text stringlengths 213 24.6k | id stringlengths 47 47 | dump stringclasses 1 value | url stringlengths 14 499 | file_path stringlengths 138 138 | language stringclasses 1 value | language_score float64 0.9 1 | token_count int64 51 4.1k | score float64 1.5 5.06 | int_score int64 2 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Antioxidants are compounds that are important to the body and used in many metabolic pathways. Normally in the body these compounds provide protection from damaging molecules, known as free radicals. Free radicals cause aging and can be the start of other reactions that lead may even lead to death. Many studies have investigated the benefits of antioxidants as they are found to be beneficial. However most researchers agree that the source of antioxidants is important and the concentration is important as supplements are not very effective and at too high doses antioxidants are dangerous. Researchers agree that Krill Oil is one of the best sources of anti-oxidants.
The Oxidative Challenge in Biology
The oxidative challenge is also known as oxidative stress. Most living creatures, particularly humans, require oxygen for life. However while oxygen is necessary it can also damage organisms in the form of reactive oxygen molecules. However this reactive oxygen is beneficial to cells at low levels. Antioxidant systems are used to stop too much reactive oxygen molecules from forming and if levels do get too high the antioxidants remove reactive oxygen molecules, creating a balance in the body.
Antioxidants can be categorized into two different types of metabolites: hydrophilic antioxidants and hydrophobic antioxidants. Hydrophobic types do not like water and are generally lipids. Hydrophilic versions do like water and can easily dissolve in water. Hydrophilic types are active in the blood and interior of the cell, while lipid antioxidants are active in the cell membrane. All the interactions that these different antioxidants are involved are currently unknown as the processes are very complex. Metabolites and enzymes in the body can have beneficial relationships and may be dependent on each other in order to function.
Pro-oxidants are chemicals that can inhibit antioxidants or create reactive oxygen molecules. The products of reactions with pro-oxidants cause damage to the body, some damage can even be fatal. There are some compounds that can function as pro-oxidants or antioxidants depending on different conditions. Many times the presence of oxygen or metal ions will dictate how the chemical acts. Normally reactive oxygen compounds are created only if copper, ion or magnesium metals are present. If these metals are not present then the compound acts as an antioxidant.
Cells in the body are protected from stress by a network of antioxidants and enzymes. Therefore for a reactive oxygen molecule to be completely broken down into a “safe” molecule several conversions, using several antioxidant enzymes are required. Normally the first type of antioxidant enzyme that changes the reactive oxygen molecule is a superoxide dismutase. This reduces the molecule into hydrogen peroxide and an oxygen anion. Then another class of enzymes, peroxidases catalases, will break down hydrogen peroxide into water. There are several different types of antioxidant enzyme systems in the body depending on the location in the body and the type of reactive oxygen molecule that needs to be broken down.
Oxidative Stress in Disease
Oxidative stress is an imbalance in production and then removal of reactive oxygen molecules. When these two processes are imbalance damage to the body can occur. This stress has been linked to several diseases, including diabetes, neurodegeneration, rheumatoid arthritis, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and motor neuron diseases. A direct link has been found between oxidative stress and cancer, as there are many antioxidant enzymes that protect DNA. Currently it is unknown if oxidative stress causes the diseases or if this stress is a secondary effect of the disease. Natural sources that are high in antioxidants, such as vegetables and fruits, have been found to promote health and reduce the effects of reactive oxygen molecules.
Health effects of antioxidants are beneficial at the right levels. When antioxidants are taken at very high concentrations they can be very damaging to the body. However specific antioxidants have been found to be very beneficial and antioxidants are important for many metabolic pathways in the body. An issue that has stumped many researchers are the fact that antioxidants that are consumed directly from foods have much greater effects than those from supplements. So how you get your antioxidants will also affect the health.
Antioxidants are frequently used to treat specific types of brain injury, as the brain is particularly vulnerable to injury due to reactive oxygen molecules. Ebselen, an antioxidant that removes hydrogen peroxide, and the experimental antioxidant Cerovive, are being used to treat stroke. The antioxidants, propofol and sodium thiopental, are used for treatment of traumatic brain injuries and brain tissue damage. There is much research being conducted to use antioxidants to treat noise induced hearing loss, Parkinson’s’ disease and Alzheimer’s.
Some studies have also shown that individuals that have high antioxidant diets, or diets high in fruits and vegetables, have a much lower risk of neurological diseases and heart diseases than those that do not consume as much antioxidants. There are specific vegetables and many fruits that provide protection for cancer. However research has shown that the form of antioxidants in its natural state, in the food, is important as the same beneficial results are not found when individuals take antioxidant supplements.
Exercise causes the body to increase the amount of oxygen in the body which can then lead to an increase in reactive oxygen molecules. In particular muscle fatigue after strenuous exercise is a type of oxidative stress. It can take the body from two to seven days to get the body back into balance. It is thought that antioxidants can help the body adapt to the higher levels of oxygen in the body but research results are inconclusive as in some instances antioxidants are beneficial and in some instances they are not.
There are some types of antioxidants, name strong acids such as tannins and oxalic acid that can stop the absorption of important minerals into the body. In particular zinc and iron are not absorbed. Some antioxidants may also be toxic if too much is taken. Some studies have shown that very high doses of antioxidants can actually increase the rate of cancer. Therefore the amount of antioxidants taken is important, as too much is not beneficial.
We are confident that you will be 100% delighted with Everest Nutrition Krill Oil. That's why we offer you our 100% Unconditional Money Back Guarantee. If for any reason you are not completely satisfied with Everest Nutrition Krill Oil, simply contact us within 90 days of your purchase date and return the unused portion. You will receive a prompt refund of the product's purchase price.
We realize that even though we have carefully researched our Krill Oil formulation to give the greatest benefit to the most people, everyone is different and effectiveness can vary. Our goal is to improve your life with all-natural supplements that work.
You can feel completely confident that when you purchase Everest Nutrition Krill Oil, you will be absolutely delighted with the results or you get a full refund for the price of the product (less shipping). You won't risk a single penny by ordering Everest Nutrition Krill Oil! | <urn:uuid:85bf84a0-4fc3-4070-b845-f3439b478d94> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.krilloil.com/research/the-benefits-of-antioxidants-health-resource.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942191 | 1,395 | 3.734375 | 4 |
August 26, 2003
Cafe for the deaf reverses handicap
From: New Zealand Herald, New Zealand - Aug 26, 2003
PARIS - At the Cafe Signes in Paris, the staff wear beaming smiles, the service is flawless and there is no yelling from the kitchen.
But if you want something to eat or drink, you are going to have to work out how to mime it - most of the staff are deaf.
Armed with a leaflet showing sign language for cafe terms and using a sign alphabet printed on placemats, clients at the four-month-old cafe smack their palms together and wave clumsy circles in the air.
The ever-patient serving staff are adept at interpreting the gawky gestures of their ham-fisted customers, and for a rare moment they enjoy the upper hand.
"Things are back to front here - people who can't master sign language feel handicapped while the deaf are quite in their element," said Claudie Maynier, one of the four "hearing staff" who support the deaf or hearing-impaired workers.
What seemed like a huge gamble on paper has proved to be a roaring success, attracting curious locals as well as the hard of hearing from Paris and around the world.
"Doing something unprecedented is always worrying, but it is working amazingly well," said Daniel Seguret, spokesman for the Entraide Universitaire association, which runs work projects for the handicapped in the 14th arrondissement of Paris.
"We have ordinary regulars who come in, say 'hello' in sign language, sit down next to a deaf person and quite happily have a go at communicating.
"It's changing people's perception of the handicap and making a huge difference to the deaf staff."
Watching 27-year-old Bruce breezily polishing glasses and pulling pints, you would never guess he had a worry in the world. Grinning broadly, he jokes with the staff or strikes up an animated sign conversation with a deaf customer at the bar.
"I love working here. I feel like I exist. I can't lip read, but I can still communicate. I give people post-it notes to write down what they want, or they point to the menu," Bruce said, using Maynier to translate.
Most of the staff, who have hand signals spelling "welcome" printed on the back of their T-shirts, used to spend their days shut off from the public in special workshops for the handicapped, making things like jewellery or packaging.
Valerie, 36, darts merrily towards the kitchen, alerted by a vibrating beeper on her belt that hot food is ready for collecting.
"It's much more fun here. It's hard work but I meet people and it's interesting," Valerie said in near-perfect French. She began to speak out loud only since taking the new job.
The cafe, opened in Europe's "Year for the Handicapped", has drawn hearing-impaired people from as far as Japan and Mexico.
Local workers stream in at lunchtime and switch naturally into mime mode.
Passers-by also trickle in, not realising there is anything out of the ordinary about the eatery, with its chrome sidewalk tables, trendy rust-coloured awning and halogen-lit interior.
Discreet signs warn newcomers that the waiters cannot hear them.
So attractive is this chance to mingle in a normal environment - not easy in a country where almost all companies prefer to pay a fine than employ handicapped people - that many other deaf people in the area covet positions at the cafe.
"Sometimes I yell in the kitchen when things get busy or go wrong. Sometimes I sing too. But they can't hear me either way," says Fabrice Cia, who uses sign language to communicate with his cooks.
A concern for the organisers is that the cafe may remain a one-off gimmick rather than encouraging other projects.
Seguret said: "For me, success will come when people don't find this odd or unusual."
©Copyright 2003, New Zealand Herald | <urn:uuid:e9c574b9-8a23-44f7-9f95-22665c896885> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.deaftoday.com/news/archives/2003/08/cafe_for_the_de.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962807 | 864 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Methodology of the course
The course is geared towards adult learning and uses participatory approaches as much as possible. A variety of methodologies will be used, including lecture/presentation, discussions, debates, group work, video discussions, question and answers, demonstrations, practical sessions (hands-on practice), small and large group exercises, role plays and simulations.
Participants will be given reading material one month before the course, and will be required to complete 15 to 20 hours of preparatory work on which they may be tested in order to understand their level of knowledge and understanding in key areas.
Course participants will be required to complete pre- and post-course tests. Each participant will be assessed throughout the course for suitability for field deployment.
A two-week residential course covering:
essential public health knowledge and tools in emergencies, the changing humanitarian context, "personal effectiveness" skills development and operational safety and skills.
Successful candidates will be nominated for inclusion in WHO’s rapid deployment roster. | <urn:uuid:e48d740d-4945-49f2-92b4-eb5ceb34402c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.who.int/hac/techguidance/training/predeployment/methodology/en/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919398 | 206 | 1.960938 | 2 |
We went to the Jade Gallery and learned tons of things. Some of which we even got to use outside of the gallery while we shopped to find out if it was real jade or not. Jade also if it is real will make a tinging noise like two china glasses taping together, when hit against each other or taped with a coin. Also real jade has what is called the flower of the jade and if it is not visible it is not real. What the flower of the Jade is is if you look into the stone it is foggy or cloudy and not fully clear. Jade also is a living stone in a way and when you get it and as long as you where it everyday at all times it will turn a slightly darker shade of green.
As Jade ages it will become of higher quality and thus costing more. The older the stone is the more white it is and the younger it is the more green it is. Also the older jade being older is found deeper under ground while the green or younger jade is closer to the surface of the earth.
In china there is no schools for learning to work jade, the only way to learn is from your family. Families will pass down the skill generation to generation and only then do they learn the art. if you are from a family that does not know the art of jade working you can only learn it by marrying into a family that does jade work. Also the work is usually split were the women polishes and the man carves and cuts, however a women can learn to do both as can a man.
Women of the Chinese culture also wear bracelets called bangles. They are made of jade and come in various colors and types. In a family the bangle is something that is passed down from the mother to the daughter because it is more or less a family treasure. If the family does not have a daughter and the mother loves her daughter in-law very much she can pass it on to her. Bangles are put on using a plastic bag and than slipping the bracelet over your hand. It is not going to fall of because of how well it fits your hand and how tight it is to get on.
The lions that are found in many places in and around buildings are actually paired for male and female lions. There is only one way to tell the two apart. The male lion will have under his paw a boulder or ball while the female wil have under her foot the cub.
On May 18 2011 | <urn:uuid:39bf764b-96ca-46f6-a80d-296755c40e17> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.lib.umn.edu/slimthom/chinasummer2011/2011/05/jade-gallery.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984017 | 514 | 1.976563 | 2 |
When real brains operate in the real world, it’s a two-way street. Electrical activity in the brain’s motor cortex speeds down the spinal cord to the part of the body to be moved; tactile sensations from the skin simultaneously zip through the spinal cord and into the brain’s somatosensory cortex. The two actions are virtually inseparable: absent the feel of a floor under your feet, it’s awfully difficult to walk properly, and lacking the tactile sensation of a coffee mug, your brain cannot sense how tightly your fingers should grasp it. Until now, attempts to help paralyzed patients move a prosthetic have addressed only half of our interaction with the world. A new study offers hope of expanding that capacity.
Scientists led by Miguel Nicolelis, professor of neurobiology at Duke University Medical Center, have reported the first-ever demonstration in which a primate brain not only moved a “virtual body” (an avatar hand on a computer screen) but also received electric signals encoding the feel of virtual objects the avatar touched—and did so clearly enough to texturally distinguish the objects. If the technology, detailed in the journal Nature, works in people, it would change the lives of paralyzed patients. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.) They would not only be able to walk and move their arms and hands, Nicolelis says, but also to feel the texture of objects they hold or touch and to sense the terrain they tread on.
Other research groups are working on similar advances. At the University of Pittsburgh, neuroscientists led by Andrew Schwartz have begun recruiting patients paralyzed by spinal cord injury into a similar trial that would allow them to “feel” the environment around them thanks to electrodes in the somatosensory cortex that receive information from a robot arm.
Nicolelis hopes to bring his research to fruition by 2014, when he plans to unveil the first “wearable robot” at the opening game of soccer’s World Cup in his home country of Brazil. Think Iron Man, a full-body, exoskeletonlike prosthetic. Its interface will be controlled by neural implants that capture signals from the motor cortex to move legs, hands, fingers and everything else. And it will be studded with sensors that relay tactile information about the outside world to the somatosensory cortex. Buoyed by the advances so far, Nicolelis predicts that the device will be ready in time. “It’s our moon shot,” he says.
This article was originally published with the title Can't Touch This Feeling. | <urn:uuid:cc6c6de7-f6df-4c01-bf64-2c0b694f71f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=cant-touch-this-feeling | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946613 | 533 | 3.359375 | 3 |
'Mantra'laya - The Mantra of Being !
(sat chit anand)
(human body as an opportunity to reach ever blissful state)
According to vedanta, there are 84 lakh kinds of life in our beathing galaxy. They all co-exist. But there is a difference between just existing and living. A human body 'lives' only because it knows bliss (or ananda) lies in the awareness (chit) of ultimate truth (sat). So, What is the truth ? To me, Truth is the Truth of your Being but then Being has layers too. The annamaya kosha (the physical layer), pranamaya kosha (the pranic layer), and manomaya kosha (mental layer). The mantra is to unite them together to experience sat chit anand.
The awareness or the conciousness remains the same, unchanged in the different periods of time (yugas and kalpas- a concept of time in the breathing galaxy). Only in human life, the consciousness (chetna), intelligence (buddhi), mind (manas) and senses (indriya) are so fully developed that they are capable of the extraordinary. Thus, human life is the most precious in the living galaxy. It is the only opportunity in which one gets out of the cycle of birth and death and becomes ever blissful or experience sat chit anand. This is accomplished by cutting the chain of karma by chanting mantra in laya, thus mantralaya and hearing of transcend glory of supreme lord who you could find your own way. That rhymed didn't it ? Mantaralaya and finding GOD your own way ?
Even though the soul is incarnate in maya and subject to space, matter and time, it maintains an ongoing and eternal oneness with saccidānanda or divinity propagated Sri Aurobindo.
The Mantralaya or The Mantra of Being is to unite with the universe of which we are only a speck of dust. Eternal oneness is everywhere, we only need 'a look' around. Just one look. COMPUTERS technically speaking, speak the binary language, the language of 0 AND 1; and spiritually speaking, numeric 0 BEING THE SHUNYAK while numeric 1 BEING the oneness of the ENTIRE UNIVERSE or those 84 lakh varieties of living beings. 0 and 1, looks like dvait and advait co-exist peacefully.
Source : self views | <urn:uuid:17127dbe-42d4-47dd-8f50-bcac8f40cc28> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://timesofindia.speakingtree.in/spiritual-blogs/seekers/meditation/mantralaya-the-mantra-of-being | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919528 | 522 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Follow me on Twitter at @AnthonyCody
Both President Obama and his debate challenger Mitt Romney took time Wednesday night to praise the controversial Race to the Top program, but down where the rubber meets the road, the program is hitting some obstacles. The Department of Education now requires school districts to get formal buy-in from teachers when they apply for Race to the Top funds. This is proving to be a problem as some teachers have become skeptical about the changes the program requires.
The same day of the debate, teachers in the Central Unified School District in Fresno, California, became the latest to say "no thanks" to their district's proposal to apply for RttT funds. Almost 500 teachers attended a special inservice, where they heard a presentation urging them to approve the plan. But in the end, they voted more than three to one to reject the proposal.
The teachers in Fresno were joining their colleagues in Sacramento, who reached a similar decision about a month earlier. The Executive Board of the Sacramento City Teachers Association, representing 2600 teachers in the state's capital, voted to reject participation in Race to the Top. They cited concerns that the timeline would require them to rush to complete a teacher evaluation plan, and that the effort would interfere with urgent work to ensure passage of Prop 30, which they hope will provide essential funding. They also pointed out that since at the most, only 25 districts of 900 applicants from across the country will be chosen, the odds are their district would not even get the funds. (See Larry Ferlazzo's report here.)
In advance of the vote a Fresno teacher went through the fine print in the Race to the Top application and prepared the following summary of the document's highlights, which he shared with his colleagues.
Your "EFFECTIVENESS" will be based on student data. To receive RTTT funding a district MUST:
Show the Local Educational Agency has, at a minimum, designed and committed to implement no later than the 2014-15 school year--
1. a teacher evaluation system (as defined in this document);
The LEA has a robust data system that has, at a minimum,--
1. An individual teacher identifier with a teacher-student match.
vi. Improve educators' practice by using feedback provided by the LEA's teacher and principal evaluation systems (as defined in this document), including frequent feedback on their individual and collective effectiveness (as defined in this document), as well as recommendations for how to improve.
SO, LET'S DEFINE...
Teacher evaluation system : System that: (1) will be used for continual improvement of instruction; (2) meaningfully differentiates performance using at least three performance levels; (3) uses multiple valid measures in determining performance levels, including as a significant factor data on student growth (as defined in this document) for all students
THEN FINALLY DEFINE...
Student Growth: The change in student achievement for an individual student between two or more points in time, defined as--
1. For grades and subjects in which assessments are required under ESEA section 1111(b)(3):
(1) a student's score on such assessments
AND SO ...
ESEA 1111(b)(3) Each State plan shall demonstrate that the State educational agency, in consultation with local educational agencies, has implemented a set of high-quality, yearly student academic assessments that include, at a minimum, academic assessments in mathematics, reading or language arts , and science that will be used as the primary means of determining the yearly performance of the State and of each local educational agency and school in the State...AND... Such assessments shall--
1. be the same academic assessments used to measure the achievement of all children.
A Fresno teacher shared this document with me, and explained the vote:
We rejected it because they wanted us to sign a blank document that held no information on what the District was going to do; there was no way that we were going to agree to give carte blanche power to them to create whatever kind of application they wanted, especially when it came to tying teacher evaluations to test scores.
We've been hammered with test scores, bad press, and vilification for ten years. Our students are tired of high stakes testing, our parents are tired of hearing it, every induce shows it has not helped graduation rates or learning for the most poor of students (which NCLB supporters said testing would), and teachers in our district WILL NOT put up with the abuse any longer. It's time for it to end.
It is remarkable that President Obama can claim that Race to the Top, with these highly specific mandates, is "not a top-down program."
In his most recent speech Secretary Duncan repeated his contradictory refrain, that
"Teachers should not be isolated in their classrooms and forced to teach to a test. " He also repeated his call for "multiple measures." However, teachers in Fresno are aware that tying teacher evaluations to test scores does indeed force them to teach to the test, even if other "measures" are also included.
President Obama may decide it is better not to dwell on Race to the Top at his next debate. Perhaps he should spend some time with teachers in Fresno and Sacramento and find out the sorts of reforms they would find truly helpful.
What do you think? Has your district applied for Race to the Top funding? Are teachers on board and happy with what is happening? | <urn:uuid:ca252ccb-170f-4c2a-b667-823cf2df3e58> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2012/10/race_to_the_top_frozen_out_in_.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967316 | 1,111 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Critics: Ireland Slow to Protect Students
Dublin Child-abuse activists warned Thursday that Ireland failed to learn the lessons from decades of unchecked brutality inside Catholic Church-run schools and still offers poor protection to vulnerable boys and girls. This week's mammoth report into the abuse of thousands of children in Catholic-run schools blamed successive Irish governments for permitting rape and other sadistic practices inside the tax-funded facilities throughout most of the 20th century. The authors of the nine-year investigation offered a long list of recommendations to toughen and modernize the way children — particularly those in state care — are supervised and protected. The proposals included 24-hour emergency social care, surprise inspections of children's homes, and more rigorous enforcement of existing rules. The government of Prime Minister Brian Cowen, which is battling one of Europe's worst recessions and budget deficits, says it will enact the improvements as quickly as possible. Those on the front lines of child protection said they doubted that would happen. "People would be wrong to think that the danger is behind us. Ireland's child protection policies are still a generation behind the standards in the United Kingdom and the United States. Our leaders are far too complacent," said Maeve Lewis, whose Dublin pressure group One in Four publicizes child sexual abuse in Ireland. Lewis noted that a string of child-abuse scandals involving church and lay abusers inspired a string of official inquiries and nearly 200 recommendations since 1993. "Most of those recommendations have never been implemented," she said. "If we do not finally begin to put the needs of children first, all of us will be sitting here in 30 years' time talking about some other scandal that somehow evaded our attention or care." Ireland's minister for children, Barry Andrews, said the government was determined to keep strengthening child protection. He said today's system for placing children into protective care "bears no comparion" to Ireland's church-run industrial schools, which were closed down gradually from the 1960s to the 1990s. In those days, courts that deemed a child a petty criminal, school truant or from a dysfunctional home could order him or her into the church's custody — for an average of nine years. These days Ireland's Health Service Executive, responsible for running hospitals and enforcing public health policy, places more than 90 percent of children deemed at risk with foster families, not institutions. Of approximately 5,300 children in state care, only about 450 are in state residences or emergency shelters. Andrews declined to comment on the Health Service Executive's admission in February that 20 children in state care had died or been killed in the previous six years. The causes ranged from drug overdoses to assaults, but no inquest results have been made public in any case. Child-abuse activists stressed that the greatest weakness in Ireland's system is that it takes far too long to identify children in danger and rescue them. They noted that the government and Health Service Executive fund no child-protection workers for nights and weekends, leaving police to fill in the gap. Two recent cases illustrate the shocking risks that children still face from slow official reaction to even the most obvious warnings. In January, a 40-year-old single mother became the first woman in Irish history to be convicted of incest. The woman — whose identity was concealed to protect her children — was a notorious drunk in her village, and her six children the object of ridicule in school, because of their poor hygiene, lice, cuts and bruises, filthy clothes and other inescapable signs of neglect. Social workers and police spent nearly a decade monitoring the woman's inability to care for her children, which included garbage, clothes and even excrement piling up in the home. But the children weren't placed in foster care until the eldest boy, aged 13, told police she had been forcing him to have sex with her. Earlier this month, Andrews' department published findings into the 2007 case of a couple who, descending into madness, had planned their own suicides and the murder of their two daughters aged 5 and 3. The investigation found that the parents, Adrian and Ciara Dunne, took their children to a mortician and discussed plans for four coffins, a burial plot and the husband's will. Once the Dunnes left, the funeral home warned police. It was a Friday night with no social workers on duty, so police asked a Catholic priest to visit the family. He asked a second priest, who found the Dunne home silent and curtains drawn. Police and Health Services Executive spent the weekend arguing about which organization should take charge. When officers and social workers jointly made it to the Dunne home that Monday afternoon, they found the man hanging from a rope, his wife strangled, and both girls smothered with pillows.
This article is available to registered guests only.
To keep reading this article and more, register now, subscribe,
or start a 2-week FREE trial for the best site-wide access.
Already have an account? Please login.
Access selected articles, e-newsletters and more!
Most Popular Stories
- School Turnaround Facilitator (Stockton, CA) ($83K-$102K/YR
- WestEd, Multiple Locations
- Princeton Public School District, Princeton, NJ
- Perspectives Charter Schools, Chicago, IL
- Elementary Principal
- Forest Grove School District, Forest Grove, OR
- Director of School Support
- The Achievement Network, Multiple Locations | <urn:uuid:2d24fafa-b91e-48ad-8b1b-e194258d7c98> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/05/21/275483euirelandcatholicbuse_ap.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967523 | 1,102 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Symptoms and Diagnosis of Some STDs and Treatment
Nongonococcal Urethritis and Chlamydial Cervicitis
Nongonococcal urethritis and chlamydial cervicitis are sexually transmitted diseases usually caused by Chlamydia trachomatis or (in men) Ureaplasma urealyticum but occasionally by Trichomonas vaginalis or herpes simplex virus.
These infections are called "nongonococcal" to indicate that they aren't caused by Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the bacterium that causes gonorrhea. Chlamydia trachomatis causes about 50 percent of the urethral infections in men not caused by gonorrhea and most of the pus-forming infections of the cervix in women not caused by gonorrhea. Most of the remaining cases of urethritis are caused by Ureaplasma urealyticum, a mycoplasma-like bacterium.
Chlamydiae are small bacteria that can repro-duce only inside cells. Ureaplasmas are very small bacteria that lack a rigid cell wall but that can reproduce outside cells.
