won a gold medal.”
Pahuja felt the interest in the pageants – rampant in India now, she says – had something to say about the country’s identity and the changing role of women there. In her latest movie, "The World Before Her," which won the World Documentary Competition at the Tribeca Film Festival this year and screens in the 10th Annual South Asian Film Festival in San Francisco on September 22, she explores that world – filming 20 young women from around the country who show up in Bombay for a month-long beauty boot camp where they are told how to walk, speak, wear make up, and in the words of one women who teaches them diction, are “polished like diamonds.” For the contestants, winning can mean a lucrative career, stardom and maybe more freedom in a patriarchal society.
“Clearly the pageants objectify women and can be demeaning, but I think in context of India, which is such a sexually conservative society, the fact that they were able to reveal their bodies is a symbol for some people of a certain kind of progress,” Pahuja says. “It takes so much courage for a women in India to do such a thing – in some sense they’re taking ownership of their bodies.”
Along with many feminists in India who object to the pageants, Hindu fundamentalists oppose them, calling them immoral and a symbol of the Westernization of India. In "The World Before Her," Pahuja shows this world as well. As a contrast to the lives of young women getting ready to compete for the title of Miss India, she filmed girls at a camp run by Durgha Vahini, the women’s wing of a militant fundamentalist movement.
Pahuja says it took her two years to get access to these camps, where film crews had never been allowed before. She heard about them through a young woman, Prachi, an instructor at the camps, and ended up moving to India to really get to know her and the others involved.
In the movie, we see the young women striving for a crown getting Botox injections; wearing tight jeans and ripped T-shirts at a photo shoot where they are instructed to look sexy, not bitchy (when one of the contestants, Ruhi, sees the photo in the paper, she speculates that the nation's president might be looking at it); and walking with sheets over their heads, so the onlookers will only judge them by their legs. And we also see the young girls at the fundamentalist camps dressed in traditional Indian clothing such as salwar kameez, smiling as they talk about their pride in not having any Muslim friends, and chanting they will slit the throats of anyone trying to take Kashmir from India.
Pahuja was careful to not let her shock at these moments show in the finished movie. She says she had no interest in sensationalizing what she saw in either of the two worlds.
“When I was making the film, the person in me reacted to things all the time,” she said. “You can’t help it. My blood would turn cold when little girls are screaming about slitting the throats of people, and there are lots of moments like that. I would think. ‘I can’t believe these young women are getting Botoxed. I can’t believe they are walking around with sheets over their heads.’ But I didn’t editorialize. I don’t like films that hit you over the head. Culture is complicated, but there’s no point in sitting in judgment although you can’t help but feel things because you’re human.”
Another reality Pahuja presents in "The World Before Her" is how girls are seen as less valuable than boys – in both of these different worlds. The mother of the winner of the contest, Pooja Chopra, Femina Miss India 2009, talks about how she had left her husband after he told her to put the baby in an orphanage or kill her. And Prachi, the fundamentalist camp instructor – who says she likes it when the girls at the camp are afraid of her because it makes her feel important – sits by smiling as her father talks about heating up an iron rod and burning her foot when she lied as a child. “He has the right,” she says about her father hitting her. “He has given me birth, knowing that I’m a girl child, he let me live. In a traditional family, people don’t let the girl child live. They kill the child.”
In the movie, Pahuja includes the statistic that 750,000 girls are aborted in India every year. She wonders what will happen in a country so obsessed with sons.
“What I’m trying to explore with the film is how women are being used in India to create two ideas of nationalism,” she said. “There are these two competing ideologies and they are playing themselves out on the bodies of women.”
The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author alone and do not represent WMC. WMC is a 501(c)(3) organization and does not endorse candidates.
To receive WMC Features by email, click here. | <urn:uuid:2c7c78c1-f314-47bf-b127-cde44fa4d54f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.womensmediacenter.com/feature/entry/filmmaker-explores-indias-complex-identity | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974968 | 1,244 | 2.125 | 2 |
The Upper West Side’s Symphony Space is honoring its founder, Isaiah Sheffer.
Many urban neighborhoods have tried to use culture as a transformative economic development tool. But few have succeeded as sensationally as Manhattan’s Upper West Side and its beloved performing arts center, Symphony Space””dubbed by the New York Timesthat “Upper West Side bastion of unconventional programming.” To understand the achievement we need to return to the dark, dismal days of the Symph’s founding””the late 1970s.
The block front on Broadway that became Symphony Space was developed by Vincent Astor in 1915 and converted by Thomas Healy in 1917 into the Crystal Palace skating rink and Sunken Gardens Restaurant, later the Thalia Theatre (photo from 1950s)
Some years are so dreadful or momentous that they come to stand for an entire era””1914, for example, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated and World War I began, or, on a local scale for New York City, 1977, when the Bronx was burning, the Yankees were losing, violent crime was soaring, and New Yorkers were fleeing to the suburbs and beyond. Having narrowly averted bankruptcy, city government was spending its time refinancing mountains of debt, raising taxes, and cutting essential services. The streets of the Upper West were filthy and dangerous, heroin needles littered sidewalks, gorgeous apartments on Riverside Drive could be bought for a few dollars in exchange for paying maintenance fees, and corporations were leaving in droves. State Senator Roy Goodman pointed out that prostitution seemed to be the only business that wasn’t leaving New York. Symphony Space Artistic Director Laura Kaminsky remembers the West Side of the 70s and her youth as gritty and decrepit but “disproportionately populated by musicians, writers, actors, dancers, and artists. You could bump into Peter Serkin walking with Fred Sherry, or Eliot Feld, hurrying to rehearsal.”
Wall to Wall’s motto was “and you join in,” which amateur musicians could do at selected intervals.
Yet it was in November 1977 that West Side neighbors, the late playwright/impressario Isaiah Sheffer and orchestral director Allan Miller, hit on the idea of holding a 12-hour tribute to Johann Sebastian Bach in a decaying theatre at 95th and Broadway. “We were always scheming in those days to do one project or another,” recalls Miller, today a documentary filmmaker. “We noticed that the Symphony Theatre was doing little more than showing films on weekends. They had built a platform and were also holding wrestling matches, but it was empty a lot. I was just back from Denver, where our symphony had had a great time traveling around to universities in Colorado and Wyoming, inviting students to sit in with the orchestra. I proposed to Isaiah that we borrow or rent the theatre to do a similar event””the nucleus would come from the American Symphony Orchestra (where I’d become conductor of special projects), plus musicians from the neighborhood. And we’d invite everyone to join in.”
Everybody knows Bach
They chose Bach because, says Miller, “We needed music that amateurs could play well enough for listeners to enjoy, and we figured that everybody knows the Brandenburg Concertos. If you wanted to do Mozart or Beethoven you’d need more finesse, but amateurs can play Bach fairly well.” They distributed their flyers to churches and synagogues, restaurants and bars, and put up signs on Broadway. Thus was born the legendary event, Wall to Wall Bach, which welcomed some 7,000 people between 11:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m. on a bitterly cold January 7, 1978.
The Symphony Theatre ceiling is decorated with glass artist’s palettes, probably installed in the 1936 renovation, says Ed Budz, Director of Theatre Operations.
This all has a certain Mickey-Rooney-Judy-Garland (“Hey, kids, let’s put on a show”) ring to it””except that the neighborhood musicians included giants like Pinchas Zukerman and Claude Frank. Over the years they were joined by Itzhak Perlman, James Levine, Heather Watts, Merce Cunningham, Fritz Weaver, John Cage, Ron Carter, and other giants too numerous to mention. The Symph’s special genius from Day 1 was what Claude Frank at that first Wall to Wall called participation: “the most important thing in music. If you participate you love it.” As the wild applause started dying down close to midnight, a man shouted out, “So now what are you gonna do?” Allan Miller recalled that they had no idea. For one thing, they were lacking that most precious of New York commodities: their own real estate.
Lookin’ for a Home
Just because the West Side was a mess in the late ’70s, didn’t mean that its real estate was easy to acquire. The obstacles were many””starting with property taxes, which were often excessively high thanks to years of over-assessments in a declining market. Property taxes became the motivation for a seemingly odd agreement between the owners””Broadwest Realty, which had been operating at a net loss””and Symphony Space. “Broadwest wanted its property off the tax rolls,” recalls attorney Stephen L. Kass, whose former law firm, Berle Kass + Case, represented Symphony Space in the eventual litigation. “To get its property off the rolls, Broadwest suggested that Symphony Space, a not-for-profit, become the fee owner, with Broadwest leasing back the commercial space and retaining an option to repurchase. Broadwest thought it could have the best of both worlds””a tax exemption in the present and property appreciation in the future.”
The 299-seat Thalia, which opened in 1931 as a classic art film house, closed in 1987. Renovated by Symphony Space for film and live programming, it abuts Pomander Walk.
Symphony Space became the owner in December 1978 by paying Broadwest $10,000 via a purchase-money mortgage and $10 to be paid in cash at the closing. The parties also signed separate documents by which Broadwest leased back the entire building (except the theatre) for 24 years, until May 31, 2003, plus an option agreement by which Broadwest was given the exclusive right to repurchase all of the property, including the theatre. This option agreement became the heart of a bitter legal dispute that was not resolved until June 13, 1996, when the New York State Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Symph. Even in the disorderly context of the late 1970s, the deal was thorny. Broadwest retained liability for a $243,000 mortgage plus maintenance obligations. The sale-and-leaseback would save it some $30,000 annually in taxes, the trial court found, while allowing it to collect $140,000 in rental income. In 1981, Broadwest sold its interest in the lease and the option as well as the adjacent Pomander Walk and Healy Building to Pergola Properties for $4.8 million.
From 1978 to 2001 Symphony Space hosted all New York productions by the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players, which will hold their 2012 New Year’s Eve gala at the Symph at 8:00 p.m., Dec. 31.
The options agreement was a sort of Sword of Damocles dangling by a thread over the Symph’s head. Pergola would take back the property when it had increased in value””and the Symph’s programming combined with West Side activism was helping to do just that. Ethel Sheffer””Isaiah’s wife and head of a community group, Blocks for a Better Broadway””was picketing to shut down the sleazy corner liquor store that was selling both to minors and to drunks. The Symph’s events””classic and contemporary music, jazz and blues, opera and operettas, ballet and African dance, follies and short stories””attracted regulars who not only enlivened the streets but who patronized nearby shops and restaurants. What’s more, the Symph’s sheer joyousness proved to West Siders that they could indeed wrest their neighborhood back from the bad times on which it had fallen. After all, if Symphony Space could momentously “move fine music beyond the precincts of Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and other major halls,” as New York Magazine noted, couldn’t West Siders reclaim what was theirs?
Mothers and children now stroll on the corner where a disreputable liquor store once stood.
Controlling Our Destiny
As Isaiah Sheffer continued the “slogging work of making this place happen,” says Ethel Sheffer, West Siders looked to their future. “They advocated for new zoning to direct future development and to ensure the preservation of the remarkable character of their historic neighborhood,” she recalls. “We had a strong sense that we didn’t want to look like the new towers going up elsewhere. We were actually successful, and the Koch administration did enact new zoning based on our efforts. Though far from perfect, that legislation really worked, since we managed to preserve brownstones and the wonderful mid-blocks while encouraging new buildings on avenues which resembled the great buildings that were already there. During the 70s and 80s, there were many social problems like crime, drugs, prostitution, neighborhood flight, but new and older residents felt that the West Side was basically an attractive place. A confluence of circumstances helped””the increased value of buildings, the mixed effects of the conversion of single-room-occupancy hotels, plus the parks, the subways, the streets””all the attributes of good city living could be renewed.”
The MTA lavishly renovated the 96th Street subway station across from Symphony Space.
One result of the West Side renewing itself was that Pergola wanted the property back. They had gambled that the convoluted 1978 deal would prove worthwhile when they reclaimed the property in an up market. But instead they ran afoul of a 17th-century British legal principle, the Rule against Perpetuities, which seeks to ensure the productive use of property by limiting the “dead hand of landowners reaching into future generations.” (If you’ve seen the film The Descendants, you’ve been introduced to RAP.) By New York State statute, which allows no more than 21 years for remote vesting, Pergola had used up too much time. Attorney Sylvie Richards, who has written a cogent summary of the case, says, “The logic was good on both sides. Symphony Space would benefit from occupying the property, and the owners would benefit from the nonprofit tax exemption. The owners intended at some point to exercise the repurchase option. The problem was that by the time they did this, it was beyond the statutory 21 years.” The legal issues were complicated, but thanks to the pro bono work of attorneys (Steven M. Alden of Debevoise & Plimpton, and Jean McCarroll and Steven Kass of Berle Kass + Case) Symphony Space won.
Costa Kondylis Associates designed Related’s 22-story tower while the renovation of Symphony Space was overseen by the Polshek Partnership.
Once the Court of Appeals ruled that Symphony Space owned the entire property, the Symph became land rich, as they say in the business, but cash poor. Prominent real estate developers appeared””Millennium, Zeckendorf, Jeffries, and many more””proposing to tear down the theatre and replace it with a state-of-the-art below-ground facility, recalls Miller, which would have opened the entire block to new development. Isaiah was adamant about retaining the original theatre. As Symphony Space then-board chair William Haines recaps the dilemma, “The question was how do we monetize our assets to produce an endowment? We needed to do the best possible business deal with a reliable developer who could deliver. If we chose a developer who went bankrupt in the middle we’d have had a disaster. And remember that the West Side was a territory unto itself. Nothing was a sure thing.” The market had been strong in the late 1980s, when Haines, CEO of the Bromley Companies, opened the luxury tower called the Bromley at 83rd street and Broadway. And while the market fell in the early 1990s, by the mid-1990s it was percolating again, to use David Dunlap’s term in the New York Times. A further cash crisis erupted when Symphony Space received a bill for $770,000 in unpaid real estate taxes on Pergola’s commercial space””pushed up to $1.25 million by interest and fees. In a complex arrangement with the Related Companies (“They know how to get things done,” says Haines), Symphony Space retained the auditorium and the Thalia while selling the air rights for some $10 million. From then forward, said Haines, “We could control our destiny because we controlled the real estate.”
Dancers from Alexis Convento & Artists, 2012 Young Choreographer’s Festival (photo: K Bonura)
An Area of City Failure No More West Siders reading the Jane Jacobs 1961 masterpiece, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, often feel a bit hurt by her harsh descriptions of their neighborhood as “an area of city failure,” marred by “self-isolating projects” and “stagnant, long, backwater blocks” within a “great blight of dullness.” She reserved her unkindest cut for Morningside Heights, calling it a “surly kind of slum.” But those charges of blight and dullness occurred before the creation of the Symph, with its 600+ yearly events, its renowned annual Bloomsday festival (threatened over the years by censorship), its Selected Shorts broadcast nationwide, its support of youngsters””young choreographers, dancers, musicians, singers””and its generous spirit of innovation and participation. People stream in and out of the Symph all day, every day, converting a once moribund corridor to a street as energetic as any in New York (including Jacobs’s adored Greenwich Village). The West Side has changed so profoundly that when singer Pete Seeger joined an Occupy Wall Street protest after his 2011 concert at the Symph, the Associated Press unhesitantly saidhe “marched with throngs of people in New York City’s tony Upper West Side past banks and shiny department stores.” Even today your basic West Sider is likely to take umbrage, asking, “Hey, who you callin’ tony?”
Pete Seeger and friends Arlo Gurthrie, Suzanne Vega, Loudon Wainwright III, Guy Davis, David Amram, Toshi Reagon, Lucy Kaplansky, Tao Seeger, Richard Barone and others present a benefit concert for Clearwater’s education programs. | <urn:uuid:08d842d9-583e-467a-8192-47da695d04d2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://untappedcities.com/tag/theater/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965712 | 3,252 | 2.125 | 2 |
Twitter's new war against spam will get rid of a huge chunk of your followers, probably. Yesterday, the company announced a sweeping spam-bot takedown, filing lawsuits against "five of the most aggressive tool providers and spammers. With this suit, we’re going straight to the source," the company wrote on its blog. "By shutting down tool providers, we will prevent other spammers from having these services at their disposal. Further, we hope the suit acts as a deterrent to other spammers, demonstrating the strength of our commitment to keep them off Twitter," the posting continues. Less useless porn-bot followers sounds like a wonderful move. But, it will also mean a decline in popularity for everyone across the board, and some more than others.
Spammers don't discriminate. Twitter superstars and Twitter peons alike attract spammers. An analysis by PeekAnalytics, a firm which measures these sorts of things, found that only 35 percent of an average tweeter's followers are real humans. That means those with both big 90,000 followings and paltry 340 person followings will see a big chunk of their followers disappear. For the person with just a few hundred, though, the dent might hurt more, since every follower feels more important. The numbers don't work out quite as neatly on an individual basis. Only 8 percent of Newt Gingrich's followers qualified as real, according to PeekAnalytics report last August. Back then he only had 1.3 million followers. Now he's up to over 1.4 million. And when PopularMechanics's Douglas Main did his own hand analysis, he found that 20 percent of his own following was faux, the other 80 percent real. And, his colleague John Herrman, who had four times the followers of Main at the time, had a reversed pattern with 61.4 percent of his followers turning out fake and the other 38.6 real. (That's an ego-crusher!)
So perhaps there's some sort of exponential thing happening here, where those with more followers attract a higher number of spammers? That's how Main explains it, at least. "Part of the reason Herrman has so many more bot followers than I is simply that he has a higher overall number of followers, and he is more active on Twitter," he writes, explaining that bots follow people who tweet certain key words, so more active tweeters would attract more spam. After Twitter's crackdown, we'll see who has real following and those who have a collection of porn-bot followers. Will those with more followers still have such great followings? Herrman will still have more followers than Main, for example, but not by as much of a margin. No matter what, though, everyone will lose something. | <urn:uuid:2ac5db88-383d-4117-b921-eb12e90d8505> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2012/04/tweet-goodbye-your-spambot-followers/50818/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973022 | 568 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Job shortage in Egypt
Egyptians hold up banners during a protest in front of the parliament building in Cairo in 2004. Some 400 people gathered to protest against the prime minister who they say has failed to curb unemployment and the increase in the cost of living.
TEXT OF STORY
BRIAN WATT: Here in the U.S., getting a college degree usually opens doors. Better job, better pay and a better lifestyle. But in Egypt, a diploma doesn't guarantee finding work. The most populous country in the Middle East is facing a severe job shortage. Egypt's economy must create more than 700,000 new jobs each year to keep pace with the number of college graduates. Marketplace's Nancy Farghalli reports.
NANCY FARGHALLI: So there's the official statistic: Egypt's unemployment rate is 10 percent.
Then there are the stories like this one from Professor Medhat Haroun at the American University in Cairo. He says everyone is looking for work. Shake someone's hand and then shake them down for a job. A father once begged Haroun for help.
MEDHAT HAROUN: He has three graduates. They are all accountants. They've been at home. The problem is that we have many people who are holding degrees and they cannot find a job
That's why many people say the unemployment rate is double the official number.
HAROUN: Unemployment in my mind is the biggest problem in Egypt. Many people now who cannot afford to live.
That means they don't have money for rent or for marriage. Professor Said El Raghi says if you land a job, you are often marooned in unfamiliar territory.
SAID EL RAGHI: Very many of graduates do jobs not related to their degrees. Jobs in Egypt are not very demanding.
Lawyers work as cabdrivers. Engineers work as constructions workers. Ahmad Nater is 24 years old. He graduated with a degree in commerce.
AHMAD NATER: Everybody I know is working in a job that doesn't match his ability or potential. You are supposed to be a highly qualified and you work for 300 pounds for a secretary or an administrative assistant
That's not enough money to rent an apartment in Cairo. Or take care of unexpected expenses like repairing a car. Going over a pot hole doesn't help Ahmad's steering wheel.
NATER: The left part got broken because of an accident and so I melted it.
He now has the money to fix it. He just signed a contract with Vodafone. He'll earn 1800 pounds a month. And that income means he can get his own apartment and finally marry his very patient fiancA©.
NATER: I have to get married soon because I've been engaged for two and a half years.
Ahmad says his good fortune is due to old fashioned hard work.
NATER: Everybody when I tell them that I work for Vodafone, they ask me how did I get there. They make me swear I didn't get it using any connections
Connections might pave the road to opportunity in Egypt. But agreeing to a night shift job also helps. That's when you'll find Ahmad at work.
In Cairo, I'm Nancy Farghalli for Marketplace. | <urn:uuid:6f047d2a-b71b-4e20-984c-daa5ed376dc5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.marketplace.org/topics/world/job-shortage-egypt | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972417 | 672 | 2.25 | 2 |
In the past, I typically would run all of my script and CSS files through a compressor before deploying them to a production web server. However, with Chirpy installed, your CSS and script files will be automatically compressed based on their name. For example, if you have a script file named myscript.js that you want compressed, you would rename the script to myscript.yui.js and your file will automatically be minified using the YUI compressor. The minified file shows up as a child item in solution explorer so you still have your non-minified, human-readable scripts for debugging purposes.
T4MVC - I blogged about T4MVC before but its always worth mentioning again. T4MVC is a T4 template for ASP.NET MVC apps that creates strongly typed helpers that eliminate the use of literal strings when referring the controllers, actions and views. It helps make your MVC code much more maintainable, and gives you intellisense where you normally would not have any.
MVC Contrib – T4MVC is a small part of the MVC Contrib library which contains various utilities for the realm of ASP.NET MVC development. I recently wrote a post about the Grid HTML Helper which I am using in a few of my personal projects. However, MVC Contrib contains many features and libraries which you may find useful in your day to day development.
ASP.NET Sprite and Image Optimization Framework – One of the best ways to boost the performance of your website is to reduce the number of HTTP requests required to render a page. One way to reduce the amount of requests is to use CSS sprites or inline images.
For example, say you have a toolbar on your websites which contains twelve 32 pixel by 32 pixel icons. When the page loads 12 HTTP requests need to be made, one for each image. A CSS sprite can reduce the number of requests to one by stitching all of the images together and using CSS styles to define the boundaries of each image.
Unfortunately, the process of creating sprites can be time consuming and tedious. You basically need to merge all the images and then declare the x and y boundaries for each image in your stylesheet. Wouldn’t it be nice if the merged image and CSS could be automatically generated? Well…they can, the ASP.NET Sprite and Image Optimization Framework does exactly that.
ELMAH– If you are not using ELMAH than you should be. ELMAH is the ultimate tool for logging errors in your MVC application. It requires very little setup but delivers a boat load of features. Here is a quick list:
- Logging of nearly all unhandled exceptions.
- A web page to remotely view the entire log of recoded exceptions.
- A web page to remotely view the full details of any one logged exception.
- In many cases, you can review the original yellow screen of death that ASP.NET generated for a given exception, even with customErrors mode turned off.
- An e-mail notification of each error at the time it occurs.
- An RSS feed of the last 15 errors from the log | <urn:uuid:9f8e8f99-8d6a-4d14-980d-12dde9e2664b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.codecapers.com/post/Five-Must-Have-Tools-for-MVC-Developers.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903097 | 654 | 1.726563 | 2 |
A southern royal albatross (Diomedea epomophora) spreads its wing in flight, against the backdrop of the snow-capped Kaikoura Ranges, South Island, New Zealand. Click on image for more details. More albatross photos here.
This entry was posted on Saturday, February 5th, 2011 at 7:40 am. It is filed under photo of the day and tagged with albatross encounters, albatross in flight, albatross photos, antarctic birds, bird in flight, birdwatching new zealand, Diomedea epomophora, Diomedea exulans, kaikoura albatross, kaikoura birds, kaikoura coast, kaikoura ranges, largest wingspan in the world, marine birds, new zealand, new zealand birds, new zealand fauna, new zealand sea birds, new zealand wildlife, nz birds, pelagic birds, photo of the day, royal albatross, southern royal albatross, wandering albatross.
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I am a photographer and a feature films digital visual effects artist based in Oslo, Norway. Many of my photos are of nature, wildlife and destinations avoided by the masses.
Read more about me | <urn:uuid:5788a4c6-fd4f-4387-a1fd-f56af85b9747> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.karimsahai.com/2011/02/royal-albatross-in-flight-new-zealand-photo/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907459 | 286 | 2.484375 | 2 |
Ear Training Song Randomizer
Click the Get Next Starting Note & Song button to generate a random starting note and song title. Try to play the tune by ear (as much of it as you know), starting on the suggested starting note. You can use the checkboxes to isolate specific song types.
PLAYING BY EAR
Every jazz improviser needs to be able to play by ear, at least to some extent. When I say "play by ear", I'm referring to the ability to play any musical phrase, in any key, on your instrument without reading the notes. The only guidance you have is a mental concept of what the phrase should/could sound like.
While even the best improvisers have a series of licks or cliches that they incorporate in their solos, the *real* music in their improvisation often comes from spontaneous ideas that strike them during a solo. How do they perform unrehearsed musical ideas without written notation? They play by ear!
WHY SIMPLE SONGS ARE USEFUL
Simple songs (nursery rhymes, Christmas carols, easy popular songs, etc) are a great way to get started because they are fairly easy to play and because you already know exactly how they *should* sound. This simplicity improves your chances of being able to play by ear. It also makes it easier to play the songs over a variety of keys (i.e. from different starting notes).
SUGGESTIONS FOR BEGINNERS
Sing First, Play Later: If the starting note is a 'C', play a 'C' on your instrument and then sing the tune beginning on that note. Don't try to play by ear until you can sing the melody (reasonably) in tune. Singing first should help you to lock in the pitches, improving your chances of playing the notes on your instrument.
Play Slowly: While training your ear to guide you through the melodies, play everything at a slow tempo. A slow tempo will help you to better hear a pitch and its relation to other pitches. As you improve, increase the tempo.
Simplify the Goal: We're trying to reach a point where we can play anything in any key totally by ear. At first, however, it might be best to focus on a few easy tunes with a comfortable starting note (C). While a comfortable starting note doesn't guarantee that the entire tune will be in a comfortable key, for most of the tunes on this list, you're fairly safe. As your accuracy improves, add more starting notes and tunes to your routine.
Be Patient: If you're just beginning to develop your ear, playing simple songs by ear may be frustrating at first. Like all musical endeavors, it becomes easier with practice. In time, you'll be amazed at how much easier it is to play what you hear!
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- Patrick: Jazz improvisation recordings, 2004
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- Rick: Traveling - taking a break | <urn:uuid:345997f2-1615-45d1-89ba-d0c82542f1f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iwasdoingallright.com/tools/ear_training/songs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936022 | 696 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Toshiba has switched on the first part of its LED Louvre project, literally lighting up the world famous museum in a ceremony attended by Pocket-lint.
The Japanese company showed off the first stage of its renewal of the external lighting at the site on a wet and cold Tuesday evening in Paris, with 350 LED light fittings being switched on at the museum's exterior.
Eventually 3,200 energy efficient LED lights will be glowing at the Louvre - replacing the 4,500 high energy xenon lamps which are currently used. When the job is fully completed, Toshiba says there will be a huge 73 per cent reduction in power as a result of the environmentally-friendly LEDs, down from 392,000 to 105,000 watts-per-hour.
To give you some sort of reference as to just how the LED technology is helping to reduce energy; consider that the Toshiba GU 10 LED light with an 8.5 watts power is replacing a halogen bulb at more than four times this drain and that 17 8.5-watt xenon bulbs, with a combined power reading of 144.5 watts, can be replaced by 18 LED lights powered by just 4.6 watts.
The first part of the renovation, which Toshiba president Norio Sasaki and Louvre Museum President Henri Loyrette turned on saw the Pyramid, the Pyramidions and the Napoléon Cour bathed in LED light. The next stage is the lighting of the Cour Carrée in 2013. The partnership runs until 2023 and we're told that the LED lighting will also take its place alongside the likes of the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo inside the museum.
Francois Seguineau, VP of Toshiba's European lighting said: "Toshiba Lighting Europe’s success is rooted in a unique combination of a true start-up spirit and a rare historical expertise in the field of lighting.
"Amongst the most iconic challenges of the division to date is the Louvre project. Toshiba started to collaborate with the Louvre, one year ago, when no existing LED products could ensure a perfect retrofit
for its outdoor lighting.
"Toshiba Lighting and the European Division successfully tackled this technological challenge to help one of the most famous world monuments switch to energy-saving LED lighting solutions and adapt for the future."
Built on the grounds of a fortress built in the late 12th century under Philip II, the building was once the residence of Louis XIV. It has been a museum, and home of some of the world's most valuable artwork, for over 200 years. | <urn:uuid:2d2bd99c-8aa3-4865-8d60-c2204c285a1e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/113289-toshiba-led-lighting-louvre-pictures | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940782 | 533 | 2.390625 | 2 |
Riverside Students Talk to Astronaut on International Space Station
Published On : 4/19/2012 3:09 PM
From : KVCR
Categories : Local, Science, World, State
A group of Riverside County school kids this morning got a chance to talk with an astronaut aboard the International Space Station.
Students at the Flabob Airport Preparatory Academy in Jurupa Valley competed for the chance to talk to Flight Engineer Tom Pettit aboard the space station, and this morning at ten, the winning students asked their questions in a live connection with the space station. The ten-minute chat was organized by ARISS -- which stands for “Amateur Radio on the International Space Station” -- a group of ham radio operators around the world who have clearance to communicate with the space station for educational purposes.
Clint Bradford is a local member of the group. “The classrooms ran a contest for what questions they wanted to ask, and fifteen questions were chosen. The students are middle to high school-aged. We have males, females, we have questions about health, questions about the environment, questions about diet in space. They came up with some really marvelous questions to ask the astronaut,” said Bradford.
Bradford says students at the Flabob Preparatory Academy focus their studies on aviation and science, so it was a huge thrill for them to talk with an astronaut. You can get more information at www.iss-flabob.com | <urn:uuid:6616e733-b042-4e05-98d0-a95d594d4230> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kvcr.org/News/Stories/2012/April_2012/Riverside_Students_Talk_to_Astronaut_on_International_Space_Station | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9424 | 303 | 2.140625 | 2 |
The Origin of Races, Part II
All world civilizations can probably be traced back to Cro-Magnon man.
“Everywhere one looks the Upper Paleolithic arrives in the form of an invasion …”
— David de Laubenfels
Thirty-five thousand years ago a new human race appeared somewhere in western Eurasia. Scientists do not know the precise point of origin or exactly how this new Homo sapiens sapiens became differentiated from his immediate predecessors, but differences there were, and in abundance. Though anatomically modern humans appeared more than 100,000 years ago, this new race possessed a remarkable constellation of new talents: creativity, ingenuity and a restless wanderlust that forever altered the course of life on earth.
Known as people of the Upper Paleolithic Period (the end of the Paleolithic — from approximately 60,000 to 10,000 B.C.), they were identified in 1868 by the discovery of fossils in a cave in southern France called Cro-Magnon. Soon exquisite cave paintings, clay figurines, ivory and calcite carvings, jewelry and musical instruments were found in other caves in France, Spain and Germany. Vivid images of mammoth, bison, horses and Cro-Magnon females indicated awareness not only of the physical world but also of sexual reproduction.