Symptoms and Diagnosis
- Usually between 4 and 28 days after intercourse with an infected person, an infected man feels a mild burning sensation in his urethra while urinating. A discharge from the penis usually develops. The discharge may be clear or cloudy, but it is generally less thick than with gonorrhea. Early in the morning, the opening of the penis is often red and stuck together with dried secretions. Occasionally, the disease begins more dramatically. The man finds urinating painful, needs to urinate frequently, and has discharges of pus from the urethra.
- Although most women infected with Chlamydia have no symptoms, some have a frequent urge to urinate, pain while urinating, pain in the lower abdomen, pain during sexual intercourse, and secretions of yellow mucus and pus from the vagina.
- Anal or oral sex with an infected partner can lead to infection of the rectum or throat. These infections may cause pain and a yellow discharge of pus and mucus.
- In most cases, an infection with Chlamydia trachomatis can be diagnosed by examining discharge from the penis or cervix in a laboratory. Ureaplasma urealyticum infections are not diagnosed specifically in routine medical settings. Be-cause culturing is difficult and other techniques for diagnosis are expensive, the diagnosis of Chlamydia or Ureaplasma infection often is presumed on the basis of the characteristic symptoms along with evidence against the presence of gonorrhea.
Complications and Prognosis
- If an infection caused by Chlamydia trachomatis isn't treated, symptoms disappear in 4 weeks in about 60 to 70 percent of the people. However, a chlamydial infection may cause a number of complications. Whether Ureaplasma has a role in these complications is unclear.
- If untreated, a chlamydial infection in women often ascends to the fallopian tubes, where inflammation may cause pain, and scarring may cause infertility and ectopic pregnancy. These latter complications may occur in the absence of prior symptoms and result in considerable suffering and medical costs. In men, Chlamydia may cause epididymitis, which produces painful swelling of the scrotum on one or both sides.
- Chlamydial and ureaplasmal infections are usually treated with tetracycline or doxycycline taken orally for at least 7 days or with a single dose of azithromycin. Pregnant women should not take tetracycline. In about 20 percent of the people, the infection returns after treatment. Treatment is then repeated for a longer period.
- Infected people who have sexual intercourse before completing treatment may infect their partners. Thus, sex partners are treated simultaneously if possible.
Trichomoniasis is a sexually transmitted disease of the vagina or urethra caused by Trichomonas vaginalis, a single-celled organism with a whiplike tail.
Although Trichomonas vaginalis can infect the genitourinary tract of either men or women, symptoms are more common in women. About 20 percent of women experience trichomoniasis of the vagina during their reproductive years.
In men, the organism infects the urethra, prostate, and bladder, but it only rarely causes symptoms. In some populations, Trichomonas may account for 5 to 10 percent of all cases of nongonococcal urethritis. The organism is more difficult to detect in men than in women.
- In women, the disease usually starts with a greenish-yellow, frothy vaginal discharge. In some women, the discharge may be slight. The vulva (the external female genital organs) may be irritated and sore, and sexual intercourse may be painful. In severe cases, the vulva and surrounding skin may be inflamed and the labia swollen. Pain on urination or frequency of urination may occur, resembling the symptoms of a bladder infection.
- Men with trichomoniasis generally have no symptoms but can infect their sex partners. Some men have a temporary frothy or pus-like discharge from the urethra, pain during urination, and a need to urinate frequently. These symptoms usually occur early in the morning. The urethra may be mildly irritated, and occasionally moisture appears at the opening of the penis.
- Infection of the epididymis, causing pain in the testes, occurs rarely. The prostate also may become infected, but the role of Trichomonas is unclear. These infections are the only known complications of trichomoniasis in men.
- In women, the diagnosis can usually be made within minutes by examining a sample of vaginal secretions under a microscope. Tests for other sexually transmitted diseases are usually performed as well.
- In men, secretions from the end of the penis should be obtained in the morning before urination. The secretions are examined under a microscope, and a sample of the secretions is sent to the laboratory for culture. A urine culture may also be helpful, because this is more likely to detect Trichomonas missed by microscopic examination.
- A single oral dose of metronidazole cures up to 95 percent of infected women, provided their sex partners are treated simultaneously Because it's not known whether a single-dose treatment is effective in men, men are usually treated for 7 days.
- If taken with alcohol, metronidazole may cause nausea and flushing of the skin. The drug also may cause a decrease in white blood cells and, in women, an increased susceptibility to vaginal yeast infections (genital candidiasis).
- Metronidazole is probably best avoided during pregnancy, at least during the first 3 months. Infected people who have sexual intercourse before the infection is cured are likely to infect their partners.
Genital candidiasis is a yeast (fungus) infection of the vagina orpenis, commonly referred to as thrush, caused by Candida albicans.
The Candfda yeast normally resides on the skin or in the intestines. From these areas, it can spread to the genitals. Candida isn't usually transmitted sexually.
Candidiasis is a very common cause of vaginitis. Genital candidiasis has become more common mainly because of the increasing use of antibiotics, oral contraceptives, and other drugs that change the environment in the vagina in a way that favors the growth of Candida. Candidiasis is more common in women who are pregnant or menstruating and in diabetics. Less commonly, the use of drugs (such as corticosteroids or cancer chemotherapy) and diseases that suppress the immune system (such as AIDS) can facilitate the infection.
Symptoms and Diagnosis
- Women with genital candidiasis usually develop itching or irritation of the vagina and vulva and may have a vaginal discharge. Frequently, the irritation is severe, but the discharge is light. The vulva may be reddish and swollen. The skin may be raw and may crack. The vaginal wall is usually covered with a white cheese-like material, but it may look normal.
- Men often have no symptoms, but the end of the penis (the glans) and the foreskin (in uncircumcised men) may be sore and irritated, especially after sexual intercourse. Occasionally, men may notice a slight discharge from the penis. The end of the penis and the foreskin may be reddish, may have small crusted blisters or sores, and may be covered with white cheese-like material. Immediate diagnosis can be made by taking specimens from the vagina or the penis and examining them under a microscope. Specimens also may be sent to the laboratory for culture.
- In women, candidiasis can be treated by washing the vagina with soap and water, drying it with a clean towel, and then applying an antifungal cream containing clotrimazole, miconazole, butoconazole, or tioconazole and terconazole. Al-ternatively, ketoconazole, fluconazole, or itraconazole can be taken orally. In men, the penis (and foreskin in uncircumcised men) should be washed and dried before an antifungal cream (containing, for example, nystatin) is applied.
- Occasionally, women who take oral contraceptives must stop using them for several months during treatment for vaginal candidiasis because they can make the infection worse. Women who are at unavoidable risk of vaginal candidiasis, such as those who have an impaired immune system or who are taking antibiotics for a long period of time, may need an antifungal drug or other preventive therapy.
More on STD's can be found on http://www.cdc.gov/std/treatment
Similar of Symptoms and Diagnosis of Some STDs and Treatment | <urn:uuid:d628773c-30e5-4426-ae72-d91f5020c053> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://generalhealthtopics.com/some-stds-nongonococcal-urethritis-and-chlamydial-cervicitis-51.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926124 | 2,074 | 2.75 | 3 |
Chapter abstracts are short descriptions of events that occur in each chapter. They highlight major plot events and detail the important relationships and characteristics of characters and objects. The Chapter Abstracts can be used to review what the students have read, or to prepare the students for what they will read. Hand the abstracts out in class as a study guide, or use them as a "key" for a class discussion. They are relatively brief, but can serve to be an excellent refresher of the text for either a student or teacher.
Chapters 1-3 Abstract
* The Last Command begins with the distinct tactical differences of Thrawn and C'baoth as the Empire overtakes Ukio.
Chapters 4-7 Abstract
* On her last diplomatic mission before giving birth, Leia is concerned about her babies, Luke, and the number of clones.
Chapters 8-9 Abstract
* Luke tries to locate...
This section contains 689 words|
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) | <urn:uuid:b3f47e79-92e5-4b44-bc23-17b89148301d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bookrags.com/lessonplan/last-command/abstracts.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927826 | 208 | 2.984375 | 3 |
In conducting the first reading, the Working Group would review those provisions which were unique to the proposed convention, Philippe Kirsch (Canada), the Committee Chairman, said. It would then review those articles which were similar but not identical to the corresponding provisions of the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings.
With regard to the draft convention for the suppression of acts of nuclear terrorism, informal consultations among interested delegations would continue in order to explore consensus positions on the remaining issues relating to the scope of the convention, the Chairman said.
The Ad Hoc Committee will meet again in plenary at a date to be announced.
Ad Hoc Committee Work Programme
The Ad Hoc Committee established by General Assembly resolution 51/210 of 17 December 1996 met this morning to begin the first reading of the draft international convention for the suppression of the financing of terrorism contained in document A/AC.252/L.7*. The discussion will be conducted through a Working Group of the Whole.
A working document submitted by France (A/AC.252/L.7/Add.1), outlining the need for the convention, states that combating the financing of terrorism, whether from "lawful" activities (relating to trade, industry or charity) or "unlawful" ones (relating to racketeering, drug trafficking, procuring, armed robbery, etc.), constitutes a priority objective for agencies actively engaged in anti-terrorist operations. It also states that a terrorist group's ability
to strike, acquire a powerful arsenal, make itself known, recruit and train its members depends on its sources of funding.
Much remains to be done before the structure of international law will be complete, the document states. The one major area that remains to be dealt with is the absence of an international convention to combat the financing of terrorism. The 11 existing international conventions do not provide investigators with adequate means of proceeding effectively against those who supply funds and those who sponsor terrorist attacks.
The French document details the main features of the draft convention. Financing has been drafted for broad interpretation: all means of financing are included to cover "unlawful" means (such as racketeering) and "lawful" means (such as private financing, public or semi-public financing, or financing provided by associations). The draft convention is concerned only with the financing of actions of the most serious kind.
According to the draft, the convention is aimed at "those who give orders"; who are aware of the use of the funds, and contributors; who are aware of the terrorist nature of the aims and objectives of the whole or part of the association which they support with their donations in cash or in kind. It is not aimed primarily at ordinary individuals. The proposed convention provides for a regime of liability for legal entities.
Criminal proceedings must be initiated under the "prosecute or extradite" principle, which is the cornerstone of the draft convention, the document states. Supplementing that principle, the draft includes a preventive provision designed to obviate requests for extradition or mutual assistance made for the purpose of punishing the person who is the subject of the request on account of that person's race, religion, ethnic origin and the like.
The sanctions regime in the draft text is designed to have a powerful deterrent effect: persons committing terrorist acts are subject to severe penalties. The draft convention also provides for the possibility of the seizure or freezing of property or assets used in committing the offence.
Although the proposed convention is primarily concerned with prosecution, the French memorandum states that it gives a prominent place to mutual legal assistance. Among its important provisions are: banking secrecy may not be claimed as grounds for denying assistance to investigators; and no offence may be regarded, for the purposes of extradition or mutual legal assistance, as a fiscal offence.
Ad Hoc Committee on Assembly - 3 - Press Release L/2916 Resolution 51/210 16 March 1999 9th Meeting (AM)
Statement by Chairman
PHILIPPE KIRSCH (Canada), Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee, said that it would begin the first reading of the draft international convention for the suppression of the financing of terrorism in a Working Group of the Whole. The Working Group would first review provisions of the articles unique to the draft convention. Those were article 1, paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 (definition of "financing", "funds" and "organization"; article 2, paragraph 1 "offences"; article 5 (responsibilities of State parties); article 8 (measures to permit forfeiture of funds, etc.); article 12, paragraphs 3 and 4 (legal assistance in investigation or criminal or extradition proceedings); and article 17, paragraph 1 (cooperation in prevention of offences). That did not exclude appropriate comments by delegations on other provisions of those articles, the Chairman said.
He also said that, thereafter, the Working Group would then proceed with the review of those articles which were similar but not identical to the corresponding provisions of the Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings. They were article 3 (offence committed within a single State); article 6 (action at domestic level); and article 7, paragraphs 1, 2 and 5 (domestic jurisdiction over offences).
The Chairman said that in the course of the first reading of the draft text, the Working Group would also consider proposals submitted by various delegations. He drew attention to proposals submitted by Switzerland on article 1, paragraph 1, article 2, paragraph 1, article 5, paragraph 1, article 12 and article 13 issued in documents A/AC.252/WP.1 through 4.
With regard to the draft convention for the suppression of acts of nuclear terrorism, the Chairman said informal consultations among interested delegations should continue in the next few days for the exploration of consensus positions on the remaining issues relating to the scope of the convention.
* *** * | <urn:uuid:3b7e3e87-bdbf-4e1c-b823-5b4a9c446858> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/1999/19990316.l2916.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944737 | 1,189 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Recent studies suggest that antimalarials have antineoplastic properties.
To investigate whether antimalarials decrease the risk of cancer in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).
An observational prospective cohort study was carried out. 235 patients were included in the study at the time of diagnosis (American College of Rheumatology criteria). The end point was the diagnosis of cancer. Kaplan–Meier cancer‐free survival curves for patients treated and not treated with antimalarials were compared. A Cox proportional hazards model was fitted, with cancer as the dependent variable. Age at diagnosis, gender, treatment with azathioprine, cyclophosphamide and methotrexate, smoking, Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics (SLICC) Damage Index 6 months after diagnosis, year of diagnosis and treatment with antimalarials were entered as independent variables.
209 (89%) patients were women. 233 (99%) patients were white. Mean (SD) age at diagnosis was 37 (16) years. Median (range) follow‐up was 10 (1–31) years. 156 (66%) patients had ever received antimalarials. 2/156 (1.3%) ever‐treated patients compared with 11/79 (13%) never‐treated patients had cancer (p<0.001). Cumulative cancer‐free survival in treated and not treated patients was 0.98 and 0.73, respectively (p<0.001). Adjusted hazard ratio for cancer among malaria drug users compared with non‐users was 0.15 (95% CI 0.02 to 0.99).
This study launches the hypothesis of a protective action of antimalarials against cancer in patients with SLE. This effect should be confirmed in larger multicentre studies. | <urn:uuid:4665b232-98a3-4b91-817a-f033278e07c9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pubmedcentralcanada.ca/pmcc/solr/reg?pageSize=25&term=jtitle_s%3A(%22Arthritis+Res+Ther%22)&sortby=score+desc&filterAuthor=author%3A(%22Ruiz-Irastorza%2C+G%22) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950465 | 371 | 1.96875 | 2 |
And the Waters Turn to Blood
by Rodney Barker
Simon & Schuster, New York, 1997
It seems to be part science fiction, part murder mystery. It keeps the reader up all night turning the pages in horror and fascination. But it is not a work of the imagination. It's real, and it's true.
First, beginning in the 1980s, in the estuaries of North Carolina, there were dead fish by the thousands, stripped to the bone.
Then the fishermen were attacked, afflicted by open sores that would not heel.
Only when the scientists studying the microscopic monster responsible for these incidents began to suffer from health effects that were mistaken for Alzheimer's disease and multiple sclerosis did state officials reluctantly concede that they might be confronting a terrifying new plague upon our waters. Then, rather than investigating, they went after the messenger.
Now, all along the eastern United States seacoast, a mysterious and deadly aquatic organism named Pfiesteria piscicida – scientists call it "the cell from hell" – threatens to unleash an environmental nightmare and human tragedy of catastrophic proportions.
In his dramatic and shocking new book, Rodney Barker, investigative author of Dancing with the Devil and The Broken Circle, tells the full and terrifying story of a microorganism far closer to home than the Ebola virus and equally frightening.
At the very center of his narrative is the heroic effort of Dr. JoAnn Burkholder and her colleagues, embattled and dedicated scientists confronting medical, political, and corporate powers to understand and conquer this new scourge before it claims more victims. Having gained extraordinary access to "Level 3," one of the most sensitive biohazard research levels, Rodney Barker has returned with a harrowing, tru-life medical thriller, written with the detail, depth, and authority of such bestsellers as A Civil Action on a subject that has already made fearful and angry headlines but has never been fully exposed until now.
Just as The Hot Zone opened readers' eyes to a terrifying health threat, And the Waters Turned to Blood – a Biblical reference to the first recorded "red tide" – is a clear-eyed, frightening, and dramatic scientific adventure, far more exciting and disturbing than any fiction could be.
Rodney Barker, bestselling author of The Broken Circle, as well as the acclaimed Hiroshima Maidens and Dancing with the Devil, has been a newspaper editor, investigative reporter, and feature writer for a variety of regional and national magazines. He lives in New Mexico. | <urn:uuid:3b85dd10-0f18-492f-b977-c8a425333559> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.prijatelji-zivotinja.hr/htmlen/index.en.php?id=790 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957243 | 505 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Trust in journalism and respect for journalists has been in steady decline for years. The reason is clear to readers and even obvious to Brent Cunningham, the Columbia Journalism Review’s (CJR) managing editor.
Said Cunningham, “I think [reporters] today cherry-pick facts and ignore the arguments that are in the way.” In a single sentence, Cunningham summed up how the mainstream media reports on immigration. The substantial “arguments” that organizations who support lower immigration levels are either, to use Cunningham’s word, “ignored” or marginalized.
Despite continuously pontificating about the importance of fairness and balance which the CJR, the Society of Professional Journalists, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the Associated Press and dozens of other similar organizations advocate for, in the end newspaper immigration stories are long on sympathy for illegal aliens and short on the considerable evidence that it should be limited.
Correction—I wrote “illegal aliens,” a phrase that if the Society of Professional Journalists had its way would never be printed again. In its weepy, excessively politically correct defense of its recommendation that “illegal alien” be dropped from journalists’ vernacular and “undocumented immigrant” take its place, the SPJ said: that “only courts can decide when a person has committed an illegal act.”
What the SPJ has done is further diminish journalists’ reputations to the extent that they’re the target of derision. No reader is fooled by “undocumented immigrant”. We all know it translates to illegal alien. Why bother, then?
But more importantly to the journalism profession that likes to boast about truth and accuracy, “undocumented immigrant” is the wrong term. “Illegal alien” is the most legally precise, descriptive term to use in reference to someone who is residing in the U.S. illegally and is not a citizen. And, the term is not the invention of immigration restrictionists, although the media would like you to believe that it is.
In more than twenty-five years of patriotic activism, I’ve routinely written and said “illegal alien”. And, predictably, I’ve been charged with being filled with “hate and racism,” being someone who spews “anti-immigrant sentiments” and who has pro-Nazi leanings. My reply is always the same. When the federal government changes its language from “alien” to “undocumented immigrant,” I’ll do the same. In the meantime, those who object to “illegal alien,” should take it up with the federal officials who write the U.S. Code.
In 2009, my weekly Lodi News-Sentinel column, replied to readers who object to “illegal alien.” Read it here. | <urn:uuid:8b169810-600b-49cf-b3c7-fb5f66c75668> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.caps-blog.org/articles/2011/11/14/americans-want-enforcement-the-media-insists-on-political-correctness/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944495 | 602 | 1.632813 | 2 |
The Meals on Wheels program at the Klein JCC in Bustleton delivers nearly 50,000 meals a year, but expects that number to grow over the next few years.
“In a lot of cases it starts out where they need meals, and then we find they don’t have bathroom equipment, or they don’t have a doorbell that works, or they don’t have something else in their home that they may need,” explains Nina Cohen, director of Emergency Food & Home Delivered Meals at Klein.
As a result, Cohen says, these drivers often end up doing more than just delivering meals.
Jay Lipschutz has been a volunteer driver for the past four years.
“About a year ago I made an emergency delivery to somebody not on my route and when I walked in the house it was a disaster: there was holes in the ceiling, slippery floors; it looked like the place was falling apart,” Lipschutz says.
In the video, reporter Gail Austin rides along with Lipschutz on a delivery and talks to some of the seniors who receive this service.
In cases such as this, Klein has a social worker who helps to further the organization’s outreach.
Dan Goldberg, a volunteer driver, was also able to provide extra assistance to a senior along his route.
“I went to my last client and he came out walking with a cane and said ‘can you take me to the emergency room at the hospital?’” said Goldberg. “So I said ‘yea sure,’ and I took him to the hospital.”
According to the 2000 Census, senior citizens make up 13 percent of Philadelphia’s residents, but with the aging baby boomers generation, the census bureau expects to see that number increase dramatically throughout the country.
“We have about 10 to 15 drivers. Some of them are not regular drivers, they are back-ups. We always need people we can call when we are in a pinch,” explains Cohen. “That’s really what we need right now, more drivers.”
Klein plans to continue its outreach into communities throughout the city, to help as many struggling senior citizens as possible. | <urn:uuid:a89a4c80-ea1b-4c45-ad63-cd61137fb43d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://neastphilly.com/2010/11/12/delivering-meals-with-jcc-klein/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976689 | 475 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Prof. Dr. Jakob Rhyner (UNU Vice Rector in Europe and Director of the UNU Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) in Germany) and Dr. Joern Birkmann (UNU-EHS Academic Officer) had been scheduled to visit Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, in summer 2011. The trip was to have been a return visit to strengthen relations between the Human Security Program of Tohoku University and the UNU-EHS Section on Vulnerability Assessment, Risk Management & Adaptive Planning, following a visit by Prof. Dinil Pushpalal from Tohoku University to UNU-EHS in February 2011 regarding a proposed joint master’s degree programme between the two institutions.
The magnitude 9 earthquake and resulting tsunami of 11 March, however, caused the Bonn researchers to postpone their travel to Japan until the beginning of February 2012. In addition to meeting with their colleagues in Sendai, they received a first-hand impression of the tsunami-affected areas more than 10 months after the disaster.
The day before the field visit, Tohoku University hosted a “Joint Symposium on Human Security in Disasters”. Vice Rector Rhyner spoke on the importance of worldwide collaborations when doing research on risk management and human security, while Prof. Birkmann′s presentation focused on risk, vulnerability and development pathways in regards to adaptive urban governance, showcasing projects from tsunami-affected areas in Indonesia and Sri Lanka.
In the weeks after 11 March 2011, researchers from Tohoku University immediately started on-the-ground research in the tsunami-affected areas of Japan. At the symposium, Oscar A. Gomez from Colombia and Japanese researcher Nina Takashino focused on “The Role of Grocery Stores” after the triple disaster and evaluated how smaller businesses coped with the situation. Prof. Takashino′s findings showed that especially Sendai family businesses could act quickly and reopen their stores due their small size. The inaccessibility to the central market and the lack of gasoline were problematic for running grocery stores.
“The incident in Fukushima forced many people to search for shelter and stay inside, but two weeks later issues about food contamination arose”, said Prof. Gomez. On the question of the role played by the mass media, in making people aware of where to buy safe food products, he mentioned “Twitter messages — but those pointed mainly towards bigger supermarkets where food sold out fast. Grocery stores were rather unfamiliar with this communication tool, and therefore sat on their stocks despite uncritical quality”.
Further research in Japan will cover the cascading effects of natural disasters in industrialized nations and societal trust in technical systems. “We also need to look at the role of corporations when rebuilding the affected areas”, said Prof. Birkmann.
In the afternoon panel session, symposium participants discussed experiences in resilient rebuilding in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, including religious aspects of coping with natural disasters and the role democracy can play in case of a natural hazard.
“In the immediate aftermath of the event, there is no time for democracy”, said Prof. Rhyner, “but in the preparation phase before a disaster, democracy can play a crucial role in developing resilient structures”. Nevertheless, recent examples like “Hurricane Katrina revealed that a state like Cuba was better prepared than a democracy like the US”, noted Prof. Birkmann.
On the second day of their visit, Profs. Rhyner and Birkmann took a field trip to locations around Sendai affected by the tsunami, as documented in the audio slideshow above.
UNU-EHS hopes to develop broader and more intense connections with Tohoku University to establish course programmes and research projects focusing on human security and vulnerabilities in disaster areas. | <urn:uuid:543643cc-573d-4841-9b80-124752514c8b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://unu.edu/news/news/unu-ehs-researchers-visit-japans-tsunami-affected-areas.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94674 | 793 | 1.867188 | 2 |
Take a peek into game design lessons from Playdom, a leading developer of social games. As a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company and part of Disney Interactive Media, Playdom games are played by over 44 million monthly active users across different social networks, and include games such as Social City, Sorority Life, and Mobsters.
The video below is from June 2010, and recorded at the Silicon Valley Facebook Developers and Social Gaming Meetup, with presentations by Playdom and KISSmetrics.
Steve Meretzky, VP of Game Design at Playdom shares 7 design lessons in building and monetizing social games.
Although your gamification goals may or may not include revenue derived from game play, Meretzky offers ways to increase opportunities for monetizing. Gamification designers interested in strictly user engagement could easily substitute monetization prompts with other user behaviors, such as sharing the site with friends, or completing user surveys/profiles.
Either way, your best results in getting a user to act will come from tapping into the engaged player. An engaged user, in Playdom terms, often exhibits characteristics including 10x more play sessions than a non-paying user, and 10x more friends.
Playdom uses 2 methods of monetizing:
- Offer products/services to the impatient player (for example: in a system that uses a supply of energy which depletes and recharges over time, there is an opportunity to sell energy)
- Sell virtual goods (or soft currency which can be spent on goods)
Meretzky’s 7 Lessons learned by Playdom to increase monetized goods are:
Lesson 1: Engage the player first, then monetize.
Lesson 2: Consistent sales/Time Pattern.
Rather than having an item available consistently in game, create demand by staggering availability across a time pattern. Playdom metrics show that about 1/3 of all sales occur in the first 24 hours and then taper off.
Lesson 3: Gameplay value matters .
Often times the largest motivators are items that improve the user’s play, in particular goods offering a Player vs Player advantage.
Lesson 4: Vanity dives sales.
When dressing up avatars for example, items that look better or cooler, sell better.
Lesson 5: Involve the community
Communicate with your players, offer polls/surveys and act on results. Social Games are a live service, take advantage of that fact
Lesson 6: Current event tie-ins work
Bring “real world” goods and events into the game.
Lesson 7: Shake it up, Baby!
Although A/B testing leads to the “best” of everything (item type, duration, price, etc), repetition can become stale and new is better than best. Shake things up, the user base appreciates it when you do something different.
How do you know your game designs are engaging?
Before launching a new game, Playdom often performs 30-minute company play sessions. If they continue to see large groups of people playing during “off hours”, it’s a good indication that they have a hit.
For smaller companies that don’t have a lot of people internally, use friends and family and you’ll find out quickly if your game is really fun or not.