Formed in the crucible of a European ice age, Cro-Magnon had a cranial capacity of well over 1500 cubic centimeters. This is larger than modern Northern Europeans and East Asians, who have an average, including both males and females, of about 1350 cubic centimeters. Modern Africans have an average cranial capacity of about 1250 cubic centimeters. Since the correlation between brain size and intelligence is now well established, the intellectual capabilities of Cro-Magnon must have been impressive.
|The original Upper Paleolithic people would, if they appeared among us today, be called Caucasoid.|
Cro-Magnon people looked very similar to modern Europeans. David de Laubenfels, a Syracuse University anthropologist, said of them: “All have certain physical characteristics in common; all have well formed chins, high straight foreheads, smaller modern teeth, and brains as big as Neanderthal but without the heavy brow ridges… The original Upper Paleolithic people would, if they appeared among us today, be called Caucasoid …”
Technologically advanced Cro-Magnon people expanded outward from Northwest Europe during the Mesolithic era, 20,000 years ago or more, moving into West Asia and North Africa, as well as into Northeast Asia, where mixing with indigenous proto-Mongoloids appears to have been substantial. The mountains of Central Asia formed a barrier to their penetration into Southeast Asia. As a result, Southeast Asia today is largely a mix of early Mongoloids, Australoids and Negritos (possibly descended from earlier migrations of Africans).
The impact of the dispersal of these early Caucasians on the creation of civilization is incalculable. As the map on this page shows, every place on earth where history records the rise of great civilizations lies on a Cro-Magnon migration path. Prof. De Laubenfels adds: “There is reason to believe that the significant changes associated with the cultural advance known as the Upper Paleolithic had fully as great an impact on the human condition as any one of the familiar more recent great economic ‘revolutions’ [agricultural, industrial, etc.] … The Upper Paleolithic techniques … overwhelmed all regional bounds and spread inexorably in all directions ultimately to transform the economy in all parts of the inhabited world … The resulting population realignment produced for the most part the familiar modern racial groups and for the first time placed humans in the dominant ecological role in the world.”
What Prof. de Laubenfels attributes to “cultural advance” and “techniques” may be ascribed to intellect and temperament. Culture follows these traits and not the other way around. And, as numerous researchers have suggested — for example, Philippe Rushton of the University of Western Ontario and Edward Miller of the University of New Orleans — these traits have genetic origins. Even so timid a source as The History and Geography of Human Genes, by Professors Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi and Piazza, affirms that “the prototype of modern humans comes from Cro-Magnon.”
Civilization, throughout time and place, is therefore the virtually exclusive creation of the new race that was shaped in the forests and caves of Europe 35,000 years ago. This creation is not merely cultural. It is organic and genetic, and followed the restless migrations of Upper Paleolithic peoples into nearly every corner of the earth.
Ice People and Sun People
|Upper Paleolithic Cave Art.|
Prior to the arrival of Cro-Magnon, humans lived mainly in small, genetically homogeneous groups with restricted ranges. These isolated groups tended to diverge genetically. The result, according to de Laubenfels, was that “[b]y the end of the Middle Paleolithic period [250,000 to 60,000 B.C.] there had developed substantial divisions between peoples of different regions of the world and these resulting human types can be called early races.” [emphasis in original]
Modern races — Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Negroid, Australoid, etc. — were formed by isolation and adaptation to local conditions, the most powerful of which is climate. Intellectual adaptations that allowed early humans to survive long, cold ice-age winters were vastly different from those sufficient to sustain existence in a tropical climate, rich with year-round nourishment. These adaptations appear not only in external physical differences but in dramatically different IQ profiles, and in traits such as foresight, altruism, mating fidelity, anxiety, diligence, thriftiness, etc.
Philippe Rushton has used life history theory to explain such adaptations (see full treatment of this theory in AR, Dec. 1994). Citing Edward O. Wilson, the father of sociobiology, he explains:
“Evolutionary biologists assume that each species (or subspecies, such as a race) has evolved a characteristic life history adapted to the particular ecological problems encountered by its ancestors. A life history is a genetically organized suite of characteristics that evolved in a coordinated manner so as to allocate energy to survival, growth, and reproduction. These strategies may be organized on a scale.
“At one end are ‘r-strategies’ that emphasize gamete production, mating behavior, and high reproductive rates and, at the other, ‘K-strategies’ that emphasize high levels of parental care, resource acquisition, kin provisioning, and social complexity. The K-strategy requires more complex nervous systems and larger brains … [A]rchaic versions of what were to become the modern Caucasoid and Mongoloid peoples dispersed out of Africa about 100,000 years ago and adapted to the problem of survival in predictably cold environments. This evolutionary process required a bioenergetic tradeoff that increased brain size and parenting behavior (‘K’) at the expense of egg production and sexual behavior (‘r’).”
Edward Miller has proposed a concept called paternal investment theory. He suggests that “in cold climates males were selected for provisioning, rather than for mating success. In warm climates, where female gathering made male provisioning unessential, selection was for mating success. Male-hunted meat was essential [in cold climates] for female winter survival. Genes that encouraged mating success were selected for in warm climates. Negroes (blacks) evolved in warm climates, while Caucasians (whites) and Mongoloids (Asians) evolved in colder climates. Mating is assisted by a strong sex drive, aggression, dominance, sociability, extroversion, impulsiveness, sensation seeking, and high testosterone. Provisioning is assisted by anxiety, altruism, empathy, behavioral restraint, gratification delay, and a long life span.”
|Upper Paleolithic Art.|
The History and Geography of Human Genes devotes an early section, “Scientific Failure of the Concept of Human Races,” to denying what the average man knows instinctively, i.e. that races exist. The authors then spend a thousand pages proving what they have just denied. As Edward Miller says in his review of the book, “there do appear to be three major groups that include very large numbers of people, and whose gene frequencies differ. These are the three traditional groups of Negroids, Caucasoids and Mongoloids. American Indians and Australians constitute other large groupings with distinctive gene frequencies.”
The History and Geography of Human Genes presents a variety of techniques to illustrate genetic differences. They can be used to calculate a measure of “genetic distance,” which shows how much any two ethnic groups differ. Since the authors analyze only a few of the 100,000 human genes — and since the easily-measured genes from blood samples are not those that affect obvious traits that vary by race such as skin and eye color, hair texture, temperament, etc. — their genetic distances must be viewed as relative and approximate.
The above table provides data for a few ethnic groups, selected from the book’s analysis of 42 ethnic groups worldwide. On this scale, the English and the Danish differ by 21 points, the smallest difference among the 42 groups. The English differ from the Caucasoids of India by 280 points. The largest difference, 4573, occurs between Central African Mbuti Pygmies (not shown) and New Guinean aborigines. Approximate IQs have been added, based on work by Richard Lynn.
The Sorcerer’s Seed
The table shows the enduring imprint of Upper Paleolithic people. Cro-Magnon and his progeny seeded northern Eurasia with his genes, giving rise to civilization. Europeans, exemplified by the English, are genetically and intellectually closer to East Asians (typified by Koreans) than they are to black Africans and New Guinean aborigines, who have the lowest IQs.
Northeast Asians received a substantial infusion of Caucasoid genes during and after the Mesolithic period. During his expeditions to Mongolia in the 1920s, American scientist Roy Chapman Andrews found Cro-Magnon skeletons as far east as central Mongolia and dating from 20,000 years ago. More recently, four-thousand-year-old Caucasoid corpses have been found in the Tarim Basin area of Central China, confirming ancient Chinese legends about men having, in the words of researcher Victor H. Mair, “great height, deep set blue or green eyes, long noses, full beards, and red or blonde hair.”
American Indians are descended from Northeast Asians who, about 30,000 years ago, crossed a land bridge that spanned what is now the Bering Strait. They are genetically closest to present-day Northeast Asians but more distant than Asians from Europeans.
Why are American Indians not as intelligent as Northeast Asians? Upper Paleolithic people spread outward 20,000 years ago but Asians may have come to America 10,000 years earlier. It may be that Asians crossed the Bering Strait land bridge before Cro-Magnon’s descendants migrated into Northeast Asia — or before they arrived in large enough numbers to raise Asian intelligence. The Amerind IQ data suggest that climate-related evolution may have initially lifted Northeast Asian IQs moderately above those of Africans and Australoids but that it was the Cro-Magnon influx that lifted Asian IQ to the European level.
In an unpublished paper, Edward Miller writes: “When Australia and the Americas were settled the original populations lacked certain alleles because the relevant mutations had not yet occurred, or because these mutations had not reached the relevant parts of Eurasia. After Australia and the Americas came to be isolated from the larger Eurasian populations, they did not receive further immigrants … Thus, the intelligence of the Australian and American aboriginal populations came to lag behind that of the rest of the world.”
Evolution in Reverse
There is great intellectual resistance to the view that Cro-Magnon genes played a fundamental role in creating modern civilization, just as there is resistance to the view that human intellectual potential differs by race. Nevertheless, these concepts explain much of human life experience and we ignore them at our peril.
There is no guarantee that evolution will always move forward. In the white nations, low birthrates, non-white immigration, and miscegenation are weakening the gene pool. Current racial policies can lead only to genetic submersion.
Welfare has recreated an environment similar to that of Africa and has produced similar behavior. Recipients can subsist on government subsidies without having to plan for long, cold winters, much as early Africans could obtain food year-round in a tropical climate. Males can engage in promiscuous sexual activity and a substantial number of their offspring will reach maturity to repeat the cycle. Males are not needed for provisioning; females can rear children alone, sustained by government food and medicine. As a result, a violent new underclass has appeared, free from Nature’s culling forces.
Just as welfare drives evolution backwards, immigration is bringing to the West millions of people who cannot build or sustain our civilization. What will be lost if we do not act now to reverse this trend?
In The Decline of Intelligence in America, Seymour Itzkoff writes: “These words may sound crass. They are. But the situation is crassly serious. The United States, along with other European cultures around the world, is at risk. An epochal change is in process. For the past 35,000 years, the genetics of European intelligence, passed around the world, have laid the groundwork for what we call and treasure as civilization. Civilization in the West is now in jeopardy.”
Civilization is in jeopardy because our genetic heritage is in jeopardy. Humans with the endowments required to create civilization have arisen only once in the history of man. Cro-Magnon’s progeny will always create civilization; it is his destiny to do so. But without the genes that make it possible, there will be no rebirth if the West should fall.
Michael W. Masters is the author of “The Morality of Survival,” which appeared in the July and August 1995 issues of AR. His articles have appeared in The Social Contract, Southern Patriot and The Citizens Informer. | <urn:uuid:1ca783bb-a2ab-43b7-abb4-c6df38d19b64> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://whitelocust.wordpress.com/the-origin-of-races-part-ii/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942103 | 2,999 | 3.90625 | 4 |
Who'd have predicted that overpriced slivers of silicon, covered in oleophobic glass trying its best to repel your sticky fingers, would become the first great technological innovation of the 21st century?
Most of us thought this would happen decades ago. We were promised by those mouldy second-hand sci-fi books of our youth, and I've since wasted far too much time and money pretending the time has already come.
It started with a calculator watch in 1983 that played Eine kleine Nachtmusik on my birthday, and it's going to end in tragedy. I'd spent those intervening years memorising the Palm Pilot character input tables, squeezing my handwriting into small squares on a Windows CE Jornada and strengthening my arms to hold up a WristPDA, all in preparation for the future.
Those 30 minutes of battery life, a lost stylus, volatile memory and even a broken screen wouldn't stop me. I was ready for the future.
But why did it have to be Apple? That purveyor of the proprietary. The creator of a world where we all pretend there's no file system, no operating system, no user access or modifiable code. If you get to the files, they're encrypted and hidden.
It's a world where you need something called iTunes, and where software comes from a package repository called the 'App Store'. It's a world where, if you want to develop software, you have to accept an open source-repelling licence and a business model that gives you little ownership and no freedom to share.
Third-party APIs were banned, then befriended, then adopted, then replaced. Some new apps were accepted, then removed, then reinstated, then quickly forgotten, all at the whim of Apple. But it's too late.
iPhones and iPads have already won, and they're so much better than the competition, people don't care about the consequences. Its touch devices are the closest yet to those mythical devices of my youth.
Their user-interface is almost latency free. Their brilliant use of global gestures and a new touch-based widget toolset have transformed our expectations of such devices. It's Minority Report in your pocket.
Hard to swallow
The main problem is, that, despite the dozens of touch devices being touted, Linux tablets are going to be a bitter pill for most purchasers to swallow. That's going to put people off the platform in the future, and the challenge facing these devices in the face of Apple's overwhelming success is the same for both Windows and Linux.
Apple has had too much time to push its advantage, and that advantage is usability. Building usability into these shiny new things can't be done while you're chasing a runaway success. It needs to be done outside of scrutiny, and it needs enough time to develop without the pressure of a release.
Android tablets often feel like badly fitted clothing. They look the part and they're priced competitively, but they're uncomfortable to use, they chafe and they tear at the seams. They were designed to fit something else.
Android is a mobile phone operating system that's only just started to find its feet in the usability game. It's the same problem with Windows-based devices, albeit without the mobile phone bit, and short of copying what Apple has done, it's difficult to see a way out that's not going to take either platform another two years to catch up. And that's another two years for Apple.
But there's still a lot that can be done that doesn't need massive innovations on usability. Google should start with a standard specification for its phone and tablet platforms - one that includes a minimum CPU capability, an amount of memory and an equally divisible screen resolution. Only by doing this can the user interface be tailored for a single layout that will make working with Android intuitive and predictable.
It's so much harder when every Android device is different, because it means we'll all have to learn how to use each separately. That's not the future I was sold.
Google also needs to negotiate with the manufacturers so that Android updates, for both phones and tablets, are universal and free. At the moment it's usually down to the manufacturer or the network provider, and this is unpredictable and unacceptable.
But most of all, Android tablets have to succeed if people are to avoid the temptation of the forbidden fruit.
Android needs to balance freedom with functionality, because Apple has made an executive decision and freedom wasn't part of it. Only then can we avoid a tragedy of science fiction proportions.
Liked this? Then check out our Android 3.0 review
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Get the top stories of the week, plus the most popular reviews delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up at http://www.techradar.com/register | <urn:uuid:daf5acc5-bd4a-4c1b-abb8-d7cc68de4362> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/android-tablets-must-balance-freedom-with-functionality-939405 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960943 | 996 | 1.890625 | 2 |
Archives, Classes, Award Ceremonies, Festivals, etc.
Do you remember the "I Love Lucy" episode with Welles, which ends so suddenly? Well here's a possible explanation as to why:
From the Shakespeare Conference: SHK 9.1192 Friday, 27 November 1998:
"Lucy Meets Orson Welles" (org. airdate, Oct. 15, 1956) from
Bart Andrews, The "I Love Lucy" Book (NY: Doubleday, 1976), p. 186:
This episode featured the multi-faceted Orson Welles, who received a record amount for his guest run: fifteen thousand dollars. Two months earlier, in April, Welles and Arnaz had teamed up to produce a one-hour television series, in which the Academy Award-winner would also star.This arrangement never resulted in a series, but Welles did manage to complete a half-hour pilot titled "The Fountain of youth" that is still shown at film festivals. The Welles "Lucy" show also featured "The Waltons'" Ellen Corby as Lucy Ricardo's high school drama teacher. The show originally contained scenes of Vivian Vance playing Cleopatra to Welles's Julius Caesar, and Lucy sparring with the Shakespearean master as Juliet and Lady Macbeth, but for some unknown reason these sequences did not make their way into the final print of "Lucy Meets Orson Welles" that was shot the evening of June 14, 1956.
Here's Lucy: http://hollowaypages.com/welles.htm
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Thanks for the link! That collection of photos is quite stunning; I was especially impressed with how Welles' Falstaff make-up for "Five Kings" in '39 made him look exactly like he did in "Chime At Midnight" 25 years later.
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A collection of news and information related to Heat Stroke published by this site and its partners.
Displaying items 1-12 of 304 » View baltimoresun.com items only1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11-26 Next >
My dog loves running in the yard, but I worry in the summer. What signs should I look for that he may be getting overheated, and what should I do if he exhibits them? Early signs of heat stroke include panting, bright pink gums, strong pulses, vomiting,...
Tags: Vomiting, Symptoms, Diarrhea, Physical Conditions
The Maryland state school board adopted regulations Tuesday that require more concussion training for those responsible for student-athletes and beef up protocols for addressing head injuries. In addition, the board will convene an advisory board to...
While I applaud Tim Wheeler for shining a light on the risks of climate change in his recent article "Rising temperatures increase health risks" (May 10), I'm saddened by these three esteemed universities investing time and effort into researching what...
Tags: Global Change, Lobbying
Summer is almost here, and with it likely some blistering hot days. A recent study suggests the elderly should beware when the temperature spikes, because they face an increased risk of winding up in the emergency room short of breath on those days. And...
If you knew what actually happened to Georgia Gould in 2008 as she regained consciousness on a stretcher in California, IV sticking into her arm, your first question might be a lot like Georgia's. What happened? She knew she'd blacked out on the...
With heat index values expected to reach nearly 105 degrees on Friday, June 29 and Saturday June 30, Harford County Public Library's 11 branches will serve as cooling stations for Harford County residents in need of relief from the heat. Each Harford...
Tags: Physical Fitness and Exercise, Salt, Physiology, Fever, Symptoms
Three Baltimore City fire companies that had been slated to permanently close Sunday will remain open for four more days due to the weather, a department spokesman said Saturday. Fire officials have decided to keep the three companies open until Thursday...
A deadly storm, fueled by extreme heat and humidity, left Maryland in a state of emergency that continued Sunday, with hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses without power, with some residents expected to remain in the dark over the next week. The...
BGE officials continued to scramble Sunday to restore power to nearly more than 257,000 customers as the area suffered with temperatures near 100 degrees for a third day and braced for a chaotic Monday-morning commute. After the state was rocked Friday...
Safari Charles of Owings Mills learned a few important lessons after running her first half-marathon last year. Wear shoes that fit, or your toenails may turn black. Run with a group for motivation (and for those days your husband would rather sleep in)....
Due to the forecast high temperatures and humidity, and to provide relief for those residents still without power, city officials will open pools early and maintain cooling centers at the Laurel Armory and Robert J. DiPietro Community Center. The armory,...
After a nearly two-week long heat wave, Harford County is finally getting a break from the high temperatures, which state health officials say contributed locally to the death of a Pennsylvania man Saturday. There have been 13 heat-related deaths in...
May 24, 2013 |Story| Baltimore Sun
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Jul 10, 2012 |Story| Patuxent Homestead
Original site for Heat Stroke topic gallery. | <urn:uuid:403004d2-9952-4a47-b888-7c659fed0bfe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.baltimoresun.com/topic/health/physical-conditions/heat-stroke-HEPHC0000067.topic | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944547 | 839 | 1.546875 | 2 |
WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) -- More than two million North Carolinians have cast their vote already. At schools around the area, there's a different kind of early voting.
Students at Mary C. Williams Elementary School in Wilmington are feeling the patriotic spirit, participating in the annual "Kids Voting" program.
"You have a privilege to do and get who you want or what you want for your school or your state," 5th grader Morgan Lancaster said.
Fourth grader Michael Dunlap said, "Without voting we wouldn't have a president, and one person would take over, just like in the other countries."
"Since we're a free country, we get to vote for whoever we want and why we want," 5th grader Joshua Beatty said.
Students cast ballots for all the major races, from president and governor to the the Wilmington ballpark bond referendum. When it came to their pick, they had made up their own minds. And just because they're young, don't think they're not informed.
And while the votes wont actually elect any candidate, don't count the kids out. In 2008, their votes correctly predicted the outcome of both the presidential and North Carolina gubernatorial races.
Kids voting results will be tallied and released Monday. We'll let you know who won. | <urn:uuid:7d8f374f-f8b4-4486-aef5-01e5023415c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wwaytv3.com/2012/11/01/kids-get-their-say-election | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97468 | 271 | 1.914063 | 2 |
Nonfarm Payrolls, Seasonally Adjusted
Overall, this report seems to be consistent with an economy digging out of a very deep hole at a very slow pace. While the increase in 244,000 jobs more than what is needed just to keep pace with labor force growth (130,000-ish), 13.7 million people remain unemployed. The economy is about 4.6 million jobs short of a "normal" (but still not great) unemployment rate of 6% - at this pace, we'd get there in about three and a half years.
The report also included slight upward revisions of the February and March employment numbers (41,000 and 5,000 respectively).
Average hourly earnings have increased by 1.9% over the past year. That's more evidence that inflation is not a problem: wages should rise somewhat due to productivity growth, so that's not an inflationary number at all.
Private payrolls were up 268,000, but government shed 24,000 jobs, of which 8,000 was at the state level and 14,000 at the local level.
On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, the unemployment fell from 9.2% to 8.7% in April (i.e., this is a month with a large seasonal job increase, which the BLS tries to remove from all of the numbers discussed above, which are seasonally adjusted). | <urn:uuid:eb1b64a1-dafa-472f-a899-d9e4100ea0ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://twentycentparadigms.blogspot.com/2011/05/april-employment-report.html?showComment=1306009301324 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974868 | 284 | 1.820313 | 2 |
There is currently a proposal in the General Assembly that specifies the need to protect children from bullying based on their sexual orientation. Do you think this provision should be passed into law?
North Carolinians overwhelmingly support a controversial provision in a bullying bill to specifically name sexual orientation as something children need to be protected from bullying based on.
Support for that provision comes from across party lines. 84% of Democrats are for it, as are 72% of independents, and 58% of Republicans.
Although conservative groups have lined up behind the bill and generated a lot of correspondence to legislators on it, it appears they don't even speak for the majority of Republicans in the state.
The poll also showed strong support for the bill across race, gender, and age lines.
Full results here | <urn:uuid:b9748aab-e2c5-439b-a157-86249da87181> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/2008/07/poll-on-bullying-bill.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966409 | 158 | 1.578125 | 2 |
United Nations, March 11 (Coal Geology) India has announced a cash contribution of $5 million for relief and rehabilitation in Chile in a show of solidarity with the people of the earthquake-hit country.
[ReviewAZON asin="0133749436" display="inlinepost"]‘As a country familiar with the consequences of natural disasters, we fully understand the trauma and suffering that our Chilean brethren are living through,’ India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Hardeep Singh Puri said here Wednesday.
Speaking at an informal meeting of the plenary of the United Nations General Assembly for a briefing by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, he said immediately on hearing the news of the Feb 27earthquake, the Indian government initiated measures to show solidarity with the people of Chile.
Last week, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh conveyed to the Chilean president, Dr. Michelle Bachelet, that India would be making a modest cash contribution of US$ 5 million for relief and rehabilitation work following the earthquake, Puri said.
Conveying India’s sincere condolences to the family members of those who have lost their lives and its sympathy and support for the injured, he said:
‘We have no doubt that the people of Chile have the strength and resilience to overcome this natural disaster.’
Appreciating the leadership displayed by Ban in coordinating the UN’s response to the Chilean earthquake, Puri said: ‘This is truly commendable.’ | <urn:uuid:af3eba2f-1426-4a49-bf8d-1f546eee9cfd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.coalgeology.com/5-million-earthquake-relief-for-chile-from-india/3235/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932829 | 311 | 1.851563 | 2 |
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
I first read Wuthering Heights in my Intro to Literature class during my sophomore year in college. Initially skeptical about being assigned to read a British literature classic, I was surprisingly pleased at how much I actually enjoyed it. I remember being assigned to write a paper on the book and, frustrated with my lack of inspiration, went for a walk around town when it hit me that the theme of love and revenge would be a great topic for a paper. That paper ended up being one of my best papers I wrote in college and the one I’m most proud of (and I got an A!).
For those who haven’t read this classic, Wuthering Heights centers around families of two large estates in the moors of Yorkshire, England – the Earnshaws of Wuthering Heights and the Lintons of Thrushcross Grange. Mr. Earnshaw travels to Liverpool and brings home Heathcliff, an orphan boy whom he will raise as his own child, along with his other two children, Hindley and Catherine. Hindley hates Heathcliff, treating him cruelly, while Catherine becomes quite fond of her mysterious adopted brother. The two become inseparable. When Catherine chooses to marry Edgar Linton for his status, Heathcliff runs away. He eventually returns to Wuthering Heights but spends the rest of his life in a state of revenge-driven rage, his unresolved love destroying both families.
The one thing I remember from both the first time reading and this time was how difficult it was to keep up with the how the characters were related to each other and frequently had to look at the Earnshaw/Linton family tree. I eventually got the names and relationships straight in my mind but the fact that Bronte gave characters such similar names (both first and last) was confusing!
I often thought about Bronte’s choice in narration and her use of the characters Nelly and Mr. Lockwood. Although creating Wuthering Heights as a “story within a story” is an interesting and different storytelling vehicle I wasn’t sure of the purpose it played or what it added to the plot. I wondered why Bronte decided to have Nelly narrate and not just tell the story from a third person point of view, or from the point of view of another character. I do like this choice, however, because the reader gets to see everyone’s feelings and thoughts, as so many characters tend to confide in Nelly.
When I first read this book in college, I was fixated on Heathcliff’s mistreatment and how that drives him into madness and leads to his obsession with revenge. But this time, I was saddened by the mistreatment of the most innocent of victims in the story: Cathy Linton, Hareton Earnshaw and Linton Heathcliff (Hindley, Catherine and Heathcliff’s children). Because of the hatred their parents have towards each other, they are in turn, neglected and abused and are the victims of unwarranted revenge.
Soon after reading this book for the first time, I considered it one of my favorite books, and I’m happy to report that I still consider it a favorite. I probably won’t reread it that often because of its intensity but I am still in love with the story’s deep relationships, themes of love, revenge and status and its social commentary. The vivid setting and multi-dimensional characters have rarely been replicated in another story.
Wuthering Heights was published in 1846 by Thomas Cautley Newby. | <urn:uuid:2177f88a-2c07-4032-8172-2d9ba6607ab4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thenerdyreader.com/2013/01/12/review-wuthering-heights/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975941 | 746 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Here's a tantalizing glimpse into the classrooms of innovative educators who are using technology to connect with students, colleagues, the local community, and the world beyond. Edutopia offers a unique perspective on education in which technology is employed to make schools more exciting and dynamic for everyone involved -- students work on real-world projects and consult with the best outside experts; teachers learn by tapping into the best people and practices in their field; and classrooms regularly connect with the rich resources of their communities and the world beyond.
A lively resource that teachers and parents will want to refer to again and again, Edutopia is filled with more than forty full-color photos, has a useful resource section, and comes with a unique CD-ROM that contains more than seventy minutes of video footage of these classrooms in action.
"This book provides educators and parents alike with an unprecedented opportunity to see the future. We must support the efforts of these national heroes--teachers and students from primary and secondary education, foundation and community leaders--as they use technology to make our students and our nation more competitive." - Bob Kerrey, president, New School University and former United States Senator and chair of the Congressional Web-Based Education Commission
"This book provides a glimpse of the future by showing us the best work of innovators today. Anyone involved in creating the schools of the future shoud read it." - Linda Darling-Hammond, professor, School of Education, Stanford University
"Edutopia is an exciting guide to help teaching and learning move into the twenty-first century." - Richard Riley, former Secretary of Education | <urn:uuid:86cc1ef4-565d-44e8-ba16-29589c1dafd4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0787960829,descCd-description.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95415 | 324 | 2.5625 | 3 |
- My baby has an itchy bumpy rash. What is this?
- What are the symptoms of scabies?
- Should I take my baby to the doctor?
- How should I treat my baby's scabies?
- How do I protect the rest of my family from scabies?
- Can my baby go to nursery if he has scabies?
- How can I prevent my baby from getting scabies?
My baby has an itchy bumpy rash. What is this?Your baby could have scabies. Scabies is a skin irritation caused by tiny parasitic mites that burrow under the skin. The bumpy rash you can see on your baby's skin is actually an allergic reaction to the eggs and poo the mites leave behind. Scabies won't harm your baby, but it can make him itchy and uncomfortable.
Your baby can pick up scabies through skin-to-skin contact with someone who has it. Scabies is highly contagious. Anyone can get it, even if they're careful about cleanliness. It often shows up in more than one family member or in groups of children in nursery (NHS 2010).
What are the symptoms of scabies?If your baby gets scabies, he'll develop an extremely itchy rash. It will appear as scattered red bumps, usually between your baby's fingers, around his wrists, on the outside of his elbows, and on his armpits, belly and genitals. It may also show up on his scalp, face, kneecaps, the palms of his hands, and on the sides and soles of his feet. See a photo of scabies in our rashes and skin conditions gallery.
You may see wavy light brown or silvery lines where the mites have burrowed under your baby's skin. He may also develop little pustules or pimples, or small, water-filled blisters.
The itching may be most intense for your baby after a warm bath or at night, and it may keep him awake. Nasty-looking scabs may form over the areas your baby has scratched, and a bacterial infection such as impetigo could develop.
If this is your baby's first bout of scabies, two to six weeks may pass between when the mites latch onto him and when he begins to itch. If he's had scabies before, his reaction time will be much shorter, possibly within a few hours (NHS 2010).
Should I take my baby to the doctor?See your doctor if you're worried your baby has scabies. The sooner he's treated, the sooner he'll be more comfortable and no longer infectious.
The doctor will take a look at the rash. He may also do a painless test that involves scraping off a small sample of skin and looking at it under a microscope. Scabies mites, their eggs and their faeces are visible when magnified (NHS 2010).
How should I treat my baby's scabies?Your doctor will prescribe a cream that you'll need to spread over every inch of your baby's body from his neck down. Even parts of his body that don't seem to be infected must be treated, so don't skip them.
Don't forget to put the cream between your baby's toes and fingers, under his arms, in his navel and on his genitals. If you see the telltale rash on your baby's scalp or face, apply the cream along his hairline, as well as on his forehead, scalp and temples. Follow the directions for leaving the cream on his skin, which will probably be for eight to 12 hours, and then wash it off.
Put the cream on at bedtime and wash it off first thing in the morning. If your baby sucks on his hands or fingers while he sleeps, cover his hands overnight with mittens or socks to prevent him swallowing the cream. It's best not to put the cream on during the day because you're baby is more likely to put his hands in his mouth.
If the itching doesn't start to get better after two weeks, or if it gets worse and new burrows appear, see your doctor. He may advise you to repeat the treatment, or he may prescribe a different cream (NHS 2010).
It can take some time for the irritants in your baby's skin to go away after he has been treated. So he may be itchy for as long as three weeks after the mites have gone. If it's troubling your baby, see your doctor who may prescribe an oral antihistamine or a cortisone cream for relief. In the meantime, keep your baby's fingernails short to prevent him from scratching and tearing his skin, which can make it infected.
How do I protect the rest of my family from scabies?Everyone in your house, as well as carers, will also need to be treated even if they show no symptoms. It's best if everyone gets treated at the same time, so one contaminated person doesn't reinfect everybody else.
You'll also need to remove the mites from around the house as soon as you start treating your baby with the cream. Vacuum the floors and then dispose of the contents of the vacuum cleaner. Wash your baby's clothing, towels, and bedding on a hot wash and dry it in a dryer, if you have one (CKS 2010).
Seal any stuffed animals or toys that can't be washed in a plastic bag for a week. Scabies mites can't survive for more than a few days without a human host.
Can my baby go to nursery if he has scabies?Your baby can return to nursery after one treatment with the cream. It may be worth letting your baby's nursery know that he has it, so they can inform other parents.