The presentations from Hiten Shah, CEO and Co-Founder of KISSmetrics and Matthew Davie, Project Lead, Publishing at Playdom are also on the video.
Steve Meretzky’s presentation is at 38:50 in the video. (The complete video including KISSmetrics is approx 1 hour and 36 min in length. ) | <urn:uuid:ba969aaf-8ff2-4115-b473-8320edf7217d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stratsynergy.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/7-social-game-design-lessons-from-playdoms-steve-meretzky-vp-game-design/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93391 | 775 | 1.945313 | 2 |
Salaam and Greetings of Peace:
It is related that one year the Sufi Master Bayazid set out on the pilgrimage to Mecca, the Hajj. A few days later he came back. When asked about his sudden return, he gave the following account.
“I was three days walking in the desert when an old man encountered me on the road,” Bayazid recalled.
“‘Where are you going?’ he demanded.
“‘On the pilgrimage,’ I replied.
“‘How much money did you bring for your journey?’
“‘Two hundred dirhams.’
“‘Come, give them to me,’ the man said. ‘I am
a poor man with a family. Circle round me seven times. That
is your pilgrimage.’
“And so I did, and returned home.” | <urn:uuid:d103b269-26cf-4777-abfb-c690b9ee8dec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://darvish.wordpress.com/tag/pilgrimage/ | 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 | 0.952711 | 201 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Red, Jim, and Jack Anglin, performing as the Anglin Twins and Red, billed themselves with some justification as "the South's favorite trio" in the 1930s. The group was something of an incubator for the next generation of country sounds, spawning the 1940s duo Johnnie & Jack and thence, indirectly, the career of Kitty Wells. The brothers were born in Franklin, TN, into a large family, but grew up in Athens, AL. Befriended and influenced by northern Alabama's Delmore Brothers while they were still young, the Anglins moved to Nashville in 1930 and were inspired to think of a performing career themselves by a Delmore Brothers performance on the Grand Ole Opry. By 1933 they had formed a trio consisting of Jack on guitar, Jim on string bass, and Red singing vocal harmonies with the other two. They landed a non-paying slot on Nashville's WSIX radio in the mid-'30s, after which the Delmores paved the way for a more lucrative program featuring the brothers on Birmingham, AL's WAPI. Regional celebrity led the ARC label to the Anglins as they prepared to launch a recording operation in San Antonio in 1937, and those sessions produced the hit single "They Are All Going Home but One." The Anglins moved to Memphis station WMC in 1938, and recorded again that year, this time in Columbia, SC. Of the 34 sides the Anglin Brothers recorded, only 14 were released, all on ARC's newly acquired Vocalion imprint. After radio stints in New Orleans and Atlanta, the group broke up when Red was drafted. He was injured during the Allied invasion of France. Jim Anglin became one of the great songwriters of the 1940s and '50s, composing key items in the repertoires of Roy Acuff and later Kitty Wells. Of the three, Jack Anglin found the most success when he formed a duo with his brother-in-law, Johnnie Wright, in the early '40s. Johnnie & Jack produced numerous hits for RCA Victor until 1963, when Jack was killed in an auto wreck. | <urn:uuid:086baf8d-ed4d-45d3-8190-a854b172e4a1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wpoc.com/iplaylist/artist/52047/bio.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979561 | 431 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Bell Math 2 is an easy-to-use program to help 2nd grade students learn math. It is integrated with quiz and textbooks explaining all the basic concepts including count, compare, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, length, money, time, weight, capacity, shape, etc. It is also built in with many features to make learning ease and fun. Your kids will enjoy learning math through this great quality product.
Here are some key features of "Bell Math 2 for Pocket PC":
· * Come with the texts explaining all the basic math concepts.
· * Integrated with quiz to make learning fun
· * Ease to use and context-aware
· * Built-in with sophisticated AI to stimulate learning. | <urn:uuid:bc6823c2-c2a8-4fff-a71e-b9398a36fce3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://handheld.softpedia.com/get/Educational/Kids-utils/Bell-Math-2-for-Pocket-PC-13718.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948659 | 152 | 2.328125 | 2 |
I am glad to make this information available on this website to my friends and students. However, all of this material is written by me and therefore copyrighted by me unless otherwise indicated. You are welcome to use this material privately on the condition that you include my copyright information. Thank you for your consideration.
David A. Alexander, Ph.D.
Copyright, 1984, 2004
Much of this information is taken from public records. Obviously, I do not have any copyright claim to that material. I am glad to make these edited versions available to my students and to the public.
David A. Alexander, Ph.D.--I Love to Teach!
Letter to Reverend Samson Occum
Phillis Wheatley is generally recognized as the first significant black American poet. She was born some time around 1753, in Senegal, West Africa. At the age of eight she was captured by slave traders, brought to the American colonies, and sold to the Wheatley family of Boston, Massachusetts. The Wheatleys soon recognized her talents and gave her certain privileges unusual for a slave. They also allowed her to learn to read and write-this was a capital offense in some places. At the age of 14, she began to write poetry. In 1773, her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was published in England under the sponsorship of the Countess of Huntingdon. Wheatley's reputation then spread throughout Europe as well as America. Deaths in the Wheatley family left Phillis Wheatley alone. In April 1778, she married John Peters, a free black man, who failed in business and apparently also failed to support Phillis and her children. At the end of her life she was working as a hired servant. She died in poverty on December 5, 1784, in Boston, Mass.
In 1765, when Phillis Wheatley was about eleven years old, she wrote a letter to Reverend Samson Occum, a Mohegan Indian and an ordained Presbyterian minister. Wheatley's letter apparently led to a friendship with Occum, who was also a poet, and who later published a [Native American] hymnal. On March 11, 1774, Wheatley wrote Occum again, to comment on an indictment of slave-holding Christian ministers that he had written. Her letter was published in the The Connecticut Gazette.
Even though this was a short letter and Wheatley was a fairly young writer, she made several important moral and legal arguments regarding the institution of slavery. She appealed to the doctrine of natural rights, which had become the cornerstone of English political theory, as well as the English colonists' emergent cries for liberty and justice. Wheatley quickly decried the philosophical discrepancy in the colonists' position: “One thing is for sure-the cry for liberty, and the [lust] to exercise oppressive power over others-are diametrically opposed to each other.” She invoked a powerful dual argument-“the dispensation of civil and religious liberty are so inseparably [intertwined] that there is little or no enjoyment of one without the other.” Wheatley waxed poetic when she declared: “in every human breast God has implanted a principle, which we call love of freedom-it is impatient of oppression and pants for deliverance.” In the end, Wheatley appealed to divine justice-that God will grant “deliverance in his own way and time, and get him honor” (also known as vengeance, upon conscienceless slave holders).
Letter to Reverend Samson Occum
By Phillis Wheatley
The Connecticut Gazette
March 11, 1774
Reverend and honored Sir,
I have this day received your obliging kind epistle, and am greatly satisfied with your reasons respecting the Negroes, and think highly reasonable what you offer in vindication of their natural rights. Those that [violate] them cannot be insensible that the divine light is chasing away the thick darkness which broods over the land of Africa and the chaos which has reigned so long is converting into beautiful order. This reveals more and more clearly the glorious dispensation of civil and religious liberty, which are so inseparably [intertwined] that there is little or no enjoyment of one without the other. Otherwise, perhaps, the Israelites had been less [intent on] their freedom from Egyptian slavery. I do not say they would have been contented without it, by no means, for in every human breast God has implanted a principle, which we call love of freedom-it is impatient of oppression and pants for deliverance-and by the leave of our modern Egyptians I will assert, that the same principle lives in us. God grant deliverance in his own way and time, and get him honor upon all those whose avarice impels them to countenance and help forward vile calamities [against] their fellow creatures. This I desire not for their hurt, but to convince them of the strange absurdity of their conduct whose words and actions are so diametrically opposite. One thing is for sure-the cry for liberty, and the [lust] to exercise oppressive power over others-are diametrically opposed to each other. It definitely doesn't take a genius to figure this out. | <urn:uuid:a9b8cdd7-881b-44ec-b919-418679bc9b03> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://david-alexander.tripod.com/id114.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972291 | 1,070 | 2.71875 | 3 |
It is often said that if you build a better mousetrap, the mice will beat a path to your door. In our experience, however, a compelling "mousetrap" will fail without a sustained, smart strategy to reach customers.
For start-ups, the challenge is different. A start-up's goal is to learn and iterate before you run out of resources, so in the early stages you must pursue any channel that will get you in front of customers quickly and inexpensively. You must also identify channels that will scale quickly.
The leadership team at Avondale has been discussing a potential new venture around private equity (PE) investing. We want to help investors dissatisfied with the traditional private equity model link up with businesses that want to grow but require capital and management transformation.
We set a goal of writing down this business model in 20 minutes, because we do not want to waste time on something that absorbs resources but creates no value. In his book Running Lean, Ash Maurya suggests we quickly articulate our business model so that we can debate it amongst ourselves, agree on a path forward, then quickly test and iterate it with limited investment.
Now we must answer the question: Which channels will we use to reach our customers?
Recall that we have two customer segments we want to pursue:
Our goal is to connect investors to businesses, so we need channels through which we can reach both segments. As a starting point, we want to choose channels where we can learn if our business model has merit (i.e., is distinctive and attractive). Therefore, we have chosen channels where we can engage in a conversation with professionals who spend a lot of time with investors and/or business owners:
|Investors looking for PE alternatives||
|Businesses needing transformation||
Though we may pursue other channels later, these will help us in our goal of improving our business model toward one that works.
In the next article in this series, we will discuss the revenue streams and cost structure we will incur to pursue this business model.
How have you utilized your channels to iterate and improve your business model? Please let us know your thoughts at firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:f99ba5fb-ec28-4fa9-b7bf-5185973e6651> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.inc.com/karl-and-bill/building-a-path-to-your-customers_Printer_Friendly.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947542 | 461 | 1.6875 | 2 |
ROCKSPRINGS — Meigs Middle School hosted its first family science night last week.
Approximately 212 students and visitors attended the event, which featured a range of science activities for the students and their families.
It was sponsored by the University of Rio Grande and featured hands-on activities and demonstrations from Ohio University, University of Rio Grande, Cool Critters Outreach, the Clay Center and Meigs Middle School’s very own science teachers. Also on hand were local professionals to tell how science is used in their careers.
In addition, there was representatives from colleges available to supply information about science programs offered at their schools.
A “Recycling” mosaic was created by students and on display in the lobby. The four foot by eight foot mural was made entirely of plastic lids. | <urn:uuid:b3feb481-8835-40b4-bbca-949f7c4d1072> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mydailysentinel.com/pages/home/push?x_page=15&class=prev_page&per_page=5&rel=prev | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981313 | 166 | 2.25 | 2 |
Attacks on the Press in 2002 - Argentina
|Publisher||Committee to Protect Journalists|
|Publication Date||February 2003|
|Cite as||Committee to Protect Journalists, Attacks on the Press in 2002 - Argentina, February 2003, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/47c56653c.html [accessed 22 May 2013]|
|Disclaimer||This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.|
Despite a catastrophic economic crisis in Argentina during 2002 – including the default of US$141 billion in foreign debt, a sharp currency devaluation, and the banking system's collapse – the media remain free to report on matters of national importance.
Argentines, 50 percent of whom live below the poverty line, repeatedly filled the streets to protest the government's inability to cope with the failing economy. Media outlets have been hit hard as well. A free fall in both advertising revenue and circulation caused many small and medium-size publications to fold and also brought financial turmoil to some of the country's biggest publishing houses and radio and television stations.
According to Lauro Laiño, president of the publisher's association Asociación de Entidades Periodísticas Argentinas (Association of Argentine Journalistic Entities), the print media face an extremely difficult period because of increasing taxes and the higher costs of imported supplies brought on by the currency devaluation. He fears that the economic situation will eventually hurt the media's ability to cover news freely. "The freedom of the press cannot be guaranteed without freedom to print publications," he told CPJ.
Meanwhile, Editorial Perfil, Argentina's largest magazine publisher, filed for bankruptcy in December 2001 and at the same time petitioned a judge to annul the Argentine journalists' statute, which makes it difficult for companies to fire media professionals and requires employers to pay substantial compensation packages in cases of unfair dismissal. A judge ruled in the company's favor, and workers, fearing layoffs, called a strike, which ended 23 days later, after the Labor Department helped negotiate an agreement.
In a country pervaded with hopelessness and a complete lack of trust in democratic institutions, the press continues to play a vital role in uncovering corruption, denouncing police repression, and publicizing the stories of the country's most impoverished citizens. In September, María Mercedes Vázquez, a reporter for LT 7 Radio Corrientes, released transcripts of phone taps she had obtained revealing that several public officials may have been involved in a conspiracy to oust the governor of the northeastern Corrientes Province. Because of her reporting, on October 6, unidentified assailants threw a bomb at her house, but no one was injured. Previously, Vázquez received death threats and was beaten for her coverage of a political activist who was accused of looting businesses. The journalist has been under police protection since February.
CPJ documented an increasing number of attacks against journalists in 2002. At a rally for former president Carlos Saúl Menem on November 19, Menem supporters kicked and punched three journalists from the Buenos Aires TV station Canal 13. On November 23, a legislator from the southern province of Tierra del Fuego threatened and tried to attack a radio journalist after he criticized the lawmaker's work.
A bill to repeal Argentina's criminal defamation laws, which was developed by the press freedom organization PERIODISTAS, stalled in 2002 because Congress focused most of its time on investigating the country's judiciary, which lawmakers have accused of rampant corruption. Taking advantage of the situation, politicians filed several criminal suits against reporters and columnists who have investigated corruption cases.
In mid-October, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) agreed to review the case against the newsmagazine NOTICIAS, which the Supreme Court convicted on September 25, 2001, of violating former president Menem's right to privacy by reporting on his extramarital relationship with a former schoolteacher. The IACHR was still studying the case at year's end.
Another bill currently before Congress would add three articles to the Penal Code criminalizing the operation of small, community radio stations without broadcasting licenses. Many of these stations have been awaiting licenses for years, but the government has not responded to their requests. Some have remained on the air anyway. Politicians have at times used the stations during political campaigns, and many broadcasters receive or have received government advertising. If passed, the law could expose hundreds of broadcasters nationwide to prison sentences.
On December 17, Ernestina Herrera de Noble, owner of Grupo Clarín – one of South America's largest media conglomerates – was arrested for allegedly adopting two children illegally. The charges came during an ongoing investigation into adoption irregularities during Argentina's so-called Dirty War of the 1970s and 1980s, which killed more than 30,000 people. Some sources suspect that the arrest may have come in retaliation for Clarín's coverage of a scandal involving former president Menem, who was held under house arrest for five months for illegally selling arms to Croatia and Ecuador during his administration. Clarín called Herrera de Noble's detention "abusive, illegal, and politically motivated." CPJ continues to monitor the case.
On December 23, a former local police chief, Alberto Gómez, was sentenced to life in prison for organizing the kidnapping and murder of journalist José Luis Cabezas. Cabezas, a photographer for NOTICIAS, was found murdered on January 25, 1997, in the city of Pinamar, Buenos Aires Province, after having photographed a reclusive business tycoon thought to be the head of Argentina's mafia.
Thomas Catan, The Financial Times LEGAL ACTION
Catan, the Buenos Aires correspondent for the U.K.-based newspaper The Financial Times, had his phone records subpoenaed by a federal judge. The records could have potentially revealed the sources the journalist had used for a story about alleged bribes requested by Argentine legislators.
On August 20, 2002, Catan, citing unnamed bankers and diplomats he had interviewed, reported that Argentine legislators had solicited bribes from foreign banks operating in Argentina as a condition for stalling a bill that, among other things, would have reinstated a 2 percent tax on interest and commissions for a failed health scheme for bank workers. Foreign banks have strongly opposed the tax because they could reportedly lose hundreds of millions of dollars.
A federal investigation into the bribery allegations was launched in early September, and Federal Judge Claudio Bonadío called Catan to testify. In his September 17 tes- timony, Catan said that four sources, whom he refused to identify, supported his story. Judge Bonadío asked the journalist to give his phone number, without explaining why it was necessary. As Catan finished his testimony, however, the journalist was told that his phone records would likely be subpoenaed.
After learning that on September 18 Judge Bonadío had ordered the State Intelligence Office (SIDE) to provide him with Catan's phone records, the journalist appealed the order to a higher court, claiming that the decision violated Article 43 of the Argentine Constitution, which protects the "secrecy of the sources of journalistic information."
In early October, Judge Bonadío rejected a request by Public Prosecutor Guillermo Marijuan to return the phone records to the journalist with a note stating that they had not been used in the investigation. Instead, the judge gave the phone records to the SIDE.
On October 28, the Federal Chamber, to which Catan had appealed Judge Bonadío's decision to take the phone records, ruled in favor of Catan, concluding that it was unnecessary to reveal Catan's sources to gather evidence since the information could be obtained by other means. The court also declared that Judge Bonadío's order "constituted an unreasonable restriction on freedom of expression and, therefore, [was] illegitimate." The ruling further instructed Bonadío to recover the phone records from SIDE and destroy them in the presence of Catan or his lawyers.
In late October, Catan left Argentina for Great Britain, where he continues working for The Financial Times.
María Mercedes Vázquez, LT 7 Radio Corrientes ATTACKED, THREATENED
A group of unknown assailants hurled a homemade bomb at the home of Vázquez, a reporter with LT 7 Radio Corrientes, in the northeastern province of Corrientes. No one was injured, according to local press reports. In September, Vázquez had released transcripts of phone taps she obtained revealing that several public officials may have been involved in a conspiracy to oust the governor of Corrientes.
That was the third time in eight months that Vázquez was attacked or threatened in retaliation for her reporting. The journalist has been under permanent police protection since February, when she received death threats for her reporting on a corrupt judge. In one of the anonymous calls, answered by Vázquez's elder daughter, the caller described how the journalist would be killed. Two months later, two individuals stopped Vázquez in the street and beat her, telling her not to talk about a political activist wanted by police in connection with several crimes.
Alberto Recanatini, Indymedia Argentina ATTACKED
Tomás Eliaschev, Indymedia Argentina ATTACKED
Eliaschev and Recanatini, reporters for Indymedia Argentina, an international alternative media outlet, were attacked by police while covering a protest in the capital, Buenos Aires. The protestors were calling for the release of 30 activists arrested during a Greenpeace Argentina demonstration.
In an attempt to disperse the crowd, the police fired rubber bullets and tear gas. Eliaschev told CPJ that when the police realized that they were being filmed, they shot rubber bullets at the journalists and tried to destroy their equipment. Although Recanatini was hit by three bullets and Eliaschev sustained six shots to his legs, neither was seriously injured. The journalists filed a complaint before judge Wilma López. At year's end, the judge had taken no action on the case. | <urn:uuid:b436721a-b58f-4cdf-b77b-e87a1a55e176> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.refworld.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/rwmain?page=publisher&publisher=CPJ&type=&coi=ARG&docid=47c56653c&skip=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965307 | 2,105 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Breaking down borders
by Amy Donahue
Mixing concrete, bending rebar and tying wire may not be typical preparations one makes before a vacation. But then again, this is no ordinary trip.
The construction work is just a short introduction to the type of work that will be done this summer when Fort Lewis College’s Engineers Without Borders (EWB-FLC) program travels to remote villages in Laos and Ecuador. Nearly 20 Fort Lewis College students, several community supporters and professors Don May and Laurie Williams spent last Sunday learning how to lay masonry and build ferro-cement tanks. The knowledge will be used to help install sustainable water systems in the developing communities.
The FLC group is a local chapter of a national organization that partners with developing communities to improve their quality of life. Through the implementation of environmentally sustainable, equitable and economical engineering projects, the organization tries to promote the development of globally aware individuals, said Laurie Williams, assistant professor of physics and engineering at FLC.
The FLC chapter was started in the spring of 2004 by Don May, professor of physics and engineering. Williams joined the club as co-director the next year.
“All of my adult life, I have been looking for an opportunity to combine my professional career with humanitarian service without compromising my commitment to my teaching or my family,” May said. “This has been the answer. EWB has become an integral part of my teaching, and my family has become a part of EWB.”
EWB-FLC is a completely volunteer organization. Over the course of the academic year, students and community members work together with May and Williams to develop and design projects and raise funds for both the equipment and travel expenses.
Since the club’s creation, EWB-FLC has worked on several projects in Thailand and Ecuador, and this summer will begin a project in Laos.
The Hmong village of Ban Phakeo, Laos, is being developed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In May, EWB-FLC will develop a clean water and pipeline system to replace the village’s meager current water source.
In July and August, a larger group will return to the Chimborazo region of Ecuador to develop community water systems in two villages.
At both projects, EWB-FLC members will conduct health assessments, test water quality and collect map data, as well as provide basic community health and sanitation education, Williams said.
Megan Schooley, junior anthropology student, cited EWB-FLC’s commitment to sustainability and sensitivity to a range of issues as vital to her involvement.
“I was hesitant at first because I had this idea that EWB was a patriarchal program that went into communities in the developing world and told them that they needed to develop in order to become ‘modern’ and ‘successful,’” she said. “I instantly realized the value of EWB as an organization that acts upon requests made by communities in the developing world who seek to improve their quality of life through the implementation of water and sanitation systems.”
The club is focused on discovering the appropriate technology for each community as well as looking at social, environmental and political factors that may affect the project, she said.
“All of these projects are requested,” said Rachel Ballantyne, a junior engineering and agricultural student. “We don’t go somewhere and say, ‘What you’re doing is wrong, here’s the right way.’”
May said that sustainability is the hardest aspect of project planning for EWB. He added that the most important part of ensuring sustainability is following up on communities, as well as committing to more than one year in the same village. “Sustainability is a long term process,” he said. “We won’t know for years if we have been successful.”
Community building is another aspiration of the club. EWB has grown to include a number of community partners as well as many students from varying disciplines.
This year, more than 80 students have attended meetings, and of the 40 active members, 34 will be traveling to villages in Ecuador and Laos to implement water and sanitation systems.
The students come from various departments, ranging from engineering to English, psychology, chemistry and sociology.
Ryne Waggoner, president of the club and a junior mechanical engineering student, said that in the last two years he has seen EWB-FLC’s membership grow dramatically, giving the club the ability to complete more and larger projects. “I think this growth is due to students realizing that EWB offers a holistic approach to learning for all majors while still helping communities around the world,” he said.
The unique thing about EWB is that members are not only affecting the communities they work in, but also the global awareness of critical problems, said Brian Campbell, a local civil engineer with Bechtold Engineering.
Campbell started working with EWB-FLC in 2004 as a student and now continues to participate as a community member. He said one of his hopes for the club is to provide a forum for creating a sense of global awareness and responsibility in students and community members alike.
“We have things so easy, and our problems are so small as compared with the rest of the world. We can do so much with that advantage,” he said.
EWB provides a type of learning that is congruent with the liberal arts education model, said John Byrd, a community supporter. “It teaches students about cultural sensitivity, the conditions of other people and the skills to make a difference,” he said. “Obviously it helps the recipient communities get better water as well. In doing so, EWB respects cultural differences.”
This cultural sensitivity is most readily apparent in the implementation trips. Because members are traveling to remote villages in developing countries, the experience is far different than a tourist vacation.
“I enjoy the community service part of EWB, and I would much rather go complete a project before touring the area,” Ballantyne said. “You truly understand and connect with the people when you are involved.”
Implementation trips provide the grassroots type of involvement that Campbell said is important for creating a sense of global responsibility. Because students have the opportunity to interact with everyday people in different countries and cultures, they begin to feel a connection with that community.
“Going on an implementation trip is perhaps the most rewarding thing in my life,” said Rachel Schur, junior engineering student. “It is also one in which I grow and learn so many invaluable lessons, ideas and thoughts.” | <urn:uuid:8f18f003-a7bd-4bc4-a177-b4de76d85653> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.durangotelegraph.com/index.cfm/archives/2008/april-17-2008/breaking-down-borders/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967332 | 1,393 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Link to this page in your patterns with this handy shortlink: www.planetjune.com/loopstitch
I’m so glad people liked my crocheted i-cord video tutorial! Putting my voice up on YouTube for anyone to listen to was a bit (okay, a lot) out of my comfort zone, but I’m starting to get used to it… In time, I’d like to make a whole crochet tutorial video library (and if you have requests for video tutorials you’d like to see, please let me know and I’ll add them to my list, although I can’t promise exactly when I’ll have time to make them – nobody’s paying me to make them!)
Today I have another little crochet video tutorial for you. Loop stitch (aka fur stitch) is a decorative stitch similar to single crochet but with an added long loop of yarn formed on the back of the work. You can make the loops as long as you’d like, depending on your application – just wrap the yarn around something to create each loop so that all the loops you form are consistent in size. (I use my finger in my video tutorial, but you could use a wider piece of cardboard to form longer loops.)
I’ve seen at least 4 methods for creating loop stitch; my demo shows the method I find most effective, as, unlike the other methods I’ve seen and tried:
- It doesn’t distort the size of the ‘single crochet’ part of the stitch
- It locks the loop firmly into place
- The loops formed stand up nicely away from the work
Once you’ve finished crocheting with loop stitch, you can leave the loops as is for a curly, furry effect, or snip through the top of each loop to create straight strands of yarn sticking out from your work. It’s not a subtle look, but, in the right pattern, can be used to great effect!
And now to the video tutorial (in right- and left-handed versions, of course):
Crochet loop stitch (right-handed)
Crochet loop stitch (left-handed)
Note: as the loops are formed on the back of the stitches, you can’t use it while crocheting amigurumi unless you keep any pieces using loop stitches turned ‘inside out’ (see my tutorial Which is the ‘Right’ Side?).
You can put this tutorial (as well as my previous crocheted i-cord video tutorial) into practice with my new pattern, coming very soon… | <urn:uuid:5fb0132c-e0bf-410a-8b47-d5b993ec7564> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.planetjune.com/blog/how-to-crochet-loop-stitch/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922597 | 554 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Manchin named chair of panel
HUNTINGTON -- U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., has announced he will chair the Senate Energy's Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests and Mining that oversees national mining policy, mining education and research, public lands and wildlife refuges.
"I am so proud to serve the people of West Virginia on these critical issues, and I hope that the people of our great state continue to share their commonsense ideas, priorities and concerns with me so I can best represent them," he said in a press release.
The chairman of the Energy Committee is Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon.
"Senator Manchin has a deep well of experience on public lands and mining policy, which is why I am so glad he agreed to chair this subcommittee," Wyden said in the release. "He has a real desire to find bipartisan solutions to some of the most important issues facing our committee, and I look forward to working with him this Congress to reach those answers."
The subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests and Mining has jurisdiction that includes oversight and legislative responsibilities for the following subject areas, among others: National mining and minerals policy; general mining laws; surface mining, reclamation and enforcement; mining education and research; federal mineral leasing; public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service; and the establishment of wildlife refuges on public lands and wilderness designations. | <urn:uuid:d2a4a8f9-8c04-4425-acee-44787cabf7f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.herald-dispatch.com/news/x2070315914/Manchin-named-chair-of-panel | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957416 | 300 | 1.632813 | 2 |
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
This holiday shopping season, companies have devised many plans to make sure when you part with a dollar, it goes into their cash registers. The latest strategy: same-day delivery. The world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart, is going head-to-head with Amazon in offering quick delivery, but only in a few cities for now. NPR's Jeff Brady lives in one of them: Philadelphia.
JEFF BRADY, BYLINE: I need to order supplies for work: some batteries for my audio recorder, printer paper, some envelopes. There's a Wal-Mart store just about three miles from my house, and I could easily drive there, but I'm going to try this new same-day delivery service.
(SOUNDBITE OF TYPING)
BRADY: The website is pretty easy to use: Just create an account, click on the items you want, pay for them. If you're a thrifty shopper, this is where some sticker shock might come in: In most areas, the delivery fee is $10, no matter what you order.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOORBELL RINGING)
BRADY: In my case, the order arrived about five hours later.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOOR OPENING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Hi.
BRADY: Hey, there.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: For you.
BRADY: Ah, OK. Is this the Wal-Mart one?
This same-day delivery service is a test Wal-Mart is conducting during the holiday season in four areas.
RAVI JARIWALA: In Northern Virginia, Philadelphia, Minneapolis and just recently this month, we activated San Jose and San Francisco.
BRADY: That's Wal-Mart spokesman Ravi Jariwala. Wal-Mart, along with much of the rest of the retail world, is trying out new ways of selling stuff. You can order online and have it delivered, or pick it up at your local store. Jariwala says you can even order online and pay cash at the store if you prefer.
JARIWALA: This is all about combining our national footprint of stores with our website to really offer customers anytime, anywhere access to Wal-Mart.
BRADY: That may sound like just a sales pitch, but it signifies a change in the retail world. Barbara Kahn is a marketing professor at the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania.
BARBARA KAHN: Used to be, Wal-Mart, you know, planted a store in some location. You got in your car, you drove when they were open. You bought. You packed it up or whatever you did in your car. You drove home and unpacked it.
BRADY: But with a more competitive environment, Kahn says customers have a bit more power. Retailers want to make sure whenever and wherever customers are ready to buy, they are there and ready to sell. Of course, there are limits. Not everything in the store is available for same-day delivery. And if you live in a rural area, hours from a Wal-Mart, don't expect same-day delivery anytime soon, says Kahn.
KAHN: The urban market is the one, A, that may value it the most, because people may not have cars, so delivery might matter more. And, two, the efficiencies and the density the customer base might make it a better cost proposition.
BRADY: Other companies have had mixed results with delivery. It's just a lot more expensive bringing products to your customers. Wal-Mart hasn't committed to same-day delivery for the long-term, says Jariwala.
JARIWALA: We just launched it a couple of weeks ago. So we're running it throughout the holiday season. We don't have an end date in mind, but it will be available throughout this holiday season. And we'll be making - you know, we'll be evaluating and making further determinations at the end of the test.
BRADY: One issue: returns. I ordered the wrong size copy paper - legal instead of letter. I ended up driving to the story anyway to exchange it. Jeff Brady, NPR News, Philadelphia. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio. | <urn:uuid:1a03df4d-cd1f-41f1-b264-4ad50b34579a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kqed.org/news/story/2012/11/21/111413/to_lure_shoppers_walmart_tries_sameday_delivery/?source=npr&category=technology | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939678 | 914 | 1.625 | 2 |
Mark Thoma sends us to the new Journal of Economic Perspectives paper (pdf) on optimal taxes by Peter Diamond and Emmanuel Saez. It’s a tough read (I’m still working on it myself), but there’s one discussion that I think helps make a useful point about current political debate.
In the first part of the paper, D&S analyze the optimal tax rate on top earners. And they argue that this should be the rate that maximizes the revenue collected from these top earners — full stop. Why? Because if you’re trying to maximize any sort of aggregate welfare measure, it’s clear that a marginal dollar of income makes very little difference to the welfare of the wealthy, as compared with the difference it makes to the welfare of the poor and middle class. So to a first approximation policy should soak the rich for the maximum amount — not out of envy or a desire to punish, but simply to raise as much money as possible for other purposes.
Now, this doesn’t imply a 100% tax rate, because there are going to be behavioral responses – high earners will generate at least somewhat less taxable income in the face of a high tax rate, either by actually working less or by pushing their earnings underground. Using parameters based on the literature, D&S suggest that the optimal tax rate on the highest earners is in the vicinity of 70%.
OK, I hear loud screams from the right side of the room. Parsing those screams, I hear the following arguments:
1. Theft! Tyranny! OK, I hear you. This can’t be argued on rational grounds; I think there are a lot more important moral issues in the world than defending the right of the rich to keep their money, but whatever.
2. They’ll go Galt! This amounts to saying that D&S’s estimate of the “behavioral elasticity” is too low. Maybe, but they’re pretty careful about that, and your gut isn’t better than their econometrics.
3. You’ll kill job creation! This is where it gets interesting.
Right now the official rhetoric of the right, and a fair number of people who consider themselves centrist, is that high-income individuals are “job creators” who must be cherished for the good they do.
Yet textbook economics says that in a competitive economy, the contribution any individual (or for that matter any factor of production) makes to the economy at the margin is what that individual earns — period. What a worker contributes to GDP with an additional hour of work is that worker’s hourly wage, whether that hourly wage is $6 or $60,000 an hour. This in turn means that the effect on everyone else’s income if a worker chooses to work one hour less is precisely zero. If a hedge fund manager gets $60,000 an hour, and he works one hour less, he reduces GDP by $60,000 — but he also reduces his pay by $60,000, so the net effect on other peoples’ incomes is zip.
Of course, he doesn’t actually lose all of that $60,000, since he ends up paying less in taxes. So there is a loss of revenue from that withdrawal of effort. But that’s precisely what the Diamond-Saez calculation takes into account, and the reason the optimal top tax rate isn’t 100%.
So, are conservatives comfortable with this analysis? I would guess not, that they have a deep-seated belief that the 1%, by working harder, are doing the 99% a big favor, creating jobs and raising incomes — and that this gain isn’t fully (or even largely) captured by the money they’re paid.
My point, then, is that this claim — and the lionization of high earners as people who make a vast contribution to society — is not, in fact, something that comes out of the free-market economic principles these people claim to believe in. Even if you believe that the top 1% or better yet the top 0.1% are actually earning the money they make, what they contribute is what they get, and they deserve no special solicitude. | <urn:uuid:c7423536-2175-4e53-8afc-529f45d68fc5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/taxing-job-creators/?src=tp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954242 | 886 | 1.789063 | 2 |
College Student using Social Media
Generally, we talk about motivating students in terms of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation.
Extrinsic motivation is concerned with academic achievement and refers to the students’ perception of participating in tasks for reasons such as grades, rewards, competition, and evaluation by others.
Intrinsic motivation is what social cognitivists prefer to call self motivation because they believe that individuals develop motivation from their self-efficacy perceptions rather than from the task itself (Schunk & Zimmerman, 1994).
Many ideas for the classroom have been developed to motivate students. Some believe that extrinsic motivators such as grades reduce intrinsic motivation. But there are not many colleges ready to do away with grades. One of the best ways to develop intrinsic motivation is to help students develop goals (Bandura 1986).
Maehr (1991) suggest that instructors should arrange the learning environment in such a way as to promote personal motivation.
One popular method today for motivating students is to include learning strategies using Web 2.0. What is Web 2.0? Web 2.0 are web-based services that allow people to interact in communities. These Web 2.0 services include but are not limited to Learning Management Systems (LMS) such as Blackboard and social media networks. Many of these services are free.
The most popular social media tools are blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn. These new teaching methods are powerful ways to engage students in the classroom content. Teachers use strategies for learning with social media to motivate students to academic achievement. Teachers are using social media tools to develop innovative ideas for the classroom. The old, tired methods of working with students can be updated and energized with new learning strategies using social media.
The social media strategy for the classroom that has been researched the most is blogs. Blogs can help students develop self-regulation strategies by helping students to set goals and to record their progress toward their goals. Blogs are a great tool for helping students learn to summarize and analyze content. Blogs help students develop their critical thinking skills and their writing skills.
Young people love social media and older people are jumping on the bandwagon. Education for students is more fun using the tools that students use and enjoy. Nielsen reports that people spend more time on Facebook than anywhere else on the web. Another statistic of the report showed that Americans spend 23% of their time online using blogs or social networks. Why not explore these strategies for learning? Yes, there are some precautions for both faculty and students. But social media opens the door to teaching methods and learning strategies that need to be researched and explored.
How have you used social media in the classroom to motivate your students? I appreciate your comments.
- http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20105184-93/facebook-sucks-up-americans-time/ (Eric Mack)
- Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundation of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
- Maehr, M. L. (1991, April). Changing the schools: A word to school leaders about enhancing student investment in learning. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago.
- Schunk, D. H., & Zimmerman, B. J. (1994). Self-regulation of learning and performance. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. | <urn:uuid:be2d30c1-603f-49c7-9970-c6f11e42855a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://carolhbates.com/tag/learning-strategies/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936558 | 711 | 3.390625 | 3 |
Villanova UniversityArticle Free Pass
Villanova University, private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Villanova, Pennsylvania, U.S. It is affiliated with the Augustinian order of the Roman Catholic church. It offers degree programs at the associate, bachelor’s, master’s, doctoral, and professional levels. Degrees are granted through colleges of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Commerce and Finance, Engineering, and Nursing and through the School of Law and the Graduate Studies program of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The university’s Falvey Memorial Library has special collections of illuminated manuscripts, incunabula, Augustiniana, and Irish and Irish-American history. Enrollment is approximately 10,000.
Villanova University began in Philadelphia with a foundation established at St. Augustine Church in 1796 and with the founding of St. Augustine Academy (for men) in 1811. In 1842 church officials established the Augustinian College of Villanova outside Philadelphia in a town that later took its name from the school. The college was named for St. Thomas of Villanova, a 16th-century bishop from Valencia, Spain. Classes began in 1843, but after St. Augustine Church was burned during anti-Catholic riots in 1844, officials were forced by financial constraints to close the college temporarily in 1845–46. The college received a state charter in 1848, and the first B.A. degrees were awarded in 1855. The college again closed in 1857 but reopened in 1865. To the original liberal arts curriculum was added engineering in 1905, science in 1915, and business in 1922. Graduate-level programs began to be separately administered in 1931. The college was elevated to university status in 1953, the year that the College of Nursing and the School of Law were formed. The school became coeducational in 1968.
What made you want to look up "Villanova University"? Please share what surprised you most... | <urn:uuid:a6c617da-2457-4624-badb-088fefc8e07c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/629125/Villanova-University | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976519 | 395 | 2.171875 | 2 |
By Ariel David, Associated Press
ROME The lava and ash that buried the ancient city of Herculaneum, near Pompeii, have yielded the first known example of a Roman throne, archaeologists said Tuesday.
Decorated with ivory bas-reliefs depicting ancient deities, the remains of the wooden throne were dug out between October and November at the southern Italian site in one of the Roman cities buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the year 79.
The artifact dates back to the first century, and although only two legs and a part of the back have survived, archaeologists at a news conference in Rome hailed it as an exceptional find, saying that so far they had only seen this kind of furniture in artistic depictions.
"It's the first original throne from Roman times that has survived until today," said Pietro Giovanni Guzzo, Pompeii's archaeological superintendent.
The remains were found buried 82 feet below ground near Herculaneum's Villa dei Papiri, a first century Roman country home that is believed to have been the residence of Julius Caesar's father-in-law.
The villa, so called because it has yielded a library of hundreds of ancient papyruses, has only been partially excavated and it is not yet clear if the throne belonged to the ancient residence, said Maria Paola Guidobaldi, the dig's director.
The throne depicts Greek mythological figures that were absorbed by Rome's culture and is decorated with images of the gods Attis and Dionysus, as well as pine cones and phalluses.
Experts said the reliefs recall the "Attideia" ceremonies, which commemorated the death and resurrection of the god Attis, husband and victim of the goddess Cibele, and were introduced in the Roman calendar by the Emperor Claudius.
The fragile remains will now undergo a lengthy restoration, while archaeologists hope to discover many more precious artifacts as the dig in the Villa dei Papiri continues, Guidobaldi said.
Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae, excavated from the 18th century onward, were buried under layers of volcanic ash by an eruption that killed thousands but preserved the sites for centuries, providing precious information on domestic life in the ancient world.
Alessandra Molinari in Rome contributed to this report.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Conversation guidelines: USA TODAY welcomes your thoughts, stories and information related to this article. Please stay on topic and be respectful of others. Keep the conversation appropriate for interested readers across the map. | <urn:uuid:3a363b23-ff25-49fe-a204-f25d8dcb21d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2007-12-04-roman-throne-pompeii_N.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958599 | 542 | 3.34375 | 3 |
This week's passage focuses on the need to help the poor--a common admonition in the Old Testament. Note: the gate is the place where disputes between litigants were decided.
Do not rob the poor because they are poor,This is pretty threatening.
or crush the afflicted at the gate;
for the Lord pleads their cause
and despoils of life those who despoil them(22-23)
As we arrange our lives, do we consider the statements presented as facts in verses 8-9?
Whoever serves injustice will reap calamity,A couple of years ago, the UMC published four area of focus: global health, ministry with the poor, leadership development, and church growth and development.
and the rod of anger will fail.
Those who are generous are blessed,
for they share their bread with the poor
When we consider the lectionary texts this week, we need to study and reflect on (even practice) the Guiding Principles to Ministry with the Poor | <urn:uuid:dbe064e1-26a3-4441-b60e-c418a1eabffe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://suewhitt.blogspot.com/2012/09/ministry-to-poor-reflection-on-proverbs.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939228 | 209 | 2.359375 | 2 |
At the same time, 10 eighth graders are entering Brandy Woodall’s classroom and they seem just as excited to be there. Most people might never guess the kids were there for an after-school club Woodall started to improve their writing skills, of all things.
Woodall formed the creative writing club last year and most of the original members are still involved, as well as a few new recruits. She said she had wanted to start it because the kids who were interested could improve their writing skills in a way that goes beyond what the requirements of class. It didn’t take long before several students joined and the club got off the ground. All of a sudden, kids who had never had much of a reason to socialize with one another were brought together through their common interests.
“It’s a diverse group,” Woodall said. “Most of them became friends through the club. It’s a safe environment where you don’t have to worry what others think.” She added later, “Through trust, they’ve developed a bond and they’ve been friends ever since.”
If you’re looking for some pretentious, high-concept reasons for being in the club among the members, you won’t find it. After all, they aren’t even in high school yet and don’t seem to be looking to impress anyone on a college application. They simply enjoy writing.
Danika Patel said she likes to write to home and thought she might as well join the creative writing club because she didn’t have much else to do after school. Cassie Whitt said she wants to become a journalist and wanted to practice any kind of writing she could.
“I just like making up stories,” Summer Bush said.
Fay Therea said that writing and sharing her work in the club gives her an interesting perspective on her fellow writers.
“Even though some the members are new, it kind of shows you how they think and it allows you to learn about others,” she said.
The members have worked on a variety things since the club began, including a series of essays they called “Cadiz Anthems.” The essays are about what makes Cadiz unique and several of them focus on the Trigg County Country Ham Festival, Woodall said. Another teacher at the school, Kay Wyatt, volunteered to help out with the club and said she was planning to submit the students’ work to a magazine called Teen Ink. Wyatt said the magazine publishes short stories, opinion pieces and nonfiction articles by teenagers.
For the rest of this story, read this week's Cadiz Record. | <urn:uuid:23b64b1d-3ed3-43cc-ae49-73391881b3be> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cadizrecord.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Eighth+graders+to+perform+original+play%20&id=14814128 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986325 | 568 | 1.820313 | 2 |
What is a Tie-In Writer?
We write science fiction, westerns, mysteries, romance and thrillers and sometimes all of the above. Our work embraces just about every genre you can think of, from STAR TREK to CSI, from GUNSMOKE to MURDER SHE WROTE, from DUNE to James Bond, from RESIDENT EVIL to Hannah Montana.
Our books are original tie-in novels, comic books and short stories based on existing characters from movie, TV series, books, games, and cartoons... or they are novelizations (books based on screenplays for movies and TV shows).
Tie-ins and novelizations are a licensed works... meaning they are written with the permission and supervision of the creators, studios, or other rights-holders of the original characters.
Well-known tie-in writers include Kingsley Amis, Kevin J. Anderson, Raymond Benson, Gregory Benford, Lawrence Block, Davd Brin, Greg Bear, Max Brand, Orson Scott Card, Leslie Charteris, Arthur C. Clarke, Max Allan Collins, Peter David, Ian Fleming, Alan Dean Foster, John Gardner, Elizabeth Hand, Stuart Kaminsky, David Morrell, Robert B. Parker, Robert Silverberg, Theodore Sturgeon, and Jim Thompson to name just a few.
Our books are published by the major publishing companies, are available everywhere, sell tens of millions of copies worldwide and regularly appear on the New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists... but the actual craft of tie-in writing goes largely unrecognized and is greatly misunderstood.
The International Association of Media Tie-In Writers will change all that.
Why the IAMTW? (I AM a Tie-in Writer)
Tie-writers and their work are often overlooked and under-appreciated by existing organizations like the Mystery Writers of America, Science Fiction Writers of America, and the Romance Writers of America, even though some of their most respected members work in the field. Tie-ins represent a huge percentage of the books published each year, they are enormously successful and are widely enjoyed by readers. And yet we have no organization that represents our unique business and professional interests nor acknowledges excellence in our field.
Until now. Until the IAMTW. The name itself is a declaration of pride in what we do: I AM a Tie-in Writer. We say it with pride because we are very proud of what we do and the books we write.
The IAMTW is dedicated to enhancing the professional and public image of tie-in writers...to working with the media to review tie-in novels and publicize their authors...to educating people about who we are and what we do....and to providing a forum for tie-in writers to share information, support one another, and discuss issues relating to our field (via a monthly e-newsletter, our website, and our active yahoo discussion group). Our members include authors active in many other professional writer organizations (MWA, PWA, WGA, SFWA, etc.) and who share their unique perspectives with their fellow tie-in writers.
Every major industry has an award for excellence in their field...not just books, movies, records, and TV shows. Awards are a demonstration that people take pride in their work and strive to constantly do better. Respect from ones peers is important...and, up until now, tie-in writers haven't even been able to enjoy that, despite our impressive sales. Our Scribe Awards will celebrate excellence in our craft and, at the same time, draw attention to tie-in writers among publishers, booksellers and readers.
Who Qualifies for Membership?
You do if you've written licensed fiction based on a TV show, motion picture, computer game, stage play, comic book (or strip), radio serial or other dramatic work as long as you were paid for it and it has been published (or is about to be). The membership committee will determine, on a case-by-case basis, what qualifies as "other dramatic work" (for instance, a series of books based on a toy or doll).
It doesn't matter whether you've written forty novels or one short story, whether it was published last week or thirty years ago, you qualify for membership as long as you were paid for your licensed work and it was published (or is about to be).
Fanfiction does not qualify. | <urn:uuid:eeccba55-e872-4144-863f-beb90806afdb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iamtw.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955633 | 909 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Scouts and Scout Leaders are in the midst this week of bundling, weighing, and tagging antlers to be sold at auction Saturday morning. The task comes on the heels of several evenings and one full day combing the refuge for shed antlers to be included in that sale. Altogether, Refuge Spokesperson Lori Iverson says the project involves a lot of hours on the parts of the volunteers. Iverson says altogether, the Jackson District Boy Scouts donate 2000 hours or more which would be equivalent to a full-time refuge employee working a 40-hour week. The yield from the annual sale varies from year to year, but frequently represents some high dollar amounts. However, Iverson points out the scouts only get a fraction of the money to help pay their national fees. Iverson says that amounted to about 20% of the gross sales in the past, but the refuge has revised the memorandum of understanding with the Boy Scouts increasing that to 25% reflecting the increase in dues that the district has struggled to pay over the past few years. Iverson says in the past year, money raised by the Scout event has been used to purchase mat tracks for the tractors used in distributing feed to the elk, for new radio collars for tracking the elk, and to pay the salaries of irrigators as the refuge raises natural forage for the wintering herd. The antler auction begins at 10:00 am Saturday. | <urn:uuid:d4ae6033-973c-429f-8266-2164d71c18bc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jacksonholeradio.com/?cat=4&paged=5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959392 | 288 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Polling parents on children's health
Monday, December 6, 2010
Want to know what the nation thinks about childhood obesity, bullying, or genetic risk testing? Ask Dr. Matthew Davis, an associate professor at the Ford School and the Medical School. As director of the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health, he and his team have reported on dozens of timely and often policy-relevant topics to gauge parents' experience with and opinions about current trends and issues in children's health and health policy.
Davis collects a wealth of information from the adults he surveys, some of it surprising. For instance, while obesity, smoking, and drug use are the child health problems consistently of greatest concern to adults in the U.S., Internet safety and bullying are also among the 10 most commonly identified problems in neighborhoods across the country. Asthma, autism, and cancer rank well below these issues in terms of overall levels of public concern.
Davis and his colleagues frequently share this data with lawmakers and opinion leaders in an effort to provide public perspectives on timely issues. In the past, policymakers have used the poll findings to inform their legislative plans—dropping a requirement to vaccinate middle and high-school girls against the relatively low-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) and electing to regulate electronic cigarettes that provide nicotine in an aerosol form, for example.
Poll findings also regularly contribute to the broader public dialogue on children's health and health policy. In the last year alone, Davis's poll has been referenced in USA Today, TIME, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Health Daily, Reuters, WebMD, and National Public Radio broadcasts.
"It's absolutely critical to hear and consider what the public is thinking about children's health issues," says Davis. "Experts are smart. Policymakers can be well-intentioned. But I believe that knowing what the public thinks and what initiatives they would support is an important element in crafting sound public policy."
Upcoming surveys will focus on gun safety and violence, teen pregnancy, and opinions about the perceived reliability of a variety of health information sources. Ideas for future polls? Email Davis and his poll team at email@example.com. | <urn:uuid:feb7f376-a8b6-4f18-b039-2fa83c1796d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fordschool.umich.edu/news/?news_id=443&title=Polling%20parents%20on%20children's%20health&=Polling%20parents%20on%20children's%20health&t=Polling%20parents%20on%20children's%20health&c=%20 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953896 | 460 | 2.453125 | 2 |
Advertisers: Trix aren't for kids
"The twinkie driving the bus is CLEARLY an adult," said a Hostess spokesperson.
The makers of Hostess Twinkies, Nestle Crunch, and Little Debbie cakes have come up with an unexpected response to critics who blame them for marketing junk food to kids: denial.
"Hostess is not a kids' brand," says Jacques Roizen, chief marketing officer for Interstate Bakeries Corp., maker of Hostess snack cakes and fruit pies. "A majority of our snacks are consumed by adults."
The target customer for Baby Ruth candy bars? "Definitely adult men," says Barb Skoog, spokeswoman for Nestlé SA.
What about the Hostess Twinkes sold last year with green filling, in conjunction with the video release of Shrek 2? Roizen doesn't consider that marketing to kids because the movie "appeals to all ages."
In its defense, Roizen's company also claims that 53% of households that purchase Twinkies have no children. Even if you accept that as true, so what? No doubt a large percentage of adults who eat Twinkies first developed the habit when they were kids. I mean, that's one of the main reasons so many companies target kids in the first time: once you've sold them on your product, you've got a nice, long period to reap the gains.
(Via the Wall Street Journal)
By JANET ADAMY
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
April 12, 2005; Page B1
Hostess Twinkies aren't really for kids. Neither are Nestlé Crunch bars or Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies, according to the companies that make them. The marketers say they have a better audience: grown-ups.
With food companies being targeted in the growth of childhood obesity, some are shifting their advertising strategies. They're insisting that their products -- staples of school lunchboxes and trick-or-treat offerings -- are really geared more toward moms and dads.
In the 1950s, the puppet Howdy Doody pitched creme-filled Twinkies on the classic children's television show. Now, "Hostess is not a kids' brand," says Jacques Roizen, chief marketing officer for Interstate Bakeries Corp., maker of Hostess snack cakes and fruit pies. "A majority of our snacks are consumed by adults."
The target customer for Baby Ruth candy bars? "Definitely adult men," says Barb Skoog, spokeswoman for Nestlé SA. McKee Foods Corp., maker of Little Debbie Nutty Bars and Oatmeal Creme Pies, says women ages 18 to 45 are its key buyers -- even though they're eaten by consumers of all ages. A spokeswoman for the company, Ruth Garren, points out that it gets letters praising the treats from nursing-home residents. "A lot of adults have them in their lunches," Ms. Garren says.
Some people aren't buying it. "That's almost laughable," says Sen. Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat who has blamed junk-food ads for contributing to rising childhood obesity rates. He estimates the food industry spent $10 billion last year advertising directly to children. (See related article.)
Referring to promotions that employ characters from the "Shrek" and "Scooby-Doo" movies, he says, "I don't know that they would really use these if they were really marketing to adults."