How can I prevent my baby from getting scabies?The only way to prevent your baby from getting scabies is to avoid contact with anyone who might have it. This can be tricky, especially if your baby is around other children and has several carers. If your baby has been in close contact with another child who has scabies, treat him straight away, even if he doesn't have the rash.
CKS. 2010. Clinical topic: Scabies NHS Clinical Knowledge Summaries. www.cks.nhs.uk [Accessed March 2011]
NHS. 2010. Scabies NHS Choices, Health A-Z. www.nhs.uk [Accessed March 2011] | <urn:uuid:27ad706b-125e-4db4-887e-588adc46f147> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.babycentre.co.uk/a1018893/scabies | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978612 | 1,344 | 2.375 | 2 |
Excavations at historic Borestone site at Bannockburn
7 December 2011
Archaeologists are continuing preliminary investigations at the site of the new visitor centre for the Battle of Bannockburn.
Following earlier excavations in October, the team are digging for the position of the Borestone where Robert the Bruce raised his banner before the battle of Bannockburn in 1314 where the Rotunda now stands.
The Rotunda, built in 1964 to mark the 650th anniversary of the battle, is badly in need of repair and structural engineers are assessing the work required. As part of the project a full Conservation Plan was completed for the rotunda by the conservation architect Andrew Wright.
Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs Fiona Hyslop said:
“The work to create a new visitor centre at the site of the Battle of Bannockburn is continuing well with this second round of archaeology ensuring that nothing of importance is lost during the building work.
“We may still be some way off the opening in time for the 700th anniversary in 2014 but it is vital that we push ahead with this work to preserve any remaining archaeology and use these findings to add to our understanding and reflect it in the state of the art interpretation that will make this centre a world-class attraction.
“The new centre will just be the latest commemoration of this incredible site and this particular series of excavations is hugely interesting because it is looking at the legacy of the site as a memorial and the way that people have memorialised and interacted with it throughout the centuries. ”
The new centre has been designed by award-winning architects Reiach and Hall as part of the project to enhance the presentation of the battle and its significance to our history in time for the 700th anniversary of the battle in 2014.
In addition to the Rotunda, the site is also the focus for other memorials to the battle: the famous Pilkington-Jackson statue of Bruce, a cairn built in 1957, and the flagpole erected in 1870.
Derek Alexander, Head of Archaeological Services for the National Trust for Scotland, said: “The first memorial to the battle was in fact the Borestone itself: a flat stone with a circular hole 4 inches in diameter and 4 inches deep. Tradition has it that the Borestone was the socket in which Robert Bruce, King of Scots, raised his standard prior to the battle and marks the site of the Scots camp. The site has been visited by tourists since the 18th century, including Robert Burns, and an engraving of 1826 shows it beside the road in an open rural landscape.
“We are hoping that in addition to the position of the Borestone we may find objects dropped or even deliberately placed and left by visitors to the site over the last couple of hundred years – it certainly worth investigating.”
Over the years numerous visitors chipped off parts of the Borestone, to take home as souvenirs, and by the middle of the 19th century the fragments had to be protected by an iron grille set into a low stone wall and the site was staffed by a custodian.
During the building of the rotunda in the 1960s the precise location of the original Borestone was cleared and re-surfaced and the last two fragments transferred into the new visitor centre for safe-keeping.
The current archaeological investigations are looking for the site of the original Borestone itself, which may be marked by a bed of mortar. Another trench will also be excavated over one end of the 19th century custodian’s hut. In both trenches it is hoped there may be artefacts dropped by visitors to the site over the last 300 years.
The proposal for the new visitor centre was announced in 2009 with £5m funding from the Scottish Government. An application for £3.8m has received a stage one pass from the Heritage Lottery Fund with a final decision hoped for early in 2012.
2014 will be a huge year for events in Scotland – as well as the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn, Scotland will also play host to the Commonwealth Games and The Ryder Cup.
Notes for editors:
- The Battle of Bannockburn Project is a joint venture by the National Trust for Scotland and Historic Scotland, on behalf of the Scottish Government, to provide a new visitor centre and experience for one of the most significant battles in Scotland’s history for the 700th anniversary in the 2014.
| ||Architectural Team – Reiach and Hall with Sinclair Knight Merz (Engineer), Turner and Townsend (QS) and KJ Tait (M&E Engineers)
| ||Interpretation consultant – BrightWhite
| ||Landscape Architects – Ian White Associates
| ||Digital Design - Centre for Digital Documentation and Visualisation (CDDV)
- Historic Scotland is an executive agency of the Scottish Government charged with safeguarding the nation’s historic environment. The agency is fully accountable to Scottish Ministers and through them to the Scottish Parliament.
- The National Trust for Scotland is one of Scotland’s leading conservation charities, which relies on the financial support of its members to fund its important work of caring for the natural and cultural heritage of Scotland for everyone to enjoy www.nts.org.uk | <urn:uuid:79634adc-a05d-4d9a-ae30-bc5cafa0079b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/news_search_results.htm/news_article.htm?articleid=34302 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951374 | 1,097 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Signatures as off 323 May 21 2012 since 3 Jan (comprises mostly local residents)
ONLINE 143 ON PAPER 180
St Hilda's Parish Church is an imposing red brick building that stands on an abrupt cliff edge in the Firth Park / Shiregreen / Wincobank area of North East Sheffield. Built in the 1930's by the architect Leslie Moore (1883-1957) it represents an ambitious build that provides one of the few interesting historic buildings in the area. The church was closed in 2007 and currently faces demolition as the Anglican Church no longer have use for it and no alternative use has been sought. Having suffered limited vandalism that has caused only superficial damage it is sad that such a solid structure that undoubtably has viable alternative uses is to be raised to the ground. Once torn down it shall be gone forever and the shame is it does not seem to have had an opportunity to be of some other use. Please sign the petition to stop the imminent demolition of this building and support attempts to find an alternate use. Any additional involvement or support would be invaluable.
Broadcast on Radio Sheffield, 4th Jan 2011 Rony Robinson talks to Mike Higginbottom about the plight of St Hilda's. click here to listen (2 hrs 34 min into the 3 hour programme) (it lasts approx 7 mins)
Mike Higginbottoms BLOG ARTICLES refering to St Hilda's
1 losing a landmark - Dec 5, 2011
2 church going - Dec 17, 2011
3 gorton renaissance - Jan 3, 2012
4 praised with faint damns - Jan 5, 2012
5 outside the box - Jan 13, 2012
Formed out of portions of the parishes of St. Cuthbert (Fir Vale); St. Thomas' (Wincobank) and St. Thomas' (Brightside) in November 1936.
The site of the church (consecrated 1938) was given by Mr. Bradley Firth, and a sum of £3000 was presented towards the building by Mrs. Jeffcock, a former resident of Shire House, Lower Shire Green.
The living is a vicarage, net yearly value £550, with residence, in 1957 by the Rev. Ronald Thomson, B. A., of Leeds Universty.
From RB - sheffield history site (with thanks) | <urn:uuid:b4aab499-e1a6-44f8-9568-f1b1e9bafd27> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sthildas.webs.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945731 | 487 | 2.03125 | 2 |
Budget Battle Goes To Dogs
(Note: This is an unedited, slightly longer version of a story in Sunday's News Sentinel. though not visible on its website..)
The legislative battle over whether to make more cuts to the state budget or enhance state revenue has literally gone to the dogs - plus cats and ferrets.
Gov. Phil Bredesen's administration has proposed a new $1 fee for each pet vaccination in Tennessee to cover part of the cost of operating the state's rabies control program. Some Republicans object.
"I'm just opposed to having a tax or fee raised in this economic environment and putting it on the backs of the people," said Rep. Joey Hensley, R-Hohenwald, during a House Health Committee hearing on the bill (HB3834) last week.
Hensley, Rep. Tony Shipley, R-Kingsport, and a spokesman for the Tennessee Veterinary Medicine Association said the increased cost could deter many pet owners from getting shots for their animals. Others questioned whether the program is worthwhile.
Last year, the rabies control program investigated 2,755 cases of animal bites or other contact with animals that created concern about possible rabies exposure, according to state Health Commissioner Susan Cooper.
Eighty-nine cases of rabies in the animals - including bats, raccoons, skunks and other wild animals as well as dogs and cats -- were confirmed, she said. In five cases, humans were exposed.
In recent years, the number of animals getting rabies shots statewide has ranged from 944,000 to about 1.1 million, officials said. The $1 fee is estimated to bring in $1 million, offsetting most of the $1.8 million spent each year by the rabies control program, which has a staff of 17 people.
"Is it worth $1 million to find five cases of rabies?" asked Rep. Vance Dennis, R-Savannah, when Cookeville veterinarian Steven Copeland testified to the House committee.
"It is if you're one of the five cases," replied Copeland.
The cost of operating the program now comes out of the state's general fund, where shrinking revenue has already prompted about $1.1 billion in overall cuts over the past three years. Cooper said her department has already curbed spending in multiple areas, including programs to combat human diseases ranging from HIV to hemophilia.
"We have cut to the bone already. What we are doing is to trying and maintain the programs that are essential to protect public health," the commissioner said.
The bill cleared the House Health Committee on a 16-10 vote with all no votes coming from Republicans.
The bill passed the Senate General Welfare Committee - with far less discussion - on a 6-1 vote with Sen. Bo Watson, R-Chattanooga, casting the sole negative vote.
The measure awaits votes this week in the House Budget Subcommittee and the Senate Finance Committee.
As amended in the House panel, the commissioner of health would be authorized to increase the fee from $1 to $2 in future years.
Cooper, Copeland and Deputy Commissioner Jim Schulman disagreed with contentions that the fee would cause many pet owners stop getting vaccinations.
Fees charged by veterinarians for vaccinations apparently vary widely, officials said, with those mentioned ranging from $2 to $75. In some places, free vaccinations are offered on occasion, legislators said.
The penalty for not having a pet vaccinated - the law covers dogs, cats and ferrets - is $50 under current law. But Cooper acknowledged she knows of no case being prosecuted and said failure to vaccinate is never noticed until an animal is suspected of having rabies.
In those cases, she said, the animal is placed in quarantine or euthanized, but there is no prosecution.
Hensley said he has heard estimates that only about 20 percent of dogs and cats are vaccinated against rabies. Shipley said officials should be going after those who fail to vaccinate their animals and collecting fines.
"There should be fines and penalties for people who break the law rather than increasing penalties on people who obey the law," he said.
But Cooper said creating a "vaccination police" program would be impractical and perhaps unpopular.
Copeland said the main reason many veterinarians object to the fee is that it would require them to keep up with more paperwork. Cooper said there would be little new paperwork since veterinarians already must keep records on the shots they give.
Rep. John DeBerry, D-Memphis, said he found it "disgusting" to hear complaints about paperwork when human health is at stake.
Other Democrats sharply criticized Republicans for opposing the fee. House Democratic Caucus Chairman Mike Turner referred to them as "all these peacocks putting their feathers out and trying impress somebody" by opposing any tax or fee increase, however reasonable.
If this tax on rabies vaccinations gets passed, the State will more than likely see more cases of rabies in the coming years as owners stop getting their dogs vaccinated. Additionally, depending upon which locale one lives in, the local vets are already milking the system by telling their clients and requiring yearly rabies vaccinations when the State law only requires them every three years. The State needs to send a message to the vets to abide by the State law instead of lying to their clients. Current research has shown that after the initial vaccination and the first booster, most dogs are fully protected against rabies for the rest of their lives and there is no need for further rabies vaccinations and, in fact, these additional vaccinations are doing harm to our pets. Please, legislators, get on the bandwagon and do what is right rather than what you think looks right. Protest our pets and don't think that pet owners are going to pull the State out of it's financial woes.
Instead of taxing vaccinations Tennessee should be doing more to encourage pet owners to get their pets vaccinated — and that does not mean operating "vaccination police" and fining people. If this bill passes then rabies compliance in the state will drop off even further. That makes this bill a public health and safety issue. The vets are absolutely right about this bill and it has nothing to do with paperwork. Rabies vaccinations are essential for pets. Hands off, Tennessee! Don't pass this tax! | <urn:uuid:166d9ab9-bfb1-42e0-9d44-7b08e6c4ad02> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.knoxnews.com/humphrey/2010/05/budget-battle-goes-to-dogs.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966045 | 1,302 | 1.664063 | 2 |
ABSTRACT: The concept of "patient enablement" involves patients' perceptions of ability to understand and cope with illness. Improving enablement is an important goal of medical consultations for patients with chronic illness. To measure "enablement," a post-medical-consultation patient-reported questionnaire was developed and named "Patient Enablement Instrument (PEI)" in the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, there has been no tool to evaluate patient enablement in Japan. Therefore, this study aimed to develop PEI Japanese version, to examine its validity and reliability, and to clarify the constitution of concept about patient enablement among Japanese patients. The translation process included forward translation, expert panel back-translation, following the standard WHO process. Participants were 256 individuals (157 men and 99 women; mean age 62.9 ± 11.8 years) receiving a regular outpatient treatment due to chronic illness at the Department of Cardiology, Respiratory, or Endocrinology and Metabolism in a regional hospital. To assess validity, we compared PEI with Medical Interview Satisfaction Scale (MISS) by correlation coefficient, which was 0.55 (P < 0.01). Furthermore, factor analysis indicated that PEI had two principal factors labeled "coping with illness and health maintenance" and "confidence in oneself and independence". For an evaluation of reliability, internal consistency was calculated (Cronbach's alpha = 0.875). In conclusion, two principal factors comprise patient enablement measured by PEI with satisfactory validity and reliability. PEI Japanese version will be a useful tool to evaluate and improve medical consultations in Japan.
The Tohoku Journal of Experimental Medicine 01/2012; 227(2):97-104. · 1.24 Impact Factor | <urn:uuid:1eb16daa-14c9-4215-aeec-4b6c00a3d5ce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.researchgate.net/researcher/76415336_Ayako_Kawasaki/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917833 | 352 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Few aristocratic English families of the 20th century have enjoyed quite the delicious notoriety that the Mitford sisters courted in the years bracketed by two world wars. For a start, two of the girls, Unity and Diana, were Fascists (the former was a friend of Hitler and Goebbels, and the latter married Sir Oswald Mosley, founder of the British Union of Fascists). Two others took the writing route: Jessica ran away from home and became a famous muckraking journalist, and Nancy composed maliciously witty--and transparently autobiographical--novels as well as several biographies. The Pursuit of Love (1945), her greatest fictional success, and its companion, Love in a Cold Climate (1949), keep closely to the spirit (and details) of their youthful amusements and more grown-up adventures.
Seen through the adoring eyes of Fanny Logan, the self-effacing cousin who records their shenanigans with a wicked sincerity, the Radletts of Alconleigh shine with Gloucestershire glamour: apoplectic Uncle Matthew; Lord Alconleigh (modeled to a fine nuance after Mitford's father, Lord Redesdale, who like Uncle Matthew used to hunt his children with bloodhounds); his kind, rather vague wife, Aunt Sadie; as well as Fanny's favorite cousin Linda and the other six Radlett children. The Radlett daughters and Fanny wait impatiently for life to become interesting. Because of their station, however, nothing but marriage is expected of them, so they hurl themselves at love like crusaders, with varied and always fascinating results. At one point Fanny recounts:
A few minutes only after Linda had left me to go back to London, Christian and the comrades, I had another caller. This time it was Lord Merlin...."This is a bad business," he said, abruptly, and without preamble, though I had not seen him for several years. "I'm just back from Rome, and what do I find--Linda and Christian Talbot. It's an extraordinary thing that I can't ever leave England without Linda getting herself mixed up with some thoroughly undesirable character. This is a disaster--how far has it gone? Can nothing be done?" The Pursuit of Love follows the romantic fortunes of Linda Radlett, while Love in a Cold Climate ventures further afield with the story of Polly Hampton's shocking love affair and its unexpectedly funny aftermath. Fanny's inexhaustible narration is a pleasant buffer for Mitford's deft teasing, which dances along just this side of mockery. The author of U and Non-U, a famous tongue-in-cheek treatise on the shibboleths of upper-class mores, Mitford often leaves the reader wondering just where she stands in the class wars, and much of her humor arises in the fine distinctions of aristocratic manners and speech. Still, there's an inimitable tart sweetness to these stories of true love and its pallid imitators, making them perfect snapshots of a vanished world. --Barrie Trinkle [via] | <urn:uuid:1044cdee-381b-440b-b62a-5fef3ee07d67> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bookfinder.com/author/nancy-mitford/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962554 | 639 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Great Lives Lecture Series: Richard and Mildred Loving
The University of Mary Washington's 2012 Chappell Great Lives Lecture Series continues on Tuesday, Feburary 14, with a panel discussion and film showing about Loving v. Virginia .
In 1958, the sheriff of Caroline County charged into the bedroom of Richard and Mildred Loving in the dead of night and arrested them. Although legally married in Washington, Richard was white and Mildred was black, which was against the law in Virginia and 13 other states. The case on their behalf was brought by the ACLU before the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” leading to the overturning of all such laws in the United States. Panelists on the program will be Bernard Cohen, one of two lawyers who argued the case before the Court, and Peggy Fortune, the Lovings’ daughter.
All lectures in the university's Great Lives series are free and open to the public.
For more about the life of check out these resources from the Central Rappahannock Regional Library. | <urn:uuid:ac143186-54e7-4d88-a6c2-e7a79e32fe40> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.librarypoint.org/great_lives_richard_mildred_loving | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960454 | 227 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Take Care, of Others and Yourself
I want to Talk about physical responsibility, which often ties in with fiscal responsibility. And also, to share the joy, for where the joyless turn to for help, Shelter Partnership.
As “older” people we need to take the body in to the shop. A lot. As these years race by, it seems that we just had a physical, and blood tests and all the etceteras that peel off from all those tests, when suddenly, it’s time for another one. David’s been tending to his newly repaired eyes; I have been mending from a half gainer that I took into cement, gum lowering, and a hand repair. Tinkering. A nose cancer here, physical therapy there, and constant gastro somethings. That’s just how it is. And if you do fall down, as so many of us do, even if it seems dopey, go to Emergency just to make sure that your status is quo.
And then there are the others who don’t even have a home to keep well in, much less health insurance. We need to take care.…
Shelter Partnership, 2012
The Shelter Partnership’s 23rd Annual Dinner (MC was our own Fritz Coleman), honored the journalist Lisa Ling. The Millennium Biltmore Hotel was filled with over 400 supporters and civic leaders who raised $390,000 to help Shelter Partnership’s work and to honor Lisa Ling. She is executive producer and host of the popular documentary series Our America with Lisa Ling on OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network (Sheri Saluta, President of Harpo Productions, was there to cheer her on). Lisa’s insightful and compassionate reporting on the plight of people who are homeless, in “The Lost American Dream” episode, unfolds howAmerica’s middle class has emerged as the new face of poverty. She effectively captures the pain felt by a struggling middle class family. Poverty, unemployment, or a lost job and the lack of affordable housing are primary causes of families experiencing homelessness. Heads up, we need to help.
“I am so honored and humbled to have been chosen by Shelter Partnership for this award,” Lisa Ling remarked. “Shelter Partnership supports over 200 agencies and organizations serving the homeless inLos Angeles. There is no organization like it.” And of course, she is right. Visiting their warehouse, a wonderful opportunity for me, was a sight to behold, High shelves of donated goods were heading into all size trucks. Large and small agencies bringing the donated goods directly to those without the most basic of stuff … it just makes your heart sigh with relief. (Give yourself a virtual tour on the Internet.)
This annual dinner was fun and functional and a chance to be recharged by Ruth Swartz, the undaunted Executive Director of Shelter Partnership, to meet John Maceri, recently named Public Citizen of the Year, and to praise Tolucan Tracy Wallace, along with Rhonda Villanueva, for creating and developing this happening. Sitting at NBC4 Southern California’s table (semi new name) was very exceptional, what with Fritz and his boss, Terri Hernandez Rosales, Vice President of Community and Communications; along with Erin Dittman, Director of Communications; and Maria Huerta, Community and Public Relations Department. Joining them were leaders from The United Way, The Braille Institute, and The National Council of Jewish Women (of which I am a Lifetime Member). Good company, and of course, David.
(Oh oh, speaking of David, he needs to add a clarification.) Hum along.…
DAVID: I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW!
Sorry to butt in, but I want to sing the praises of Dr. Alan Berg.
He made my cataract surgery a “piece of cake.” He did each eye a week apart after a thorough examination and friendly counsel at his Sherman Oaks office. The good doctor made both surgeries easy, painless, and highly successful. My long distance eyesight is perfect and I use glasses now only for close up. Everything is sharper, clearer, and I see depths of color I had forgotten existed. I hear the Tolucan’s owner and editor, Mardi Rustam and family, have long looked to Dr. Berg for their eye care. The Aye’s have it; thanks, Doc!
JACKIE: I’m back, I might have passed on this intrusion but it is true … and the good doctor has also been a contributing writer for our paper.
And speaking of “taking care” and Mardi Rustam, we all owe endless appreciation to Mardi for taking care of The Tolucan Times. It’s so heartening to see more advertising, which means things are improving for our local merchants. During these fiscal times, those of us who love this paper are so glad that Mardi Rustam has kept it afloat when the tide was so high! | <urn:uuid:44488acd-7802-4976-b71d-7ee615d7d6fc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tolucantimes.info/section/inside-this-issue/take-care-of-others-and-yourself/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966753 | 1,046 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Classic Design Movements and IxD: Kissing Cousins?
De Stijl, Bauhaus, Futurism. The short history of design is filled with a lexicon of terms and movements that inspire designers of today. What do these classic movements in design history have to do with User Experience and Interaction Design in the creation of software, Web sites, products and services design?
See how much our past is influencing present and future conventions around form, function and simplicity in design and how and why you should incorporate these principals into your own work. This session will highlight the most influential design movements that impact our work and give a foundation of the language and patterns that emerged from these movements.
For 15 years Chris has worked in motion graphics, interactive, application and Web design. Currently a User Experience Evangelist for Microsoft, Chris previously was a Creative Director for the Centers for e-business Innovation at IBM. Clients have included CNBC, Hilton, Gatorade, The NCAA, Cranbrook and Target. Chris received a masters in marketing from the Illinois Institute of Technology and in design from the Institute of Design.
A passionate advocate for the practice and discipline of design Chris has been published in International Design Magazine and serves as an Adjunct lecturer and expert on cross-disciplinary teaming at The Institute of Design.
Like what you see here? Get involved with IxDA!
© 2007 Interaction Design Association | <urn:uuid:29fb0057-e432-48e4-a1f2-eb80ccf8752d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://interaction08.ixda.org/Chris_Bernard.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947273 | 289 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Missouri suffers from a rapidly increasing rate of drug abuse. Cocaine in both powder and crack form have been the predominant drug threats. However, recent reports of a shortage of cocaine have led to the distribution and production of more heroin and methamphetamine. During 2007 there were more than 30,000 arrests for the possession of drugs, and Missouri law enforcement made 343 arrests for driving while intoxicated by drugs. According to data from the 2005-2006 National Survey on Drug Use and Health 130,000 citizens of Missouri reported illicit drug dependence or abuse within the past year, approximately 81,000 reported past year illicit drug dependence, as well as approximately 118,000 Missouri citizens reported needing but not receiving treatment for illicit drug use within the past year.. During 2005, there were 41,735 drug related hospitalizations and 674 drug related deaths in Missouri.
Cocaine Continues to Destroy Lives in Missouri
Although reports indicate shortages of cocaine, this drug remains readily available throughout the metropolitan areas. During 2005 there were 115 newborns affected by cocaine in Missouri. Additional information shows Federal Agencies in Missouri seized a total of 262.8 kilograms of cocaine in 2007.
Heroin Abuse is Increasing Among the Youth
Heroin is increasing in availability and use, especially among the younger population of Missouri. During 2007 there were 30 kilograms and 970 dosage units of heroin seized, in addition heroin accounted for 2,000 admissions to drug rehab programs.
Meth Abuse Poses a Huge Threat Throughout Missouri
Methamphetamine abuse and availability continues to be a significant problem in Missouri. During 2007 there were 1,285 methamphetamine laboratory incidents reported, and 2 children injured with an additional 87 children affected as a result of methamphetamine laboratories in Missouri. Additional information indicates that 43% of all Federal drug offenses during 2006 involved methamphetamine.
Primary Consumers of Ecstasy in Missouri are the Youth
Club drugs are very popular throughout Missouri with the younger population being the primary consumers. Ecstasy and GHB are available in all areas of the state. Typically these drugs are widely available throughout all major cities, universities and night clubs. There was a reported 9,589 dosage units of ecstasy seized during 2007.
Missouri Treatment Admissions for Marijuana Abuse Increase Yearly
Marijuana continues to be readily available in Missouri. Treatment admissions for marijuana have been consistently increasing by at least 1,000 admissions per year, accounting for almost 30% of admissions in 2006. More than 1,500 kilograms of marijuana were seized by Federal agencies in Missouri during 2007. | <urn:uuid:f923daf0-950b-41d8-b83d-29c8940c2cac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rehab-programs.org/missouri/drug-rehabs-missouri/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956356 | 502 | 2.15625 | 2 |
The Black Freedom struggle of the 1950’s and 1960’s, popularly referred to as the Civil Rights Movement, tore down Jim Crow segregation in law and in many cases in practice. With these victories, African American organizations and activists focused on advancing economic opportunity to end inequality based on generations of discrimination. President Johnson launched a “War on Poverty” which advanced social programs such as Job Corps and Head Start and provided overall more support for those in poverty. Both Democrats and Republicans supported and implemented affirmative action policies. And for a brief period, there was a recognized responsibility that federal intervention was necessary to advance racial equity in the country.
Though there was always some disagreement with federal intervention to advance racial equality, it would take until the election of Ronald Reagan for the federal government to deconstruct the programs, regulations and policies that had been in place specifically to advance equal opportunity.
Reagan was elected at a time when America was still reeling with self-doubt over its defeat in Vietnam. Though his optimistic campaign message promised better days ahead for the country, his positions on civil rights issues looked backward, not forward.
He opposed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and also sought to limit the Voting Rights Act, claiming that these laws were an infringement on states’ rights. He was also an outspoken critic of affirmative action, condemning racial quotas as a form of reverse racism even though his Republican predecessor, Richard Nixon, is often credited for affirmative action’s institutionalization. While Ronald Reagan vehemently denied all charges of racism, his declarations for support of states’ rights in Philadelphia, Mississippi (the place where three civil rights workers were murdered in the sixties) made it clear to many that President Reagan would work to turn back many civil rights gains.
President Reagan even tried to veto the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988, which stipulated that publicly funded institutions had to comply with civil rights laws in all areas of their organization. Despite his efforts, Congress had enough votes to pass the measure.
President Reagan did find success in cutting funding for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the civil rights division of the Justice Department—both organizations designed to crack down on discriminatory practices in education, housing, and the workplace. His cuts rendered both agencies toothless, causing the EEOC to file 60 percent fewer cases, and virtually ensuring that most cases of segregation in schools or housing at the Justice Department went uninvestigated. | <urn:uuid:24d56a44-4036-4129-b73e-3885594873cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blackamericaweb.com/104112/the-reagan-eraturning-back-racial-equality-gains/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975908 | 492 | 4.28125 | 4 |
Institutional Reform | Viewpoint
Is Higher Education Ready for 'The Education Bubble?'
American higher education--the jewel in the global crown of universal education, with nearly a quarter of the total number of higher education institutions in the world, and including graduate programs that are the envy of the world--is facing the prospect of being the next bubble to burst. Technology is both a culprit and a promising ally.
The spread of information technology, and its infusion into our culture, has opened the world to learning opportunities--raising expectations for college graduates and changing the terms of success.
Is American higher education ready to either prevent the bubble from bursting or to weather the storm when it does burst? And what is the bubble?
The bubble is financial: tuitions rising significantly each year despite economic conditions and students taking on student loan debt they then cannot pay off. It is practical: the degree no longer guaranteeing a job and a majority of employers saying that college graduates lack the skills for today’s marketplace. It is cultural: college professors in four-year colleges traditionally educating “for life, not for a specific job” even though today’s college students need job-related education. It is economic: the nature of work in a knowledge economy requiring skills unlike those of graduates of just 15 years ago. It is institutional: a professoriate confronted with so many changes and demands with insufficient background or support to make changes beyond their ken or abilities. The question, “Is college worth it?” has gained a currency that should be troubling to college and university administrators.
The bubble, as we can see by all the dimensions just described, is, in fact, a potential “perfect storm.” How should institutions address this danger? Though community colleges may be better prepared than four-year undergraduate colleges and universities--because many of their courses are aimed at a job--they are not immune from the effects of a burst bubble. Graduate programs in general are so strong and vital, they must just continue to do more of the same. Yet, graduate programs most often don’t pay for themselves but are supported by undergraduate programs, and community colleges are strong, in part, because they are seen as a path to a four-year program. The undergraduate programs are therefore the vital core of the entire higher education enterprise. Yet, they are least prepared to deal with the education bubble.
Why is this so?
· The professoriate (and I am part of the professoriate and have been for decades) is grounded in teaching approaches all of us went through college with. And, now, we teach as we were taught. “Pedagogy” means a study of or the practice of teaching. Yet, we are in an era of focus on learning and many of us understand why this is necessary. A “passive learner” is an oxymoron. We know that. But how do we change when all we know is the predominant but tacit learning theory? In my graduate programs, I never heard even a mention of learning theory. We focused entirely on disciplinary research. I was never told, nor would I have known to seek out an answer, about what kind of learning theory we worked within. This is unfortunate, although unavoidable, since our tacit learning theory has never been challenged systematically. For, now, it may well be that behaviorism (the theory within which we mostly work) no longer works as well as other learning theories. Still, we faculty members don’t even know (excepting our education colleagues) what behaviorism is or what alternative learning theory to change to. We faculty members are being asked to “buy in,” but to what?
· The business model for undergraduate four-year colleges is based on the assumption that a teacher has to be involved directly or proximately in all learning. As a result, personnel costs are high but still increasing constantly because of the cost of benefits. Health care costs affect all sectors of our economy and seemingly will continue to do so. If the assumptions behind the business model for undergraduate education persist (they don’t have to; there is an alternative), tuitions must continue to rise until the bubble bursts.
· Uncertainty about and resistance to information technology throughout the four-year college undergraduate enterprise in this country means that the one direction that higher education could be following productively to ameliorate the effects of the bubble is closed off. The very technology that has altered so many conditions--speeding up change, creating a new economy, distributing learning opportunities--and is therefore part of the problem, should instead be the main solution.
What do we know, then, about avoiding the education bubble?
We know that we faculty members need more than technology workshops. We know that the changes around us are much deeper than anything we’ve faced since Gutenberg. So, we know that business as usual is probably a path to trouble. It would seem time, therefore, for faculty and administrators, almost all of whom were at one time and still are faculty members, to be brought up to speed so we are aware of the theory of learning we have practiced all of our professional lives but were unaware of.
Such an undertaking, to reveal the secrets of our enterprise learning theory, obviously cannot be undertaken by existing faculty development staff (except in rare cases), but is more appropriately managed in each discipline in coordination with disciplinary associations and accrediting bodies. But this effort must also result from a presidential-level decree: “The learning theory that fit so well in our culture and with the dominant technology pre-1995 (print-based and paper-based technologies), now is not working very well for any of us, so we have to change. Each of you on campus has sincerely and devotedly committed yourselves fully to learning, but now we know that our learning epistemology is less and less appropriate. This is not your fault; it is simply a time of incredible human growth; it is a time of rapid evolution in our culture; a time of re-shaping our economy. We must transform or become irrelevant.”