Sen. Harkin plans to introduce two pieces of legislation if food companies don't on their own create new guidelines for advertising to children. One would give the Federal Trade Commission the power to prevent food companies from advertising junk food to kids. The other would grant the U.S secretary of agriculture authority to curb junk-food advertising in schools.
For years, food companies have unabashedly pitched junk food to children, running sugary-cereal spots during cartoons and tying kids' movies to fast-food promotions. But rising childhood obesity rates have turned food makers into targets for criticism -- and made them increasingly careful about their marketing.
Hostess ads once used Marvel heroes.
"I've never seen our clients more sensitive to the issues around kid marketing," says George Carey, president of Just Kid Inc., which helps companies develop strategies to reach the youth market. Many companies that can profitably aim snacks and treats at adults rather than children are doing so, he says.
Kraft Foods Inc.'s announcement in January that it would stop advertising Oreo cookies and other treats to kids under 12 has put the food giant's competitors on the defensive. General Mills Inc. and Kellogg Co., two big children's advertisers, so far have not announced plans to cut back on marketing aimed at children.
Still, food companies have been quietly tweaking certain pitches over the past several years to deflect complaints. In November, Masterfoods USA said it would stop advertising that its Shrek Colors M&M's Minis candies were available "for a limited time" because it created a sense of eating urgency. The change came after the Council of Better Business Bureaus Inc.'s Children's Advertising Review Unit, a watchdog group, asked Masterfoods to modify the advertisement.
CARU also asked H.J. Heinz Co. to eliminate the line "The more you scarf, the better your chances" from promotions for a 2003 sweepstakes for the company's Bagel Bites frozen snacks. CARU was concerned the slogan encouraged kids to overeat. Heinz said the promotion was aimed at consumers over the age of 12, but dropped the line anyway.
Food companies are realizing that it's sometimes easier and more effective to appeal to adults, either as gatekeepers for their children or as the end consumers. Nestlé was aiming to win over grown-ups buying for their kids when it put Scooby-Doo characters on packages of popsicles the company launched this month, says Steven DuPuis, president and creative director of DuPuis, a branding and packaging firm that helped create the box. Parents are familiar with the cartoon because it was popular during the 1970s, he says.
The decision at Interstate Bakeries, Kansas City, Mo., to shift Hostess advertising toward adults comes after decades of campaigns that hooked kids on golden sponge cake and creamy fillings.
In the 1970s, Continental Baking Co., which owned the Hostess brands then, hired illustrators from DC Comics and Marvel Comics to create strips inside comic books in which Batman, Wonder Woman, the Incredible Hulk and other heroes used snack cakes and pies to fend off villains. The comic books' target audience at the time was boys 8 to 13 years old, says Bob Rozakis, a former DC Comics writer who wrote some of the Hostess strips.
Hostess lost some of its luster in the 1980s when new owner Ralston Purina Co. limited advertising to magazines and in-store promotions. When Interstate Bakeries bought the company in 1995, the Hostess brand had missed at least one generation of kids due to the weak marketing, says Steve Gordon, senior vice president at Campbell Mithun, Interstate Bakeries' current ad agency.
The following year, Interstate Bakeries began pouring money into a new ad campaign to win back kids, using bears and raccoons as its ad characters. In one spot, a bear mistakes a yellow mobile home for a Twinkie and rips off its roof in search of the filling. The ads aired on the Nickelodeon TV channel and other networks during the late afternoon. As recently as last summer, the company announced it had chosen 10 finalists -- ages 6 to 11 -- to design a 75th anniversary Twinkie box.
Now the baker says it's retooling its marketing. New managers took over at Interstate Bakeries in September after the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Research showed that 53% of households that purchase Twinkies have no children. Adult males represent a big portion of the consumer base because they grab Ho-Hos and fruit pies when they stop at convenience stores. So the company decided to cut back on campaigns aimed at kids, says Mr. Roizen, the marketing executive.
He says the changes weren't prompted by a desire to be more socially responsible. For Interstate Bakeries, advertising to kids "would just make bad business sense," he says.
This year the company is considering running advertisements in People magazine and on daytime soap operas to reach older consumers and moms who might buy products for their kids. It also is producing an adult-oriented cookbook to mark Twinkies' 75th birthday and has been promoting recipes for Twinkie wedding cakes. The company has no plans to buy advertisements on the Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon or other kid-oriented channels, Mr. Roizen says. Last fall, the company sold Twinkies with green filling tied to the video release of the film "Shrek 2." But Mr. Roizen says that wasn't marketing to kids because the film appeals to all ages.
With a limited postbankruptcy marketing budget, Interstate Bakeries has been relying on free publicity to reach consumers. Mr. Roizen says the company has appealed to television shows for coverage of the Twinkie's 75th birthday this month. Yesterday, it scored with a mention on ABC's "Good Morning America."
Posted by carrie on 04/12/2005 | Permalink
No one is forcing you to eat these products. If I like it and it tastes darn good, I'm having one! No matter how bad it might be for me. Folks, you need to stop looking for excuses and take charge of your own body and what you put in it. You need to be responsible. You don't need to change what products are out there on the market.
Posted by: Ron Bahls | Jun 14, 2007 1:15:44 PM | <urn:uuid:7873a1fb-7129-4c02-ae05-f6c80ce0b2a7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2005/04/twinkees_the.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963441 | 2,042 | 1.578125 | 2 |
In this economic downturn, many investors are beginning to worry about their investments in assets such as real estate and the stock market. With stock prices plunging in an extremely volatile environment, investors are looking for new and more reliable assets in which to invest. Less risky investments are needed in order to build financial portfolios and gain money from investments, especially in regards to retirement funds such as IRAs and 401ks.
Gold is a precious commodity that has steadily been increasing in price and value over the years. In fact, the past decade has shown a 300% increase in the price. The reason for this is due to the US dollar becoming weaker and weaker. Since gold is bought and sold in US dollars, the decrease in value of the dollar is making gold become more expensive. In addition, the demand for gold is increasing, which in turn drives prices higher.
As mentioned before, investors are looking for less risky assets to be a part of their financial portfolios. Many of them choose gold as a non-traditional asset due to the benefits, such as its ability to hedge risk in your portfolio. How does it hedge risk, you may ask? Well, for starters, it can be liquidated for cash. Gold is increasing in price; therefore, when you decide to sell, you will receive a higher ROI. Also, gold has outlasted many other types of assets, even during times of economic strain, such as the real estate bubble and the oil crisis. Gold has been increasing in value over the years and has not devalued, unlike the US dollar.
There are essentially three different ways that you can invest in this precious metal: 1) buying gold bullion or coins, 2) purchasing a gold ETF (exchange-traded fund), or 3) buying shares in gold-mining stock.
Each of these investments has their own benefits and downfalls. Purchasing an ETF, for example, allows you to trade gold like a stock, but the price is fixed and does not change. This makes it perfect for having in a financial portfolio. Owning physical gold is also beneficial because gold is actual money that will not devalue. However, a downfall is that you need a large jump from what you purchased to what you sell it for in order to make a profit. This poses a problem because physical gold is known to have a wide spread between asking price and bid price. Buying shares in gold-mining stock is not only a lot less risky than owning actual gold, but you will also still be able to be a part of the growth in value of the metal.
With stock prices dropping, now is a great time to invest in gold. It is a commodity that is actual money that will not decrease in value like paper money will. Investors are using gold as a hedge to protect their financial portfolios from the next economic crisis. Although they are not sure when that will happen, they are protecting themselves now in preparation of such an event. Just be sure to not invest everything that you own into gold; wise investors allocate only a portion of their finances to it in order to have a diversified portfolio. | <urn:uuid:9832d6ea-b891-4228-a5f6-2fbe0901f7eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://goldirareviews.org/tag/united-states/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973317 | 631 | 1.882813 | 2 |
I want to make my prompt somewhat nicer in that a user can enter their input for a fraction in the normal fashion:
i.e. 4/5 6/7
and be able to store the numerators and denominators on the programming side.
a = 4
b = 5
c = 6
d = 7
How would I go about doing this? | <urn:uuid:ec1f229d-b8d7-48b4-b920-c38b7eae04dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cboard.cprogramming.com/cplusplus-programming/112727-parsing-input.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945446 | 77 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Date of this Version
The textural discontinuity hypothesis (TDH) is based on the observation that animal body mass distributions exhibit discontinuities that may reflect the texture of the landscape available for exploitation. This idea has been extended to other complex systems, hinting that the identification and quantification of discontinuities in the distributions of appropriate variables may provide clues to emergent system properties such as resilience. We propose a discontinuity index, based on the vector norm of the full assemblage of observed discontinuities, as a means to quantify and compare this characteristic among systems. We also evaluate four methods to identify the number and location of the most prominent discontinuities. Although results of the four methods are similar, they are not identical, and we conclude that this problem is best addressed with a consistent operationally defined approach in an adaptive inference framework. | <urn:uuid:7b13fb88-035c-4629-8eb2-22ab4d0672b0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/usgsstaffpub/11/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937914 | 172 | 2.453125 | 2 |
A brief look at the making and breaking of rules that govern the Alumni Network.
Like all online websites, the Alumni Network has a set of rules that define acceptable conduct. In the Alumni Network we call those rules the Guidelines of Acceptable Conduct or "GAC" for short. The GAC is maintained, reviewed, and enforced by the Administration and the community itself through a set of community-staffed committees with rotating memberships.
We strive to maintain a safe, productive, and edifying online environment and believe the best the way to accomplish this is by empowering the community to develop, manage, and support the rules that govern it.
Making the Rules - The Policy Review Committee
The Policy Review Committee develops and maintains the Guidelines of Acceptable Conduct. Learn more about the Policy Review Committee here.
Enforcing the Rules - The Neighborhood Watch Program
Unlike some online services where where certain individuals are vested with the power of being a “moderator,” the Alumni Network is moderated, to a great extent, by the community itself using a system we call the Neighborhood Watch Program. We believe, and have found to be true, that is not necessary to have a moderator, or group of moderators, “watching over” other members. The rules are plain enough, and given the tools to perform the service, the community itself can report and resolve issues through the Neighborhood Watch program. We prefer this largely self-governing model to the "forum bosses" model you may be familiar with from other discussion forums.
To the greatest practical extent, we view the enforcement of rules not as a position to be granted to an individual or group of individuals, but rather as a service to be provided to the community, by the community.
How does the Neighborhood Watch Program work?
The system is pretty simple. Here's the life cycle of a typical situation:
More detail on who does what is outlined in the table below:
- A member of the community reports a violation to the Response Team.
- The Response Team reviews the report and takes necessary action (removing objectionable content, etc.)
- If necessary, the Response Team may assign consequences (prescribed by the Administrative Committee) to the user(s) who violated the GAC.
Like a good neighbor, you (and every member of the community) should report violations of the GAC.
Report possible violations to the Response Team.
Members of the community appointed by the Administrative Committee to serve 6-month terms.
Receive reports from the community, clean up violations (remove obscenities, etc), make easy-to-interpret* violation determinations, notify violators of violations, and send reports to Administrative Committee.
Review reports presented by the Response Team and answer two questions as necessary:
1) Is it a GAC violation? (*if deemed questionable by the Response Team)
2) If so, what is the consequence for this violation?
What happens when someone violates a policy? [link]
After receiving a policy violation report from the community, the Response Team will send a notification to the violator to bring their attention to the applicable section of the GAC. First-time policy violators usually receive a warning or temporary suspension of forum posting (or other) privileges, however, “at the discretion of the Administrative Committee, consequences for violating any of these guidelines will range from warnings and suspension of privileges to account suspension and termination.” (GAC 4.2.2)
What about "gray area?" How is the GAC applied and interpreted? [link]
While most of the guidelines are objectively applicable, interpretation is sometimes required. For example, there may be differing opinions of what constitutes “trolling,” or “flaming,” or what is – and is not – “obscene,” or what constitutes "inappropriate" behavior, etc. Although much of work of interpreting the policy is done by the Response Team, the Administrative Committee is the final authority on matters of policy interpretation.
Who is the Neighborhood Watch?
The Neighborhood Watch isn't a person - it's a community-wide program involving the following:
See "How does the Neighborhood Watch program work?" above to learn more about the roles of each and how you can help.
- You (every member of the community),
- the Response Team,
- and input from the Administrative Committee when necessary.
Why are members of the Response Team anonymous?
Unfortunately, with Internet discussion forums being what they are, the folks who violate the rules have been known to harass those who enforce them. We don’t want anyone shooting the messenger or giving flak to the volunteers who help enforce the rules, so the personal identities of the Response Team members are not made public. The Response Team is directly accountable to the Administrative Committee, so any complaints or suggestions may be sent to the Administrative Committee directly.
Also see: FAQs about GAC Enforcement. | <urn:uuid:54b94286-b027-4861-9bd4-97faef9eb78e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.homeschoolalumni.org/content/faq_behind_the_rules | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925499 | 1,025 | 1.71875 | 2 |
VIDEO: Cruise ship to the rescue
Posted on 22 March 2012
The 38-foot sailboat Hokulani was damaged in rough seas March 2 about 50 miles northwest of Pinar del Rio, Cuba, prompting the two sailors aboard to activate their EPIRB.
“We have been dragging our drogue for 18 hours. I don’t know if we can make it,” one of the sailors told the Coast Guard’s Seventh District out of Miami, which launched an Ocean Sentry patrol aircraft and, through the AMVER voluntary global ship reporting system, diverted the 965-foot cruise ship Norwegian Star to the scene about 30 miles away.
Click play to watch videos of the rescue taken from the Norwegian Star.
The Coast Guard said that when it established contact with Hokulani, the crew reported that they had been “struck by a wave that caused severe damage to the vessel."
When the Norwegian Star arrived March 3, it dispatched a RIB, which brought the sailors back to the ship. Hokulani was marked as a hazard to navigation and left adrift. The cruise ship headed to port in Tampa, Fla.
Winds were 20 knots from the east-southeast, visibility was about 8 nautical miles and seas were 7 feet out of the east at the time of the distress call, according to the Coast Guard. Seas had calmed to 2 to 4 feet at the time of the rescue. | <urn:uuid:9e7bd0a3-5356-4982-836f-dd3f65d00868> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.soundingsonline.com/dispatches/288016-video-cruise-ship-to-the-rescue | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974563 | 297 | 1.921875 | 2 |
Planning & Zoning
What do I need to do to ...
PURCHASING REAL ESTATE IN BOUNDARY COUNTY
Boundary County boasts some of the most beautiful and productive real estate anywhere, but there are some things to consider prior to putting your signature on that dotted line. If you're planning to make Boundary County your home, please realize that the majority of this community is rural, and life here may well be very different than what you're used to. If you're from a more urban area, please be aware that services you may have taken for granted may not be available here; many areas are served by private water associations, but there are areas that are not, and in some of these areas water must be hauled in. There is no county-maintained septic or storm-sewer system; all county septic systems must be privately installed and inspected.
Boundary County has an extensive road network, but many of the county roads are not maintained through the winter. Many parcels are accessible only by private roads granted by easement through property owned by others, so it is important that you ensure that such access is indicated on your deed; while the person who owns the property you need to cross now may be the friendly sort of neighbor most common here, the next owner may not be, and you may find that the access you thought was legally recorded wasn't. The county does not maintain private roads, nor does the county impose restrictions on easements. If access to the property you are considering is not adequate to handle emergency or utility vehicles, those services will be unavailable to you. Most people look at the property they are considering in the summer, when conditions are at their best. A road that may appear entirely adequate then may well not be when the snow comes. Winter conditions here are extremely hard on roads and the county expends a considerable amount for their maintenance each year, but even when the weather turns nice, it may take considerable time for Road and Bridge crews to bring road conditions back up to tolerable levels. Those using private roads are responsible for maintaining those roads; and if more than one family uses the road conflicts can arise.
Fire protection and emergency medical services in Boundary County are provided by trained volunteers, but because of the distances involved and because conditions are not always favorable, response times can be delayed. There are no specific street addresses in Boundary County as yet, and postal addresses will get you your mail, but won't tell emergency responders how to reach your home, which can result in even slower response times if you don't realize this.
Another thing to consider is utilities and services, which are not available in all areas of Boundary County. Unless you plan on using solar or other alternative energy sources, bringing electricity to areas not currently on the grid can entail great expense.
Prior to finalizing your purchase, it is wise to check with the Planning and Zoning Department to make sure you'll be able to use your property as you plan, as lots exist which are not open to development. There are also areas of the county which lie within the National Flood Insurance Program flood plain, meaning there will be additional costs for development, if development is possible at all.
While it's not required by ordinance, Boundary County recommends that anyone purchasing property ensure that a proper survey or plat map has been recorded or have the property surveyed at your own expense prior to purchase. Relying on a fence line, a rock or that tree out back is not prudent and could result in costly disputes later. If you choose not to require or obtain a record of survey and rely on a metes and bounds description, it is strongly recommended that you have a title company examine the description to ensure its accuracy and to ensure that the title to the property is clear.
Another consideration is the economy of Boundary County, which is based predominantly on timber and agriculture production. Idaho is a "right to farm" state, meaning anyone who owns property has the right to use or lease that land for agricultural production; there is nothing the county can do to prevent a neighbor from going into the hog business should they so choose, even if the breeze blows your way. Much of the county is timbered, with over 75 percent of the total land base of Boundary County owned and managed by the U.S. Forest Service, the Idaho Department of Lands and the Bureau of Land Management. If you purchase a parcel because the trees on the hillside across the road make for a beautiful view, you shouldn't be disappointed should loggers move in later to harvest that timber.
Life in Boundary County is wonderful; the people here retain a strong pioneer spirit of hard work and of helping their neighbors ... most who call this community home would agree that you'll not find a more neighborly place anywhere else. But the rugged beauty and often harsh conditions mean that many of the amenities you may be used to are not available, and if you're used to relying on strict ordinances and regulations to help you resolve neighborly disputes, you'll be disappointed. It is the belief of the county that people who buy and build here have the right to build the home that best suits them; if the roof collapses under the weight of the snow, they'll know better next time. Conversely, you may build a beautiful home that meets the most stringent building codes while your neighbor may not; the county will not intercede on your behalf to make that neighbor live up to your standards. | <urn:uuid:0fc034d3-9775-40d8-b6ed-5931f923e49b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.boundarycountyid.org/planning/buyland.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964324 | 1,112 | 1.664063 | 2 |
What is the human body capable of if pushed further than what most believe possible? The following books all show remarkable individuals who can run, swim, climb, or play faster and farther than most.
Aron Ralston 796.5223 Ra
Ralston describes his incredible 120 hour ordeal after getting his right arm trapped behind a boulder while hiking. While discussing his eventual rescue after severing his own arm with a pocket knife, Ralston explores why he is drawn to outdoor adventures.
Christopher McDougall 796.424 Mcd
McDougall writes about his encounters with the reclusive Tarahumara Indians, a tribe of ultra-fit runners that habitually run extreme distances in the Copper Canyons of Mexico. He eventually becomes involved in a race pitting top Tarahumara runners against some of America’s greatest ultra-marathoners. McDougall also explores other related topics about running such as the development of the modern running shoe and the prevalence of modern running injuries.
Mike Horn 910.9113 Hor
Horn narrates his amazing Arctic journey that he traveled alone, against prevailing winds and currents, and without any kind of motor-powered transport. He recounts his near fatal 27 month journey through extreme temperatures with amusement and introspection.
Kevin McMurray 797.23 Mcm
The wreck of the Andrea Doria is known in the diving world as “the Everest of scuba,” where a number of extreme deep-sea divers have met their deaths. McMurray’s dramatic narrative analyzes why divers push themselves to such extremes and discusses many of the past fatal dives. Naval history buffs will be delighted by the historic background of the famous naval disaster.
John Krakauer 796.522 Kra
This book contains a fascinating collection of short articles by the author of Into Thin Air. Krakauer investigates the many facets of mountaineering and why people push themselves to such extremes to reach the top of a mountain.
Amy Snyder 796.6209 Sny
Snyder’s compelling and descriptive narrative of one of the most brutal endurance sports events imagined, The Race Across America, is a must read for fans of all sports and adventure writing. Only 200 people have ever completed the 3,000 mile, 12 day race that has killed and injured many of its contestants. Snyder tells the story of the race through the perspective of many of the racers themselves, detailing the human experience of completing such an amazing feat of endurance.
Rachael Scdoris 798.8 Sc
Scordoris’ memoir details her amazing life of athleticism that culminates in her race of the 2005 Iditarod, all while legally blind. She writes equally about dog racing as well as the many obstacles she had to overcome growing up and breaking into a sport where many thought she did not belong.
Ed Viesturs 796.52292 Viesturs Vie
This action-packed memoir details Viesturs quest to become the first American to climb all of the mountains higher than 8,000 meters. He lives by the mantra “getting to the top is option, getting down is mandatory.” Viesturs compelling style explores the personal and professional sacrifices in becoming obsessed with a goal as well as the joy of achieving it.
John Hanc 796.4252 Han
“Why anyone would want to run a marathon in what is frequently called the Last Place on Earth?” Hanc interweaves his own experience running the marathon with historic background about the continent and marathons along with the noticeable effects of global warming.
Neal Bascomb 796.429 Ba
This book tells the story of the intense rivalry among three men to beat the four-minute mile. The narrative culminates in the historic race that occurred on August 7, 1954 when Roger Bannister became the first person to break the incredible milestone. Bascomb writes an engaging story that shows a sport in transition and the amazing athleticism and drive of three great runners.
Gary Pomerantz 769.323 Po
Pomerantz tells the story of the untelevised game between the Philadelphia Warriors and the New York Knickerbockers, where a young Wilt Chamberlain stunned a crowd with a 100 point game. The book explores the fascinating characters associated with the game as well as how different the sport was at the time.
Glenn Scott 797.2192 Ederle Sto
This book tells the inspiring story of a hearing-impaired American teenager who became the first woman to swim across the English Channel. | <urn:uuid:29d91a77-a901-42bd-b878-7c072558d492> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.monroe.lib.in.us/staff-picks/Amazing%20Feats%20of%20Athleticism%20and%20Endurance | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946127 | 943 | 2.0625 | 2 |
A few posts ago, I wrote about a peculiar feature of most superhero universes – the appearance of superhuman individuals haven’t changed things much. It’s mostly our world that we see, except that heroes and villains duke it out above Manhattan every now and then (yes, there are a few examples to the contrary, but I will cheerfully ignore them for the purpose of this post).
If there were suddenly those around who could lift tanks, read (and re-write) anyone’s mind, bounce bullets off their chests, outfly fighter jets and so forth, would society really stay the same? I don’t think so. The technological gadgets that Mr. Fantastic and Tony Stark keep inventing would alone change the world beyond recognition within a decade, but there would also be deeper forces at work. This is due to a subtle but vitally important fact: superheroes don’t really need society. | <urn:uuid:11389cc8-0f7b-40f6-adc0-22de2f7e34f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ingstrand.tumblr.com/tagged/social-contract | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964243 | 190 | 1.507813 | 2 |
When my green home was still but a dream, and I realized that it would be too expensive to retrofit my present house, the next step was to find a house that was a good candidate for a green remodeling project.
That was just the beginning of the adventure that is the subject of this website. I had no idea at the time what a challenge that would be!
That means different things to different people; for me, it was:
Some people prefer building green from the ground up, but for me, a truly green home meant recycling an existing house; that way, I could save all kinds of resources from being taken from their environment.
So I shopped around until I found a suitable house – one that was about the right size, at the right price and in the right place – and when I found it, I bought it. Here is a picture of my future green home, just as I saw it on a cloudy January day:
My house, as it looked when I found it.
Remember: This is a "Before" picture!
But what was it that made that house more appropriate for my green rehab project than others I had seen?
The decision was easy for me because I was buying a small house for the purpose of turning it into my green home, for myself.
In order to achieve the energy efficiency target that I was aiming for, it was necessary to execute an extreme green makeover of the type discussed in these pages.
Anything less just would not give results anything near satisfactory.
According to the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), when it comes to Canadian (read: temperate climate) post-World War II residential houses, the maximum energy efficiency gain possible after carrying out all recommended normal upgrades and activities such as insulation, elimination of air leaks, furnace upgrades, etc., is only 41 %. I needed better numbers than that, what with the threats of climate change and ever-increasing energy prices.
To give you an idea of what I'm dealing with, here's my own rustic rendition of the ground floor layout of the existing building.
Click to enlarge.
The house footprint is a mere 925 square feet (about 86 square meters).
To have seven rooms in such a small space seems ludicrous nowadays, but the working-class folks who built those small houses in the 50s were grateful to have their own place to raise their families. As the families grew, new additions were built to accommodate the increased needs.
Click to enlarge.
As you can see, my green home's layout underwent a major redesign! A staircase has been eliminated, another has been moved, walls have been knocked out, etc.
Later, I made a few more changes: the main entrance moved to the side of the dining area, a closet was added near the entrance, the exercise area was moved to where the new main entrance was to be. Minor stuff.
You don't have to be an architect to draw a floor plan. I even created my own squared paper on the computer!
I find it easier to work in feet because one foot is the right measure for one square, which is an easy scale for most people. But I've indicated the metric equivalents.
Is your house a family home full of period details and sentimental value? Hopefully your budget will allow you to keep it. Obviously, you will have to decide what's important for you. However, leaving all emotions aside, this is stilla real estate project, and you will have to decide if it makes sense for you to invest X amount in Y house. List your own priorities, and proceed accordingly.
These are your options:
You don't have to build from scratch in order to achieve your green dream home! You can turn a fixer-upper into just about anything you want. (New homes are not covered in this site.)
Obviously, there aren't too many places where houses cost as little as $10,000! (And of course you may need a bigger house than I did.) If in your area average home prices are $100,000, or $500,000, "handyman specials" will be priced accordingly.
So, depending on where you live, or want to live, a bargain will be whatever a bargain is in that area. You're in the best position to find out.
In environmental terms, you've already made the right decision by choosing to rehabilitate an existing house instead of building a new one.
According to the online newsletter Environmental Building News' "Checklist for Low-Cost Green Design and Construction Practices",
When we renovate older buildings instead of building new, we generally save significant quantities of materials and energy, thus benefiting the environment.
Can you think of anything more satisfying to recycle than a house?