Therefore, we know that extraordinary coordination among professional associations, institutions, state governments, and accrediting bodies must occur and must occur soon.
For years, we have chipped away at “talk and test” and berated faculty members who did not become, instead, “guides on the side.” This pattern now seems an absurd trivialization of the issue. It is time to stop blaming faculty members for not making a transition that is actually the responsibility of the entire institutional enterprise. We can keep chipping for decades and make no progress at all because that chipping ignores the underlying problem.
Using technology, the classroom can extend to the world. Using technology, students can be active in their learning. Using technology, students can be more in charge of their learning and can create valuable evidence of their accomplishments for the sake of a much more valuable resume for getting a job. Using technology, faculty can guide a larger number of students. Using technology, assessment and evaluation no longer needs to be the exclusive province of the faculty member doing the guiding. Using technology, undergraduate education can be transformed to fit with current research-based learning models developed in the fields of cognitive science, psychology, anthropology, linguistics, and other fields. Using technology, undergraduate students can provide much more of the energy needed for their own learning progress. Using technology, in sum, means students do more of the work of learning and fewer faculty members are necessary. Technology can take on the management work of faculty while leaving faculty members to design and guide.
This short, suggestive description of the role of technology indicates a direction for higher education, but it also suggests how unprepared the professoriate is to go in that direction. Re-conceiving an entire learning design for the institution--when we faculty are not even aware of the design we have now, its rationale or its underlying assumptions about human nature--is impossible. You can’t move from here to there if you don’t know where “here” is.
We faculty members have not been asked, ever, to formally research learning theory. And, how can that expectation--doing research about learning theory--be retroactively imposed on us? We feel betrayed: All the work we have done for decades, for which we may have been honored, and which produced students who went on to succeed in the world, was bogus? Or we must accept that the way we have worked for decades is now inappropriate?
No one knows, until it happens, that a bubble will burst. So much is invested in current efforts that the impulse is to try harder at doing the same things--in our case, imposing “accountability” measures, increasing the frequency of standardized testing, and raising the stakes for institutional or programmatic re-accreditation.
But the writing is on the wall: A recent article in the New York Times (based on a study the Times conducted), “Many With New College Degree Find the Job Market Humbling,” (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/business/economy/19grads.html?hp) points out:
“Employment rates for new college graduates have fallen sharply in the last two years, as have starting salaries for those who can find work. What’s more, only half of the jobs landed by these new graduates even require a college degree, reviving debates about whether higher education is 'worth it' after all.”
In business terms: Our product (the diploma) is declining in perceived value while we continue raising the cost of getting one.
We also know through an oft-cited Association of American Colleges and Universities study that most employers are not happy with college graduates today. The study points out a number of failings: inability to work with unstructured problems, inability to work in teams, inability to write convincingly or even relevantly, and other issues.
Can institutions that have invested so heavily in a guiding concept of learning transform themselves? Probably not. Institutions work to preserve the status quo; preserving the status quo is perhaps the main goal of any institution: After all, one fundamental purpose of “institutionalizing” anything is to make it permanent.
Can institutions survive that don’t transform themselves? Probably “yes” because the traditional four-year residential campus provides such a multitude of indispensable life experiences that the curriculum is actually a small part of the college experience. Alternative learning opportunities such as service learning, internships, learning communities, and so on are increasing in number. Also, many faculty members are in fact transforming their learning designs.
Not changing the curriculum will continue to reduce the value of that part of the college experience and also continue to diminish the employment possibilities for students who go through the legacy curriculum. The major re-shaping of higher education around a new learning epistemology that is best for this century is yet to begin. | <urn:uuid:03ae14f6-bc9e-431b-a29b-71a663953851> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://campustechnology.com/articles/2011/06/01/the-education-bubble.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965945 | 2,264 | 1.710938 | 2 |
The need to increase the public's role in the job of protecting Nebraska's children created the "You Have The Power to Protect a Child" campaign.
The campaign focuses on four topics:
The campaign informs Nebraskans that they can make a difference in many ways when it comes to reporting suspected child abuse.
We all have the power to protect a child and it start with just on phone call. If you suspect that a child is being abuse or neglected, Call the Child Abuse/Neglect Hotline at 1-800-652-1999. Remember, You Have the Power to Protect a Child. | <urn:uuid:dd081cb0-df74-476c-a0b6-49919a58217a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dhhs.ne.gov/children_family_services/Pages/protectachild_index.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931139 | 124 | 1.898438 | 2 |
Fertilizer, roads, and Africa
A lot of starvation and hunger stems from bad infrastructure, and here is one of the major problems in that area.
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I really like that you give big contexts and comparisons! This is helpful to get the bigger overall-image.
The closed caption in Spanish needs to improve in this and in previous videos. In this one, for example 800 million is changed to 18 million. | <urn:uuid:938409af-e22f-43b1-90cd-a6f2499208da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mruniversity.com/courses/development-economics/fertilizer-roads-and-africa | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948719 | 102 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Over 30 years involved in voluntary youth work, more than a thousand group sessions and over 800 days of youth camps with full programs, action and experiences. In addition to the more complicated games which need more time spent on preparation, we will also need short, simple, and most importantly, games which can be thrown together at the drop of a hat. These games should be given priority on the web site. Almost 250 games are available which do not require you to buy any materials. There are around 400-500 games with just a few utensils (e.g. balloons, clothes pegs, matches, tennis balls or a ball) which easily fit into a games box.
Anyone who wishes to provide a link is, of course, welcome to do so. You will find a banner attached and a text suggestion for a text link. The relevant code is available here for all 2 options. [Bannercode.txt]
<!-Begin Banner -> <p><a href="http://www.games4youthgroups.com/" target="_blank" title="Group Games for Youth Groups"> <img src="http://www.games4youthgroups.com/layout/link-to-games-for-youth-groups.gif" alt="Group Games for Youth Groups: Quick - simple - uncomplicated." width="310" height="68" /></a></p> <!-End Banner ->
::::Group Games for Youth Groups::::
The games for the children’s birthday party, game row, relay games for a children’s fete or for group sessions are achievable without too much effort. Quick - simple - uncomplicated.
<!-Begin Text-Link -> <p><a href="http://www.games4youthgroups.com/" target="_blank" title="Group Games for Youth Groups"> <strong>:::: Group Games for Youth Groups ::::</strong></a><br /> The games for the children’s birthday party, game row, relay games for a children’s fete or for group sessions are achievable without too much effort. Quick - simple - uncomplicated..</p> <!-End Text-Link ->
This applies to all links: I would like to explicitly express that I do not have any influence over the composition and contents of the linked pages.
The listed pages were integrated because I regarded the contents, at the time of the inclusion, neither legally nor materially dubious. If this, in your opinion, has changed (which can happen in a very short period) please let me know about it. Please also let me know about any links which no longer work. Many thanks.
The author does not provide any guarantee for the actuality, accuracy, completeness or quality of the information provided. Liability claims against the author, which refer to damages of a material or spiritual nature which occurred through use or non-use of the information provided or through the use of defective or incomplete information, are principally ruled out as long no proof of the author’s intentional or gross negligence or fault is present.
All games are to be played at your own risk. It is advisable that you have always an adult evaluate the appropriateness of the games and activities according to the age, needs and personality of your group.
The owner of the page games4youthgroups.com is not responsible for any injuries or accidents, nor has he any control over the use or misuse of any of the games, activities and ideas suggested on these pages.
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The copyright for all articles, unless explicitly noted otherwise, belongs to the author. All of the pages can be printed using the browser print function (as a games list or to establish some game files). The games can be used for your own purposes. The publication of materials contained in the collection on other web sites or printed in any other printed media is not allowed without the permission of the author.
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In addition, I have tried to produce all pages possible to be accessible in XHTML with regard to the guidelines for the levels A or AA in accessibility. Should any display problems arise (also with other browsers) please provide me with the necessary information.
You will find references to the construction of the web site, categories and explanations of the symbols, printing the game collection as a game file or game list, as well as further information on accessible use of the web site.
[ © copyright www.games4youthgroups.com ] | <urn:uuid:1de8ad4f-2859-4fa1-b783-2bffae446997> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.games4youthgroups.com/imprint-games4youthgroups.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912868 | 1,037 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Magnets that boost the brain could be used to ease the pain of Alzheimer’s, researchers believe.
Small-scale studies have shown that using a magnetic coil to stimulate the parts of the brain involved in memory and learning can improve symptoms.
It is hoped that used early in the course of the disease, it would give patients precious extra months of independent living, as well as time with their loved ones before their physical and mental health deteriorates.
The technology had already been tried on Alzheimer’s patients, with promising results, and is now being tested in Manchester.
Six patients in the early stages of the disease will be have a magnetic coil held over their scalp while they answer questions, identify shapes and solve puzzles.
It is hoped that as the magnetic field passes into key brain areas it will strengthen vital connections between cells.
In tests on mice, the technique, known as trans-cranial magnetic stimulation, also boosted the growth of cells in the hippocampus, the brain’s memory hub and one of the first areas to be destroyed by Alzheimer’s.
Brain scans at Manchester University will aim to find out more about how it works.
In a small-scale trial in Israel, it proved to be both safe and effective, with significant improvements in some, but not all, tests of memory.
Israeli firm Neuronix Medical, which is developing the treatment, said: ‘The results showed marked reversal of disease progression with patients improving to a state comparable to two years before treatment initiation.
‘Trials also indicated that improvement is maintained for at least six months post-treatment.’
Professor Karl Herholz, who is testing the device in Manchester, said: ‘We have just finished treating the first patient. It’s a promising approach.
‘Medical interventions using drugs tend to have side-effects which are a problem in the early stages when people still function relatively well.
‘Even something that can be effective for three months or half a year would make a substantial difference.’
Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia affect more than 800,000 Britons, with the number expected to double in a generation as the population ages.
Current drugs can halt the progression of the disease but do not work for everyone and their effects wear off over time, leaving the disease free to take its cruel course.
Neuronix Medical’s chief executive, Eyal Baror, told the Sunday Telegraph: ‘We are not offering a cure but a way to help patients stay independent and have a better quality of life for longer.
Dr Simon Ridley, of Alzheimer’s Research UK, which is helping fund the Manchester trial, described the technique as promising and said that any treatment that could improve thinking skills for people with Alzheimer’s would be ‘a step forward’.
He added: ‘With half a million people affected by Alzheimer’s in the UK, better treatments to help people cope with their symptoms could make a real difference to people’s lives.
‘If we are to find new treatments for Alzheimer’s and other causes of dementia, we must invest in research.’
Trans-cranial magnetic stimulation has also shown promise in treating depression and schizophrenia and in rehabilitating stroke patients. | <urn:uuid:1e9a435c-3285-4f1b-a379-92dfc2d56d3b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lancastria.net/blog/tag/brain-scans | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951671 | 685 | 2.703125 | 3 |
For many years, women have taken Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) for the purpose of reducing the symptoms of menopause. While women were led to believe taking HRT drugs (such as Prempro, Premarin, Premphase or Provera) was safe and even decreased certain health risks, studies now show that HRT can cause breast cancer.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) established the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) in 1991 to address the most common causes of death, disability and impaired quality of life in postmenopausal women. In this 15 year, multi-million dollar research project and subsequent studies, it was learned that the taking of Hormone Replacement Therapy increased the risk of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, gall bladder cancer, stroke, heart disease, blood clots, scleroderma, lupus, asthma, and other disorders and diseases. Women who received the combination of estrogen and progestin in one of the most notable therapies, Prempro, had a 24 per cent higher risk of getting invasive breast cancer. Wyeth, which is one of the leading manufacturers of hormone replacement therapies with its brand Prempro has enjoyed stellar sales topping more than 1 billion dollars in 2006, down from 2 billion dollars before the announcement of the Women’s Health Initiative study.
In a recent study in the May 2007 issue of the Lancet, British researches report in the British Million Women Study that Hormone Replacement Therapy ingestion has produced an additional 1300 ovarian cancers with 1000 additional ovarian cancer-related deaths from the use of this ever increasingly dangerous chemical cocktail. Statistics show that 1 in 48 women are affected with ovarian cancer, which is difficult to diagnosis, and unless treated quite early, often fatal. It is believed that the estrogen component of the HRT may be the causative factor in the promotion of ovarian cancers.
Thousands of cases have been filed throughout the country with the states of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania taking the lead. The Ashkin law firm serves as the Court appointed State Liaison Counsel for the litigation pending before the Honorable Marin Shulman in the New York State Supreme Court, HRT Litigation.
Ashkin Law Firm
Roberta Ashkin, Esq.
475 Park Avenue South, 17th Floor
New York, N.Y. 10016
Telephone: (212) 702 3322
Facsimile: (212) 702 3377
» click here to locate our office | <urn:uuid:cb633a49-9f1a-4931-b357-7052a9c98d71> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ashkinlaw.com/hormone-replacement.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94432 | 504 | 2.015625 | 2 |
In the last article we walked through the process of downloading and installing Visual Basic 2010 Express edition. What you get when you're done is essentially the same integrated development environment (IDE) you get with the full Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 product. What's missing are some of the features specifically targeted at team development. On the plus side, Microsoft does not restrict what you do with any of the Express editions, meaning you can develop a commercial application and distribute it just as you would with any of their "professional" tools.
When you launch VB 2010 Express, you'll be presented with a Start Page similar to what's shown in Figure 1. All versions of Microsoft Visual Studio use a tabbed interface in much the same way as a modern Web browser. The Start Page is like your default home page and will open in the first tab by default unless you change it. It's also a good summary page with links to recently used projects, learning material and the latest developer news from Microsoft. You can create a new project right from the Start Page as well. Clicking on New Project will launch a wizard like the one in Figure 2.
Your options from the New Project wizard include creating a Windows Forms, WPF, or Console Application, a Class Library, or a WPF Browser Application. We'll take the default first choice which is to create a Windows Forms Application and stick with the default name. At this point there isn't a whole lot you can do because the form designer toolbox is not displayed. To add this to your workspace you need to click on the little icon that looks like a crossed hammer and wrench or use the keyboard shortcut of Ctrl-Alt-X. This will add the Toolbox menu to the left-hand side of your window. You can "pin" the toolbox window open by clicking on the push-pin icon in the top right-hand corner of the Toolbox window. This makes it much easier to drag elements onto the design surface.
For this first application we're going to drag a button from the Toolbox and drop it onto
Form1 as shown in Figure 3. Once the button is on the form you can click on any of the handles (small squares on the corners and mid points of the button) to resize it to your satisfaction. This is a good point to talk about the other windows you should see on the screen at this point. By default, Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 will open the Solution Explorer and Properties windows on the right-hand side of the screen. The Solution Explorer window shows you all the files in your application while the Properties window gives you information about the currently selected design element. You can change the properties by clicking on a specific item such as Text and begin typing in the box to the right of the label. Every user interface element has an associated property dialog with a long list of things you can change. You could also change an element's properties programmatically, but we'll save that for a later time.
Next article we'll walk through the rest of the features of Microsoft Visual Studio that you'll need to complete the sample programs yet to come. | <urn:uuid:2233b4e0-095c-47e1-b581-717cabd67362> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.codeguru.com/vb/article.php/c18551/Visual-Basic-NET-Development-101-Learning-and-Using-Microsoft-Visual-Studio-2010.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912484 | 631 | 2.046875 | 2 |
#edchat #edtech #elemchat
What is the use of having a First LEGO League (FLL) team if you do not compete in a competition, right? Plus you need to place well in a local competition to be able to move on to national and international competitions.
But before you run off and sign up your newly formed team to just any competition be aware that there are some “non-qualifying” competitions, kind of like exhibition-matches and not “real” competitions. If you sign up for and win one of these, well that is nice and all, but it won’t get you into a state competition and on to nationals. So I don’t sign up for these, for me FLL is about teaching young students how to have fun and be competitive, and I want my students to move on if they happen to win.
So with that said, look for a local FLL “qualifying” competition and register with it. There are so many FLL teams where I live here in Northern Colorado that some teams are bumped to compete in farther away qualifiers because our local one is just too full. So I try to register as early as I can and cross my fingers that we get accepted. Since this is a “qualifying” event, if we place well, we go on to the state competition in Denver that is usually three weeks later (usually the second weekend in December). We usually pay $75 a team to be in the competition plus the cost of t-shirts (additional $8/student).
I am usually confirmed with my registrations into local qualifiers by September 20th.
- Brad Flickinger, Bethke Elementary School
#edchat #edtech #elemchat
I get started on my First LEGO League (FLL) team at the beginning of August every year. My information stays on the FLL website, but if you are just getting started you will have to enter your information for your team when you register with the national FLL website.
To get started just go to http://www.usfirst.org and click on the FLL Registration link. You will use your email address as your username and a password that you create.
To go directly to the login page just bookmark this website: https://gofll.usfirst.org
Since my school doesn’t start until mid August, I need to take a bit of a risk and register a team before I even have a team because it is important for me to have a field kit (the mat and props for the annual challenges) here at my school for the first day of school so that we can start with FLL as soon as the school starts. So you will need to register one team and order one field kit.
We usually have three teams at my school, so I register the other teams after we get them organized around the 20th of August. One way that we save money is that we share one field kit. This is possible because each team meets on a different day.
It usually only takes a week to get the field kit.
- Brad Flickinger, Bethke Elementary SchoolRead More
#edtech #fll #elearning The School Technology Report for Wednesday, October 6, 2010: This is part 1 of how to start a successful First Lego League team at your school.Read More | <urn:uuid:a58382bc-9b97-4660-bbb7-a1c712085427> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.schooltechnology.org/tag/fll-team/page/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959526 | 702 | 1.796875 | 2 |
2 Corinthians 4:13-14 features a piece of Paul's own commentary on his apostolic ministry. After highlighting the sufferings wrapped up in his ministry (2 Corinthians 4:8-10), he quotes a portion of Psalm 116 and identifies himself as having the same "spirit of faith."
This "spirit of faith" is explained by Paul in verse 14 as hope in the resurrection and is confirmed in the context of Psalm 116—which also includes suffering (Psalm 116:3-4) and psalter-fashioned resurrection language (Psalm 116:8-9). A paraphrase of Paul's thought would be something like:
Yes, a great deal of hardship accompanies our ministry to you. But our ministry is in the same spirit as Psalm 116. In the midst of his suffering, the psalmist hoped in the resurrection and so do we. We know that just as God raised up Jesus from the dead he will raise us up, too, and he will bring us together into his presence.
This all leads to 2 Corinthians 4:15. Verse 15 begins as a ground to Paul's ministry—"For it is all for your sake"—and then moves to the purpose: "so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God."
In one verse we go from the lofty clouds of Paul's psalmist-shared, resurrection-envisioning ministry to the pavement of people who are grateful for the gospel. The connection between the clouds and the pavement is purpose. And the purpose is thanksgiving.
Beneath the banner of this purpose there is the insertion of "grace extending to more and more." Paul says that when people hear the gospel it results in thanksgiving. When more and more people hear the gospel it results in the increase of thanksgiving. This is the purpose for why Paul does what he does.
So then, some 1,955 years later, our thanksgiving for the gospel is fulfilling the Apostle Paul's ministry aim.
Today as we gather for Thanksgiving, let us gather in thanksgiving specifically for the grace that has been extended to us. And let us remember that our thanksgiving realizes the Apostle's goal, to the glory of God. | <urn:uuid:4dba76bb-b9fc-4fe0-be5c-94d94504e2df> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/the-goal-of-the-apostle-paul-is-our-thanksgiving?turn_off_admin_bar=true | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952317 | 462 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Inge Löök's old ladies
Inge Löök (real name Ingeborg Lievonen) is a Finnish artist born in Helsinki in 1951. She was once a professional gardener, but today she is most famous for her Granny postcards which so many postcrossers love and collect.
When she was a child, Inge lived with her family in a 7-storey building in Helsinki. In the same building lived two older women, Alli and Fifi, who later became the inspiration for the characters in her postcards. She says the women look nearly the same as their real-life models... but they have a lot more fun!
Inge's look on life is one of optimism and happiness, and it shows on the pictures she draws. The grannies are always happy and having fun, and their motto is "Time is not money and spending it isn’t a sin".
She has drawn over 300 postcards on different topics, and has also illustrated several stamps and children's books. Today she lives in Pernå, a village east of Helsinki. | <urn:uuid:6a38d743-2b1b-41d0-9b01-fc1312c06fd9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.postcrossing.com/blog/2011/05/21/inge-loeoek-s-old-ladies | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984664 | 230 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Oscar-Nominated 'Amour' Raises Red Flags on Age, Illness and Poverty
Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com
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Amour brings us Georges and Anne, a nice-looking couple in their 80s. They are former music teachers who share a spacious Paris apartment filled with books, records and the sound of their pleasant banter. The two are active and still enjoy one another’s company after decades of marriage; clearly, they are still in love.
Then, fate strikes a blow that is coming to many of us. Anne has a stroke, and begins her painful, crescive descent into total incapacity. After surgery that leaves her partially paralyzed, Anne expresses her wish to stay at home rather than return to the hospital. Georges cares for her as best he can, spoonfeeding her and changing her diaper. Nurses come several days a week, but even so, Georges is overwhelmed by the extent of her need and the horror of watching her decline.
Georges and Anne seem to have ample resources. A maid helps with the cleaning, and the care provided by the highly rated French universal system, which is financed by government national health insurance, appears to be timely and adequate. There are conversations about treatment, children, and the wishes of the dying, but never does the issue of money come up. At least they are spared that indignity.
Director Michael Haneke is not out to make an overt political statement, though the need for assisted euthanasia in old age certainly hovers like a plaintive ghost. For an American audience, what we see in Amour is the extreme hardship of old age and illness -- even under the best of circumstances, where love, money and humane healthcare cushion the blow.
But what happens when the blow isn’t cushioned? That's what more and more Americans can look forward to. According to a study by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, the number of Americans spending their retirement years in poverty is on the rise since 2005.
This is happening because pensions are disappearing and the recession has wiped out home equity and savings. Those who lose a job as older workers face an increasingly bleak labor market. Do-it-yourself retirement plans like 401(K)s are leaving many people short of resources in their golden years. And there’s not much older folks can do to lift themselves out of poverty once it sets in.
In America, the chances of poverty increase the longer you live. Almost 15 percent of Americans age 85 and up were living in poverty in 2009. Most of them have serious medical problems, the costs of which are a major driver of economic hardship. Women and minorities are especially vulnerable.
Social Security has not been adequate to the increasing needs of seniors, and yet politicians still talk about cutting benefits and raising the age of eligibility -- moves which, if enacted, will be disastrous, increasing the numbers of the elderly poor. Holding down healthcare costs requires major changes in our system, including allowing Uncle Sam to bargain with pharmaceutical companies (currently prohibited), breaking up monopolies, and eventually, joining the ranks of advanced countries and introducing a single-payer system. And yet cutting Medicare benefits seems to be the only answer many pols can come up with, an idea that not only doesn't solve the problem, but creates more agony.
Many people don't start out poor in retirement, but for Americans, old age is not only the gateway to major heath challenges and life adjustments, but also to penury. In addition to those below the poverty line, there are millions who are “near poor” and struggling to stay afloat.
Haneke's married couple, Georges and Anne, go through enormous emotional and physical suffering in a tale of the ravages of old age. They bring poignancy to the fearful confrontation with mortality we all must face. But their fate is by no means the worst possible picture. Add to this a pile of medical bills, desperate arguments with insurers, and choices between food and medicine and you've got horror on another order of magnitude. Toss in an eviction notice and the nightmare becomes Boschian. And yet this is what millions of people in the richest country in the world are facing. Does any American director have the courage to stare unflinchingly at that scenario? Let's hope so, because the politicians refuse to face reality. And painful as it is, we won't escape it by sticking our heads in the sand. | <urn:uuid:f342dd69-32e5-4560-ac03-fa9c8955456a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alternet.org/culture/oscar-nominated-amour-raises-red-flags-age-illness-and-poverty | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963977 | 923 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Learning analytics software recommends courses and predicts grades at Austin Peay State University in Texas, reports Inside Higher Ed.
Tristan Denley, the provost, has built software, called Degree Compass, that analyzes an individual student’s academic record, along with the past grades of hundreds of Austin Peay State students in various courses, and predicts how well a particular student is likely to do in a particular course long before the first day of class. That includes first-year students; the software draws on their high school transcripts and standardized test scores.
. . . The Degree Compass software, which the university developed with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, combines the predicted grade score with other factors, including how many unsatisfied degree requirements both general and major-specific the course would fulfill for that student. Then it produces a star rating for how well-matched the student is with the course.
In its first trial, Degree Compass predicted with 90 percent accuracy whether a student would earn a C or higher in any given course.
Course Signals, which was developed at Purdue, and Rio Salado Community College use analytics to warn when a student is having trouble with a course but don’t predict how well they’ll do before they start.
Students are not required to follow the Degree Compass’s recommendations; faculty see the recommendations prior to meeting with their advisees about course registration, and the verdicts are “part of the advising conversation,” Denley says. . . “We’ve got a pretty strong assurance that we’re able to steer students toward courses they will be successful in,” he says, “better than they’re able to steer themselves.” | <urn:uuid:68da57dc-9f11-4a6f-a31e-f82b3bf04c8c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://communitycollegespotlight.org/content/software-predicts-wholl-pass-the-class_8639/?preview=true | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94594 | 358 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Mario Tama/Getty Images
Former Massachusetts Gov. and Republican candidate for president Mitt Romney (2nd L) greets students in a third grade computer technology class at Universal Bluford Charter School on May 24, 2012 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney on Wednesday gave back-to-back speeches on education, revealed his education policy team and released his white paper on school reform. He also made strong statements about the current state of the problem, calling it the “civil rights issue of our era.”
Speaking at the Latino Coalition’s Annual Economic Summit, Romney said American students are receiving a “third-world education.” His plan, entitled “A Chance for Every Child” focuses on a voucher-style system for disadvantaged students and on transparency of teacher and school performance. “For the first time in history, federal education funds will be linked to the student, so that parents can send their child to any public or charter school of their choice.”
His plan also included the choice of private school where state law allows, or to use funds towards a tutor or digital courses and digital schools. The plan also seeks to “replace federally-mandated school interventions with a requirement that states create…public report cards.” He would also offer grants to districts that reform teacher tenure.
The plan also addresses college student loans. Even before Romney’s campaign events, the Obama team criticized the plan. “We saw what happened under Mitt Romney when he was governor of Massachusetts – class sizes increased and thousands of teachers were laid off, college costs skyrocketed, and graduation rates at community colleges lagged behind the national average,” Obama spokeswoman Lis Smith is quoted by the Boston Globe. Smith added, “Now we know that he would make deep cuts to education to fund tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires.”
AirTalk will dissect the plan.
Ulrich Boser, Senior Fellow specializing in education, Center for American Progress; Former research director for Education Week newspaper.
Tom Luna, Member of Mitt Romney’s Education Policy Advisory Committee & the President of the Council of Chief State School Officers | <urn:uuid:81bc756e-c1bf-4f56-aaa1-476529680ca9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/2012/05/24/26642/romney-education-plan-heavy-on-parental-choice/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963933 | 444 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Notebook insiders are reporting that touch-screen samples are already heading out to ultrabook manufacturers, indicating that units shipped next year will support touch-based features in Windows 8.
Although ultrabooks have just arrived on the market, their biggest competitor is not only the MacBook Air, but the entire tablet sector. Consumers seemingly want thin, portable devices that let them search the internet, play HD movies and HD games without the bulk that's associated with the standard laptop. To conquer both adversaries, it seems only natural to add touch-based capabilities to Intel's new form factor... especially with Windows 8 on the horizon.
According to unnamed industry sources, notebook manufacturers plan to install touch panels in ultrabooks next year to accommodate the new touch-based features offered in Windows 8. LCD panel and touch module suppliers are reportedly delivering samples to these companies already. The only problem, it seems, is getting bulky touch screens inside the thin ultrabook chassis while conforming to Intel's specifications.
To overcome this roadblock, back-light unit (BLU) manufacturers are mounting lighting devices, optical films, and light guide panels onto the upper covers of ultrabooks by using an open cell (which depends on the lid of the ultrabook for protection) or hinge-up process. This will reportedly help reduce the thickness of touch-based ultrabooks and keep them in line with Intel's sub-0.83-inch specification while still posing a challenge to the tablet and MacBook Air market.
Meanwhile, the sources claim that shipments of Acer's Aspire S3 and Asustek Computer's Zenbook have so far met market expectations. As of the end of November, shipments of Aspire S3 from ODM Wistron have reached 200,000 to 210,000 units. ODM shipments of Zenbooks from Pegatron Technology are expected to top 150,000 to 170,000 units by the end of the month. | <urn:uuid:72ce64aa-46bc-41fe-b7b1-58cd152e60a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/Windows-8-Ultrabook-back-light-unit-MacBook-Zenbook,news-37251.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933196 | 393 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Jalur Cahaya Sdn Bhd (JCSB) is a full-service environmental engineering company that helps Malaysian water utilities reduce non-revenue water (NRW).
NRW is the difference between the volume of water supplied to the system and the volume of water billed to the customers. Simply put, it is water loss for which the utility receives zero revenue. NRW is an important issue facing water utilities, as it has an estimated value of more than $18 billion per year worldwide.
JCSB was using acoustic-based leak detection systems to locate leaks on water mains for a utility in central Malaysia. The systems were unable to locate leaks due to low water pressure levels and because the mains were comprised of plastic and other non-ferrous materials.
Traditionally, acoustically detecting leaks on non-ferrous mains is painstakingly difficult, especially if the mains have low pressure. Leaks in such environments often have relatively low noise frequencies that are almost impossible to detect with typical leak noise correlators.
JCSB turned to Toronto-based Echologics, a developer of acoustic-based technologies for water loss management, leak detection and pipe condition assessment. A division of Mueller Co., a company known for its innovative water distribution products of superior quality since 1857, Echologics works with municipalities around the globe to help them efficiently and cost-effectively reduce NRW, improve water conservation, prioritize capital spending, better understand their water infrastructure and pinpoint leaks on pipes of all sizes and materials.
JCSB contacted Echologics’ Singapore office to have the company conduct a pilot leak detection survey in areas of the utility’s water system where it could not locate known leaks. The pipes ranged between 150mm to 300mm in diameter and were comprised of high-density polyethylene (HDPE), polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and asbestos cement (AC).
Echologics’ field specialists arrived onsite within less than two weeks of the request.
The specialists used LeakFinderRT—Echologics’ Windows-based leak detection system that is able to non-invasively detect underground leaks on water pipes—irrespective of their material, pressure, diameter, geometry, etc.
Unlike traditional acoustic leak detection systems, LeakFinderRT is based on recent acoustical developments that include an enhanced correlation function, which dramatically improves its ability to accurately identify and locate narrow-band leak noise that is characteristic of non-ferrous pipe material, low pressures, multiple leak situations, and excessive background noise created by traffic and other environmental factors.