My green rehab is simply an example of what I, as a homeowner, found was best for me.
You can do it too!
And you will find a lot of help right here in these pages. (Including what NOT to do!)
I took the chance of not having an inspection done by an outside expert. It didn't seem to make sense to pay someone $500 for inspecting a $10,000 house, just to have him tell me what I could observe with the naked eye - so I decided to rely on my own judgment and experience, with the help of a home inspection checklist.
For details and the results of my inspection, and to download a copy of the checklist, visit my Home Inspection page:
If you want to see all the "before" photos, go to the Photo Album:
|"LIKE" THIS SITE!|
clicked to your site and found a great wealth of information. I'm about
the least tool oriented person there is around, but I'm passionate
about many of the topics you write about. And I find the writing to be
very well done and informative even for a non-handy person like me. Well
Prague, Czech Republic
I would just like to thank you for maintaining this resource. It's essential that information about environmental issues are easily and broadly accessible.
Thank you so much for sharing your exquisitely well-told stories! I have spent the last 2 hours reading the whole saga, and I appreciate all of the detail that went into your decision making. I hope you are enjoying your green home with cozy surroundings and energy efficiency.
Thank you for taking the time to write down your experiences. It is truly a valuable service.
Thanks for all the info on this site, it is very thorough.
Very well documented and I appreciate the work and the effort you have put into this.
Hey! Just wanted to compliment you on
your site! I'm a new, first time homeowner, with a dirt crawlspace and
have searched for hours on how to set it up.
Living here in Montreal, and the conditions aren't easy on a house and this site sure helped to answer some questions.
Thank you for displaying your work and experience!
Have to say I absolutely love your site. Really complete, well thought out, and has me clicking from page to page...
I just wanted to say I love your site! Well done!
Love your web site. You are an inspiration to me. I am 66 and I want to build a small green home on my land. [...] Your green home looks beautiful. I wish you luck in all your endeavors!
A few years ago, I bought this fixer-upper for $10,000.
It had been vacant for six years, had no water supply, needed a new roof, and was likely to conceal an unsuspected number of nasty flaws.
Don't believe me? See these "Before" pictures.
My intention was to turn it into as "green" as home as I could, within my physical, financial, and geographical limits – and to share this adventure with you, step-by-step and dollar-by-dollar.
I'm not quite finished, but I do have a few "After" pictures to show.
If you want to follow me on this exciting adventure, you can subscribe to this site by RSS feed -- see the box below the navigation bar on the left. | <urn:uuid:35c087b6-c6d1-424d-bea3-d2d8fe180400> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.my-green-home-project.com/my-green-home.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971563 | 1,697 | 1.773438 | 2 |
The church exists in a kind of moral limbo where we say we live under grace, yet still know that the commandments have to have a role in our lives somewhere.
For more than a decade Catherine Stonehouse and Scottie May listened to children talk about their relationships with God, observed children and their parents in learning and worship settings, and interviewed adults about their childhood faith experiences. Through case studies, it provides insight into children's perceptions of God and explores how they process their faith.
Listening to Children on the Spiritual Journey weaves together their findings to offer a glimpse of the spiritual responsiveness and potential of children. It also suggests how adults can more effectively relate to and work with children and pre-adolescents to nurture their faith, offering a compelling picture of adults and children on the spiritual journey together.
Customer Questions & Answers: | <urn:uuid:4a132662-41b4-45e1-9793-ec30fcb20a30> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://answers.christianbook.com/answers/2016/product/4377EB/baker-academic-listening-to-children-on-the-spiritual-journey-guidance-for-those-who-teach-and-nurture-ebook-questions-answers/questions.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960934 | 169 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Leiden (sometimes spelled Leyden in English), is situated in the province of South Holland, midway between Amsterdam and The Hague, at a 30 minute ride from Amsterdam. My car takes you there and would seat 3 to 4 adults.
This image shows the court house situated at the former area of the Hall of the Count, notably Floris the 5th. One of the fascinating stories in Leiden is how the power of the local count diminished around 1300 - 1400 and the power of the local city government grew stronger.
Back in 1568, the newly founded Protestant state, the Republic of The Netherlands urgently needed a group of intelligent people, well trained in religion and law, and therefore a place to educate these preachers and lawyers. Leiden University was the very first to be founded in this country and since those days it has remained a major focus of learning and a center of excellence. The Rapenburg canal is now lined with a number of the institutions of the university such as the Great Hall, university institutions and the Hortus Botanicus, or botanical gardens.
Another major building houses the RMO Archaeology and Antiquity Museum in which you may explore such diverse objects as stone axes, one spectacular one, recently acquired, is a ceremonial bronze hand axe. A prize posession is a Dutch fishing net from the time of the early Pharaohs. Its Egyptian collection contains the full size temple of Taffeh, donated by the state of Egypt, and good number of mummies, among which that of a baby and various grave objects. Thus the Egyptian collection is arguably considered the fourth or fifth most important collection in the world (after Cairo, Metropolitan NYC, Louvre, Turin, Brooklyn).
Among the many other museums well worth visiting are the Ethnography museum and the Fine arts museum called Lakenhal, which exhibits paintings by Rembrandt, Dou and other masters in Leiden Fine Painting. I will also take you to the secret street and alley where the Pilgrim Fathers lived before they sailed west to America. There are a number of sites with plaques inducating their history. Near the railway station we find a windmill, which reminds us of the one operated by Rembrands's father and brother. Across the tracks just outside the center is the huge Naturalis, the National Museum of Natural History. Elsewhere in Leiden we may visit large churches, small houdes, a wonderful central canal and, half hidden, a massive mound of earth on which local inhabitants could flee high waters. Scattered throughout town are the 'hofjes' or couryards for the elderly.
Drs. Kaldenbach is chairman of the Circle of Academic Tour Guides of the Netherlands and Flanders (CATON). Starting at your hotel I will take you on a wonderful private cultural walking tour of your choice. My guided itinerary offers you accessable informative conversation in English, Dutch, or German (my French and Italian are more limited). You may also arrange this VIP treatment for business contacts or friends. Our cultural tour organisation office will take care of a unique and memorable experience.
- Please contact me for time and fees of the tailor-made tour you ar interested in
- These tailor made tours are available upon request - please contact me to book a date
- Minimum group size: 2 person
- Maximum group size is limited to about 10 persons
Normally starting from Amsterdam by car or train (train: extra ticket cost). Time spent in the city about 2 to 4 hours. Contact me for information on larger groups with other venues and more people.
Also see tour packages in:
Europe Netherlands History Whiz Archeology/History Sightseeing
Email it to a friend:
Click here to email this vacation to a friend | <urn:uuid:4b304e7f-24f0-42fe-ad6c-1ee9ddfd2046> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.infohub.com/vacation_packages/30526.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936945 | 763 | 1.859375 | 2 |
Portland, OR - The Bonneville Power Administration and a group of Northwest public utilities are teaming up to find out if behavior change can deliver significant energy savings to the region.
BPA has awarded cooperative agreements for future work on behavior-based energy efficiency pilot projects to Snohomish County Public Utility District, Cowlitz Public Utility District and Clark Public Utilities. The three public utilities were selected after a competitive process conducted by BPA.
"This is another example of how BPA and Northwest public utilities are working together to find new ways for Northwest residents and businesses to save energy and reduce their utility bills," said Karen Meadows, acting vice president of Energy Efficiency. "We commend these utilities for venturing into this relatively new potential source of energy savings and energy efficiency awareness. We’re eager to see the results."
Unlike traditional energy-efficiency measures that focus on the adoption of technologies such as energy-efficient appliances and lighting to save energy, behavior-based programs achieve energy savings through changes in individual or organizational behavior and decision-making.
Waste management, healthcare and transportation industries have been applying behavior-based approaches for years, while utilities and others in the energy industry have only recently began using them as a means for encouraging energy savings.
"Science helps us to understand behavior change. So we’re excited to learn what strategies and tactics will motivate consumers and organizations to change their energy use habits," adds Summer Goodwin, BPA behavior-based energy efficiency program lead.
The behavior-based energy efficiency pilots are a step toward the development of infrastructure and policies that Northwest public utilities can use to operate behavior-based energy efficiency programs in residential, commercial and industrial sectors.
The Snohomish County Public Utility District’s pilot project is a collaboration between Snohomish County Public Utility District, PECI, Lucid, Puget Sound Energy and Starbucks. The program gathers real time energy use data and provides access to information via a web-based portal. Employees will be encouraged to engage in the pilot by facilitating an intra-store energy-saving competition.
Clark Public Utilities’ innovative behavior-based pilot aims to reinvent how electric utility customers interact with their utility by providing energy use feedback to residential users and integrating with the popular social media tool, Facebook.
Cowlitz Public Utility District’s pilot uses digital media, such as email and text messaging, in addition to frequent energy reports, to encourage energy efficiency and by residential end users.
Both Clark and Cowlitz are partnering with OPower.
BPA has committed up to $300,000 in funding per year. First phase results from the behavior-based energy efficiency pilots are expected in 2013.
BPA is a non-profit federal agency that markets renewable hydropower from federal Columbia River dams, operates three-quarters of high-voltage transmission lines in the Northwest and funds one of the largest wildlife protection and restoration programs in the world. BPA and its partners have also saved enough electricity through energy efficiency projects to power four large American cities. For more information, contact us at 503-230-5131 or visit www.bpa.gov. | <urn:uuid:78a6b2b4-453e-4a4a-a230-bd2136afbc76> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kbkw.com/modules/news/print.php?storyid=4321 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931005 | 643 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Joseph Smith uses Stone in a Hat
In Joseph Smith's Manuscript History he told about searching for a lost mine in 1825 for Josiah Stowell. But Joseph Smith did not mention his association earlier with a special stone located on a neighbor's property in 1822. As Joseph Smith told about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon he mentioned to earlier followers and others that he was able to find and later translate the Book of Mormon by having a stone in a hat. This peep stone has since been called a seer stone. This seer stone would be placed in a hat.
One definition of translation is "The act or process of translating, esp. from one language to another."(The American Heritage Dictionary [Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., Second College Edition, 1985], 1,287). In the 1828 Webster's Dictionary one of the meanings under the word translate is, "To interpret; to render into another language; to express the sense of one language in the words of another." (An American dictionary of the English Language [New York: S. Converse, 1828]
Contemporary records suggest that money-digging activities (treasure hunting) had been one of the Smith family occupations in the Palmyra/Manchester, New York area since the early 1820s. Willard Chase, a friend of the family recalled:
I became acquainted with the Smith family, known as the authors of the Mormon Bible, in the year 1820. At that time, they were engaged in the money digging business, which they followed until the latter part of the season of 1827. In the year 1822, I was engaged in digging a well. I employed Alvin and Joseph Smith to assist me; the latter of whom is now known as the Mormon prophet. After digging about twenty feet below the surface of the earth, we discovered a singularly appearing stone, which excited my curiosity. I brought it to the top of the well, and as we were examining it, Joseph put it into his hat, and then his face into the top of his hat. It has been said by Smith, that he brought the stone from the well; but this is false. There was no one in the well but myself. The next morning he came to me, and wished to obtain the stone, alledging that he could see in it; but I told him I did not wish to part with it on account of its being a curiosity, but would lend it. (Affidavit of Willard Chase, circa December 11, 1833, Manchester, Ontario County, New York in E. D. Howe, Mormonism Unvailed [Painesville (Ohio): Printed and Published by the Author, 1834], 240-41, emphasis omitted); also in Dan Vogel, ed., Early Mormon Documents [Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998], 2:65-66, cited hereafter as EMD).
During the month when the church was organized Willard Chase said he talked to Hyrum Smith, older brother of Joseph Smith: "In April, 1830, I again asked Hiram for the stone which he had borrowed of me; he told me I should not have it, for Joseph made use of it in translating his Bible" (Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, 247; in EMD 2:73).
A story was told by Joseph Smith Jr. that with the gold plates were found a pair of spectacles for the purpose of translating. These spectacles were called interpreters in the Book of Mormon, which also mentioned two stones put together into two rims of a bow, like being set in eye frames. These spectacles would soon be identified as the biblical Urim and Thummim. Peep stones which were in the possession of Smith were called by the faithful seer stones. These stones were also called a Urim and Thummim and may have confused people who were trying to understand what instruments were claimed to have been used to to translate the Egyptian language on the plates of gold. As Joseph Smith wrote in 1832, "but the Lord had prepared spectacles for to read the Book."
Willard Chase said he talked with Joseph Smith in the fall of 1827 and that Smith "then observed that if it had not been for that stone, (which he acknowledged belonged to me,) he would not have obtained the book." (Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, 246); in EMD 2:71-72). This stone was the stone (he had more than one stone) through which Joseph Smith discover the ancient record engraved in Egyptian hieroglyphics on plates of gold. Among those who heard the story of finding the plates by the Chase stone were the following individuals:
Martin Harris became one for the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon. In 1859 he was interviewed and reported that Joseph told him that he found the gold plates by this stone. Harris said, "Joseph had a stone which was dug from the well of Mason Chase [brother of Willard Chase], twenty-four feet from the surface. In this stone he could see many things to my certain knowledge. It was by [the] means of this stone he first discovered these plates" (Tiffany's Monthly 5 [Aug. 1859]:163; in EMD 2:302). Later Harris explained, "Joseph had before this described the manner of his finding the plates. He found them by looking in the stone found in the well of Mason Chase. The [Smith] family had likewise told me the same thing" (Tiffany's Monthly 5 [Aug. 1859]:169; in EMD 2:309).
Henry Harris was another individual who spoke with Joseph Smith. Harris related that Joseph Smith Jr. "said he had a revelation from God that told him they were hid in a certain hill and he looked in his stone and saw them in the place of deposit; that an angel appeared and told him he could not get the plates until he was married" (Affidavit of Henry Harris, no date [circa 1833], in Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, 252; in EMD 2:76).
The Rochester Gem told about Martin Harris visiting Rochester about June 1829 and reprints the following information.
A man by the name of Martin Harris was in this village a few days since endeavouring to make a contract for printing a large quantity of a work called the Golden Bible. He gave something like the following account of it. "In the autumn of 1827 a man named Joseph Smith of Manchester, in Ontario County, said that he had been visited by the spirit of the Almighty in a dream, and informed that in a certain hill in that town was deposited a Golden Bible, containing an ancient record of divine origin. He states that after a third visit from the same spirit in a dream, he proceeded to the spot, removed earth, and there found the bible, together with a large pair of spectacles. He had also been directed to let no mortal see them under the penalty of immediate death, which injunction he steadfastly adheres to. The treasure consisted of a number of gold plates, about 8 inches long, 6 wide, and one eighth of an inch thick, on which were engraved hieroglyphics. By placing the spectacles in a hat and looking into it, Smith interprets the characters into the English language.
Harris states that he went in search of some one to interpret the hieroglyphics, but found that no one was intended to perform that all important task but Smith himself. Smith has interpreted the whole, and it is now in press in Palmyra, Wayne Co. The subject attracts a good deal of notice among a certain class, and as it will be ere long before the public, we shall endeavor to meet it with the comment it may deserve.--Ed Gem. ("Golden Bible," Rochester Gem 1 [September 5, 1829]:70, Rochester, New York, emphasis omitted.)
Josiah Jones, a resident of Kirtland, Ohio, wrote about the first church missionaries arrival in that town:
In the last part of October, 1830, four men appeared here by the names of [Oliver] Cowdery, [Parley P.] Pratt, [Peter] Whitmer [Jr.] and [Ziba] Peterson; they stated they were from Palmyra [Manchester], Ontario county, N.Y. with a book which they said contained what was engraved on gold plates found in a stone box, in the ground in the town of Manchester, Ontario Co.,N.Y., and was found about three years ago by a man named Joseph Smith Jr. who had translated it by looking into a stone or two stones, when put into a dark place, which stones he said were found in the box with the plates. They affirmed while he looked through the stone spectacles another sat by and wrote what he told them, and thus the book was all written.
Continuing Jones mentions that he and a few others talked to Oliver Cowdery:
A few days after these men appeared again, a few of us went to see them and Cowdery was requested to state how the plates were found, which he did. He stated that Smith looked onto or through the transparent stones to translate what was on the plates. I then asked him if he had ever looked through the stones, to see what he could see in them; his reply was that he was not permitted to look into them. I asked him who debarred him from looking into them; he remained sometime in silence, then said that he had so much confidence in his friend Smith, who told him [Cowdery] that he must not look into them, that he did not presume to do so lest he should tempt God and be struck dead. (1831 Account by Josiah Jones published as "History of the Mormonites," in The Evangelist 9 [June 1, 1841]:134-35 as cited in Brigham Young University Studies 12 [Spring 1972]:307-308); also in EMD 2:413-15.)
Reformed Egyptian is mentioned in LDS Mormon 9:32. The title page states, "To come forth by the gift and power of God unto the interpretation thereof." The explanation later, but not always given, is that the Book of Mormon was translated by the Urim and Thummim.
The term Urim and Thummim is a post-1829 development and is not mentioned in the Book of Mormon. In a short time it replaced interpreters (spectacles) or seer stone in a hat. The following are some early statements on how the Book of Mormon was claimed to be "translated." Early stories mention that an object was put in a hat and Smith interpreted or read the words from what appeared in the hat. The idea to discover or interpret things by looking in a hat was the way Joseph Smith developed into one who claimed he could locate hidden treasures and also discover the meaning of a lost language without the object actually being in his presence.
The Book of Mormon told about its production: "And blessed be he [Joseph Smith Jr.] that shall bring this thing to light; for it shall be brought out of darkness unto light, according to the word of God; yea, it shall be brought out of the earth, and it shall shine forth out of darkness, and come unto the knowledge of the people; and it shall be done by the power of God" (LDS Mormon 8:16). The character King Mosiah translated or interpreted engravings on plates "by the means of those two stones which were fastened into the two rims of a bow. Now these things were prepared from the beginning, and were handed down from generation to generation, for the purpose of interpreting languages" (LDS Mosiah 28:13-14; the stones were known as "interpreters," verse 20). These two stones (said to be spectacles) were to be used to read the inscriptions on the plates, "wherefore thou shalt read the words which I shall give unto thee" (LDS 2 Nephi 27:20).
Abram Willard Benton who was a physician and lived at South Bainbridge at the time. commented on what he had learned concerning the activities of Joseph Smith:
For several years preceding the appearance of his book, he was about the country in the character of a glass-looker: pretending, by means of a certain stone, or glass, which he put in a hat, to be able to discover lost goods, hidden treasures, mines of gold and silver, &c.
Writing about a court appearance in the summer of 1830 Benton wrote:
Oliver Cowdery, one of the three witnesses to the book, testified under oath, that said Smith found with the plates, from which he translated his book, two transparent stones, resembling glass, set in silver bows. That by looking through these, he was able to read in English, the reformed Egyptian characters, which were engraved on the plates"
Addison Austin testified that Joseph Smith told him he could not see with the stone. At a time when Josiah Stowell Sr. "was digging for money, he, Austin, was in company with said Smith alone, and asked him to tell him honestly whether he could see this money or not. Smith hesitated some time, but finally replied, 'to be candid, between you and me, I cannot, any more than you or any body else; but any way to get a living.'" (Letter by A.W.B. [Abram W. Benton] to editor, March 1831, "Mormonites," Evangelical Magazine and Gospel Advocate 2 [April 9, 1831]:120, Utica, New York).
These two stones would soon become the biblical Urim and Thummim.
William W. Phelps who was the editor of the Ontario Phoenix publiched in Canandaigua, Ontario County, New York, south of Manchester where the Smith family used to live wrote in January 1831:
Mr. [Martin] Harris, whose name is in the book, is a wealthy farmer, but of small literary acquirements; he is honest, and sincerely declares upon his soul's salvation that the book is true, and was interpreted by Joseph Smith, through a pair of silver spectacles, found with the plates. The places where they dug for the plates, in Manchester, are to be seen. (W. W. Phelps to "Dear Sir" [E. D. Howe], Jan. 15, 1831 as quoted in Mormonism Unvailed, 273).
Isaac Hale, Joseph Smith's father-in-law stated:
The manner in which he [Joseph Smith Jr.] pretended to read and interpret, was the same as when he looked for the money-diggers, with the stone in his hat, and his hat over his face, while the Book of Plates were at the same time in the woods!
(Affidavit of Isaac Hale, given at Harmony Township, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania on March 20, 1834. "Mormonism," Susquehanna Register, and Northern Pennsylvanian 9 (May 1, 1834):1, Montrose, Pennsylvania.)
While preaching in Boston, Massachusetts, questions were asked of missionaries Orson Hyde and Samuel H. Smith. It was apparently Hyde who answered the questions. This presently is the earliest use of the term Urim and Thummim. This would indicate that its use would have been even earlier, at least by January 1832 before they left Ohio on their mission.
Q.-In what manner was the interpretation, or translation made known, and by whom was it written?
A.-It was made known by the spirit of the Lord through the medium of the Urim and Thummim; and was written partly by Oliver Cowdery, and partly by Martin Harris.
Q.-What do you mean by Urim and Thummim?
A.-The same as were used by the prophets of old, which were two crystal stones, placed in bows something in the form of spectacles, which were found with the plates. ("Questions proposed to the Mormonite Preachers and their answers obtained before the whole assembly at Julian Hall, Sunday Evening, August 5, 1832," Boston Investigator 2, August 10, 1832)
Orsamus Turner (1801-1855) wrote in 1851 what he learned through his investigations regarding the Joseph Smith Sr. family:
They said it was by looking at this stone, in a hat, the light excluded, that Joseph discovered the plates. This will be observed, differs materially from Joseph's story of the angel. It was the same stone the Smiths' had used in money digging, and in some pretended discoveries of stolen property. (O. Turner, History of the Pioneer Settlement of Phelps and Gorham's Purchase [Rochester: Published by William Alling, 1851], 216).
This means that what is
represented as the Book of Mormon is not a product of Joseph Smith's linguistic ability. Smith produced
a text with no knowledge of an ancient language. No one translates a real language by looking at a peep stone (seer stone) or
interpreters (spectacles) or Urim and Thummim in a hat. To translate a person needs to correctly know the language from which
he or she is translating. Also there is a need to know, in this case, the English langauge. There is no shortcut method in spending
time learning a language before making a translation. The fact is if you do not know the language you are translating you cannot translate.
The idea in the Book of Mormon is that a person who has the gift will read the interpretation of the engravings on the ancient record. In Joseph Smith's case he did not have the plates in his presence but had his face buried in his hat. He did not use the spectacles that were to be with the plates. | <urn:uuid:e53fccf5-5610-4e2d-a099-a4689d79fd05> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://user.xmission.com/~research/early/stone.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98332 | 3,700 | 3.5 | 4 |
Kiddie meals with toys on the decline
Are Happy Meals history? According to The NPD Group, there's been a 6% decline within the past year in kids meals containing toys at fast-food restaurants. NPD attributes the decline to several factors.
• Kids are exposed to a larger selection of different foods and are more willing to try healthier options than they were in the past, says NPD's Bonnie Riggs. Today's kids are also more experimental and have more of a drive to grow up fast—both of which are reflected in their palates.
• Parents are concerned about the wellbeing and health of their children. The Food Research and Action Center reports that 31.8% of today's kids are considered to be overweight and 16.9% are actually obese.
• Families are patronizing restaurants that offer healthier alternatives and downsized portions for their children. Operators are more focused now than ever in menuing healthful foods like fruits, vegetables and wraps in kid-friendly "packages."
• There's a slower rate of parties occurring at kid-oriented restaurants. In 2006, 21 billion parties with kids' visits occurred, with 17 billion of them at fast-food concepts. In 2011, there was a drop down to 19.5 billion, with 15 billion at QSRs.
Restaurants that have traditionally used meals with toys to lure families with children through their doors may have to rethink their strategy.
Source: Better Deals and More Sophisticated Palates Contribute to Kids Meals Decline, The NPD Group May, 2012 | <urn:uuid:89219982-8b17-4226-860b-e2e38f5fabec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://myidaccess.com/trend-tracker/articles/kiddie-meals-toys-decline | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971681 | 322 | 1.945313 | 2 |
Detroit Volkswagen opened a plant in Tennessee last month with 2,000 workers. Honda is hiring 1,000 in Indiana to meet demand for its best-selling Civic. General Motors is looking for 2,500 in Detroit to build the Chevy Volt.
Two years after the end of the Great Recession, the auto industry is hiring again — and much faster than the rest of the economy. As an employer, it’s growing faster than airplane manufacturers, shipbuilders, health care providers and the federal government.
The hiring spree is even more remarkable because memories of the U.S. auto industry’s near-death experience are fresh. In 2009, General Motors and Chrysler both got government bailouts and entered bankruptcy, and auto sales hit a 30-year low.
In June of that year, about 623,000 people were employed by the auto industry in the United States, the fewest since the early 1980s. Now the figure is almost 700,000, a 12 percent increase. Sales are back up, too, and automakers are hiring by the thousands to meet increased demand.
“The buzz is incredible around here about what opportunity we’re going to get if we can build a great product,” says Ben Edwards, who went to work for Volkswagen in Chattanooga, Tenn., last year and is now a team leader on an assembly line that installs tires and seats.
Edwards was working as a general contractor until the housing market dried up. He says the pay at Volkswagen, which starts at $14.50 an hour, is fair and the benefits are generous.
Besides hiring 2,000 people itself, Volkswagen figures the plant, where it will make its new Passat, will create 9,000 spin-off jobs in the region, including 500 at auto-supplier plants that are springing up nearby.
Automakers are hiring again because car sales are rising. Americans bought 10.4 million cars and trucks in 2009 and 11.6 million in 2010. This year, they’re on track to buy 13 million or more, and auto companies are adding shifts to meet the demand.
“Everybody got so lean and mean during the downturn that they’re trying to rebuild staff,” says Charles Chesbrough, a senior economist with IHS Automotive. | <urn:uuid:4c24d627-a061-42f1-8be5-56266130287c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2011/jul/07/auto-industry-hiring-spree/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95884 | 473 | 1.757813 | 2 |
At May 20, 1921
Wolfgang Borchert, German writer (d. 1947) was born.
QR-code for this e-book:
R :: Robert Southey :: Letters written during a journey in Spain and a short residence in Portugal : download ebook, manual, textbook
Author: Robert Southey
Title: Letters written during a journey in Spain and a short residence in Portugal
Publisher: London : Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme
Subject (keywords, tags): Spanish poetry -- History and criticism; Portuguese poetry -- History and criticism; Spain -- Descri
Contributor: University of California Libraries
Size: 257 kb
»» read the ebook Letters written during a journey in Spain and a short residence in Portugal ««
This ebook is usually downloaded with: Why are wages in Portugal lower than elsewhere in EEC? by Fernando Branco Three pleasant springs in Portugal by Henry Noel Shore Teignmouth Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe, Wife of Sir Richard Fanshawe, bart., ambassador from Charles the Second to the courts of Portugal and Madrid by Anne Harrison Fanshawe The diary of an invalid : being the journal of a tour in pursuit of health in Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, and France, in the years 1817, 1818, and 1819 by Henry Matthews History of Waterbury and the Naugatuck Valley, Connecticut (Volume 1) by William Jamieson Pape The Belmont-Belmonte family, a record of four hundred years, put together from the original documents in the archives and liibraries of Spain, Portugal, Holland, England and Germany, as well as from private sources by Richard James Horatio Gottheil History of Cayuga County, New York : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers by Elliot G. Storke Free trade in sugar : a reply to Sir Thomas Farrer by George Martineau Case studies of Uganda entrepreneurs: eight short cases by Henry Botsford Thomas The Arabs in Central Africa and at Lake Nyassa : with correspondence with H.M. Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs on the attitude of Portugal (Volume Talbot by James Stevenson
All texts were archived. To extract files from archives use: WinRar, WinZip and so on.
You can get WinRar . here | <urn:uuid:6f2c2ce3-6724-4dad-acf4-19c1e311e7e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/robert-southey/letters-written-during-a-journey-in-spain-and-a-short-residence-in-portugal-tuo.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908401 | 482 | 2.15625 | 2 |
The Clough Murder Case
New Year's Day in 1891 was a momentous one for Warren Clough, who had spent almost fifteen years in the Nebraska State Penitentiary for the 1876 murder of his brother, Nathan, in Seward. Clough was granted a new chance for life outside prison walls by a pardon issued by Nebraska Governor John M. Thayer, which took effect on January 1.
The crime for which Clough was convicted and incarcerated was well remembered by residents of Seward and York counties. Warren Clough, who with his wife kept the Blue Valley House hotel at Seward, was accused of murdering his brother, Nathan Clough, a horse breeder, at the hotel. The motive was apparently robbery. Warren denied any involvement in the crime, but it was noted that some jealousy had existed between the two brothers and that only Warren had known that Nathan had with him a large sum of money at the time he was killed-money that was missing after the murder was discovered.
Despite the lack of definitive evidence against Warren Clough, he was widely blamed by his neighbors for the gruesome killing (done with an ax), and he was eventually indicted and tried for murder. Feeling against him was so strong in Seward that a change of venue was granted and the trial took place in the neighboring city of York. He was convicted of murder in the first degree and was sentenced to be hung. On the evening before the execution was to take place, Governor Silas Garber commuted the sentence to life imprisonment.
As the years progressed, however, doubts grew about Clough's guilt. The Omaha Daily Bee in its January 1, 1891, report of Thayer's New Year's pardon, said, "The evidence that convicted Clough was circumstantial only, but somebody had to be punished for the crime and on the brother of the murdered man the blame was laid. The old neighbors of Warren Clough in Seward have of late begun to believe that possibly an innocent man might have been punished. The testimony brought out in the trial a decade and a half ago has been reviewed and not only have his old acquaintances, but the prosecuting attorney that worked for his conviction, the judge that sentenced him, and a number of the surviving jurymen that sealed his doom, have all united in asking Governor Thayer to free the old man."
Judge O. P. Mason, who had defended Clough at trial, "made a most eloquent plea for the imprisoned man. He declared that there had not been a scintilla of evidence presented that would convict Clough, that the conviction was on only the slightest evidence; that the testimony which sent Clough to the penitentiary was, in fact, not sufficient to bind him over to the district court." The Bee noted on January 2, 1891, that "[w]ithin the past few weeks important testimony has been developed showing that Jacob Trent and Charles Wilcox, both in the employ of Warren Clough at the time, were the real murderers." Trent had reportedly once told Mason "that Clough was an innocent man and if the worst came he would tell all. Before he could tell all he suddenly died with heart disease in the penitentiary."
After his release, Clough went back to Seward, where he was given a reception and dinner, but he found it difficult to return to his former life. The hotel he once operated was now owned by others, and his wife had secured a divorce and married again, relocating with their son to Oklahoma. Warren Clough reportedly went to Oklahoma to visit them, and died there several years later.
Governor John M. Thayer granted a pardon to accused murderer Warren Clough. From Portrait and Biographical Album of Otoe and Cass Counties Nebraska (Chicago, 1889).
From the Kearney Daily Hub, January 2, 1891
Return to Timeline Index | <urn:uuid:f0f80752-80eb-4fcc-8524-7ca4c1203185> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nebraskahistory.org/publish/publicat/timeline/clough_murder_case.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.993192 | 795 | 2.59375 | 3 |
The London Olympics have left us with some incredible memories, and as the dust settles on what has been a successful Games, it's time to look at some of the facts behind the festival.
The tallest competitor was Zhaoxu Zhang, a Chinese basketball player who stood at a lofty 2.19m (7ft 2in). While the heaviest was Ricardo Blas Jr from Guam a judo player who tipped the scales at 218kg (34st 5lbs).
The smallest was Japanese gymnast Asuka Teramoto, standing just 1.36m tall, and weighing 30kg (4st 10lbs).
Nauru is the smallest nation to compete at the games. The Pacific island of less than 10,000 inhabitants sent two weighlifters to London.
The island nation has been competing in the Olympics since 1996 and is yet to win a medal, but several nations did make a mark on the medal table for the first time at this Olympics:
Grenada won its first medal, Kirani James winning gold in the men's 400 metres.
Bahrain 1500m runner Maryam Jamal won bronze to put her nation on the medal map.
Botswanan athlete Nijel Amos won silver in the Men's 800 metres and Cypriot sailor Pavlos Kontides won silver in the men's laser.
Thirty world records were set at the Games, over seven sports. New Zealand claimed one, with Eric Murray and Hamish Bond's storming performance in the Men's coxless pair heat setting a new best of six minutes, 8.50 seconds.
The top three medal table toppers - China, US and Great Britain - all set five new world records apiece.
Eight world records were set in the swimming pool, while GB blazed a trail around the velodrome where its riders set all five of the nation's records.
Top viewer numbers
Two billion people are estimated to have watched Usain Bolt winning the 100m final live - however American viewers were forced to wait to see the historic event after NBC chose to delay its coverage to feature it in its prime time Sunday evening slot.
The race was the second most tweeted subject during the games, behind Bolt's double double attempt in the 200m which generated 80,000 tweets a minute.
Belarusian shot-putter Nadzeya Ostapchuk is the most high-profile drugs cheat from this games, but controversy was brewing even before the events started. One hundred and seven athletes were banned from competing at the Games back in June.
Another 13 who competed or were going to compete also tested positive for banned substances while in London.
The London Games set Britain's Government back to the tune of around $NZ19 billion - more than double what was forecast when the city was named as host seven years ago.
In comparison the Rugby World Cup was just a drop in the bucket - costing $39 million.
The British Government is remaining upbeat though, claiming the Games will bring more than $NZ20 billion of benefits to the country over the next few years.
Fun and games in the village
Athletes have a reputation for letting off steam post-competition and Kiwi rower Mahe Drysdale confirmed as much when he told reporters he enjoyed the flight home so he could catch up on some sleep.
While most of the shenaigans go on away from the public glare, German discus champion Robert Harting had one publicly epic night after winning gold.
After ripping off his shirt and doing the 100m hurdles in his pants, he tried to pull off one of the 'petals' of the Olympic flame. He then went out with friends and took in some drinks on a German cruise liner docked in London before falling asleep on a train, being robbed and then being denied entry to the athlete's village.
He cut a sheepish figure the next day at his medal ceremony.
Organisers provided 150,000 condoms for the 10,800 athletes at the Games - the most ever ordered.
Next stop Rio
Rio De Janeiro's Olympic Games is estimated to cost the same as London's and already people are questioning whether the venues will be ready on time, and how the city's transport will cope.
Brazil has the modest aim of finishing in the top 10 of the medal table in four years' time, but the football mad nation will be desperate to make up for a lacklustre performance in the Olympic final against Mexico. | <urn:uuid:cd3c3e77-31ee-4cd7-b384-6d6b7133d811> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tvnz.co.nz/olympics-2012/facts-london-olympic-oddities-5030012?ref=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966828 | 912 | 1.59375 | 2 |
"I’m gonna live forever. ... Baby remember my name." Irene Caras infectious anthem to fame — the theme song for both the eponymous 1980 Alan Parker film and the television series and musical that followed — seemed mirrored nowhere more vividly than in the smile of Leroy, the young African-American dancer played by Gene Anthony Ray. He attended the actual New York High School of the Performing Arts as a teenager before being expelled, and his breakaway performance updated the American dream into the stuff of reality, even as the cogs of Reaganomics began to quash the upward mobility of precisely his Harlem demographic. By the time Gene Anthony Ray died, in 2003 from a stroke complicated by his illness from AIDS (an acronym that Reagan himself failed to utter publicly in eight years of office), hardly anyone in America appeared to remember his name.
That a young artist on the other side of the Atlantic found in Ray’s misfortune an allegory of celebrity and its vicissitudes would seem, at best, fodder for a tale of ingenuous empathy, or, at worst, the facile patronization of a fallen star by a rising one. Instead, Marco Papas (born 1973) multimedia, multiyear project Dancing on the Verge (2001-2006), which involved Ray himself before his untimely demise, combined ambition and self-consciousness in a mix worthy of its subject. Following the decline of his career, Ray moved to Italy, drifting between various cities in a state of destitution, stirring up a buzz with his appearances in the most unlikely places. Here was the incarnation of fabled (and distinctively American) success, turning up like a latter-day Wandering Jew in real time, exiled from the stardom he had so charismatically personified. Ray’s intermittent residence in Papa’s native Milan, Naples, and even a small village in Calabria reduced — for Papa and his Italian contemporaries — the epic magnitude of "fame" (in all its senses) to more mundane dimensions. Papa embarked on a quest to find Ray and engage him in a series of works that would thematize his fitful trajectory as an artist and individual. What began as an aesthetic experiment led to a close friendship, as well as a kind of social intervention, as Papa used the project to raise awareness and money for Ray’s increasingly abject predicament. At no point, however, did Papa’s venture exploit the bathos of Ray’s tribulations, nor indulge in blind hero worship.
Evolving in time, space, and concept, Dancing on the Verge (for which Papa won the Casoli Prize for Contemporary Art in 2007) involved meticulous drawings, written documentation, and site- specific installations, including a requiem mass held in Trapani, Sicily, using a sculptured chalice-trophy designed by Papa. The project culminated in a synergy of sculpture, performance, and collective labor titled Black Gene Performance (2006), in which numerous individuals pulled together on a rope — passed through a mirrored wall — to hoist up a black granite sculpture of Gene/Leroy. Comprising 11 separate blocks of black granite threaded by a steel cable, the sculpture figured the dancer in the legendary Fame split when pulled taut. As the crowd pulled the rope, they could not see the sculpture as it ascended, but rather only their own reflection in the mirror. The effigy of success and failure rising and falling on the other side remained out of sight. Once the act of collective suspension concluded, the sculpture crumpled to the warehouse floor, its limbs disarticulated. Though its developments have been recorded in an absorbing book-journal (Charta, Milan; 2006), Dancing on the Verge is more than the sum of its (organizational, formal, and temporal) parts. In its revisitation and attempted resuscitation of Ray’s livelihood, the project unfurls an attendant commentary on the art market, its mercurial and mercenary addiction to celebrity, and Papa’s (and our) own implication in this system of unrelenting codependencies.
Building on similar themes, Papa’s next project, Ring of Fire (Cerchio di Fuoco, 2007-present), takes as its touchstone an artistic personality closer to home — in this case that of Pino Pascali, the arte povera sculptor and performance artist who died in a motorcycle accident at the age of 33. After a series of preparatory drawings, interviews with Pascali’s contemporaries, and a video documenting his research, Papa re-created Pascali’s Guzzi motorcycle out of sealing wax, piece by piece. The first part of the project — in the form of a literal ring of fire, evocative of motorcycle stunt rallies — was realized in November of 2007. The next stage will entail the melting of the bike’s pieces, which will drip into a mold of its original components, thus reconstituting the bike with a phoenix-like circularity. As with Dancing on the Verge, Ring of Fire transforms, through a kind of material and conceptual alchemy, facets of its subject’s remarkable biography into a work by turns concrete and playfully ineffable, anecdotal and elliptical.
Papa’s contiguity with arte povera is further reflected in his gallery representation by Matteo Boetti, son of Alighiero Boetti, one of the group’s original figures. Significantly, Papa was born one year after Germano Celant — arte poveras founder — repudiated the "repetitive stereotypes" to which the movement’s influences were being increasingly reduced. A generation later, Papa has absorbed the lessons of postwar Italian practices while carving out his own trajectory. His uses of sculpture conjure up those of Pascali himself, who, following his training in set design, often deployed his objects (notably Blue Widow, 1968) in ritual-like performances, and who filtered his social criticism through an alembic of conceptual poetics. Conversely, for Papa, sculpture also rescues his own increasingly theoretical work from the rarefaction of pure intellect. This dialectic seems to have informed Papa’s work from his earliest efforts — elegiac objects sculpted from soap, licorice, bread, and graphite. For his 1993 piece Alle venere, Papa sculpted a small unicorn out of soap, as a fragile symbol of purity and innocence; as the soap dissolved in a sink over the course of several days, all that remained of its existence was the faint, disembodied whiff of its former incorporation.
Perhaps it is only the presence of the sink that links them, but Papa’s work seems to evince something of Robert Gobers practice, in which seemingly straightforward objects are often the product of intricate preparation, handwrought fabrication, and quite lyrical derivation. Papa’s involuted conceptual ventures belie a frank concern for design, form, and materials. It suffices to look at his pencil studies for the sculpture-installation You Cannot Forget (No puoi dimenticare, 2005), or his suite of dazzling drawings in graphite for Dancing on the Verge (Silver Gene, 2004), to get a sense of the scrupulous — even academic — compositions that subtend his projects. But it is often the disjunction between these clear-cut images and the real-time unfolding of his installations that is most striking and compelling in Papa’s work. For Look at the side you don't know (2003), he mounted the chassis of a car in the wall separating two rooms of London’s Union Gallery, inviting visitors to cross the space and enter the work itself. A hint of Joseph Beuyss notion of "social sculpture" perhaps echoes in Papa’s interdisciplinary, participatory affinities, as well as his investment in a kind of collective, symbolic catharsis around specific objects. But Papa steers clear of the specious naïveté that marked Beuys’s self-styled shamanism, with its quixotic faith in the autonomy of artworks. "I begin," Papa has remarked elsewhere, "from the assumption that all art has always been a commercial matter. If part of my research could be consumed by the masses, instead of remaining elitist, it could really be meaningful."
Papa has put those refreshingly candid words into practice, serving, as of this past year, as the artistic director of Adele-C, an exhibition space in Milan and Rome funded by Adele Cassina, daughter of the legendary Italian designer Cesare Cassina. "Design," Papa insists, "is in crisis" — a crisis rooted in depersonalized seriality. Adele-C aims to involve various contemporary artists in rethinking the future of design, issuing limited-edition artworks created in light of that concern, produced on an industrial scale. Exhibitions thus far have involved collaborations between Luigi Ontani and Gioacchino Pontrelli, Enzo Cucchi, and Papa himself. For his inaugural exhibition in the Roman venue, Papa created a tricolor sculpture based on the armchair that Cesare designed for his young daughter (Zarina Year Zero (Zarina anno zero, 2008). Its velvet fabric is painted vivid green and red, and the back of the chair-sculpture served as a screen for the projection of a video recording daily events in and around the studio — at once a relic of Italy’s modernist history and a blank slate for its future; an artifact of familial sentiment, and an appeal for a more humanist design practice at large. Once again, a biographical penchant forms the kernel of Papa’s sculptural object here. Sentiment does not bleed into sentimentality, however. The object in Papa’s oeuvre consistently reins in its affective, narrative, and intellectual strains. These remain present, palpable, somehow on the verge.
"Live Forever" originally appeared in the Summer 2009 issue of Modern Painters. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Modern Painters' Summer 2009 Table of Contents. | <urn:uuid:beb2adf1-22de-4d62-80f1-f9a545d1e949> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/31595/live-forever/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963431 | 2,108 | 1.5 | 2 |
Anguli Ma is the central figure in a traditional Buddhist folktale, a deranged killer who wears his victims’ fingers in a garland around his neck. Chi Vu presents him as a menacing abattoir worker who carries bloody chunks of meat home to his lodgings in plastic bags, in this suburban Gothic tale set in 1980s Melbourne, when the flight of Vietnamese refugees to Australia was at its height.
The gathering fear, the prevailing darkness, the strange contours of the house which has been divided and sub-divided to accommodate its female occupants, the macabre humour and surreal effects, mark Chi Vu’s novella out as a unique contribution to contemporary Australian storytelling, and our understanding of its communities.
Fellow, Cities Program, Grattan Institute
Sidney Myer Asia Centre | <urn:uuid:c4dbd0bd-6639-4429-92ae-e08ec93e24e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mulberryroad.tumblr.com/post/21637243017/anguli-ma | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964503 | 168 | 1.625 | 2 |
Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Records Service
Celebrating our Centenary Year!
The Bedfordshire Record Office, as it was formerly known, was established in 1913 by Dr George Herbert Fowler and was the first County record office in England. We hold the archives for the entire County dating from 1166 to the present day.
Congratulations to the team from Bedford Times & Citizen who won first place in our successful Centenary Quiz Night held last Thursday at the Forest Centre, Marston. Twenty three teams from around the County battled it out over eight rounds in a challenging Bedfordshire themed quiz devised by Laura Johnson, our customer service officer. Many thanks to all who attended. Check our talks and exhibitions page for details of more Centenary events..
We are based in the Riverside Building at Borough Hall, Bedford, where visitors are welcome to come in and use the archives for research without appointment at any time during our opening hours. Staff are on hand to help and advise you.
Archive Service Searchroom Opening Hours:
Monday: 9 -7
Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday: 9 - 5.
We are closed on all Bank Holidays.
If you want to prepare for your visit you can search over 75% of our catalogues online. If you can't visit and would like us to do some research for you details of our enquiry services and charges are here.
We can now be followed on http://twitter.com/#!/BedsArchives for regular updates of new catalogues, web pages and events.
Records of Bedford Gaol
This chap is one of the most notorious criminals detained in Bedford Gaol in the 19th century, Levi Welch from Luton. Only a fraction of the prisoners had their photo taken - those deemed habitual or frequent offenders - but 41,500 descriptive records of the prisoners in Bedford gaol in the 19th Century are available on our online database.
Paths to Crime
The exciting Paths to Crime two year project to catalogue and repackage the Bedfordshire Quarter Sessions Rolls from 1831-1900 is drawing to a close. The Paths to Crime blog tracks our progress!
To tie in with our centenary exhibition at Wardown Park Museum this month we take a look at the man who built the house in which the museum is situated - Frank Chapman Scargill.
Objectives of the Archive Service:
To collect and preserve, as part of a national network of archive repositories, in secure and environmentally controlled conditions, a comprehensive and evolving archive illustrating all aspects of Bedfordshire life and history including contemporary records of archival value
To encourage public and community access to the records by processing archives and producing a range of finding aids, both in hard copy and on the world wide web; providing a public Searchroom service; offering a ‘one stop shop’ service point for all enquiries about the County’s land, people and their
activities as the sole repository for Bedfordshire’s written heritage
To promote use of the archives for business (legal and administrative), educational, cultural and recreational purposes
What are the ‘archives’ and ‘records’ we hold and who uses them?
‘Archives’ are written documents which were once working ‘records’ and have come to be preserved, often after selection (‘appraisal’ as we call it), for research and/or historical purposes. They represent the recorded memory of the organisation or individual which created them but also have a wider significance in terms of the information they contain for researchers.
The Archives held by the Service span over 800 years and come from official and private sources. They include public records, local government archives and other official papers, church records, and archives from local families, businesses, societies and individuals. We also have extensive collections of maps, pictures and newspapers. To find out more about the variety of records held here browse our Guides to Collections , Newsletter Articles and Summary List of our Archive Holdings.
The Archives are available to all. Anyone who wants to see them or obtain information may visit us. Researchers can use the material directly as visitors on-site to the searchroom (‘the research room‘) where you can see, handle and use the original records and where trained staff will help you to find what you want and give advice on your research. People who are unable to visit can make contact by telephone, letter, fax and e-mail and use our enqury & research service. Increasingly, people are able to consult our archive catalogues on the internet. Many others benefit indirectly from the products of direct research by the use of text and images in publications, marketing and advertising, media research and reporting.
Bedfordshire & Luton Archives & Records Service actively encourages access to the records in its care. However, sometimes records are embargoed (closed) – or may not otherwise be available - for example they may contain confidential or sensitive information, and access is restricted under the Data Protection rules.
There is no admission charge for visitors, and you do not have to pay to see the archives and records we hold. You will have to pay for any copying, and for research work which is carried out for you by staff. See our Scale of Charges for full details.
We are committed to exploiting the potential of information technology and the internet, particularly in eventually placing all our archive catalogues on-line so they can be consulted and index searched by the widest possible range of users. It is hoped that all our catalogues will be on line by 2015. We also have a popular online database of 19th Century prisoners in Bedford gaol.
We have been working to bring the history of Bedfordshire's towns, villages & hamlets online in our Community Archives section.
A records management service was established in 1989 to serve the internal record keeping needs of Bedfordshire County Council, and since April 2009 has served the three unitary councils. The service has become a national leader in detailed appraisal, listing and indexing of Council archives; these are a vital 20th Century source for areas such as education, social conditions, house histories, and local history through the planning process and the Fire Service. Records with such historical value are transferred to the archives for permanent preservation.
Since 1st April 2009 the Archive Service has been jointly funded by the three councils: Bedford Borough, Central Bedfordshire and Luton Borough.
Archive Service Annual Report
View our 2011 - 2012 Annual Report here (pdf) | <urn:uuid:050f4881-a4d3-4255-bbf5-3b678e96a1e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bedfordshire.gov.uk/CommunityAndLiving/ArchivesAndRecordOffice/ArchivesAndRecordOffice.aspx?ContensisTextOnly=graphics | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943337 | 1,330 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Tampa Bay Real Estate
The city of Tampa hosts a local population in excess of 340,000 people and has been consistently expanding since its settlement in 1823 and incorporation in 1849. Scenically situated along Florida’s western coast with the Gulf of Mexico, Tampa has become the 53rd-largest city in the United States and is part of the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater Metropolitan Area. The communities that surround the core of Tampa are usually referred to as the “Tampa Bay” area. In 2008, Tampa was ranked as the eighth-cleanest city in the United States by Yahoo! And the fifth-best outdoor city by Forbes Magazine.
Several Fortune 100 companies are headquartered in Tampa, including OSI Restaurant Partners, the parent of Outback Steakhouse, Bonefish Grill, and Carrabba’s Italian Grill, WellCare Health Plans, Inc., TECO, Walter Industries, and Raymond James Financial. Several other companies have corporate offices, headquarters, factories, warehouses, and other operations in the Tampa area. This thriving local economy has made working a joy for the majority of Tampa’s residents.
The city’s name is translated into English as “sticks of fire” from the Native American Calusa tribe that once inhabited the area. Most historians believe this is related to lightning that sometimes appears in the South Floridian region. The heart of Tampa is bordered by both the Old Tampa Bay and the Hillsborough Bay that together form the more well-known Tampa Bay that flows into the Gulf of Mexico. The Hillsborough River flows to the similarly-named bay and is one of Tampa’s primary sources of fresh water.
Education has become one of the cornerstones of life in Tampa. The University of South Florida, University of Tampa, Florida Metropolitan University, Hillsborough Community College, Southwest Florida College, Stetson University College of Law, Strayer University, The Art Institute, South University, International Academy of Design and Technoilogy, and Remington College all have campuses in the general area in and surrounding Tampa proper. A highly competitive and top-notch Hillsborough County Public School District provides quality K-12 educations to Tampa’s school-aged youth.
Tampa is also home to four major professional sports leagues. While Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays play in nearby St. Petersburg, the National Football League’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers, National Hockey League’s Tampa Bay Lightning, and Arena Football League’s Tampa Bay Storm are all based in Tampa itself. These teams have grown large and loyal fan bases that have driven Tampa to become of the most sports-crazy cities in the nation. On game days, it is not uncommon to see neighborhood blocks hosting large parties and other related events. | <urn:uuid:5d58909b-8964-4a20-8ca3-33ce3d23d41a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.k4brc.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947835 | 574 | 1.601563 | 2 |
If two heads are better than one, Bibb County school leaders are taking that concept to the next level by bringing about 4,000 heads together to help solve the districts ills.
Bibb school officials are using a collaborative approach by engaging employees, local dignitaries, parents and community members in developing a systemwide plan aimed at improving student achievement.
The first of two strategic planning sessions took place Monday at the Macon Coliseum and Wilson Convention Center while students had the day off. School employees met at their schools and took buses to and from the strategic planning sessions.
Engaging so many people in the process gives them ownership in the plan, Superintendent Romain Dallemand said.
Having everyone in the room makes sure we capture their voices and opinions, he said.
As it stands, Bibb schools are in need of fundamental change rather than small tweaks to the existing system, Dallemand told the crowd Monday morning.
Among students who entered the ninth grade in Bibb County during the 2007-08 school year, only 44.6 percent earned diplomas four years later.
During the 2010-11 school year, 703 students dropped out of school.
With the smaller student population, Bibb County schools lost out on $4.15 million of state funding that could have funded the salaries of 64 teachers, Dallemand said.