It is completely non-invasive, which means it can accurately detect leaks without breaking ground, inserting tools into the water system or disrupting service. While most leak detection methods require excavation or inserting hydrophones (water microphones) into the pipe, LeakFinderRT relies on standard pipe appurtenances such as hydrants, valves or direct attachments to the pipe’s outer wall. Surface mounted sensors are placed at two locations along the suspect water line—in most cases valves or hydrants—between 120m and 1,300m apart. A correlator compares the acoustic signature of the leak with the expected speed of sound in running water; a computer algorithm then calculates the data to accurately pinpoint the location of the leak.
During the five-day project, Echologics acoustically surveyed more than 4,700m of non-ferrous water mains with as little as 0.9bar of flow pressure; sensors were placed less than 700m apart on available fire hydrants and meter stands.
A total of five water main leaks, one illegal connection and one broken meter with a customer side leak were non-invasively pinpointed.
Impressed with the technology’s accurate and non-invasive leak detection capabilities, JCSB adopted LeakFinderRT for use by some of its engineering crews. Immediately following the project, it ordered additional LeakFinderRT units as well as two weeks of onsite training from Echologics.
“At Jalur Cahaya Sdn Bhd, we are committed to serving our clients with the best and cost effective solutions that will help them to reduce non-revenue water levels,” said Sheikh Mazlan Sheikh Hassan, Chief Operating Officer, JCSB. “Echologics’ technology will bolster our current service offerings by giving our engineers the tools they need to quickly and accurately locate leaks in almost any environment they encounter—without disrupting surrounding infrastructure. Our vast experience combined with these capabilities will help us as we partner with other States in Malaysia to help them resolve their non-revenue water woes.” | <urn:uuid:43d1d2bd-e8be-4834-a884-228d3395ea93> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://echologics.com/case-studies/jalur-cahaya-sdn-bhd-jcsb-turns-to-echologics-for-acoustic-leak-detection-in-malaysia/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954192 | 979 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Toorox is a Linux live DVD based on Gentoo which starts as bootable media using KNOPPIX technology. It is designed for ease of use, with a simple control center and a hard disk installer. It contains many applications and uses KDE, GNOME, or XFCE as a working environment. A live USB pen drive image maker is also present on the desktop. It is multi-lingual and contains the unstable branch of Gentoo (x86 and amd64).
Fing is a command line tool for network and service discovery. It provides you a complete view of any network in a very short time. Its smart discovery automatically detects the network type and uses the best technique to scan it. The best results are achieved on Ethernet networks (including Wireless ones), where Fing is able to detect all network hosts, firewalled ones included. The service discovery feature quickly detects active TCP services on a target host or network. Fing is based on Look@LAN. | <urn:uuid:b935dec5-de1d-4226-86f2-698cfee8943c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://unix.freecode.com/tags/gentoo | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94311 | 199 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Part of Lesson Plan: Safe Equipment and Environment
Activity Overview / Details
I have set up 30 stations in the shop, students have to travel
to each station and determine if the area or equipment in that area
are safe. If they are not in proper working order, then the
students must make recommendations about how to fix that situation.
Only 20 stations have issues that need to be corrected, this way
students have to really determine if there are problems or not.
Directions: When I say "Go", you will, first, find a station with no one working at it. Next, you will assess that area or the equipment in that area for possible safety hazards, reflecting on the information from class and the Shop Tour. If that area is fine then mark "yes" on your answer sheet and move on to another empty station. If the area is not safe mark "no", then make recommendations on how to return that area or piece of equipment back to proper working order.
I will give students an example of a piece of equipment that is not safe and ask for a volunteer to make recommendations on how to correct the situation. I ask students to repeat my instructions. I ask the students, "What questions can I answer"?. When these conditions are met, I say the key word to start the assignment (Go).
Materials / Resource
- Shop Troubleshooting Handout [ Download ] This is the handout I use to have the students troubleshoot safety in the shop from the scenarios, I have set up in the shop. Any problems students find, they need to make recommendations on correcting the situation. | <urn:uuid:656ad8e6-f7f4-4d9e-aa8e-154f08c88147> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cteonline.org/portal/default/Curriculum/Viewer/Curriculum?action=2&cmobjid=177844&view=viewer&refcmobjid=132916 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930606 | 335 | 3.65625 | 4 |
E3 2012: Sony, J.K. Rowling Team to Develop Wonderbook for Muggles
Gamers would use Playstation Move as a magic wand.
Sony Computer Entertainment of America has teamed with Harry Potter series author J.K. Rowling to introduce Muggles (a.k.a. non-wizarding humans) to its new Wonderbook experience for the PS3.
Using augmented reality technology and the PlayStation Move motion controller, Wonderbook effectively uses a book as an interface.
The first Wonderbook title, Book of Spells, is a collaboration between PlayStation and Rowling, and features new writing from the author. Using the PlayStation Move as a wand, gamers would be taught "spells" as if they were students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Available in the fall, Book of Spells will be available for $39.99 for both the book and Blu-ray game.
Andrew House, president and group CEO, Sony Computer Entertainment, said Wonderbook could offer “opportunities to create educational and scientific experiences.”
Also Monday at Sony’s E3 press conference, the company highlighted PlayStation Mobile (previously PlayStation Suite), to bring the platform to mobile phones and tablets, offering its capabilities “wherever and whenever.” Sony reported that HTC will offer PlayStation-certified smartphones.
- MOST SHARED
- MOST POPULAR | <urn:uuid:24214dc9-6f8e-4ec1-aeb4-cf6a37284bd2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/e3-sony-jk-rowling-harry-potter-wonderbook-333033 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900742 | 288 | 1.796875 | 2 |
The US Treasury finalised the transaction of a four-billion dollar loan to floundering US auto giant Chrysler. Chrysler head Bob Nardelli said the loan would help "bridge the current financial crisis". A GM loan is expected to follow in January.
US car manufacturer Chrysler said it would put manufacturing on hold until "no sooner than January 19" as it waits for a government bailout, after President George W. Bush warned he was not interested in "putting good money after bad".
Following the subprime mortgage crisis and the global credit crunch that followed, the worst nightmares of the motor trade are becoming a reality. And nowhere does this reality bite harder than in the Motor City, Detroit.
US President-elect Barack Obama says he wants to help American automakers with a bailout so they can "keep their factory doors open" but wants to maintain pressure to ensure they restructure operations. | <urn:uuid:ffcb171b-edbf-4cc6-b0b7-50460f44c981> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.france24.com/en/category/tags-thematiques/chrysler?page=4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958509 | 180 | 1.6875 | 2 |
(WASHINGTON) -- In yet another positive sign for the economy, retail sales for February rose more than expected, tamping down worries that higher gas prices and taxes would take a bite out of consumer spending.
Retail sales jumped 1.1 percent in February, according to the Commerce Department, the biggest increase in five months. Consumer spending is an important measure of economic growth because it makes up two thirds of the economy.
So-called core sales -- sales minus automobiles, gasoline and building materials -- rose 0.4 percent. The core sales rise is a sign that consumers are holding on despite high taxes.
There may be yet another bump in retail sales in coming months as tax refunds are mailed out.
We saw hints of this strong report in the February unemployment numbers that showed increased retail hiring.
Economists have worried that consumers would reign in spending as a temporary 2 percent cut in payroll taxes expired, meaning fewer dollars in every U.S. paycheck.
“At least so far, the increase in taxes has had minimal impact on household spending, showing that the economy retains a lot of momentum,” economist Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors said in a note.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio | <urn:uuid:f4ab9ae1-93d4-4cf6-97d4-ccfd85d6e0f3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.983wowfm.com/common/more.php?m=58&ts=1369051745&article=7A88F8AD8BEB11E286DEFEFDADE6840A&mode=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959141 | 248 | 1.867188 | 2 |
Nine petroleum-based synthetic dyes are currently approved for use in food in the United States (Blue 1, Blue 2, Citrus Red 2, Green 3, Orange B, Red 3, Red 40, Yellow 5 and Yellow 6). The Center for Science in the Public Interest has also called into question the safety of caramel coloring, used in soft drinks.
Here are seven tips for avoiding products made with these artificial colors and maybe even getting them out of the U.S. food system altogether:
1) Scrutinize labels. If you see a color next to a number in the ingredients list, skip it.
2) Look for natural food colorants. Examples are Turmeric for yellow, paprika for orange, or beetroot for red.
3) Buy organic. By definition, organic products are certified by the U.S.D.A. to contain no artificial colors.
4) Don’t be fooled by healthy-sounding names. “Fruit” cereals, juice drinks, and yogurts often contain dye.
5) Choose real food. Switch from orange Kraft Mac and Cheese to whole wheat pasta with olive oil and natural cheddar. Swap blue tubes of yogurt for white with blueberries or honey on top. Choose juice over Kool -Aid.
6) Report problems. If your child has reactions to dyes, log on to the CSPI website and report it.
7) Voice your concerns. Contact your representative and call for a ban on artificial dyes in school food. At least one state, Maryland, is working to do so.
Source: CSPI and Robyn O’ Brien, author of “The Unhealthy Truth” | <urn:uuid:da667bfc-3a4d-4650-956f-0f751dadde85> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://deliciousliving.com/print/food-and-beverage/7-tips-kicking-artificial-colors | 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 | 0.920512 | 357 | 2.96875 | 3 |
AN ACT RELATING TO CHILD POVERTY IN VERMONT
It is hereby enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Vermont:
Sec. 1. VERMONT CHILD POVERTY COUNCIL
(a) The Vermont child poverty council is created to examine child poverty in Vermont and to make recommendations to the governor and general assembly on methods of improving the financial stability and well-being of children. The council shall develop a ten-year plan to reduce the number of children living in poverty in the state by at least 50 percent.
(b)(1) The council shall consist of the following members or their designees:
(A) the secretary of human services and the secretary of agriculture, food and markets;
(B) the president pro tempore of the senate;
(C) the speaker of the house of representatives;
(D) the chair of the senate committee on health and welfare;
(E) the chair of the house committee on human services;
(F) the commissioners for children and families; health; disabilities, aging, and independent living; and education;
(G) one representative each from the Vermont Voices for Children, the Vermont low income advocacy council, Vermont Legal Aid, and the Vermont superintendents’ association;
(H) the chair of the senate committee on education; and
(I) the chair of the house committee on education.
(2) The council, at its first meeting, shall elect one of the legislative members as chair or two legislative members as co-chairs. The legislative council and the joint fiscal office shall provide staff support to the council.
(3) The council shall meet at least six times while the general assembly is not in session to perform its functions under this section.
(c) The plan shall contain:
(1) an identification and analysis of the occurrence of poverty in the state;
(2) an analysis of the long-term effects of child poverty on children, their families, and their communities;
(3) an analysis of costs of child poverty to municipalities and the state;
(4) an inventory of state-wide public and private programs that address child poverty;
(5) the percentage of the target population served by such programs and the current state funding levels, if any, for such programs;
(6) an identification and analysis of any deficiencies or inefficiencies of such programs; and
(7) procedures and priorities for implementing strategies and biannual benchmarks to achieve at least a 50 percent reduction in child poverty in the state by June 30, 2017. Such procedures, priorities, and benchmarks shall include improving or adequately funding:
(A) workforce training and placement to promote career progression, for parents of children living in poverty;
(B) educational opportunities, including higher education opportunities, and advancement for such parents and children, including, but not limited to, pre-literacy, literacy, and family literacy programs;
(C) affordable housing for such parents and children;
(D) early care and education programs for such children and their families;
(E) after-school programs and mentoring programs for such children and their families;
(F) affordable health care access for such parents and children, including access to mental health services and family planning;
(G) treatment programs and services, including substance abuse programs and services, for such parents and children;
(H) accessible childhood nutrition programs; and
(I) the Reach-Up program and other public benefit programs through the agency of human services serving low income families.
(d) In developing the plan, the council shall consult with experts and providers of services to children living in poverty and their parents. The council shall hold at least one public hearing on the plan in all 14 counties. After the public hearing, the council may make any modifications that the members deem necessary based on testimony given at the public hearing.
(e) Funds from private and public sources may be accepted and utilized by the council to develop and implement the plan and provisions of this section. Legislative members of the committee shall be entitled to compensation and reimbursement for expenses under section 406 of Title 2. All other members not receiving compensation for service on the committee from another source are entitled to compensation under section 1010 of Title 32.
(f) Not later than January 1, 2008, the council shall submit the plan to the house committees on appropriations and human services and the senate committees on appropriations and health and welfare. On January 1, 2009, and annually thereafter, until January 1, 2018, the council shall report to these committees with annual recommendations for budgetary and policy changes in order to accomplish the goals of this act.
(g) The council shall cease to exist on June 30, 2018. | <urn:uuid:60d05c50-d4e4-45e4-9c4a-022c004c212c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.leg.state.vt.us/docs/2008/bills/senate/S-177.HTM | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94212 | 980 | 2.421875 | 2 |
We created Pandora to put the Music Genome Project directly in your hands
It’s a new kind of radio –
stations that play only music you like
born in Berlin, Germany, composed during the Modern period
His father was an accomplished pianist (though a lawyer by profession) and determined that his son would follow in his musical footsteps. The talented young André received instruction on the piano at the Berlin Hochschule, and also absorbed music in a less formal environment during the many private recitals given in the Previn home. In the mid-1930s the Jewish family fled to France where André continued as a scholarship student at the Paris Conservatoire. In 1939, the Previn family relocated to southern California.
Life was difficult for the family (all their possessions had been left behind in Europe, and Previn's father was qualified only in German law), and though barely ten years old, André supplemented the family income by accompanying films at movie houses and playing in jazz clubs. At 14 he started working at MGM (Charles Previn, André's great uncle, was head of music at Universal Studios), orchestrating and arranging film music, and slowly saved enough money to study composition with Castelnuovo-Tedesco. At 18 André was asked to compose his own full-length film score (The Sun Comes Up, 1949), which resulted in his first experience on the podium in front of a real orchestra -- Previn quickly realized that his future lay in conducting, though he understood the gulf between film music and serious conducting to be a wide one indeed.
Previn, who had taken U.S. citizenship in 1943, serving in San Francisco during the Korean War, where he had the opportunity to study conducting with Pierre Monteux. Following discharge from the army, Previn left MGM, but continued to compose, conduct, and arrange film music throughout the 1950s. He also recorded and released a series of best-selling jazz albums (something he would continue to do sporadically throughout the decades).
In 1963, having won four Academy Awards in as many years, Previn found the courage to abandon Hollywood and pursue his dream of becoming a respected conductor. His professional debut occurred that same year with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, and he spent the next several years traveling around the country conducting various little-known orchestras in an effort to gain exposure and develop his own skill on the podium. His first big break occurred in 1967 when he was asked to succeed Sir John Barbirolli as music director of the Houston Symphony. When offered the job of principal conductor for the London Symphony Orchestra in 1968, Previn left Houston. During his 11 years with the orchestra (1969-1979) a series of BBC television productions -- entitled André Previn's Music Hour -- made the LSO (and Previn) a household name around the world. Other conducting appointments have included the Pittsburgh Symphony, from 1977 to 1985; the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the 1985 and 1986 seasons; and, from 1987 on, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1993 he was named conductor laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra, and he continues to make frequent appearances around the globe as a guest conductor.
Previn readily admits that he is not driven to compose, but only does so on occasion, and then only on specific request. Nevertheless he has composed a generous quantity of concert music, including a piano concerto for Vladimir Ashkenazy and cello sonata at the request of Yo-Yo Ma. His musical play, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, was produced in London in 1978. The year 1998 saw the release of his full-length opera, A Streetcar Named Desire at the San Francisco Opera. In 2009, Houston Grand Opera presented his Brief Encounter, based on the film of the same name and the Noël Coward play, Still Life. ~ Blair Johnston, Rovi | <urn:uuid:6f442a45-bd71-42fb-953b-304c49dee0f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pandora.com/andr-previn | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974104 | 799 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Legislation Would Alter Child Sex Abuse Civil Cases [AUDIO]
Today, the New Jersey Senate is scheduled to vote on a bill that would completely remove the two-year statute of limitations for victims of child sexual abuse to file a civil suit against their molester or the religious, charitable or educational organization that may have enabled the abuse.
One of the measure’s sponsors calls the two-year limit, “ridiculous” and “arbitrary.”
State Senator Joe Vitale’s bill would remove the statute of limitations on civil child sex abuse cases, expand who is potentially liable in these actions and provide that public entities would be liable. Under current law, a victim of child sexual abuse has two years from the time they reach adulthood or two years from the time they realize that they were sexually abused as a child to file a civil suit against their alleged abuser. The legislation would completely remove this statute of limitation both retroactively and in future cases.
“Expanding the statute of limitations on sexual abuse is imperative to providing justice for the victims of these heinous crimes,” says Vitale. “The scars of sexual abuse do not heal easily, but hopefully, with time, compassion, counseling and a measure of justice, many of the victims will be able to get on with their lives. While a statute of limitations may make sense in certain civil cases, when it comes to the difficulty that victims endure to speak out about and seek justice for sexual abuse, they should be given a little more leeway. This bill makes sure that sexual abuse victims receive the time and patience needed for them to face their abusers in court.”
The bill would also amend current law to make religious, charitable or educational organizations liable for sexual abuse, sexual assault or any crimes of the sexual nature. Currently, trustees, directors, officers, employees, agents, servants and volunteers of organizations are liable for sexual assault committed under their watch, but this legislation would expand this to the organizations themselves.
Vitale says, “This legislation is about making organizations responsible in their hiring and supervisory practices. If an organization has nothing to hide and has acted appropriately in these situations, they will have nothing to worry about. Unfortunately, there are organizations who must share in the responsibility of abuse since they did not properly respond to child sexual abuse allegations. These organizations must be held accountable.”
New Jersey lifted the statute of limitations for criminal charges on child sexual abuse in 1996. In 2006, legislation sponsored by Senator Vitale removed civil immunity from charitable organizations that enabled sexual molestation of minors.
Alaska, Delaware, Florida and Maine have already abolished the statute of limitations for some if not all sexual abuse cases against minors. Many other states have extended the statute of limitations in these cases. | <urn:uuid:f2f295b6-c7f8-4b67-9517-104dd7563c00> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wobm.com/legislation-would-alter-child-sex-abuse-civil-cases-audio/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957962 | 573 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Our vision, purpose and beliefs
A world where disabled people have the same opportunities as everyone else.
To drive change across society so that disabled people have the same opportunities as everyone else.
See the person
In our interactions with disabled people we consider all of the qualities and characteristics that go to make people distinctive and unique, not only their impairment or condition.
Set no limit on potential
Every disabled person has the right to live their life and work towards their goals without being limited by other people’s expectations or prejudices. We never set limits on any disabled person’s individual potential.
Freedom to choose
Every disabled person should have the right to exercise choice and control over all decisions that shape their future including the products, services and support programmes they use.
Independence and inclusion
All service developments designed to support disabled people should enable them to become increasingly independent and to live their lives within the community of their choice.
Everyday life equality
We believe that all disabled people should have the same opportunity to education, work, building a home and social life, and access to any location or venue that other people in our society enjoy. No more. No less.
Together we can create a better society
The investment required to support our beliefs will be more than repaid through the as yet untapped potential of disabled people and through our collective pride in creating a better society for all. | <urn:uuid:258c8854-b5e6-4571-9bcf-e2a7683d6275> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scope.org.uk/about-us/our-vision?style=hide | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948452 | 284 | 2.390625 | 2 |
1A could be a major boon for the Bay Area, funding improvements in Caltrain's peninsula corridor and possibly a new rail line over the Altamont Pass.
•<\!s>"The high-speed train system will reduce California's dependence on fossil fuels and foreign oil a reduction of 12 billion pounds of CO2 and 12.7 million barrels of oil per year by 2030."
•<\!s>"High-speed trains will alleviate the need to build at a cost of nearly $100 billion about 3,000 miles of new freeway plus five airport runways and 90 departure gates over the next two decades."
Source: California High-Speed Train Business Plan
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Using EPA- and NRDC- approved cleansing chemicals, Green Apple Cleaners professionally purifies fabrics without shrinking, fading, or leaving noxious odors. Inside of a specialized laundering drum, the conscientious cleaners suffuse shirts ($2.39), pants ($7.49), skirts ($7.49), and other articles with biodegradable detergents to dissolve stains and soils, then flush them with pressurized liquid carbon dioxide. Once fabrics are fully rinsed with the carbonized concoction, the machine depressurizes, causing the newly gaseous CO2 to rise out of every textile like the Ghost of Wine-Stains Past. Clothes are left dry without the shrinking and stain-setting effects of heat, and the gentle cleaning chemicals allay the risks of pilling and fading. Once stains are fully exterminated, a careful European finishing process holds togs such as dresses ($13.99) and two-piece suits ($14.99) on a specialized three-dimensional dress form before imbuing them with steam, computer-controlled tension, air-drying, and a cool-iron touchup to leave garments as well shaped and wrinkle-free as a steam-rolled hourglass. | <urn:uuid:ef672f9d-e195-4d52-a645-198945267c27> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.groupon.com/local/pompton-lakes-nj/professional-services | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911358 | 247 | 1.5 | 2 |
Leading Alzheimer's and Vision Researchers Warn of "Brain Drain" as Scientists Struggle to Find Funding
New Survey Outlines Funding Deficiency in Brain and Eye Disease Research
CLARKSBURG, Md., Jan. 31, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- BrightFocus Foundation, a nonprofit organization that funds research worldwide to save sight and mind, today released the results of a survey of more than 170 leading biomedical scientists that explores the most significant barriers to progress in ending brain and eye diseases. The survey indicates that a lack of dependable funding is threatening to create a deficit of highly skilled scientists at a time when the nation could soon face a health care crisis brought on by devastating disorders like Alzheimer's, macular degeneration, and glaucoma.
"Cures for these brain and eye diseases can be found if we give researchers the resources and tools they require," said Stacy Haller, president and chief executive officer of BrightFocus Foundation, formerly named American Health Assistance Foundation. "Nearly 20 million people in the U.S. are affected by Alzheimer's disease, macular degeneration, or glaucoma. That number is climbing with an aging population, threatening our families, our health care, and our economy. Eradicating these diseases should be a much higher national priority."
The new survey taps into the attitudes and opinions of more than 170 top brain and eye disease scientists from around the world who have received foundation research grants in recent years. Respondents expressed near-consensus on the impact that funding sources play in their field:
- 94 percent agreed that a lack of federal funding for brain and eye disease research is impeding scientific discoveries.
- 91 percent agreed that a lack of research funding is driving scientists from the field.
- 96 percent identified limited funding as a top barrier to entry for new scientists in the fields of brain and eye disease research.
"By now, it should be clear that the cost of adequately supporting efforts to prevent and treat cognitive and vision diseases is minuscule compared to the cost of failing to do so," said Guy Eakin, Ph.D., vice president of Scientific Affairs for BrightFocus Foundation. "The total U.S. health care cost for Alzheimer's alone is $200 billion annually and is expected to soar to $1.1 trillion per year by 2050 if we don't have the scientific discoveries made possible by research funding. Yet budget cuts for research continue, and we're losing the talents of a generation of scientists."
For more in-depth analysis of survey results and recommendations, visit www.brightfocus.org/ResearcherSurvey2013.
About BrightFocus Foundation
BrightFocus Foundation is the new name, as of February 1, 2013, for the nonprofit American Health Assistance Foundation, celebrating 40 years of support for health research and public education. The new BrightFocus name reflects our redoubled commitment to advancing knowledge that saves mind and sight. Our three programs – Alzheimer's Disease Research, Macular Degeneration Research, and National Glaucoma Research – focus on the toughest challenges facing brain and eye health. For more information, visit www.BrightFocus.org.
SOURCE BrightFocus Foundation
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Research Goals in National Alzheimer's Plan Require More Funding from Congress
Jun 17, 2013, 11:27 ET
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We understand that you may have a lot of questions when your child is diagnosed with esophageal atresia.
- What exactly is it?
- What are the treatments?
- How will it affect my child long term?
We’ve provided some answers to those questions here, and when you meet with our experts, we can explain your child’s condition and treatment options fully.
What is esophageal atresia?
Esophageal atresia (EA) is a birth defect in which part of your baby’s esophagus is missing. Instead of forming a tube between the mouth and the stomach, the esophagus grows in two separate segments that do not connect.
Children with esophageal atresia almost always have another birth defect called tracheoesophageal fistula, or TEF (a fistula is an abnormal connection). The esophagus and trachea should be two separate, unconnected tubes, but in TEF, they're connected.
There are four types of esophageal atresia:
- The upper and lower segments of the esophagus end in pouches, like dead-end streets that don’t connect.
- TEF is not present.
- The lower segment ends in a blind pouch.
- TEF is present on the upper segment.
- This type is very rare.
- The upper segment ends in a blind pouch.
- TEF is present on the lower segment.
- This is the most common type.
- TEF is present on both upper and lower segments.
- This is the rarest form of EA/TEF.
How do babies with esophageal atresia eat?
Without a working esophagus, your baby may be unable to swallow or feed normally. Once esophageal atresia is diagnosed, she will probably be fed intravenously at the hospital until doctors perform surgery to repair her esophagus.
Is esophageal atresia common?
About one in 4,000 babies in the United States is born with esophageal atresia, making it the 25th most common birth defect.
Is esophageal atresia dangerous?
Without a working esophagus, it’s impossible to receive enough nutrition by mouth. Babies with esophageal atresia are also more prone to infections like pneumonia and conditions such as acid reflux. Luckily, esophageal atresia is most often correctable.
What causes esophageal atresia?
The exact cause of esophageal atresia is still unknown, but it appears to have some genetic components. Up to half of all babies born with esophageal atresia have one or more other birth defects, such as:
- trisomy 13, 18 or 21
- other digestive tract problems, such as diaphragmatic hernia, intestinal atresia or imperforate anus
- heart problems, such as ventricular septal defect, tetralogy of Fallot or patent ductus arteriosus
- kidney and urinary tract problems, such as horseshoe or polycystic kidney, absent kidney or hypospadias
- muscular or skeletal problems
Esophageal atresia and tracheoesophageal fistula are also often found in babies born with VACTERL syndrome. This is a non-random collection of abnormalities that may also involve the spine, heart, lower digestive tract, kidneys and limbs. Not all babies born with VACTERL syndrome have abnormalities in all of these areas.
Long-gap esophageal atresia may also result from surgery to try to fix a milder case of esophageal atresia, or to repair a tracheoesophageal fistula.
Signs and symptoms
What are the signs and symptoms of esophageal atresia?
The first signs of esophageal atresia are usually clearly seen very soon after birth. The most common are:
- frothy white bubbles in your baby’s mouth
- coughing or choking when feeding
- blue color of the skin, especially when your baby is feeding
- difficulty breathing
- very round, full abdomen
Q: What is the treatment for esophageal atresia?
A: Treatments for EA vary depending on how severe it is. Usually, the best treatment is surgery to reconnect the two ends of your baby’s esophagus to each other when she is between 2 and 6 months old.
In some children, however, the ends are so far apart they cannot be easily connected. This is known as long-gap esophageal atresia. The Foker process was developed to address this condition.
Q: What is the Foker process?
A:Developed by John Foker, MD, a pediatric surgeon from the University of Minnesota, the Foker process is a technique to stimulate the upper and lower ends of the esophagus to grow so they could be joined together. It’s only available here at Children's. Learn more.
Q: How long does the Foker process take?
A: It depends on how far your child’s esophagus needs to grow, but surgeons are usually able to attach the two ends together in anywhere from two to five weeks.
Q: What are the other treatments for esophageal atresia?
A:Other treatments for esophageal atresia involve different types of surgery. Your child’s care team work together to determine the best treatment for her EA. Learn more.
Q: What’s the long-term outlook for children with esophageal atresia?
A:If caught early and treated properly, most babies with esophageal atresia can eat normally within two to three months. They may need to be monitored for strictures (places of narrowing) in their esophagus, but these are treatable, and in general the outlook is quite good. In fact, the Foker process most often results in an esophagus that’s indistinguishable from one that has developed normally.
Questions to ask your doctor
After your child is diagnosed with esophageal atresia, you may feel overwhelmed with information. It can be easy to lose track of the questions that occur to you.
Lots of parents find it helpful to write down questions as they arise–that way, when you talk to your child’s doctors, you can be sure that all of your concerns are addressed. Here are some to get you started:
- What kind of esophageal atresia does my child have?
- How did you arrive at this diagnosis?
- Does my child also have a tracheoesophageal fistula?
- Are there any other conditions my child might have in addition to esophageal atresia?
- What’s the best treatment for my child right now?
- How much experience does this institution have with esophageal atresia?
- When and how will you follow up with my child?
- What resources are available to help my family cope?
What else do I need to know right now?
|Teaming up for EA/TEF|
|Like Lewis and Clark, Holmes and Watson or even Batman and Robin, Russell Jennings, MD, director, Esophageal Atresia Treatment Program and Lori McGahan are an amazing team. Working together as doctor and parent advocate, Jennings and McGahan have done tremendous work raising awareness and funds for esophageal atresia/tracheoesophageal fistula. Learn more.| | <urn:uuid:680a47f5-7412-47e5-9b10-c0a52913b583> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://childrenshospital.org/az/Site1775/mainpageS1775P1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935789 | 1,631 | 3.421875 | 3 |
Market to market, that's easy to do in Maine. Shopping local farm, farmers' and craft markets is the best way to purchase Maine-made goods direct from those who made or grew them, and savvy shoppers know that flea markets are filled with budget-friendly finds.
When it comes to fresh foods, you can't beat shopping at a Maine farmers' market. Sure there are farm-fresh produce and locally grown meats and poultry, you'll also find farm-made cheeses, jams and jellies, pickles and mustards, breads and pies, chocolates and cookies, even crafts or lobster. Many farmers markets add entertainment, demonstrations, or children's activities to the mix. And don't overlook farm markets such as Beth's in Warren, or Riverside Farm in Oakland, Farmer's Daughter in Oquossoc, or Misty Meadow in Grand Isle. The best resource for finding Maine farm and farmers' markets is www.GetRealMaine.com.
Maine's dedicated craft markets are the best bet for browsing fine and folk crafts and purchasing directly from the maker. The Maine Indian Basketmakers show, sell, and demonstrate their crafts—basketry, walking and talking sticks, jewelry—at three annual events: Bar Harbor in early July, Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Festival in September, and the Hudson Museum, on the University of Maine's Orono campus in December. Two other sources for finding Maine-made crafts markets are the Maine Crafts Association, which maintains a calendar of craft sales, and the United Maine Craftsmen, which presents craft markets statewide.
Flea markets are a bonanza for budget-conscious shoppers. Who knows what fabulous finds you'll discover, from signed artwork to rad furniture, 1920s collectible glass to '50s memorabilia. Just remember, go early for the best selection and finds. | <urn:uuid:86cd08ae-6350-4f23-a6c7-a1bb19528848> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.visitmaine.com/attractions/shopping/markets/?font-size=10&_print=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943421 | 382 | 1.640625 | 2 |
The goal of Sterling University is to offer the finest Christian-centered, development-focused, liberal arts experience in an environment of academic excitement. It nurtures students in a way that they experience Christian faith permeating in all aspects of College life. The curriculum and activities are designed to enable students develop the required skill for their professional and personal challenges. Students are trained to improve on their creativity, critical thinking and communication skills, as well as leadership qualities for use in the workplace and in all other spheres of life. The thirst for life-long learning is inculcated in students by the faculty who make all the programs highly interesting.
This college opened as the Cooper Memorial College in 1887, and the college was named in honor of a Presbyterian denomination leader, the founder of the college. Initially, four majors and high school courses were offered to students who couldn’t attend an education institution in their home communities. The college was renamed as Sterling College in 1920, but the original curriculum continued to be the main focus of the college. Not many colleges can boast of retaining their original focus while keeping the courses and teaching techniques continually updated. The main campus of the college is in Sterling, Kansas.
Sterling strives for academic excellence and is one of the only schools that offer a partner program with the Habitat for Humanity International. Students get several volunteer opportunities and the ability to win fellowships through this organization, as well as the opportunity to complete a degree in Social Entrepreneurship. The best part is that they stand a chance of working with this organization once they graduate. The School of Liberal Arts & Sciences offers programs like History, Biology, Chemistry, Art & Design, Psychology, Music and others; the School of Professional Studies offers programs in Music Education, Sports Management, Business Administration and more; the School of Secondary Education Licensure offers Mathematics, Music, Exercise Science, and Chemistry etc. You will find a whole list of courses on their website.
For students who cannot attend classes on campus, the college offers a great online program called eSterling. Through this, students get the same Christian-centered education that those attending school get. Students will work closely with the faculty, interact with other students and get help with their learning and coursework from advisors. There is a vast online library where all sorts of research material pertaining to the course are stored. Many Christian oriented programs can be taken online, such as Christian Ministries, Religion and Philosophy, Theology and Ministry. Other courses include Mathematics, History, Professional Studies and Elementary Education.
Studying in a college that places emphasis not just on the general education core or a specialization but also in the preparation of students for a career by building a breadth and depth of understanding, makes a lot of difference. It offers the chance for students to grow at all levels and experience a great academic education. A unifying community experience leads to immense faith in everything students do.
Have you studied at Sterling College?
Please provide a brief review of your experience at Sterling College in the comment section to help other readers! | <urn:uuid:815172a0-f9d7-426d-b93e-302c07280772> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.educator.com/college-reviews/sterling-college-review/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956759 | 620 | 1.945313 | 2 |
Daka-deemi, daka-deemi, daka-deemi, dak.
Sandip Burman spit out these solfege-like syllables as his hands and fingers became a blur, pounding out the same rhythm he sang on the tablas, traditional Indian hand drums with a goatskin head.
Burman, a Calcutta, India, native who is anything but a traditional in his approach to the tablas, met with sixth through 12th grade percussionists and members of the Mohonasen stage band in the Mohonasen High School band room on Thursday, March 27.
Turning to his sister, Sumi Burman, with whom he has performed for more than 25 years, the drummer mouthed a few words in his native language and the pair commenced with a rousing improvisation.
Sumi played the harmonium, a small reed organ and sang rhythmic solfege-syllables while her brother, as though possessed, smiled brightly at her, and began gyrating his head and torso for a distinguished performance that allowed the young listeners to immediately understand why Burman has been a constant sideman to some of the most noteworthy names in both Indian and American jazz and fusion music.
Burman has performed with classical Indian musicians like bansuri virtuoso Hariprasad Cahurasia and legendary sitar player Ravi Shankar. In America, Burman has shared the stage with Bela Fleck, Victor Wooten, and a number of sidemen from 70s fusion powerhouses like Weather Report and The Mahavishnu Orchestra.
Most recently, Burman toured with Randy Brecker, of Brecker Brothers fame, as part of his "East Meets Jazz" project.
Burman said traditional Indian music appeals to jazz musicians because of the heavy emphasis on improvisation and rhythm.
"Duke Ellington, (guitarist) John McLaughlin, Miles Davis and many others came to Indian music because it was a new, intricate way to improve improvisational skills," Burman told the students of Mohonasen.
Practice, he said, is key, and the skills won't develop overnight. | <urn:uuid:d3947483-6992-43b6-bc80-f6a6187c2d46> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.spotlightnews.com/news/2008/apr/09/drumming-up-a-new-experience/?page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967137 | 454 | 1.617188 | 2 |
- Last Updated: 11:42 PM, June 28, 2012
- Posted: June 29, 2012
Ok, so it wasn’t a mandate — it was a tax increase. But what a tax increase!
The Supreme Court, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing for a 5-4 majority, performed a little jurisprudential alchemy yesterday and found the individual mandate in President Obama’s signature health-care law to be not a mandate at all — but a tax.
And since Congress retains the right to levy taxes, that makes it legal.
Never mind that both Obama and Democrats in Congress have always denied that the mandate — requiring everyone to buy health insurance or pay a penalty — is a tax hike.
“Absolutely not a tax increase,” said Obama in 2009. “Nobody considers that a tax increase. I reject that notion.”
Problem is, ruled the court, if you don’t call it a tax, it’s flat-out unconstitutional. And that would be the end of ObamaCare.
So Roberts essentially recast the argument, handing the president and his party a substantial legal win — but an equally significant political problem: They’re going to have to defend a massive middle-class tax hike — in an election year.
So be it, wrote Roberts: “Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness.”
Nor, he continued, is it “our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices” made by political leaders “who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them.”
So, on to November.
It now falls to the Democrats to defend a law that the Congressional Budget Office says will cost the government at least $1.76 trillion over the next decade.
And that’s a baseline best-case scenario. After all, health-care spending has nearly doubled over the last 10 years — as has spending for Medicare and Medicaid.
Overall health-care costs have soared by 48 percent since 2002, and that growth shows no signs of abating.
The law also includes at least $500 billion in hard tax hikes over the next decade — including specific levies on drug companies, charitable hospitals and what will be a calamitous federal payroll-tax increase.
ObamaCare, Justice Antonin Scalia noted in his dissent, imposes “an extensive set of regulations” that will render health insurance “economically undesirable for many and prohibitively expensive for the rest.”
Which points to the central flaw in the president’s program: It’s called the Affordable Health Care Act, but it does nothing significant to make health care affordable.
It’s a shell game, with ever-more-expensive peas being passed around the table in hopes that someday health-care costs will drop on their own.
But nobody has the heart to say out loud that health-care inflation is essentially demand-driven — and that demand must be mitigated if costs are ever to be brought under control.
That is, if health care is ever to become “affordable.”
America’s social safety net is being shredded by health-care inflation.
Nothing that happened yesterday changes that.Follow @NYPostOpinion | <urn:uuid:b8144db9-31f0-4498-ba7a-859fc56614d4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/supreme_court_sophistry_MHq3Zk0DOzwsMCFoGUOhFK?utm_medium=SFnewyorkpost&utm_content=Editorials&utm_source=SFnypostopinion | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960394 | 703 | 1.695313 | 2 |
The petrine heresy
The term "pope" by which the head of the Roman Catholic church is known, is derived from the Latin papa, meaning father. But Jesus forbade his followers to call any man father in a spiritual sense (Matthew 23:9). In ancient times, several patriarchs were called pope, but eventually as the claims of Rome rose higher and higher, the bishop of Rome came to hold this title exclusively to himself. Gregory I was the first one to be given the title of universal bishop by the wicked emperor Phocas, in the year 604. This he did to spite the bishop of Constantinople. Gregory, knowing that this was a novel idea, refused the title, but his second successor, Boniface III (607) assumed the title, and it has been the designation of the bishops of Rome ever since.
Again, the term "Pontiff," referring to the pope, means a bridge builder. It comes from pagan Rome, where the emperor, as the high priest of the heathen religion, was called "Pontifex Maximus." The title was lifted from paganism and applied to the head of the Roman Catholic church. Thus the pope claims to be the mediator between God and men, in flat contradiction to 1 Timothy 2:5. He claims to be the head, whereas Christ is clearly given this position in Colossians 2:9 and 1:18.
The papal system has been in process of development over a long period of time, with error encroaching upon error so that the end result is something diametrically opposite to apostolic Christianity. Romanists claim an unbroken line of succession from the alleged first pope. But the list itself is quite doubtful; it was revised several times, with a number who formerly were listed as popes now listed as anti-popes. The existence of an unbroken succession from the apostles to the present can neither be proved nor disproved.
For a period of six centuries after the time of Christ none of the regional churches attempted to exercise authority over any of the other churches. The early ecumenical councils were composed of delegates from the various churches who met as equals.
The first six centuries of the Christian era know nothing of any spiritual supremacy on the part of the bishops of Rome. Gregory the First is the one who consolidated the power of the bishopric of Rome and started that church on a new course.
The papal cause was much aided by forgery and blatant lies which were exposed during the Renaissance through such critical studies as those of Valla on the "Donation of Constantine" and the "Isidorian Decretals."
The pope boasts of exercising the power of the keys. But as early as the second century, Tertullian writes that "every one who confesses Christ, as Peter did, has the keys of the kingdom of heaven, as did Peter" (Scorpiaca).
It is also well-known that in post-Constantine times the Roman empire was Christianized but the far majority of the people were Christian only in name. Numberless pagan customs were brought in the church. One of them was the role of the emperor as patron and high priest of the religious system.
With the downfall of Rome and the removal of the seat of the emperor from Rome to Constantinople, the way was paved for the Antichrist to be raised up and assume his blasphemous role, thus fulfilling 2 Thessalonians 2, eventually coming to the position where the pope was called God on earth. For instance, Leo X was addressed thus by John Capito Aretinus (1513-21): "If to serve God is truly to reign, you are reigning if you serve Leo, for Leo is God on earth."
Eminent scholars, such as A.Hislop, have also traced the pagan origins of the papacy. We read about a Peter Roma, the interpreter of the pagan mysteries (cf. papal infallibility), we read about the keys of Cybele and Janus, the power of which is now vested in the Bishop of Rome.
The Sancta Sede has nothing to do with the New Testament; actually it is traced back to paganism. When seated on this chair, the pope is now said to be infallible in the doctrines and decrees he makes, exactly the same fables that were popular in paganism. The popes of Rome are in fact direct successors of the ancient pontiffs of the Babylonian religion having a very thin disguise of Christianity.
The true origins of the papacy, therefore, however shocking it might be to many, is from crass paganism. | <urn:uuid:573f26a8-a22e-45c9-8f53-fd101f30e701> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tecmalta.org/tft309.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978126 | 955 | 2.828125 | 3 |
MEXICO CITY -- Leaders of Mexico’s three major political parties launched a sweeping proposal Monday to break open the highly monopolistic telecommunications sector, calling for new laws that would create competition to the established companies that now control the nation’s broadcast and cable television, Internet access, and fixed line and cellular telephones.
The proposal would open the door to two new national television networks and set rules that would lower costs and broaden access to the Internet and telephones. It also would allow dramatically increased foreign investment in telecommunications.
In a ceremony filled with pomp, chiefs of political parties from the left, center and right cast the telecom reform as a watershed event that would shake off monopolistic private control that is almost without parallel elsewhere in the Western world.
President Enrique Pena Nieto, who just completed 100 days in office, said opening up the telecom sector to competition would invigorate the economy and lift Mexico globally.
“In the era of knowledge and information, it is a new form of illiteracy not to have access to them,” he said of modern digital platforms.
Neither Pena Nieto nor any of the political party leaders portrayed the proposed constitutional reform as targeted at the wealthy tycoons who keep a monopolistic grip on telecommunications. Yet the proposals are likely to vastly affect the interests of several of Mexico’s most powerful figures.
They include Carlos Slim, the world’s wealthiest man with a $71.5 billion fortune, whose wireless company, America Movil, controls roughly 70 percent of the cellular market in Mexico and whose fixed line company, Telefonos de Mexico, better known as TelMex, controls 80 percent of all fixed-line phones in the country.
High rates keep Mexicans from using cellular phones as much as residents of other Latin American countries.
Beside him in the billionaire’s pantheon is Emilio Azcarraga, controlling shareholder in Televisa, the world’s largest Spanish-language broadcaster and magazine publisher. Grupo Televisa controls 70 percent of the Mexican television market.
Following the ceremony, a tweet from Azcarraga’s Twitter account acknowledged the threshold of a new era: “Time of great challenges and also of opportunities. Competition welcome,” the tweet said.
Slim did not offer an immediate comment on the reform.
A third tycoon, Ricardo Salinas Pliego, and his Grupo Salinas, are controlling shareholders of TV Azteca, which commands most of the remaining 30 percent of the television market in Mexico not controlled by Televisa.
Before the constitutional amendments involved in the telecom reform become law, they must pass through both chambers of Mexico’s Congress and be approved by a majority of state legislatures.
If successful, it would mark the second major reform of Pena Nieto’s nascent administration. Within days of taking office Dec. 1, Pena Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, formed an unprecedented political alliance with two other major parties, called Pact for Mexico, and announced broad objectives for reforming the state.
The parties quickly enacted an education reform that took away from a 1.5 million-member teachers union the power to hire and fire teachers. Further signaling an intent to shake up the field, prosecutors arrested powerful teachers union leader Elba Esther Gordillo on Feb. 26 and charged her with siphoning off hundreds of millions of dollars in union funds. | <urn:uuid:a68960a9-e8a6-4b6a-bbd7-b96b1de588a4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/03/11/3280348/mexico-moves-to-open-up-telecom.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939693 | 707 | 1.5 | 2 |
With the exception of a lump of dubious carrot cake sold to raise money for charity, he declines, wary of becoming either a literal or a figurative fat cat.
Because whether it is cake or money, the Deputy Prime Minister has a bee in his bonnet about those who take more than their fair share.
His concerns are international as well as domestic, and he is keen to talk about the US presidential election. The likely Republican candidate to fight Barack Obama is Mitt Romney, a multimillionaire whose wealth has become a major campaign issue.
“Mitt Romney, it turns out, pays 13 per cent tax,” Mr Clegg says indignantly. “You hope that kind of thing doesn’t go on in this country.”
Just to be sure, he asked his officials to look at the situation in Britain, and was shocked at what the inquiry revealed.
“There are hundreds of people earning millions per year who are barely paying 20 per cent tax, forget 40 per cent, forget 50 per cent, forget 30 per cent. They are not even paying 20 per cent.”
Those arrangements are perfectly legal, he admits. They are also quite wrong.
“It makes people so incredibly angry when you are getting up early in the morning, working really hard to try to do the right thing for your family and for your community, you are paying your taxes and then you see people literally in a different galaxy who are paying extraordinarily low rates of tax.”
The answer, he says, is a tycoon tax, a legal minimum tax rate that everyone should pay on their earnings, regardless of its source. This new floor rate of tax should be in addition to the new “general anti-avoidance rule” that the Coalition is also considering. It is a new rule specifically aimed at the ultra-rich, whom he describes as “living on a different planet to most normal people”.
By admitting the 50p top rate of tax is being widely ignored, isn’t he bolstering the Conservative case for its abolition?
“I’m probably the most relaxed person about these individual rates,” says Mr Clegg, insisting he is more interested in getting his own scheme enacted. In any case, he adds, the 50p tax was “clearly introduced as a temporary measure.”
With similar frankness, Mr Clegg also makes clear that his tycoon tax project now takes priority over other Lib Dem ambitions on tax, including the incendiary call for a mansion tax on the most valuable homes. The plan has met strong Tory opposition, and the Deputy Prime Minister signals it is not high on the Budget agenda.
“I think the principle of a mansion tax is a perfectly sensible one,” Mr Clegg says. But he won’t die in a ditch defending it. “The overall approach to bearing down on avoidance – closing loopholes, making sure the wealthy pay more of their fair share than less – that is what is more important to me at the end of the day.”
Nor is he prepared to go to war with the Conservatives to push through cuts in tax relief on pension contributions by higher-rate taxpayers that some Lib Dem activists are demanding. “This is again a longer-term debate,” he says
Comfortingly for middle-class professionals fearing a Lib Dem raid on their retirement plans, he adds: “We need to treat all of this with a great deal of care, because we want to make people feel like there is an incentive to save.”
These conciliatory noises on Conservative issues are arguably at odds with the recent drift in Lib Dem political positioning. As the Coalition approaches its second birthday, the Lib Dems are increasingly keen to bolster their battered poll ratings by emphasising their differences with their Tory partners.
The differentiation strategy hasn’t been universally welcomed. Baroness Warsi, the Conservative chairman, this week accused some Lib Dems of “sniping and opportunism” and suggested voters would punish divisions in the Coalition.
Not so, says Mr Clegg. Voters are sensible enough to realise that two different parties will have two different views; disputes are no big deal.
“As we have become more open, more straightforward about our differences, people think, 'OK, of course they can say what they think’. That’s the nature of coalition.”
That’s the politics, but what about the personal stuff? To be very blunt, does he like the men he refers to as “David and George”?
“This isn’t about whether we are mates with each other. It is about, are we able to conduct business with each other.”
The Coalition’s economic mission means the two sides have “a national duty – we have to show we can govern in the national interest”.
Isn’t the truth not that Mr Clegg has bad relations with Conservatives but good ones? Cabinet colleagues talk of a strong personal bond between Mr Clegg and Mr Cameron; both, remember, are well-to-do 40-something public schoolboys with young families.
Will he admit to friendship with the Prime Minister? Cosiness with the Tory leader might not go down well at this weekend’s Lib Dem conference, and Mr Clegg flannels awkwardly.
“Erm, ah … It’s almost as irrelevant a question as, 'Do you like or dislike your party colleagues?’ I didn’t come into politics to find mates.”
Ah yes, party colleagues. Some of Mr Clegg’s Lib Dem ministers are rarely accused of cosiness with the Conservatives, not least Vince Cable.
The Business Secretary ruffled blue feathers this week with a leaked letter bemoaning the Coalition’s lack of a convincing economic strategy beyond cutting the deficit. Mr Clegg agrees, forcefully. “Vince is absolutely right that we need to provide people with a compelling, uplifting story about the economic voyage we are on.” And that journey must go beyond repairing the public finances to building a new economy, less reliant on debt and the City than it was under Labour.
“Of course it’s about the black hole, but it’s also about rewiring. If the country thinks all we are about is putting Humpty Dumpty back together again, we will have failed.”
Not that Mr Clegg’s ambitions are confined to economic reform. He also hopes that five years of Lib Dem work in government will make British society “more liberal”.
The Coalition’s social agenda is hardly uncontroversial, especially when it comes to the suggestion that homosexual couples should have full marriage rights.
Mr Clegg is an unabashed backer of the notion. “Marriage is all about a couple – whether they are a man and woman, a man and a man, a woman and a woman, – showing love for each other, commitment to each other. I think we should celebrate that commitment,” he says.
That is likely to irk critics including the Roman Catholic Church. Mr Clegg, married to a strong Spanish Catholic who is raising their sons in the faith, insists he has “immense respect” for the Church. But its stance on marriage is outdated, he says.
“The Catholic Church, like any Church, has this constant dilemma, of drawing on their traditional beliefs but also moving with the world as it progresses.
“My own view is that in 50 years’ time people will look back and say, 'What on earth was all the fuss about?”
The issue leads Mr Clegg into an impromptu exposition of liberalism as a political philosophy. The Lib Dems have only existed in their current form since the 1988 Liberal – SDP merger, but Mr Clegg traces intellectual heritage back to the 19th century and John Stuart Mill.
“The Liberal starts with the view that there is something brilliant about every individual. It’s a very British view – you cherish and celebrate individuals and their ability to make up their own minds and do so in the way that is best for them,” he declares.
If that is Mr Clegg’s historical inheritance, what about his future?
Some at Westminster doubt Mr Clegg can keep his job as party leader beyond the next election. Even fighting an election campaign against his Conservative friends will present an interesting spectacle, and some believe he will not even attempt it, perhaps stepping down before polling day.
What does the man himself predict? “I’ve given up trying to work out what’s going to happen next month,” he says.
It’s a joke but an intriguing one, because Mr Cameron and his friends most certainly are preparing for life after 2015: significant Conservative resources are being poured into planning for the next term.
Pressed about his prospects after the election, Mr Clegg is vague. “I’m 45, I’m immensely lucky, I have a lot of energy. I have big ambitions about the changes we are introducing to this country.”
Yes, he will “absolutely” lead his party into the next election, but will make no bets about its outcome. “There is still a lot of fuel left in the Lib Dem tank. That will see us beyond 2015, whatever the outcome is.” | <urn:uuid:5f77366a-5474-4c2c-bbb0-5a33e6858011> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/nick-clegg/9135067/Nick-Clegg-my-mission-to-make-the-ultra-rich-pay.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96978 | 1,974 | 1.710938 | 2 |
|Close-up of famous shapes measuring 20 to 200 nanometers across in Allen Hills meteorite [ALH84001], found at Allen Hills, Antarctica, showing what has generated debate and controversy around claims of ancient fossilized microbial life. "Several lines of evidence suggest that the volume of a sphere about 200 nanometers across is needed to house the chemistry of a cell that has a biology familiar to us." --A. Knoll Around 28 Mars meteorites have been identified so far.
Image Credit: NASA
The city of Hammerfest lies at the northern tip of Norway, well above the Arctic Circle. If you board a ship heading north from there, just before you reach the polar ice cap you run into a group of islands known as the Svalbard archipelago.
For the past two summers, a group of scientists has traveled to the largest of these islands to study an environment that sheds light on a notorious meteorite, discovered at the opposite end of the Earth, in Antarctica.
The meteorite, ALH84001, began as a rather unremarkable piece of volcanic rock that formed about 4.5 billion years ago, on Mars. About a billion years later, its interior was chemically altered through interaction with water. After that, it remained on the martian surface until about 16 million years ago, when a massive impactor - a comet or asteroid - slammed into Mars, spewing material into space at such tremendous velocity that some of it, including ALH84001, was able to escape Mars's gravity. After drifting through interplanetary space for millions of years, eventually the meteorite collided with Earth. That was about 13 thousand years ago. In 1984 it was discovered by meteorite hunters in the Allen Hills region of Antarctica.
ALH84001 gained international fame when scientists at NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) announced in 1996 that it contained evidence of life - martian life. Miniscule structures within the meteorite looked similar to fossilized bacteria seen on Earth. A form of magnetite (iron oxide) was detected in the meteorite that, on Earth, is produced only within the bodies of certain bacteria. And researchers found unusual microscopic carbonate globules, which they believed were formed by living organisms.
Carbonates are common on Earth. England's famous White Cliffs of Dover, for example, are made from calcium carbonate, or limestone. But the carbonates in ALH84001 were far from being common limestone. They were unique. Scientists had no way to tell where on Mars the meteorite had come from, or what its history had been prior to being thrown into interplanetary space. There was no way to know for certain how the carbonate globules had formed. But their unusual appearance, one of several distinctive features of the rock from another world, led the JSC researchers to conclude that living organisms had once made their home there.
Members of the scientific team who made the original announcement still believe that ALH84001 contains evidence of martian life. Most researchers, however, now think that its various microscopic features can be explained purely by geologic and chemical processes. Recent discoveries made in Svalbard bolster the majority opinion.
|The ALH Meteorite, about the size of a softball and one of more than two dozen Mars samples available for study on Earth today. [ALH84001] was found at Allen Hills, Antarctica.
Image Credit: NASA/ Johnson Space Center
Although the ALH84001 carbonate globules were novel at the time the meteorite was discovered, scientists have since discovered that rocks in Svalbard contain carbonate globules remarkably similar to those found in ALH84001. They were anxious to learn what they could about how the Svalbard carbonate globules formed. Researchers can only speculate about how the carbonate globules in ALH84001 formed, billions of years ago and millions of miles away. But in Svalbard, says Andrew Steele, "the geology's in context."
Steele, who is with the Carnegie Institution of Washington, is a member of AMASE (Arctic Mars Analog Svalbard Expedition), an international team of scientists who for the past three years have been studying the Svalbard environment. The major aspect of their work is to test out life-detection instruments that will be used on future missions to Mars. But it was the discovery of Svalbard's carbonate globules that first caught their attention.
"Originally we didn't set out to try and confirm or refute" whether the carbonate globules in ALH84001 were "formed by biology or not. We basically went up there to look at the context and find out just how these things are formed on Earth, and then try to draw some conclusions about their formation mechanisms on Mars," said Steele.
The context is a volcano, Sverrefjell, that erupted about a million years ago, forcing magma up through an overlying glacier. The carbonate globules in the Svalbard rocks were found embedded inside material that was spewed out when the volcano erupted. An analysis of the material surrounding the globules - a mineral known as olivine, for its dull green color - showed that it came from the Earth's mantle, some 40 to 50 kilometers (25 to 30 miles) beneath the surface. Before the eruption, it was in a molten state, deep underground. Within a few days of being ejected onto the surface, it had cooled and hardened in the freezing glacial environment aboveground. During this cooling process, the carbonate globules became deeply embedded within the surrounding rock.
"This is an abiotic production method," said Steele. No living organisms could have been present in the molten subterranean depths. Nor could microbes have colonized the molten material in the short span of a few days during which the rocks cooled and hardened, sealing the globules deep within.
|Major investigated regions of Antarctica where meteors have been successfully identified. At any given moment, the interplanetary sample transit works out to about one Martian meteorite landing on Earth each month. Scientists had thought it took a serious wallop to instigate these interplanetary exchanges. Impacts of this size and larger occur every 200,000 years or so on Mars. Yet research now finds that craters as small as 1.9 miles (3 kilometers) wide on Mars could have been the starting points for meteorite launches towards Earth. Credit: JSC/NASA Meteor Program
Armed with the knowledge that the Svalbard globules were formed abiotically, Steele and his colleagues performed a painstaking comparison between them and the ALH84001 globules. Using one of the most sophisticated instruments of its type in the world, a Raman spectrometer, the AMASE team examined thousands of tiny spots both within samples of ALH84001 and within rocks collected in Svalbard. The Raman spectrometer enabled them to catalog in detail the mineral components in the carbonate globules within the two rocks. They found a high degree of similarity.
"That doesn't mean to say that [the Svalbard globules] are exactly the same as the martian globules and are formed in exactly the same conditions," Steele said, "but it gives us a window into that formation process. There is a formation mechanism for them that doesn't rely on biology."
The ALH84001 saga is not over. There will undoubtedly be discussion about its various unusual features for many years to come. But by showing how carbonate globules, similar to those in the martian meteorite, formed without the involvement of living organisms, Steele and his colleagues have made less compelling the argument that the visiting rock from our planetary neighbor contains evidence of life.
Related Web Pages
New Martian Meteorite
Life in Tiny Tunnels?
Life without Volcanic Heat
Diving for Life Under Antarctic Ice
New Signs of Polar Life
Tricorder Going to Mars
Proof of Life?
Life in Ice
AMASE expedition TV feature | <urn:uuid:bc490cb2-f848-4854-8280-fb937886295a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.astrobio.net/includes/html_to_doc_execute.php?id=1996&component=news | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960885 | 1,645 | 3.96875 | 4 |
Story posted March 06, 2012
Michael Moynihan ’89 reassured a group of business-minded Bowdoin students sitting down with him for lunch recently that they should not lose confidence in their liberal arts background as they prepare to launch their careers.
“I know it’s easy to say, 'It’s a tough job market out there, and I have a liberal arts degree and I might be competing with business school graduates’,” he said. Instead, Moynihan argued they should have faith in their Bowdoin education because it’s more relevant in the business world now than ever.
“The world of business is more tumultuous than it ever has been,” he said. He pointed to all the forces roiling industries, such as social media, online marketplaces, the rise of tablets and smartphones, and the uneven economy. “Why play a board game when you have an iPad?” he asked rhetorically when describing some of the difficulties his own toy industry is confronting. “Why play Scrabble when you can play Words with Friends on your iPhone?”
In the past, Moynihan continued, left-brained people could thrive in business because they could fall back on trusted formulas. But a formula these days may work for a few weeks or months before it’s outdated. Continually inventing new products, new marketing strategies, or new ways of doing business requires “a whole different way of thinking. It requires people who can think critically about formulas and what we need to do to tweak them,” Moynihan said. “What you guys are getting trained for is very relevant to the world of business.”
Moynihan, vice president of marketing for LEGO Systems, Inc., visited campus recently to share his wisdom about the business world. He has worked for Monitor Co. and General Mills, and has been with Lego now for 16 years. Moynihan graduated from Bowdoin in 1989 after majoring in economics and math, and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1993.
After his luncheon with students, Mike Moynihan went on to visit Associate Professor Greg DeCoster's finance class to talk to students about the marketing challenges facing Lego in an evolving toy world, according to Todd Herrmann, associate director of the Career Planning Center.
Moynihan has been returning to Bowdoin for a few years and is a regular contributor to DeCoster's class. But this is the first year he's also offered Bowdoin student jobs and internships, according to Herrmann. Moynihan led an information session on campus about a full-time marketing assistant position at Lego's Enfield, Conn. location. Herrmann said Lego is accepting student resumes through March 8 for this job. "Lego's trying to have more of a presence on campus," and would like to share its internships and job opportunities with Bowdoin, Herrmann explained. "They plan on coming next spring to promote brand awareness and company awareness."
As head of marketing for Lego, Moynihan is familiar with selling toys that help children develop their skills while delighting them. And while he didn’t advise Bowdoin students to play with building blocks, he did offer thoughtful advice on how they could develop their careers. One of the more practical tips he suggested was to go into consulting if they weren’t sure what they wanted to specialize in.
“I went into consulting after graduating from Bowdoin, and consulting is like the liberal arts of business,” he said. “It gave me an idea of what I liked and didn’t like. If you have any intention of going into business, consulting is a good way to get exposure to a bunch of relevant areas of business.”
He also recommended looking for companies that encourage cross-promotion. “Look for industries or companies that allow a bit of breath out of the gates. Careers are marathons, not sprints,” he counseled.
Though he didn’t know it when he left Bowdoin, Moynihan learned along the way that he “had a real passion for marketing.” But it took him a couple of jobs and companies to find the right fit, he said. At Lego, Moynihan's involved with product development, advertising, marketing analytics, event marketing (such as fan conventions), market research, competitive intelligence and public relations.
He recommended that students be as selective about choosing an employer as they were when they picked a college. “Do not underestimate the importance of corporate culture. Make sure you’re going to a company according to your own values,” he said. “Apply the same rigor in your job search to cultural fit as you did in your college search.”
Finally, he gave students an oft-repeated bit of advice from Bowdoin grads. “Tap into the Bowdoin alumni network, it’s an unbelievable network,” he said. “The people who graduate from this place have a sincere passion for it, and that passion only seems to grow the longer they’re out.” | <urn:uuid:94a07931-3e6d-4077-a538-5d40754daeb9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bowdoin.edu/news/archives/1bowdoincampus/009254.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976929 | 1,090 | 1.882813 | 2 |
GRM was founded in 1990 by its current Directors, Chris Jerram and Dr Bill Peacock. As engineering geologists, they wanted to use their knowledge and industry experience to provide a valuable service to individuals, companies, and investors with land to develop. They created GRM to provide honest and accurate appraisals of land, allied to cost-effective solutions to the problems encountered. In the late 1990's the structural design department was set up to produce designs and reports, build on the ground investigation team's findings, and provide a foundation inspection service to ensure on-site compliance.
We provide development services and solutions both above and below the ground to aid developers in a wide variety of market sectors - industry, commercial, retail, residential (both private individuals and large PLCs), public (including education and healthcare), leisure, and transport.
We can often demonstrate that a perceived problem is not really a hazard to the development, so for the client, a small investment in ground investigation can return many times its value in terms of cost savings.
For more information on the services we provide, see our services page. | <urn:uuid:71518500-a857-4156-a313-44588dd36106> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.grm-uk.com/about-us/4538688356 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95842 | 227 | 1.5 | 2 |
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Silicon Valley, a small place with few identifiable geologic or geographic features, has achieved a mythical reputation in a very short time. The modern material culture of the Valley may be driven by technology, but it also encompasses architecture, transportation, food, clothing, entertainment, intercultural exchanges, and rituals.Combining a reporter's instinct for a good interview with traditional archaeological training, Christine Finn brings the perspectives of the past and the future to the story of Silicon Valley's present material culture. She traveled the area in 2000, a period when people's fortunes could change overnight. She describes a computer's rapid trajectory from useful tool to machine to be junked to collector's item. She explores the sense that whatever one has is instantly superseded by the next new thing -- and the effect this has on economic and social values. She tells stories from a place where fruit-pickers now recycle silicon chips and where more money can be made babysitting for post-IPO couples than working in a factory. The ways that people are working and adapting, are becoming wealthy or barely getting by, are visible in the cultural landscape of the fifteen cities that make up the area called "Silicon Valley." | <urn:uuid:6bcd3d5a-2937-4691-9b69-ae600806e783> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?reload=true&tp=&arnumber=6285395&contentType=Books+%26+eBooks | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940457 | 244 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Patongo Primary School students practice a traditional dance preparing for Uganda’s national music and dance competition.
At National Geographic Nix Fine met her future husband, who graduated from Connecticut College in 1996. Sean Fine had the filmmaking gene, passed down from his parents, acclaimed documentary filmmakers Paul and Holly Fine.
Sean and Andrea Nix Fine founded Fine Films in 2003, working as co-directors. In 2005 they were contacted by Susan MacLaury and Albie Hecht (former head of Spike TV, the cable network), a husband-and-wife team who founded Shine Global, a foundation dedicated to producing films that combat the abuse and exploitation of children.
Hecht knew the Fines through True Dads, a television special Sean Fine directed. MacLaury and Hecht had traveled to Uganda and Kenya with friends who run a relief organization there. By pure happenstance, the couple learned of the music competition in Uganda. “The truth was that every child in the war zone had a story to tell,” MacLaury said. “This [competition] gave us a vehicle.”
“[As a filmmaker], my favorite thing is that, in a way, you go to school the rest of your life.”
Andrea Nix Fine ’91
They asked whether Fine Films wanted to do the film. The answer was yes—but then the Fines looked into the situation in northern Uganda more closely. They learned that just traveling to the area was very dangerous. They considered their young son and made a decision. “Having two parents [in northern Uganda] with a child at home is just not responsible,” Nix Fine said. “So, for the first time, we decided to split up.” | <urn:uuid:3fe54116-bb6f-47ef-bb01-cef6a3db9d9d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.colby.edu/colby.mag/issues/44/article/764/page/3/a-fine-line/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975501 | 367 | 1.695313 | 2 |
The Harmony Club was originally built in 1909 and was operated as a social club by the Jewish community of Selma, Alabama. It is situated on a high bank that overlooks the Alabama River. The project was then headed by B.J. Schuster, a prominent merchant and later the President of the Harmony Men’s Club. The 20,000 square foot layout of the Harmony Club was given use according to the floor; the first floor operated as two retail spaces, the second floor was a restaurant up front and a Men’s Lounge in the back. The Men’s Lounge was off limits to the public back then; it had a pool table, poker games, slot machines, cigar chomping and of course the wives were never allowed, nonetheless “ladies” were occasionally allowed. The third floor operated as a ballroom that over the decades experienced many dances and parties. The club functioned for several years non-stop till in the late 1930’s it turned into the Elks Club, where it eventually disbanded in the 1960’s and the building boarded up.
For nearly forty years the building sat quiescent till one day David Hurlbut bought it in 1999.
David Hurlbut who works as an industrial designer and an architectural consultant It took him nearly two years to make Harmony Club a “remotely habitable by most people’s standards”. So far, ten years down the road he spent nearly $150,000 and has taken great care to preserve the architectural details.
all photos © Robert Rausch of GAS Design Center. | <urn:uuid:14681bfc-78ae-40b6-9070-f1a0effbbb43> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.gessato.com/2011/01/13/abandoned-mens-club-becomes-home/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97526 | 330 | 2.03125 | 2 |
Add an extra zero to the ranks of the millionaires club.
The number of people around the world with at least $1 million in assets passed 10 million for the first time last year, according to a new report. And their bank accounts are growing even faster.
The combined wealth of the globe’s millionaires grew to nearly $41 trillion last year, an increase of 9 percent from a year before, Merrill Lynch & Co. and consulting firm Capgemini Group said Tuesday.
That means their average wealth was more than $4 million, the highest it’s ever been. Home values were not included in asset totals.
“The growth of their wealth is outpacing the growth of their population, and that’s a trend that’s going to continue in coming years,” said Ileana Van Der Linde, a principal with Capgemini.
The ranks of the wealthy are growing fastest in the developing economies of India, China and Brazil. The number of millionaires in India grew by about 23 percent.
The United States still reigns supreme when it comes to fat wallets, though: One in every three millionaires in the world lives in America. Combined, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America account for just one in 10.
All told, there were about 600,000 more millionaires in the world in 2007 than in 2006, for a total of about 10.1 million. That’s a 6 percent increase from the previous year.
Ten million may seem like a big number for such an elite club, but it still represents less than one-fifth of 1 percent of the world’s 6.7 billion people.
The rarefied group of the superrich — those with at least $30 million in assets — got richer, too. There were 103,000 of them around the world last year, 9 percent more than the year before, and their wealth grew by nearly 15 percent.
The 600,000 new millionaires was unsurprising to Brian Bethune, an economist with Global Insight, who said inflation and the expansion of the world economy accounts for the growth.
Besides, $1 million isn’t what it used to be. One million dollars in 1996, the first year the report was issued, would have been worth about $1.3 million last year, Van Der Linde said.
Steady growth powered economies worldwide in the first half of 2007, but more mature markets were hammered in the second half by the U.S. housing and credit crises. Emerging economies were largely unaffected, the report found.
The downturn started catching up with emerging economies in the beginning of 2008, Van Der Linde said.
Already, the report found, the millionaires club wasn’t expanding as fast as before. From 2005 to 2006, the group swelled by more than 8 percent. The club has grown every year since the report was started.
Because of the economic slowdown, the wealthy tended to shift their money to safer investments such as bonds and money-market savings accounts, and away from less stable investments such as real estate, the report found.
Cash deposits and fixed-income securities accounted for 44 percent of the assets of the world’s millionaires, up from 35 percent in 2006.
The wealth of the world’s richest is projected to reach almost $60 trillion by 2012, the report said. | <urn:uuid:4dc5f895-de0e-4ca2-be63-46413eb717fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lasentinel.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7674:world-now-has-10-million-millionaires-report-says&catid=42&Itemid=133 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957945 | 694 | 2 | 2 |
I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, I flew through it, which I didn’t really expect with a book about colonial Virginia and slavery. It’s a fast-moving story even though it spans years.
But I have to say, something about the writing fizzled for me by the end. The first half of the book is really character-rich. Light on action, but heavy on relationships and personal growth. Then the main character becomes an adult, and I felt much of that was lost.
The story centers around Lavinia, a seven-year-old girl who comes to a Virginia plantation as an indentured servant in the 1790s. Lavinia is an Irish immigrant whose parents died during the ship voyage. When the ship docks in Virginia, her older brother is sold to another family, and Lavinia comes home with the Captain.
In many ways, Lavinia is fortunate. She works hard as a servant but is never mistreated. She’s adopted by the family of slaves that work in the Big House and the Kitchen House — Mama Mae, Papa George, Belle, Dory, Ben, and twins Beattie and Fanny, who are Lavinia’s age. Lavinia grows up as a servant but is fairly ignorant of the differences between the races. Her slave “family” loves her and cares for her.
At the same time, the lives of the slaves are complicated by the Captain’s frequent absences, his wife Martha’s dependency on laudanum, and the violent and racist overseer Rankin. The slaves understand what Lavinia does not — that they cannot depend on the Captain or Martha for humane treatment. They can be beaten, raped, sold, or tortured at any time. The Captain and Martha may be on the humane side as far as slave-owners go, but in a conflict between the slaves and a white person, the white person will win. This makes the slaves’ relationships both precarious and precious — children die often and slaves can be sold or kept apart at the will of their owners. Mama teaches her children to ingratiate themselves with the Captain and his wife just to survive and stay together.
The story is told primarily from Lavinia’s perspective, but Grissom tells some of the story from Belle’s view. Belle is an attractive young slave who works in the Kitchen House and is sort of a mother to Lavinia. Belle illustrates the vulnerability and powerlessness of the life of a female slave. Belle loves Ben, one of the slaves, but can’t be with him. She’s actually the daughter of the captain, and he won’t stand for her being with anyone else. As a slave she is subject to rape, unwanted pregnancy, and has no say in her own relationships. In fact, Ben is likely to be killed just for being near her. The slaves live at the edge of violence and death all the time.
The use of two narrators is important because Lavinia is kept in the dark about a lot of things. Being white in a black family only makes her feel alone and separate — she has no friends who are white, and doesn’t like to be treated differently from her black family. You understand that she’s being naive when she wishes to be black, but her wish is understandable. As a reader you know that as she grows, her life will be further wrenched from the family she loves, and you feel for her.
Grissom does a great job creating relationships among the family members, getting into the heads of her two narrators. I think her dialogue was a strong point, especially the dialect used by the slaves. Dialect is always a clear indicator of status and education. I liked Grissom’s emphasis on names to differentiates character’s roles and how they are seen by others. For example, Lavinia is ‘Abinia to the slave adults, and “Binny” to some of the children. She calls Mae “Mama” and George “Papa” but when she returns to the plantation as an adult she’s forbidden to call them that.
Grissom also takes care in describing the home life of the slaves and white family on the plantation. The lives of the slaves center around their roles in the kitchen house and the “big house”. There is little political detail, but she explains that the plantation is in Southern Virginia, far from any cities. I do wish there was more historical detail throughout the book, but that’s just my preference with a historical novel. For example, I would have liked to know more about perceptions about Irish immigrants at this time, or what it meant in society for someone to be an indentured servant. Lavinia’s ability to mingle with the upper classes seemed a little suspect to be me, but I don’t know.
As a girl Lavinia is kind, loving, and sensitive, but as an adult she is a disappointment. I can’t decide if this is intentional on the part of the author, or if I just feel disappointed in the writing. Lavinia as a young adult receives education, status, and love, just because she’s white. But instead of doing something with her privileges she becomes self-centered and weak. As an adult she should understand the world around her much better than she does. I understand that the slaves try to hide from her the most horrible aspects of their lives, but still, she lives with them and should at least question things more. Instead she makes foolish assumptions and bad decisions. She sees everything in terms of herself and her needs, even when her former family needs her the most. In fact they end up protecting and sheltering her at the risk of their own lives. I understand that as a woman she’s mostly powerless, but at some point she loses my sympathy.
I also felt that the scenes toward the end of the book felt a little forced, like the writer needed a bunch of action and a plot device to tie things together.
For a first novel, this one has some faults but it was also a really interesting read with vivid characters and one that really drew me into the lives of the characters. As a Virginia resident and a frequent visitor to Williamsburg, I enjoyed reading about my state and this time in its history. The book is at times troubling and violent, but all with a purpose. I just think the last third could have been stronger, and I wish that Lavinia as a character had been stronger. | <urn:uuid:8c08ea5a-abde-4835-be3d-56727577aa67> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thebookstop.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/review-the-kitchen-house-by-kathleen-grissom/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979774 | 1,387 | 2.40625 | 2 |
The RHESSI (Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager) satellite focuses on the highest energy x-rays and gamma-rays produced by the sun, helping to observe solar flares of all shapes and sizes. The satellite is pointed toward the sun, and constantly in rotation, which provides a serendipitous bit of side research: by monitoring the limb of the sun on its four second rotation cycle, RHESSI's Solar Aspect System (SAS) has produced ten years worth of precise measurements of the sun's diameter. This has already provided scientists with one of the most accurate measurements of what's called the oblateness of the sun, which is the difference between the diameter from pole to pole and the equatorial diameter. With the new data obtained during the Venus Transit on June 5-6, 2012, the RHESSI team hopes to improve the knowledge of the exact shape of the sun and provide a more accurate measure of the diameter than has previously been obtained.
For one thing, the sharpness of the Venus disk as it crosses the sun will help determine the detailed optical properties of the telescope and calibrate the instrument's so-called plate scale, the exact angular size of each pixel. With this improvement in hand, RHESSI can re-calibrate its already highly accurate observations of the sun's horizon. To further this aim, the science team has set the instrument to look at 64 pixels across the sun's limb, rather than its customary four.
The RHESSI team has hopes that they may be able to provide an unprecedentedly accurate measurement of the sun's size.
With ten years of solar diameter measurements as well as observations of the Venus Transit in 2004 – a time when the sun's activity was decreasing toward solar minimum, as opposed to now when the solar activity is increasing as it moves toward solar maximum predicted for 2013 – the
NASA's VENUS TRANSIT PAGE: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/multimedia/venus-transit-2012.html
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system. | <urn:uuid:0376947c-6697-43a7-b94a-c33a823da4a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-06/nsfc-rwu060412.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942404 | 464 | 3.8125 | 4 |
Instructor: Pippin Barr, award-winning independent game-maker & TAG-DCART’s inaugural Visiting Game Designer.
Summer I Mondays & Wednesdays 1:30PM – 5:30 PM (1 May– 17 June, 2013)
This new course offered during the upcoming Summer 1 semester is open to students from any and all departments, and to both graduate and undergraduate students. Given Pippin's background, this will be a great site for interdisciplinary collaboration around innovated game design, gameplay and game techniques.
Video games are most exciting expressive medium of our time and yet the trend today is toward conventional structures and aesthetics of interaction. To push against these self-defined boundaries, we must not only talk about what video games are and can be, but must actively work to create games that move the conversation forward.
In this class we discuss the notion of “curious games” as an approach to creating a different kind of video game. Here, “curious” means inquisitive activity in opposition to a static aesthetic perspective or conventional interactions. A curious game may leverage conventions in some way, but is not obliged to adhere to them. A curious game may involve a kind of prying or meddling to the point of provocation. A curious game is for curious designers, but also for curious players. The focus of the class is thus on making these curious games, along with discussion and critique of our own and others’ work.
Open to Graduate students and Undergraduates.
Open to students from departments university-wide.
Contact Kathy McAleese in EV6.761 or at email@example.com.
August 9 - 23, 2013
Centre de recherches mathématiques
Université de Montréal
2920 Chemin de la tour, 5th floor
Montréal (Québec) H3T 1J4
The goal of the workshop is to gather industry representatives, academic researchers, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to work on concrete problems proposed by the industry. The workshop is organized by the Centre de recherches mathématiques, along with GERAD, the CIRRELT (Interuniversity Research Centre on Enterprise Networks, Logistics and Transportation), and ncm2, and is sponsored by the Mprime network of centres of excellence. The participants will work in teams, and each team will analyze a problem supplied by a company or a public sector institution. The workshop will provide companies and institutions with mathematical tools for solving problems, and will enable academic researchers and students in applied mathematics to work on real-world problems.
For industrial partners
If you wish to participate, please write the statement of a problem that can be formulated mathematically. Many problems can be so formulated, especially in the fields of management, production planning, or process optimization. Don't hesitate to contact the organizers in order to discuss your problem. If your project is selected, you will have to write a more detailed description and present it at the beginning of the workshop. The workshop organizers suggest that the company representative be present during the whole week. They also expect the companies to help defray some of the costs of the workshop.
For professors, students and industry representatives
Please note that if you are a student, you must fill the application form before registering. Registration fees will help defray the cost of breakfasts and lunches.
Please contact Odile Marcotte at firstname.lastname@example.org for further details or to participate.
Montreal Problem Solving Workshop website
Four Concordia computer science professors, one visiting professor from Ecole Polytechnique, one post-doctoral fellow Mehdi Haji, and one doctoral student Muna Khayyat from Dr. Suen's research group CENPARMI (Centre for Pattern Recognition and Machine Intelligence) attended the 13th International Conference on Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition (ICFHR), in Bari, Italy, Sept. 18-20, 2012. This conference received 150 participants from 35 countries.
Concordians played important roles at this conference, including Honorary Chair, Session Chairs, Authors, Panelists, Program Committee members, and Reviewers (see below for complete description). During the Opening Ceremony, Dr. Ching Y. Suen was presented with a Gold Medal by Professor Corrado Petrocelli, Chancellor of the University of Bari, with 60 thousand students, honoring Dr. Suen as the Founder of this conference who has played the most influential role in cultivating and advancing the field of handwriting recognition by computers. The procedure of nominating Dr. Suen through the department, Faculty, and the University Councils took one year to accomplish.
ICFHR was founded by Dr. Ching Y. Suen of Concordia University in 1990 to fill the need of a forum for researchers in the areas of on-line and off-line handwriting recognition. Dr. Suen started the first IWFRH (W stands for Workshop) at Concordia University in April 1990, which was attended by about 50 people from 15 countries. IWFHR went through the world 10 times before coming back to Concordia again in 2008 and became the first ICFHR, and subsequently called the 11th ICFHR. ICFHR in Italy is the 13th international conference held in Bari, Italy, attended by 150 participants from 35 countries.
Roles of Cenparmians at ICFHR, Bari, Sept. 18-20, 2012:
Ching Suen: Honorary chair, session chair, recipient of the Gold Medal, panelist and co-author of 3 papers with students and colleagues Tony Kasvand: Session chair, and honored as pioneer of pattern recognition
Louisa Lam: Session chair, panelist, judge for best papers, program committee member, reviewer, and co-author of 1 paper with student
Tien Bui: Session chair, Program Committee member, reviewer, co-author of 1 paper with student
Robert S: Program Committee member, reviewer, co-author of 1 paper with student
Rejean P: Session chair, Program Committee member, panelist, reviewer, and Invited Speaker of conference
Mehdi Haji: Post-doctoral fellow of Drs. Bui and Suen, presented oral paper
Muna Khayyat: Doctoral student of Drs. Lam and Suen, presented oral paper
Jun Tan: Doctoral student of Sun Yat-sen Univ, China, in collaboration with Dr. Suen, presented a poster paper
High on the northwest wall, ground floor of Concordia’s Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Integrated Complex (EV Building) hangs a new art installation alongside a literal fragment from the past. The latter — two severed stone lintels from the former D’Arcy McGee house — depicts a row of shamrocks, perhaps reflecting the Irish roots of the assassinated father of Confederation. The former — a pair of beautifully patterned textiles — constitutes The Generative Design Project, a collaboration of members of the university’s Faculties of Fine Arts and Engineering and Computer Science.
The long, colourful textiles, called jacquards after the inventor of the Jacquard loom, feature contemporary designs of geometric motifs found in African Kuba textiles and 16th century Islamic Zillij mosaics. Completed in November 2011, after nine years of research, development and production, the project brings together the work of scientists and artists alike. Spearheaded by Principal Investigator Cheryl Kolak Dudek (Studio Arts) along with Sudhir Mudur (Computer Science), Lydia Sharman (Design), Fred Szabo (Mathematics) and Thomas Fevens (Computer Science), significant contributions were also made by students Eric Hortop (Communication Studies/Mathematics, 2003-07) and Sushil Bhakar (Computer Science, 2004-06), among many others.
Full story here
The Generative Design Project now on disply in the EV building
This seminar series in university teaching will prepare graduate students for an academic teaching career. The estimated time commitment is 32 hours in-class with approximately 10 hours for preparation of readings and assignments. Participants receive a certificate on successful completion of all of the requirements. There will be a modest charge for materials. Participation is limited to 25 students per section per semester.
Further details here
The department of Computer Science & Software Engineering invites all ENCS employees to help make this a memorable holiday for hundreds of disadvantaged families in Montreal. Kindly drop off any non perishable food items at the reception area of EV 3.139, anytime between 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. between November 28th and December 16th.
Each year, hundreds of families benefit from food baskets distributed during the holidays by community organizations such as Sun Youth. The organization gives out food hampers to approximately 18,000 people throughout the year, and with each passing year, the need for food assistance continues to grow. The mission of Sun Youth is to provide a highly personalized service and programs to improve the current situation of its clientele through education, awareness and material assistance. Sun Youth is committed to the entire community, without discrimination by a dedicated commitment and an acute awareness of the continuing challenges.
The CSE department thanks you in advance for any and all contributions.
Khoa Luu, doctoral student in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, currently carrying out his research at Carnegie Mellon University, has achieved outstanding recognition for his work at the recent International Joint Conference on Biometrics (IJCB 2011) in Washington DC, Oct. 10-13.
The event is one of the world's most selective conferences on the evolving subject of biometrics, with only 10% of papers and 23% of posters submitted being accepted. Luu not only had two submissions accepted to the conference papers, his oral paper was nominated for the competition's Best Paper Award, and his poster entitled "Investigating Age Invariant Face Recognition Based on Periocular Biometrics" (pictured below), won the Best Poster Award for this category.
Full story here
On October 3rd and 4th, CSE Professor Brigitte Jaumard co-organized a colloquiem entitled "Information and Communication Technologies: Are They Green?" held at Concordia University. This colloquiem was part of the 24th edition of the Entretiens Jacques Cartier symposium held from September 29 to October 7 in Montreal, Quebec City and Ottawa, bringing together researchers and industry leaders preoccupied with contemporary issues under the broad themes of economic, socio-political, scientific and cultural challenges.
Montreal's Le Devoir newspaper covered the event here.
Two of Computer Science & Software Engineering Professor, Brigitte Jaumard's, papers were recently nominated for the best paper award at the 3rd International Workshop on Reliable Networks Design & Modelind (RNDM) held in Budapest. Jaumard's paper titled "A New Flow Formulation for FIPP p-cycle Protection subject to Multiple Link Failures," co-authored by PhD candidate Hai Anh Hoang, won the award. Another of Jaumard's papers titled "Maximizing Access to IT Services on Resilient Optical Grids," co-authored by PhD candidate Ali Shaikh, was nominated.
RNDM 2011 was the third meeting in the series of RNDM workshops. Following the success of the first two events that took place in St. Petersburg (2009) and Moscow (2010), accordingly, RNDM 2011 is aimed at attracting world-class participants from both academia and industry working in the area of reliable networks design and modeling.
Further details here
Hai Anh Hoang (right) accepting best paper award at RNDM 2011
On September 23, 2011, first-year Computer Science & Software Engineering undergraduate students crowded together in the EV atrium to build mascots out of discarded computer parts generously donated by AITS. Many students, faculty members, and curious onlookers dropped by throughout the morning to cheer them on.
A group of distinguished judges assembled in the afternoon to select a winner. However, due to tough competition, a tie was announced. The members of the two winning teams were each awarded $200 gift certificates to the Concordia bookstore for their mascots, who were named "Duck Tape" and "Angry Bird." Runners up received $50 gift certificates.
Distinguished judges assemble to evaluate the students' mascots
The event, supported by the Office of the Vice Provost of Teaching and learning, was organized by Nancy Acemian, Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science & Software Engineering as well as the Faculty's new First Year Director. She hopes that this year's Mascot Challenge will be the first of many.
See a photo slideshow of the competition.
A collection of articles entitled "Combinatorial Optimization: Methods and Applications" edited by
Vaek Chvátal was published as Volume 31 of the NATO Science for Peace and Security Series - D: Information and Communication Security.
This book is a collection of six articles arising from the meeting of the NATO Advanced Study Institute (ASI) “Combinatorial Optimization: Methods and Applications”, which was held at the University of Montreal in June 2006. This ASI consisted of seven series of five one-hour lectures and one series of four one-hour lectures. It was attended by some sixty students of graduate or postdoctoral level from fifteen countries worldwide. Topics include: integer and mixed integer programming, facility location, branching on split disjunctions, convexity in combinatorial optimization, and VLSI design.
Eusebius Doedel received an honourary award in recognition of his significant contributions to the computational dynamics area from a subdivision of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), a society founded in 1880 with the goal of promoting the art, science and practice of mechanical and multidisciplinary engineering and allied sciences to the diverse communities throughout the world.
The award was officially presented at the Eight ASME International Conference on Multi-Body Systems, Nonlinear Dynamics, and Control, held in Washington DC August 28-31 2011 and attended by leading researchers in the field. Contratulations, Professor Doedel!
The Senate's Research Committee met on April 20, 2011 and unanimously agreed to recommend to Senate that the Centre for Pattern Recognition and Machine Intelligence (CENPARMI) be granted University-recognized status. Committee members were especially impressed with the amount of external funding that CENPARMI has been able to secure over the years, the high level of research productivity and training of graduate students, the impressive publication record and the strong industrial partnership collaborations. As a result, CENPARMI has officially been granted University-recognized status as per the Policy on Research Units (VPRGS-8). This policy is adminstered on behalf of Senate by the Office of the Vice-President, Research and Graduate Studies (OVPRGS).
For further information about CENPARMI, please visit their website. | <urn:uuid:4f75645b-1d5b-4fc9-8718-3c764b926743> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cse.concordia.ca/newsandevents/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940885 | 3,130 | 1.882813 | 2 |
There is of course no better source of climate science blogging than Real Climate. Their posts are seldom rarely read and forget or anything less than very meaty and informative. Thankfully for people who get behind (cough) they do not post every day or even every week. Nevertheless, I have accumulated 9 unread RC posts…
So reviewing from latest to oldest we have an article on the Younger Dryas, a climatic episode aroung 8K years ago during which time temperatures in and around Greenland dropped dramatically for some 1000+ years. It is an ongoing controversy as to what caused it and exactly how extensive it was (regional, entire northern hemisphere, global?). The article discusses a couple of new papers supporting the emergine front-running hypothesis that it was not global and gives some informative background. Next, we have an article about droughts and heat waves around the Mediterranean Sea, apparently Istanbul is brown and parched rather than its usual lush an dgreen. The Wall Street Journal is taken to task again, hopefully now that Rupert Murdoch owns it things will improve…(HA!).
In this piece, the RC scientists address the 9 “‘errors’” a UK court recently addressed in a ruling about An Inconvenient Truth. Here is a quick look at a new “survey” of climate scientist opinions from Steve Milloy, wording is everything as any good PR person knows. Next they provide some important definitions of the commonly misused vocabulary of CO2 equivalency, worth getting well versed in. OISM is up to its usual tricks.
And lastly we have an article about a sustainability conference held by 15 Nobel Laureates (in Fox Newspeak that would read “liberal elitists”) and one about the European Meteorological Society’s recent annual conference.
Which brings us up to date with Real Climate. Sadly (for me) with the hundreds of comments per thread I rarely even look through them. I say sadly becuase there are some real quality comments in there, and some interesting and heated discussions, but who has time to read, let alone participate, in every lively blog that is out there! | <urn:uuid:253b5a85-8ae6-4a9e-af09-ebbdd4ef6390> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2007/10/catching-up-with-real-climate/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959157 | 445 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Are You an Overconfident IT Manager? - Web Security
Imagine you are looking for a new home and after a considerable amount of research and time you find the perfect place for your budget. As you settle in and begin to meet with your new neighbors you discover an alarming trend. Within the past 6 months about one in eight of the homes in the neighborhood experienced a major security issue such as armed break ins, cat burglars snatching information, or someone redirecting their mail to a foreign address. You wonder if these people are unlucky or have you moved into a bad neighborhood. When you share your findings with a friend they respond with "I'm sure you're fine! Just check the locks on the doors every 6 months."
You may find this illustration laughable but it reflects how some IT managers respond to their web security.
Recently IDG Connect, the world’s largest technology media company, produced a report on corporate web security and found some interesting findings. The study revealed that IT managers often operate with a baseless sense of optimism within a landscape dotted with threats. When asked about how they feel about their web security they responded: 0% not secure, 15% reasonably secure, 55% very secure, 19% totally secure, & 11% were not sure.
When comparing large companies against their mid-sized counterparts the study found that they tested for vulnerabilities on a monthly basis 53% of the time vs. 13%. Interestingly the study also found that rate of not testing at all was highly discouraging with the size of the business having little bearing on rate (Large 30% vs. Medium 34%).
IT Managers Speak Out
Of the IT Managers interviewed 13% stated they experienced a breach within the last 6 months. These threats include everything ranging from brute force attacks (59%) to content spoofing (18%). Despite the optimism of the 89% that their websites were reasonably to totally secure these security issues persist. Would they not try to better protect their home if 13% of the homes in their neighborhood had their locks picked every 6 months? Would they continue to eat at a local restaurant if 13% of the regular guests came down with food poisoning twice a year?
IDG provided a simple list of measures taken by IT Managers to improve their security. We will go into the specifics in the next installment. Here are the four main ways they improved their security in order of frequency:
- Improved SSL protection for all layers of their network.
- Improved security software to conduct automated scans for malware and accurately spot higher level threats.
- Improved firewalls to prevent breakins.
- Outsourcing web hosting to a secure provider.
If you want your confidence in your web security to be well founded then I recommend testing your website for vulnerabilities once a month at a minimum as well as ensure your security software is up to date and operates with minimal system interference. Symantec provides the most reliable and widest range of solutions to protect your network. The best network offense is a proactive defense.
For more information I recommend downloading the report: | <urn:uuid:a802a9fd-52d5-4e89-84c1-e47a24c9a1e7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/are-you-overconfident-it-manager-web-security | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961547 | 619 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Automation in air traffic control may increase efficiency, but it also raises questions about adequate human control over automated systems. Following on the panel's first volume on air traffic control automation, Flight to the Future (NRC, 1997), this book focuses on the interaction of pilots and air traffic controllers, with a growing network of automated functions in the airspace system.
The panel offers recommendations for development of human-centered automation, addressing key areas such as providing levels of automation that are appropriate to levels of risk, examining procedures for recovery from emergencies, free flight versus ground-based authority, and more.
The book explores ways in which technology can build on human strengths and compensate for human vulnerabilities, minimizing both mistrust of automation and complacency about its abilities. The panel presents an overview of emerging technologies and trends toward automation within the national airspace system--in areas such as global positioning and other aspects of surveillance, flight information provided to pilots an controllers, collision avoidance, strategic long-term planning, and systems for training and maintenance.
The book examines how to achieve better integration of research and development, including the importance of user involvement in air traffic control. It also discusses how to harmonize the wide range of functions in the national airspace system, with a detailed review of the free flight initiative. | <urn:uuid:90958fa4-ac90-4fff-bc77-af4207491113> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=6018 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909308 | 258 | 2.46875 | 2 |
by Emil Danielyan
Reprinted from RFE/RL
The Armenian government is planning to make fresh and potentially far-reaching changes in its rules and procedures for international adoptions of children from Armenia following an RFE/RL report suggesting that they may still be riddled with corruption.
Relevant proposals drawn up by Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian’s office aim to increase the transparency of the process and reduce the role of obscure local middlemen working for Western adoption agencies. They are also meant to make it easier for Armenian families to adopt or bring up orphans.
An April 2011 report by RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) said that U.S. adoption agencies seem to continue to make thousands of dollars in informal payments to Armenian officials dealing with foreign adoptions. In particular, it cited a sample contract signed by one such agency, Hopscotch Adoptions, with Americans wishing to adopt Armenian and Georgian children.
The contract, offered to a potential client in the United States in 2007, explained that almost $5,000 of more than $30,000 charged by Hopscotch for every adoption would be spent on “gifts to foreign service providers and government functionaries performing ministerial tasks as an offer of thanks for prompt service.” It claimed that such gifts are “customary” in Armenia and Georgia and do not violate U.S. law.
“Gifts and gratuities” were also a separate spending category in a sample agreement that was offered by another U.S. agency, Adopt Abroad, at least until last April.
Officials at the Armenian Ministry of Justice as well as anti-corruption campaigners in Yerevan agreed at the time that such payments amount to bribes and are therefore illegal in Armenia.
Government sources say Prime Minister Sarkisian took the report very seriously, instructing his senior staff to initiate a major revision of existing adoption rules. They were quick to come up with relevant proposals. Those were submitted in June, along with copies of the Hopscotch contract obtained by RFE/RL, to an inter-agency government commission on adoptions headed by Justice Minister Hrayr Tovmasian. | <urn:uuid:d00f230e-4551-46ba-b89a-7155eb3e8bd1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thetruthmustbetold.com/category/armenia/trafficking/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970958 | 460 | 1.773438 | 2 |
SinkPAD Corporation Will Introduce Their New Cool Down Aluminum PCB Applications at the LEDshow in Las Vegas
Commenting on the LED show Mr. Bhayani said, “This is our first show since developing our new SinkPAD* thermal-management Printed Circuit Board technology and we chose it for a reason. We felt that this was the very best venue for us to introduce this new and important technology. We want to show those LED companies at the show that we have the right solution to solve their high-power, high-bright LED challenges. We are very excited about being at the LED show in Las Vegas; we feel that it provides us with the opportunity to be in the right place at the right time.”
SinkPAD corporation’s new thermal technology printed circuit boards are a complete and effective solution to the challenges faced by the solid state lighting industry, specifically those with aluminum LED PCB applications.
Available now, the new SinkPADTM technology significantly improves LED thermal management in all LED systems. It is most effective in high-power high-bright surface mount LED systems; those systems that cannot efficiently dissipate heat thus making them unviable for commercial systems.
SinkPADTM conducts heat out of the LED system (LED cooling) by enabling a direct thermal path between the LED and surrounding atmosphere, which eliminates thermal resistance introduced by the dielectric material in a traditional IMS PCB or MCPCB. The SinkPADTM design completely removes the substance with the lowest thermal conductivity/highest thermal resistance from the structure. SinkPADTM still uses a dielectric, but this dielectric isolates the metal base electrically and leaves it thermally connected. The thermal path should be electrically neutral within the LED package, i.e. Cree XLamp, Luxeon Rebel from Philips Lumiled, PhlatLight from Luminus, in order to solder the LED directly to the SinkPADTM. To find out how SinkPAD’s technology can remove the heat in your LED application, contact SinkPADTM Corporation or visit the SinkPAD website, www.sinkpad.com.
SinkPAD Corporation is an innovative thermal management company addressing the thermal challenges facing the electronics industry. The company’s patent pending PCB technology makes it possible to conduct heat out of the LED system and into the atmosphere quickly and cost effectively while providing their customers with a first-to-market competitive advantage. | <urn:uuid:6626ba4b-a5ad-4476-a11d-48f25a13d954> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.led-professional.com/products/led-thermal-management/sinkpad-corporation-will-introduce-their-new-cool-down-aluminum-pcb-applications-at-the-ledshow-in-las-vegas | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913378 | 514 | 1.609375 | 2 |
A good kind of gas-guzzling
Military technology: New kinds of paint for military vehicles can detect, absorb and neutralise gases in a chemical-weapon attack
ALTHOUGH there has been no large-scale use of chemical weapons since the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, soldiers need to be prepared for the threat. Part of that preparation means being able to decontaminate people and equipment that have been subject to attack.
The suits and masks worn by soldiers can, if necessary, be thrown away once used, but heavier and more expensive equipment, such as vehicles, cannot be treated in such a cavalier fashion. Instead, it needs to be cleaned. At the moment, that is usually done by sloshing it with a solution of hydrogen peroxide. This works, but lugging the stuff around is a nuisance—and so is disposing of it once it has been used. Britain’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, working in collaboration with AkzoNobel, a maker of paint and specialty chemicals, proposes doing the job with a fancy sort of paint.
As is often the case with paint jobs, the new anti-chemical-weapon paint needs an undercoat and a top coat. The top coat contains silica gel, an absorbent material that can suck up nerve gas and stop it getting inside a vehicle. This upper layer is available in standard camouflage colours, such as yellow (for deserts) and green (for jungles). The undercoat is made of a polymer that acts like the glue on a Post-it note. It is, in other words, sticky enough to hold the top coat in place, but can be easily peeled away. If a vehicle gets contaminated its paint can be quickly scraped off and a new top coat applied in its place.
The next stage, currently still in the laboratory, is to develop coatings that change colour when they absorb toxic chemicals, thus alerting soldiers that they are under chemical attack. The details are secret, but a system which responds to mustard gas has been devised, and others are under development. After that, the plan is to produce a coating that not only absorbs noxious chemicals, but neutralises them. A group of researchers at the University of Vermont, led by Christopher Landry, have already managed to combine silica gel with a vanadium catalyst to create a mixture that oxidises mustard gas, rendering it harmless.
In the future, then, military paint will not only hide vehicles from prying eyes—it will also help protect soldiers from one of the most feared forms of attack. What Wilfred Owen called the “ecstasy of fumbling” that follows the cry of “Gas!” may become a little less panic-stricken.
From the print edition: Technology Quarterly | <urn:uuid:d597b61f-e43b-4787-8588-d7ed50bd5966> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.economist.com/node/21560982/print | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952472 | 571 | 2.75 | 3 |
a few of you have e-mailed me recently asking how i create backgrounds for my journal pages, so today i decided to do a quick lesson. the technique is simple: just smear inkpads on paper, and BANG! instant color. this was a happy accident that happened one day when i was playing around with collage, saw a few lonely inkpads, and wondered, "hmmm.... what if..."
and WOW. i was hooked, for lots of reasons: it is a perfect way to get vivid color on thin journal pages that would buckle or tear under the weight of paint. it is instant gratification for impatient people like me. it doesn't cost much - all you need is paper and an inkpad or two. and best of all, it erases blank page fear. the random patterns and shapes from the inking often spark new ideas themselves.
so, to get started, pick your journal or paper, then your inks. you can use pre-inked pads:
or ink your own. my favorites are these stinky and 'highly flammable' letraset inks. just the thing to have in a household with children. i also like the winsor & newton inks but i think that's just because they look like little shining jewels in the glass pyramid bottles.
nearly dry inkpads are the best for creating even color and cloudy effects. to protect your work surface, put another sheet of paper under your page, or even better, use a sheet of vintage something instead of a blank page. the color overflow will build up in really cool layers on the sheet and then you can use it for collage material. another happy accident i discovered while inking pages.
wetter inkpads add texture, patterns, and shapes. try rubbing an inkpad in circles, pulling it from top to bottom like a comb, dabbing it like a sponge, drawing lines with the edges, and rolling it from side to side to get funky effects.
to avoid overkill with the color, press lightly with the wet inkpads and use sparingly until you know how intense the color will be. you can always add another layer. every inkpad behaves differently; you'll figure out the cool quirks of each one along the way. all part of the fun.
try different combinations of color, shading, and blending. green/yellow go well together, as do yellow/orange and red/pink.
masking fluid creates interesting effects, too - i experimented with it last week. at first i wanted to do lettering with it, but found that masking fluid dries and gums up quickly. so precise lettering was out, but it worked great for adding more depth and variety to the background. give it a try. slap on some masking fluid in random patterns. (be sure to wash your brush immediately, or use yucky old brushes that you don't mind throwing away.) when it is completely dry, which doesn't take long, ink the page and then remove the masking fluid. you can either leave the space white or fill it in with another ink color.
keep goofing around with the inks and before you know it you will have a bunch of pages to use for doodling, lettering, collage, writing, and so on.
a few more tips:
*if archival quality is important to you, stay away from the dye inks. while they are the easiest to work with (they dry quickly and are great for color layering), after a while they fade in direct sunlight. pigment inks take longer to dry but they last longer. if you keep your pages in a closed book, though, the dye pads should work fine for you.
*if you are meticulous about keeping your inkpads clean for stamping, you may want to purchase a separate set just for this purpose, because the colors will indeed mix and taint the surface of the other inkpads.
*inky fingers are a guarantee, so if you want to protect your manicure, gloves are a good idea. i always forget this part so my hands are colorful nightmares.
*check out ricë's video with the inkpad in action. she shows you how to do this in bound journals, and how to wedge color in the inside binding area. and she makes funny commentary through the whole thing, as she always does.
if you play around with the ink technique and are willing to share photos of your experiments, let me know and i'll link back to them in a future post. happy inking! :) | <urn:uuid:206d35c5-3aa0-4f6c-b660-d28698958e7d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://artsyville.blogspot.com/2009/01/creating-colorful-journal-pages.html?showComment=1231795200000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948497 | 949 | 2.03125 | 2 |
This week’s parashah is the first that deals with the construction of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle that accompanied the Israelites in the wilderness and served as their portable Temple. While the entire structure is described in the parashah, there is special focus on the Ark and the curtains that hang around it. The ark, therefore, will serve as the basis for our Shabbat dinner. To begin with, the golden Ark and the parochet (curtain) are decorated by figures of what in English we call cherubs. In Hebrew, those figures are called cruvim, winged angels that flank the ark. Interestingly (although not etymologically connected as per http://www.balashon.com/2007/07/kruv.html ) cruv means cabbage in modern Hebrew and cruvit means cauliflower. The similarity of the Hebrew for cherub and cabbage makes it too difficult for me to ignore stuffed cabbage and popcorn cauliflower for Shabbat dinner. While not a visual tie in, these dishes will permit us to talk about what these figures looked like and why we think they adorned the Ark. For dessert we will build Arks out of chocolate bars and fill them with mousse. If only I could get gold chocolate bars....
We will also play a game of 20 questions. According to the Abarbanel, each of the 16 materials used to construct the Mishkan falls into one of four categories: animal, vegetable, mineral, and color. These familiar categories lead perfectly into a game of 20 questions about those materials.
Have a cruv-y Shabbat, | <urn:uuid:03384c7e-6b24-4bb3-a876-9e02a2056cdc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://parashahmom.blogspot.com/2011/02/parashat-terumah.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938391 | 336 | 3 | 3 |
Probably the greatest curse of the present mode of living is the alarming waste of lungpower, a condition that is sadly impairing the health of the majority of people, particularly those of the crowded cities. Whether this condition is the result of forced restraint, caused by the reluctance on the part of people to breathe foul air, or carelessness, neglectfulness, and lack of understanding of the tremendous importance of this body function, we do not know. The fact remains that the lungpower of the great majority of people is sub-normal, that the actual act of breathing is far below standard and full rhythmic breathing is a forgotten art.
Correct breathing is a coordinated, rhythmic, muscular action bringing into play and affecting all of the vital organs. It is a purely involuntary, natural action, which, in normal health, operates to great bodily benefit but in subnormal physical conditions, merely operates.
The utter dependence of normal or good health upon correct breathing is so easy to understand that even a child has no trouble comprehending it. Consider, for a moment, that the average inner surface of the lungs, if spread out, would cover an area of from 700 to 1,000 square feet. Every square inch of this vast surface is designed to act as a purifying agent for the blood.
Your circulatory system can be considered as two separate blood streams, one coming from the heart, which traverses the arteries, and one going to the heart through the system of veins. The outgoing system pumps clean, fresh red blood to all parts of the body, feeding, nourishing, strengthening and rebuilding the entire body. The return flow of the blood through the veins extracts infinitesimal fractions of waste tissues, microorganisms, gases, etc., acting as a sewage system for useless body poisons.
Your heart pumps this impure blood to your lungs where, by coming in contact with the sir you have breathed, it becomes purified and is again returned rich and red to your heart to be pumped again around your body. It is estimated that a person's blood circulation, if measured in its course through the lungs, ranges from 17,000 to 35,000 pints every twenty-four hours.
Without going into the exact technical description of the system of purification of the blood in the lungs through oxygenation, combustion, etc., etc., let us consider it just in terms of capacities.
We'll say that in your case it takes 1,000 square feet of lung area to take of and purify 35,000 pints of blood every twenty-four hours. Now let us suppose that, due to incorrect breathing, with each breath you are filling only one-third of your lung capacity-simple arithmetic should convince you that you are actually getting only one-third of the purifying effect that your blood needs. What happens? Either only one-third of your blood stream is undergoing the purifying process, or your entire blood stream is only one-third purified and remains two-thirds impure, or below standard.
"Follow this reasoning and realize that no blood stream which is constantly two-thirds below par can do a full-time, efficient job of nourishing, cleansing and rebuilding your body. Remember, every part of your body, every nerve, every organ in your body depends entirely upon your blood stream to keep it healthy and functioning in a normal manner. Poor breathing means uncompleted blood purification and a consequent loss in health. The answer is, you should learn all over again to breathe naturally, as you did in your infant life. If you get into the habit of taking in twice as much air at each breath as you are now doing-if you fill your lungs to say 60 percent instead of 30 percent-you will double the purifying effect and extract twice as much of the impurities within your blood as you now are doing. There is an easy, simple method to regain normal breathing control. Remember, breathing is an involuntary muscular action. You breathe without having to think about breathing. Thus, the power, which is necessary to make you breathe, is entirely dependent and measured by the energy of the involuntary muscular action. .
Modern life, especially in the cities, invariably brings about curtailment of physical action. People, particularly those in sedentary occupations, drift into a condition of physical lassitude-the vigor of youth becomes the sluggishness of age-muscles become soft, lose their punch, power and driving force. They lay down on the job until the whole physical system operates about like a decrepit used car. The result is that the lungs fail to get the full cooperation and aid of those muscles necessary to the breathing mechanism. There is a gradual lessening of lung in taken and a gradual decrease in the response of the lungs to decreased muscular action. Very, very few of the people you know are doing a healthy job of breathing. Most of them fill just the top of heir lungs and let it go at that. Watch them going upstairs or running for a bus or train. Hear them gasp for breath and complain about being short-winded. Who have they to condemn but themselves?
How much better it is to regain control of health by putting the entire breathing machinery back on a natural basis. This is so easy to do and everyone, regardless of age, health or physical condition, cats does it by following just a few simple directions. Do not believe in violent and strenuous exercises. Leave those to the professional strong-armed men. I have never indulged in such exercises, yet I believe I am as strong as any man of my age anywhere and I am nearing seventy. I am concerned only with health and my system of correct breathing bring good health; with good health comes strength, vitality and vigor; with these come that "fit as a fiddle" feeling, exuberance and-happiness. I frequently hear people say: "Breathing is all right, put I know what's wrong with me-it's my stomach Breathing can't cure my stomach-there's no connection." Statements like this prove the colossal ignorance of people. Before you finish reading this article you will have definite proof that not only the stomach but also every vital organ is absolutely dependent upon the proper functioning of the lungs or breathing.
Full, deep, easy, regular breathing benefits the whole body and produces immediate improvement to any defective part of the body I shall go further and say it is the greatest single curative force at your command, though of course the importance of proper food cannot be too strongly emphasized. Your condition of health equals your measure of breathing. Your lack of normal health is equal to or measured by your deficiency in breathing Regardless of your present state of health, regardless of the cause of poor health-you will show immediate improvement, immediately you learn to breathe correctly.
THIS is not magic in the commonly accepted sense, but it is the magic of Mother Nature in the true sense. No one has completely unraveled all of the mysteries of the human body, but I have unraveled the full meaning of correct breathing and it has given me almost fifty years of life, which would have been denied me, had I followed the pill and powder advice of the long buried medical men whom I consulted when I was a young man I had tuberculosis and they said I had a ear or so longer to live at the most. The breath of life has meant just that to me.
My own experience, my own living example in the flesh, has been so undeniably proven that it need cause no wonder that I was appointed instructor in correct breathing to such organizations as the New York Police Department, New York City Fire Department, the New York Board of Education, the New York Athletic Club, the Boy Scouts of America, the New York Metropolitan Opera Company, and many, many others. Many outstanding industrial, business and professional leaders have come to realize the importance of breathing correctly-including prominent medical authorities. I have conducted clinics for their personal observation, producing amazing hospital physicians for my demonstrations have selected results in improved health among such patients as. These results have removed every vestige of doubt from the minds of the most skeptical critics.
It is not my purpose to claim any great superiority over anyone else. I hold no brief for or against the practice of any form of medical aid. I merely found myself desperately up against it, on the spot, with a death sentence in my hand and in my trouble I turned to the real Mother of us all-Nature. She gave me the inspiration, the understanding, the encouragement to find the secret of good health, and now I want to pass it along to you, you and you. If you follow these simple directions you will find them of untold benefit to you and in practically no time at all you will begin to feel better and experience a new exhilaration, and a zest to keep on the road to better and better health.
First stand erect, feet at right angles, heels together, holding abdomen in, chin up. Now gently raise arms and stretch them out at sides and level with your shoulders. Continue to stretch your fingertips further and further until you feel you cannot reach out another fraction of an inch. While doing this keep repeating the word "stretch"-s-t-r-e-t-c-h, s-t-r-e-t-c-h. Hold this outstretched position for a moment or two, saying the reminder word "H-o-l-d" Now, keeping the arms outstretched, gradually move them backward until you have brought your shoulder-blades as close together as possible. At the start of this gradual backward motion say the word "Back." Completing this backward motion, say the word "Hold," then gently let the arms downward to your sides. This entire exercise is a gradual movement, gentle in every way. Just go through this three times. Note the many muscles it brings into play, especially in your chest. Note at the end of the three complete motions that you will experience a new sensation in your fingertips. Place the fingers of one hand at the back of your neck, and notice the warm, tingling sensation resulting from circulation stimulation. You have started to awaken lazy and forgotten muscular action, which should be on the job helping with every breath yon take. Forget about breathing while doing this exercise. Just breathe as you usually do. Your breathing will take care of itself and will adjust itself as you go along.
Now for your next directions. Stand erect as before, chin up, hands on waist. Draw in the abdomen gradually, repeating the word "In"-in-in-in-in, about five times in all. Do not raise your chest or force your chest muscles. This is strictly an abdominal action. When you feel you have drawn your waistline in as far as possible, say the word "Hold." Then gradually push out the abdomen, repeating the word "Out" about five times until you feel you cannot push any further. Repeat this three times. Remember this is purely a muscular movement and not to be confused with breathing. As before, let your breathing take care of itself and it will adjust itself. The purpose of this gradual and gentle exercise is to get your diaphragm back on the job to where it will o to work again assisting your lungs g y responsive muscular, action.
This apparently inconsequential exercise is of untold importance to your bodily welfare. By making a daily habit of this you will tone up the diaphragm, strengthen it and permit it to resume its responsibility as the floor of the chest and the ceiling of the abdomen. By contracting and expanding as I have directed you force the strong diaphragmatic tissue and muscles to massage your vital organs. Your lungs, heart, stomach, liver, kidneys, spleen, pancreas, gall bladder and intestines ell derive great benefit from this internal massage action. These two simple exercises will help you tremendously. They take but a minute or two. They are gentle, not violent. Anyone can do them regardless of age or physical condition, providing they can stand up. It is a good plan to do these as soon as one awakens in the morning. The effect upon the intestines can be still further improved by drinking a tumbler of water, preferably warm and containing the juice of half a lemon, before starting the exercises. The diaphragmatic action of gently massaging the intestines is also helping the lemon water to squeeze its way through the intestinal tract, thus cleansing it and aiding the most important work of elimination.
The Nasal Cleanser is a method of clearing excess mucus out of your head. Sit in any straight-backed position. Take a deep breath and expel it through both nostrils in six sharp blasts arising from your diaphragm. Now, close off your left nostril with the forefinger of your left hand and blast the next breath in the same manner as above. Close your right nostril and repeat exhaling from your left nostril. Repeat the double nostril six-blast exhalation. That is enough for the first day.
On the next day, add another right nostril, left nostril, and double nostril cleansing. This would be two rounds. On each of the next five days, add a right, left and double cleansing breath so that on the seventh day, you will be doing seven rounds. Repeat later as desired.
The Ear Cleanser is done much as the nasal cleanser. After taking in a big breath, hold your nose, keep your mouth closed, and sneeze the air up into your head. Make this sneezing effort six times. Now, cup your hands and place them over your ears. Press and release six times in rapid succession to equalize the pressure on your eardrums.
As you sneeze the air up into your head, you will probably hear popping and crackling sounds. You will probably hear well after this cleansing action. The above directions are to be followed the first day. On each following day, increase by one round for seven days. You may repeat this series of cleansing breaths whenever you feel the need.
Alternate Nostril Breathing
Yogis believe that your frame of mind at the time of breathing affects your whole process of electrical and neurological function of your body. Positive mind control makes for healthy living. It has been proven scientifically that breath taken through the right nostril sets up a positive electromagnetic field in the lungs and that breath taken in through the left nostril sets up a negative field.
To learn Alternate Nostril Breathing, we use a rhythmic pattern like 6 x 3 x 6 x 3, which is an easy rhythm for learning the exercise. Put your right hand over your face with the tip of your middle finger pressing lightly on your Third Eye (the spot just over your nose and between your eye brows). This leaves your forefinger available for closing your right nostril, and your ring finger free to close your left nostril. Exert pressure to close your nostril high up on the bony part of your nose, not at the tip. Form a "V" by spreading your thumb and little finger to either side of your face.
Close your left nostril. Breathe in 6 counts with your right nostril. Close both nostrils for 3 counts. Close your right nostril. Breathe out left nostril 6 counts. Close both nostrils and hold your breath out 3 counts. Close your right nostril and breathe in with your left nostril 6 counts. Hold this breath in for 3 counts. Breathe out right 6 counts and hold your breath out 3 counts. This would be one round. In right - hold - out left - hold - in left - hold - out right - hold out. Repeat nine or ten rounds.
Alternate Nostril Breathing helps you to develop equal ability to breathe well with either nostril. It can improve a deviated septum.
The Dog Pant breath is useful training for childbirth. You are getting plenty of oxygen without pushing, and that is sometimes necessary in the last stages of labor.
Take a deep breath to start this practice. Let this breath all out with one big whoosh. Loll your tongue out over your chin as far as it will go. Take quick short breaths in and out of your upper chest. Keep this up as long as you can. It will shake your body in rhythm with your breath. As soon as you come to a stop, you will no doubt find your mouth and throat very dry. To relieve this dryness, close your eyes and imagine yourself cutting a lemon. Raise a piece of this imaginary lemon to your lips and take a lick.
I like to recall how long haired dogs, like Collies, breathe with their tongues lolled out. This gets me in the right mood for the Dog Pant Panorama.
Rib Cage Stretching
Rib Cage Stretching is a Panorama that creates an inward drive of energy by the pulling action. At the same time, your held in breath creates an outward drive of energy to help correct spinal-rib positions.
Take a comfortable sitting position and imagine a slender tree in front of you. Clasp your hands around this tree with fingers entwined. Hold your arms with elbows lifted high in front of your chest. Take a Grand Yoga Breath and pull for all you are worth while you hold your breath in. Let your breath out with a whoosh and relax. Repeat holding your arms in front of your mid-chest and repeat again " with your arms at low-chest level. | <urn:uuid:a6fb4d67-6319-412a-9471-e2aa3d377a1d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.universal-tao.com/article/how.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948777 | 3,596 | 2.421875 | 2 |
At PEP, we are working to build an inclusive and holistic reproductive justice movement. We do this by collaborating with reproductive justice organizations and other aligned movements so that young women, transgender, and gender non-conforming young people are at the center of the reproductive justice movement.
Some of the coalitions and alliances that PEP is involved with are:
Training and Access Working Group, a coalition of reproductive health care providers and advocates working to improve access to reproductive health care and reproductive health outcomes through sharing resources and information.
PEP is on the Steering Committee of Causes in Common, an organizing initiative of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and
Transgender Community Center (the Center) in New York City, which brings
together activists in the LGBT Liberation and Reproductive Justice
Movements to work toward shared goals. | <urn:uuid:7510db33-6113-4b98-815d-326cc410d5c9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://protectchoice.org/section.php?id=45 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928713 | 167 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Military.com: Barely 24 hours after the Pentagon announced its new medal for cyber warriors and drone pilots, the Veterans of Foreign Wars is demanding the decoration's ranking be lowered.
The Distinguished Warfare Medal is ranked above both the Bronze Star with Combat "V" and the Purple Heart – medals typically awarded for combat in which the servicemember's life is at risk.
"The VFW fully concurs that those far from the fight are having an immediate impact on the battlefield in real-time, but medals that can only be earned in direct combat must mean more than medals awarded in the rear," VFW National Commander John E. Hamilton said in a statement released Thursday. "The VFW urges the Department of Defense to reconsider the new medal's placement in the military order of precedence."
Hamilton said the new medal and its ranking "could quickly deteriorate into a morale issue."
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, who announced the new award on Wednesday, said the military needed a medal that recognizes that post-9/11 warfare is different with servicemembers at consoles in the U.S. directly affecting the outcome of enemy engagements.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who previously served as CIA director, said in a statement that he had "seen first-hand how modern tools like remotely-piloted platforms and cyber systems have changed the way wars can be fought, changed the course of battle even from afar."
But there had been no way previously to honor the efforts of the technicians with a military decoration.
"For that reason, I formally approved establishing the Distinguished Warfare Medal," Panetta said.
The award has been in the works for some time. Nearly a year ago, an MQ-18 Hummingbird instructor pilot and AC-130U pilot argued for a combat medal for drone operators in Air & Space Power Journal.
Maj. Dave Blair dismissed the argument that fighting a war from a computer monitor is not the same as the traditional interpretation of combat -- that "it is not honorable."
"[We] might say the same for firing a missile beyond visual range from a fighter cloaked with stealth technology," he wrote. "It would be hard to imagine that the same individual would feel compelled to activate his radar transponder upon contact with the enemy, just to restore honor to his kill by mitigating his technological defenses."
He also said drone pilots are in danger, just like pilots flying aircraft over the combat theater.
"Recall that the individuals killed in the terrorist attack of 11 September 2001 on the Pentagon received the Purple Heart, a combat medal," he wrote. "This war is global, and our enemies have global reach as well. If we found ourselves in our enemies' position, would we spend the time and attract attention attempting to purchase a high-profile missile when a terror attack on RPA [remotely piloted aircraft] operators in the continental United States would produce better results?" | <urn:uuid:663f1e1c-bc45-44fc-b803-3b6c35569ee4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://texswp.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-new-distinguished-cubicle-service.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965451 | 601 | 1.804688 | 2 |
1. Manoj Kumar . A Textbook for Objective Questions in English
Literature. Bareilly : Prakash Book Depot , 2008 , Price :
Rs. 150/- , Pages 142.
2. Sudhir K. Arora. A Key to Literary Forms and Terms. Bareilly:
Prakash Book Depot, 2008. Price : 40/-, Pages 100.
The UGC conducts National Eligibility Test ( NET ) in various subjects of Humanities, including English , and Social Sciences , for the award of Junior Research Fellowship ( as well as Lectureship ) for pursuing Ph. D. level research. The test comprises three session papers. The first paper is of general nature, intended to assess the research ( or teaching ) aptitude, without excluding reasoning ability , comprehension, and general awareness of the candidates. The second paper consists of short-answer questions based on the subject opted by the candidates.
The third paper contains only descriptive questions. It has four sections. Section I requires candidates to write a critique of a given passage. The questions in section II are definitional or seek particular information in short answer form. Section III relates to analytical or evaluative questions on the candidate’s major specialization / elective , as preferred. Section IV is based on essay types questions on general themes and contemporary , theoretical , or of disciplinary relevance to test the candidates ’ ability to expound critically a subject with discrimination.
Seen in this light, the two books under review seek to help aspiring candidates prepare for answering objective- type questions in English literature. Manoj Kumar’s book is composed to serve as a practice book for the UGC’ s NET and postgraduate students in English, providing “subjective material as well as objective questions” necessary for good preparation ( Preface ).
The author has divided the ‘textbook’ into ten units, providing the basic information about British literature from the Age of Chaucer to the Contemporary period , American Literature, Indian English literature, Literatures in translation, Literary theory and Criticism, and Rhetoric and Prosody.
Each unit begins with a brief mention of the author’s names and major works that make them notable, followed by objective-type questions ( with four options ). There is no subjective elaboration, nor is there a uniform pattern in the number of items (which vary between 101 to 138 from Unit I to IX) or their contents. It is at best haphazard.
In Unit I , for example, Geoffrey Chaucer’s name (in bold type), does not show his years of birth and death, but the entry on William Langland shows this. The years of birth and death are not l shown for John Gower, John Barbour, Sir John Mandeville, John Wycliff, Sir Thomas Malory and James I on page 1. Similarly, the publication date for some books are given but for others, it is missing. A uniform pattern should have been followed for each author, from the beginning to the end.
One also expects to find a short write-up on the general traits or characteristics about each of the ages/ periods alongside the major contributors that form the bulk of the objective-type questions. There should have been a proper ‘match’ between what Manoj Kumar calls “subjective knowledge ” of literature and objective questions for adequate practice from Unit I to VII.
However, he does write a readable introductory commentary in Unit VIII ( on American Literature and Indian English writers) and Unit IX ( an Literary Theory and Criticism ). The last Unit ( on Rhetoric and Prosody ), which has only 52 objective items for practising 31 terms is not as well developed as the two preceding units.
The list of Booker ( from 1969 to 2007 ) and Nobel ( from 1901 to 2007 ) Prize winners at the end is informative but Manoj Kumar should have also provided the names of the prize-winning books in the last three pages.
The second book , A Key to Literary Forms and Terms, should make up for the short falls in Unit X of Manoj Kumar’s textbook . In fact, Sudhir K. Arora claims to have included most of the important literary forms and terms “in capsule form” and provided plenty of multiple-choice practice exercises that should help aspiring candidates perform better in the competitive exams for fellowship and / or Lectureship in English literature.
In the first 29 pages, Arora has alphabetically arranged 117 literary forms and terms with useful references, but no examples. In the section on ‘Figures of Speech ’, Arora has abandoned this arrangement and included terms of rhetoric and prosody in the order it is generally available in most books. The examples, however, are helpful.
In both the books the authors have provided a key to all the objective items to self-help candidates in their preparation. However, Manoj Kumar has also added some 250 ‘Unsolved’ items to ensure that serious candidates really prepare well.
Given the present state of English Literature teaching in the country, books like A Textbook for Objective Questions in English Literature and A Key to Literary Forms and Terms are helpful to aspiring candidates in developing awareness though it is doubtful these help in developing any critical sense and research or reasoning ability.
Professor (Dr) R.K.SINGH, Head Dept of Humanities & Social Sciences,.
Indian School of Mines University, DHANBAD 826004, Jharkhand. | <urn:uuid:70a1f2ae-b7f6-437b-9ece-9ab88d78b849> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.englishclub.com/esl-forums/viewtopic.php?f=212&t=49352 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927611 | 1,135 | 2.359375 | 2 |