If we need better results, we need to design a different system, he said.
The superintendent also pointed to discipline statistics that indicate the need for reform.
During the previous school year, 493 Bibb County students were expelled from school, and 7,914 were suspended.
Monday, participants met in small groups after remarks from Dallemand and educational consultant Anthony Muhammad.
A core team of about 60 employees from several departments in the school system will gather the information collected Monday and group the ideas into themes, which will be presented to the same group during the next strategic planning session Oct. 10 for further discussion. The systems plan is expected to be announced in January.
Some teachers, such as Jontavius Reed, a fourth- and fifth-grade math teacher at King-Danforth Elementary School, were enthusiastic about playing a part in the process. Not only does he want to see his students succeed, but he also draws inspiration from his own daughter, who will one day attend Bibb County schools.
Its something thats never been done, Reed said. Its part of something awesome.
Setting the changes in motion will be a challenge, but Bibb teachers will need to support them to move students forward, said Leigh Olsen, the Career Technical and Agricultural Education department head at Howard High School.
Some (teachers) handle change well. Its up to the teacher to accept it, or leave it and move on and look for a new job, Olsen said. Change is coming -- (you have to) accept it with your whole heart.
To contact writer Andrea Castillo, call 744-4331. | <urn:uuid:3636c727-3d69-4e2e-ab02-433990e93592> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.macon.com/2011/09/19/1710562/thousands-of-employees-meet-to.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969267 | 611 | 1.929688 | 2 |
Explore El Norte Grande
The northern edge of this 3000-square-kilometre basin covered by a vast crust of saline minerals lies some 10km south of San Pedro. The largest salt flat in Chile, SALAR DE ATACAMA is formed by waters flowing down from the Andes which, unable to escape from the basin, are forced to evaporate, leaving salt deposits on the earth. It’s not a dazzling white like the Salar de Surire, or Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, but it’s fascinating all the same – especially when you get out and take a close look at the crust, which looks like coffee-coloured coral reef, or ice shards, and clanks when you walk on it. The salar contains several small lakes, including Laguna Chaxa, home to dozens of flamingoes, and the beautiful Laguna Salada, whose waters are covered with floating plates of salt.
Many tour companies also take you for a float in the saline waters of Laguna Cejar, 19km from San Pedro. This emerald green lagoon contains even more salt than the Dead Sea. Your guide will warn you to wear shoes when walking on the banks, as very sharp salt crests can cut your feet. Remember to bring bottles of water to wash the salt off afterwards. | <urn:uuid:5e093ce0-d1f3-48c3-be24-be93f0080579> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.roughguides.com/destinations/south-america/chile/el-norte-grande/around-san-pedro/salar-de-atacama/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914044 | 275 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Psychological conditioning of angina pectoris
It is a widely held view that angina pectoris results from a mismatch between restricted coronary artery blood flow and an increased myocardial workload. The hypothesis was first proposed by Keefer and Resnick more than 70 years ago (1), yet many clinical observations do not accord with this view (2). Advanced multi-vessel coronary artery disease may cause congestive heart failure in patients who had never suffered from angina. The very converse is also true, namely, typical angina may be experienced by patients with angiographically intact coronary arteries.
If the provocative factor is due to inadequate oxygen delivery in relation to the cardiac workload, it is difficult to reconcile the striking divergence between the efforts required to induce pain on different occasions. I cite but a few of the numerous clinical observations: the truck driver who carts heavy furniture without experiencing chest discomfort, but can not walk a block with his wife without resorting to nitroglycerin; the man who has consistent angina walking from car to office though it is downhill, and is free of angina when climbing up the steep incline to the car park after work; or the meat packer who never experienced angina when carrying on his shoulder a 20 kg slab of beef into a freezer room, but is often halted by severe retrosternal squeezing when merely hiking.
Clinicians recognize the stereotypic pattern in the occurrence of angina. A patient may be able to exert strenuously indoors without any discomfort, but be limited while walking outdoors with ambient temperatures similar in both settings. Modest activity on first arising in the morning is more likely to precipitate angina than greater exertion later in the day.
The threshold for pain is lower with the onset of activity than during its continuance. For example, the golfer afflicted with angina is frequently aware of chest pressure which occurs at the initial tee-off, yet is rare thereafter while traversing a far more taxing terrain. Customary work, although arduous, usually does not induce angina. At times, seemingly innocuous stimuli, minor psychological stresses, or miniscule efforts can set off anginal episodes. While the rate-pressure product is a fair index of myocardial oxygen consumption, it bears little concordance with the onset of angina (3).
Many such clinical observations suggest the operation of other pathophysiological mechanisms in the genesis of angina. That psychological stress is implicated is a clinical truism. A number of times while witnessing provocation of angina by intense emotion, I did not detect a change in heart rate or blood pressure. I recall a patient who developed angina only upon receiving a telephone call in the early afternoon. His heart rate at the time remained at 65 bpm and blood pressure continued at 132/76 mmHg. A careful history revealed that one afternoon five years earlier, he learned by telephone that a truck had killed his young daughter on her way home from grammar school. I also recall a patient who consistently developed angina when he walked down to the cellar of his home where, a few years earlier, he found his teenage son hanging. An exercise stress test that accelerated his heart rate to 144 bpm and raised his blood pressure to 180/70 mmHg did not provoke angina.
These experiences are reminiscent of a Pavlovian conditioned reflex. In the two patients described, the stimulus was a shocking memory. Psychologists have designated these phenomena as nocebo responses, or negative placebo effects.
The following study illustrates the reality of the nocebo response. Psychology students, participating in an experiment at the University of California, were warned that they might get a headache from a mild electric current being passed through their heads. Two-thirds of the students reported experiencing pain. The pain persisted even after they were informed that there had been no electric current. In fact, the pretended electric current resulted in a real headache (4). In another study, when hospitalized patients were given sugar water and told it was an emetic, 80% vomited shortly thereafter.
These observations suggest the possibility that a similar type of nocebo-like conditioning plays a role in angina pectoris. I am convinced of this, having once succeeded in deliberately conditioning the provocation of angina pectoris. The patient was a 40-year-old truck driver with severe multi-vessel coronary artery disease. At the time, there were no effective anti-anginal drugs. It was long before revascularizing cardiac surgery or angioplasty.
The patient consistently experienced retrosternal pressure and exhibited 3-4 mm of planar ST segment depression after 44 crossings of a small staircase. This was the so-called Master's Two-step Test. I found no ready explanation for the curious fact that in each of the five tests he was compelled to stop at precisely 44 crossings of the two-step. This study had taken place over several months and at various times of the day.
Thereupon I initiated the following study: The exercise testing was conducted in exactly the same manner except the count of each crossing, which hitherto had been called out, was now silent. As he reached 28 crossings, I called out 40 then 41, and so forth. He seemed startled at the more rapid approach of the end of exercise, but after the 29th crossing (at the count of 41) he complained of angina and by the 32nd crossing miscounted as 44, he was compelled to stop. The electrocardiographic pattern was nearly identical to that noted on prior occasions when he traversed the two-step 44 times (the electrocardiographic tracings are available in reference 5).
Exercise tests with such miscountings were repeated several times with an identical result. However, when there was a loud count and he was stopped after 32 crossings, there was neither pain nor any ST segment deviations. There was little concordance between the degree of tachycardia and the occurrence of angina.
This experience demonstrated that angina could be induced by verbal conditioning. In fact, specific numbers had come to communicate a level of intolerable stress with profound biological consequences. The observation has substantial implications for understanding the pathogenesis of angina. Suggested is the operation of higher nervous mechanisms, and that neural inputs from brain to heart may determine the occurrence of the classical ischemic pain. Whether the mechanism is ultimately through vasospasm as encountered in Prinzmetal's angina, through effects on endothelium, or by the release of nociceptive cytokines remains to be established.
Irrespective of the underlying mechanism, there are important clinical implications. The physician needs to search for a conditioning paradigm in the patient presenting with angina. There are rewards for such painstaking history taking. For example, in the two cases reported wherein the death of a child was responsible, psycho-therapy resolved the angina.
-Originally published on 29 February 2000
The patient G.A., here described, first presented in March 1956 and died suddenly one year later, barely having reached his 41st birthday. Nearly every member of his family had precocious coronary artery disease.
No patient ever affected me as much, no patient ever taught me as much, no patient ever changed my style of practice as much as this truck driver. Though unschooled, he was self-educated and prodigiously well-read, including the works of Pavlov, who first described the conditioned reflex.5
A relatively innocuous count-down provoked angina and profound ST segment changes. That psychological factors can predispose to episodes of anginal discomfort was already appreciated by Heberden, who first described the syndrome. The experience of triggering angina by a verbal cue, though singular, nevertheless cast a powerful light on the pathogenesis of this common syndrome.
- 13 September 2008
1. Keefer CS, Resnik WH. Angina pectoris: a syndrome caused by anoxemia of the myocardium. Arch Intern Med. 1928;41:769.
2. Levine SA. Some puzzling points concerning angina pectoris. Am J Cardiol. 1959;1:19.
3. Wayne EJ, Laplace LB. Observation of angina of effort. Clin Sci. 1933;1:103.
4. Hahn RA. The Nocebo phenomenon scope and foundations. In The Placebo Effect, Harrington, A, ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 1997.
5. Lown B. Verbal conditioning of angina pectoris exercise testing. Am J Cardiol. 1977;40:630-634.
Date Posted: 13 September 2008 | <urn:uuid:b1e1679a-6cbf-4bfe-abd7-2ad1cb701461> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.procor.org/clinical/clinical_show.htm?doc_id=705309&type_id=2102 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962083 | 1,771 | 1.859375 | 2 |
Three tips from a pro
Triathlete pro Heather Jackson made the jump to professional racing in the summer of 2009. Here are three training tips from her on how the everyday athlete can learn to run a better race:
Consistency: “Run shorter times/distance if it means you can run MORE times/per week.” Jackson says that seven shorter runs are better than three longer runs.
High cadence: “When cycling, think about turning your legs over quicker.” You can work on getting a higher cadence on a stationary bike or in a spin class.
Choose your running surface: “Running on dirt, grass, trails, and tracks are much better for you than running on concrete or roads.” | <urn:uuid:131429e4-f40d-4819-a061-b445ba18b680> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nola.com/running/index.ssf/2011/04/three_tips_from_pro_triathlete.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950228 | 154 | 2.15625 | 2 |
From attending American high school classes and a soccer game after school to eating in the school cafeteria, 14 visiting Chinese exchange students got an eye-opening view last week of the day in the life of a Southern California high school student.
The Chinese students, who ranged in age from almost 13 to 18, were staying with families in the Lake Elsinore area and “shadowing” local students for several days last week at Temescal Canyon High School in Lake Elsinore.
The exchange students, who attend different schools at home in Shanghai, came to the local high school for three days to attend classes and participate in a range of other activities. Also on their visit to California, which was arranged by the Temecula-based California School of English, the Chinese students had a trip planned to visit Disneyland, were going to visit San Diego and were able to go shopping. They arrived Jan. 28 and were scheduled to return home this week.
Nissan Sun, 17, was making his first trip to the United States and came away with a positive impression of the high school and country overall.
“The classes were very attractive. Everybody can say what they are thinking,” said Nissan, an 11th-grader. He said some classes, such as the biology class he attended at Temescal Canyon, seemed hard, but added, “Mathematics is easier for us.”
“People are kind here,” Nissan said. “The environment is very good. The air is very clean and the people are friendly.”
Jane Miao, 16, agreed. “The school’s beautiful and the students are active and the teachers friendly,” she said, adding that this was her first time in America.
Tenth-grader Steven Yu, 16, said he was surprised that one of the teachers in a class he attended at Temescal Canyon played guitar in the classroom. “They do everything they want in the class. Students can express their feelings to the teacher.”
Steven also noted that in China, students take English classes for several years, and most of the visiting Chinese students spoke English quite well.
Ashley Zheng, 18, a senior in high school in Shanghai, said one of the classes she attended here was a sign language class. “I’ve never seen that before,” she said.
She said the Lake Elsinore students seemed “energetic and passionate,” compared to Chinese students, many of whom tend to be quieter.
“One big difference I feel is the students can choose their classes freely. I’m a bit jealous for that,” Ashley said.
The experience also benefitted the Temescal Canyon High students, who said they enjoyed having their Chinese peers come to class with them.
“They know how to do our work. My girl was 12 and she knew how to do my Algebra 2,” said one local host student, Alysha Ippolito, a 17-year-old senior who played host on campus to a Chinese student who turns 13 on Saturday. Alysha noted how many hours a day the Chinese students go to school. “She said they have 10 lessons a day and go from morning to night.”
Alysha said she also learned that her Chinese peers aren’t that different from American teens: they like Coke, chocolate, and playing games on the computer and iPad.
“A lot of these Elsinore kids have never traveled out of this country so they get a world eye-view,” said Temescal Canyon High Associated Student Body Director Cari Strange. | <urn:uuid:5d48fd0d-72a9-4555-a587-a2ba8593d751> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/feb/04/tp-exchange-students-visit-temescal-canyon/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98614 | 761 | 1.789063 | 2 |
How Living Walls, Vertical Gardens and Sky Farms Work
Have you ever wondered how plants grow in the weirdest of places like rocks, tree trunks, and the outside of houses? This phenomenon, based on the fact that plants actually do not need soil to grow, has been replicated by scientists in recent years. Called vertical gardens, green walls or sky farms, they try to bring green oases and even farming indoors. Portrayed by Environmental Graffiti in May 2008, the idea has since grown roots (pun intended).
Vertical gardens are today the most common green oases that we can see all around us, because they exploit the fact that plants actually do not need soil to grow, as long as they have water and the minerals found in soil. Plus, light and carbon dioxide to conduct photosynthesis, of which, in our urban environment, there should be plenty around. The picture that looks like an architectural drawing is taken at Singapore's Changi Airport, the "green" Terminal 3 with a giant green wall. That should take care of that stuffy airport air once and for all!
Here's another example of indoor green walls from the Emporium Mall in Bangkok. But what about the plants’ roots? We all have seen monuments taken over or destroyed by vegetation. Actually, roots cause damage to a wall only if they are allowed to grow deep inside it. And they will do that if water is not accessible on the surface, therefore leaving the plant to dig for more. Root-related damage to walls can therefore be prevented if water is given to the plants regularly, keeping the roots on the surface and so saving the inner wall.
For a detailed view of the vertical gardens concept, let’s take a lot at the work of French scientist Patrick Blanc, who has been setting up large-scale vertical gardens indoors and outdoors with the help of architects for years. Every one of Blanc’s gardens is comprised of three parts: a metal frame, a PVC layer and a felt layer. The wall-mounting or self-standing frame provides a layer of air and therefore thermal insulation. A 1 cm-thick PVC sheet is riveted onto that metal frame to ensure stability and waterproofing. Then, a layer of rot-proof felt is stapled onto the PVC, guaranteeing homogenous water distribution und room for the roots to grow.
Image: Cathy Cunliffe
To keep the wall alive, with nutrients enriched water is provided from the top so that watering and fertilisation becomes an automated process. Other than adding a bit of nature to our concrete jungles and cleaning the air, vertical walls are also excellent building insulators that keep energy costs low because they protect the building from the cold in the winter and act as a natural cooling system in the summer. The plants used can be seeds, cuttings or already grown plants. Plant selection depends on the climatic conditions of the region where the vertical wall is set up and lighting conditions. Blanc’s constructions have been set up in underground parking lots or other fully closed spaces without any natural light. Using plants that require less light and providing sufficient artificial lighting will keep the vertical garden going even in enclosed spaces.
What about weight?
Wouldn’t walls, especially indoor ones, cave in under the weight of this construction? Fortunately not because another advantage of soil-less plant cultivation is that the plant-supporting system is very light and can therefore be set up on any wall, regardless of size. The whole weight of one of Patrick Blanc’s vertical gardens for example, including the frame, is less than 30 kg per square metre.
Image: Dr. Dickson Despommier
But what about farming?
One couldn’t grow tomatoes, peaches, apples and peppers on a structure like this? Probably not but this is where sky farming becomes horizontal for a moment again: Plants are cultivated on a horizontal surface, but without soil and using hydroponic and aeroponic techniques: the first grows plants only in nutrient-rich water, the latter in nutrient-rich mist. And this can be done indoors, on every floor of a skyscraper for example, therefore making farming vertical again.
Why is sky farming or urban farming such a hot topic?
Because according to predictions, the world population will grow by 3 billion to 9.2 billion people by 2050, requiring 50% more of the current food supplies. With current farming practices, however, we would require additional land for farming, even bigger than the size of Brazil, as currently almost all food-producing land is already being farmed. Therefore, skywards seems to be the solution.
Image: Dr. Dickson Despommier
When searching for anything on sky farming, one name keeps coming up: Dr. Dickson Despommier, professor of environmental sciences and microbiology at Columbia University. His web site describes in detail why and how skyscrapers should be turned into crop farms for fruits, vegetables and grains or even self-sustaining skyscraper farms that also produce clean water and energy. For anyone who has holiday cash to spare, he’s also set up a web site that lets you pledge money for a vertical farm in New York City.
Critics argue that producing more skyscrapers would not only look ugly but also take away green spaces. If traditional agricultural land made redundant by sky farms were reforested or turned into a park, more green, outdoor recreational areas would be available. Another point of critique is that real estate prices would prevent sky farming from moving into city skyscrapers but there might not be a choice as it is predicted that by 2050, 80% of the population will live in urban areas. Through migration, but also urban sprawl and population growth that will turn today’s villages into cities. Sky farms and cities are meant to go together as the city provides the density and infrastructure needed for sky farming while benefiting from clean air generation and energy.
And what about combining a sky farm skyscraper with vertical gardens, making it a green ecosystem inside and out? Though this might be a dream of the future, we can start with rainwater harvesting or do-it-yourself vertical gardens for home use. This picture shows OCAD student Michael Tampilic’s VERT Rain Terrace that won second prize at the 2008 Rocket industrial design show. According to Tampilic’s web site, it was designed for the “suburban backyard gardening lifestyle” that aims to help the public water system during crunch times while creating a living wall at the same time.
Whoever wants to join the trend solely for aesthetic reasons might want to try a do-it-yourself kit from one of the many enterprising providers. Construction, maintenance and watering system should be checked carefully though to avoid surprises. | <urn:uuid:3274d2ac-6fc7-4817-93f0-f02d03ab2c86> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/ecology/the-walls-are-alive/5595 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938483 | 1,398 | 3.46875 | 3 |
Editor's note: On John Demjanjuk’s behalf, this statement was verbally translated from written Ukrainian into the German language by the court translator during the Nov. 23, 2010, public court session in Munich, Germany. The Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk, 90, is accused of participating in Nazi war crimes after taken prisoner by Hitler's forces during World War II. He denies the allegations.
Statement of John Demjanjuk
With the court’s decision to continue this trial, the judges, who do not have any jurisdiction and - because Germany is the successor of the Third Reich - no moral competence, infringe upon the principles of a fair trial, the truth, the law and the concept of justice.
At Nuremburg, and in the later prosecutions in Germany, no prosecutor and no judge dared to distort the law and the facts as has been done here. Indeed, the continued refusal of the German authorities to accept responsibility for the torture and death of millions of Soviet POWs and the inhumane conditions under which we were held, is a way of denying the full German responsibility for the Nazi holocaust.
I accuse Judges Alt, Lenz and Pfluger:
The judges ignore the facts in order to make an "owner of a German office" out of me - a simple prisoner-of-war - knowing that all the documentary evidence shows, without a shadow of doubt, that this is ridiculous.
The judges rewrite history and falsify the Polish decision by saying, that it was only and exclusively about Treblinka and not at all about Sobibor.
The judges suppress the Israeli, American, Polish, Russian and Ukrainian files about me, fearing that there is more evidence of my innocence. They suppress evidence of the fact that I was previously investigated and tried in Poland and Israel for Sobibor surviving 7.5 years of wrongful imprisonment. This is all evidence of the fact that the trial in Munich against me is illegal and wrong.
The judges break the law and invent new rules by persecuting me exclusively and nobody else alleged to have been a Trawniki and to have helped the Nazis. No Trawniki was ever prosecuted in Germany before for something like assisting the Nazis. Even the judges’ countrymen were acquitted or never even tried.
The judges, knowingly and willingly, chose expert witnesses who were already engaged by OSI, who they knew for certain would give testimony influenced and directed by OSI, the criminal enterprise which fraudulently sent me to Israel hoping for a death sentence to be carried out by suppressing mountains of exculpatory evidence as the US Courts have found multiple times.
Not one known witness remains alive today to be cross-examined to clear me of these charges.
The judges chose Charles Sydnor as an expert witness even though public records prove he is biased because as early as 1989 he expressed a desire to see me hanged on the gallows because he believed I was a monster.
Further, I refer to all statements which my defense lawyer Dr. Ulrich Busch has written to the court on my behalf.
The decision to continue with this trial is a crime of infringement of the law and a deprivation of my liberty.
With this statement, I bring a charge against Judges Alt, Lenz and Pfluger for infringement of the law and deprivation of my liberty.
I ask that my statement be provided to the authorities who must investigate and decide to take action regarding this serious charge.
Note: If you are interested in contacting the Demjanjuk defense team, you may do so by e-mail Help.JohnD@gmail.com
(please note there is a dot between Help and JohnD).
Added John Demjanjuk Jr., son of the defendant:
“While they silence the prison doctors and deny us the weekly clinical reports - against all Western legal and humanitarian standards – the judges rely on a court appointed medical stooge whose therapy is to shoot my father with various drugs and call him fit. The court’s bias is further evidenced by their willingness to ignore the Demjanjuk investigative files still hidden in Russia. The history of the Israeli proceeding, which nearly ended in the execution of the wrong man, should cause them to want all of the evidence available.” | <urn:uuid:fbef629e-736d-4108-91b2-d6fc357cc769> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/john-demjanjuk-stop-relentless-persecution-of-me-91023.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962695 | 881 | 1.898438 | 2 |
Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
Theme for 2013
What does God require of us?
(cf. Micah 6:6-8)
At least once a year, many Christians become aware of the great diversity of ways of adoring God. Hearts are touched, and people realize that their neighbours' ways are not so strange.
The event that touches off this special experience is something called the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Traditionally celebrated between 18-25 January (in the northern hemisphere) or at Pentecost (in the southern hemisphere), the Week of Prayer enters into congregations and parishes all over the world. Pulpits are exchanged, and special ecumenical celebrations and prayer services are arranged.
Ecumenical partners in a particular region are asked to prepare a basic text on a biblical theme. Then an international group with WCC-sponsored (Protestant and Orthodox) and Roman Catholic participants edits this text and ensures that it is linked with the search for the unity of the church.
The text is jointly published by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and WCC, through the WCC's Commission on Faith and Order, which also accompanies the entire production process of the text. The final material is sent to member churches and Roman Catholic dioceses, and they are invited to translate the text and contextualize it for their own use. | <urn:uuid:94920ae7-5da2-47c0-a65f-ccce8f1bc9f1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/week-of-prayer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956311 | 284 | 2.5 | 2 |
If you want something done right, you need to do it yourself. That may sound like a trite cliche, but the maxim rings true when it comes to securing files that you've stored online: A handful of recent incidents--including breaches of Dropbox and iCloud--underscores the fact that even with built-in encryption and SSL transfers, cloud storage providers can't perfectly ensure the sanctity of your data.
Now in Beta 1, Better Explorer shows excellent file management abilities with more stability.
We explain how to configure and use an iSCSI target on a NAS server with Windows' built-in iSCSI initiator for fast access.
Spaces is a feature in OS X Lion that allows you to have multiple desktops, which can be handy when you’re working in more than one application and in different documents.
Solid-state drives are a great addition that will improve performance. Here are our choices for the best drives.
TreeSize Free is a no-frills application for finding out what's taking up space on your drive.
Thanks to open-source gem UNetbootin, you can quickly and easily transform a flash drive into the ultimate rescue tool.
A reader has two PCs that suddenly decided its DVD burners were CD burners. Here's one possible fix; can you think of any others?
Users of the latest build of this free Windows browser can assign the IE, Firefox, or Chrome engine to different kinds of Web pages.
This Outlook plug-in solves the problem of email providers limiting file attachment size. | <urn:uuid:6577b42a-5bda-48dc-a537-3b4477ea9b31> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://storage.networksasia.net/category/tips | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914044 | 321 | 1.546875 | 2 |
The U.S. Senate is moving to eliminate restrictions on Department of Defense research into alternative jet fuel sources, a reversal that could help speed biofuel development.
The 67-32 vote removes language from the National Defense Authorization Act that would have prevented the military from purchasing biofuels if they cost more than traditional fuels – and at this early point in their development, they always do.
The Air Force has been testing small quantities of alternative fuels in warplanes and support aircraft in order to demonstrate their reliability, with a plan to shift more to biofuels once prices comes down. But the testing has been expensive. The Air Force paid about $59 per gallon for 11,000 gallons in one test earlier this year. That prompted Congress to put restrictions on military biofuel evaluations in the name of deficit reduction.
But supporters of aviation biofuels research say we must be willing to pay a little more now to reap the benefits of mass-produced biofuels in the future.
In a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee last spring, a coalition of aviation groups, including NBAA and GAMA, wrote: "It is our collective belief that the ongoing efforts of the United States military on alternative fuels are helping reduce the cost of those alternatives and will ultimately help reduce our reliance on foreign oil. The biofuels industry is rapidly developing and has the potential to save taxpayers millions, as well as provide a much-needed, supply-based hedge against the volatility resulting from reliance on unstable sources of oil."
The full legislation containing the biofuel language must still be passed by the Senate and then be reconciled with its counterpart bill passed by the House before it is submitted to President Obama for final approval. | <urn:uuid:9dea21b6-3ca4-4b31-9a36-be0ef35fab4c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.flyingmag.com/news/senate-moves-end-restrictions-military-biofuels | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959531 | 346 | 2.28125 | 2 |
Are you a Google Analytics enthusiast?
More SEO Content
Can Anyone Explain Google Page Rank?
Posted 24 November 2003 - 10:30 AM
Does it have to do with relevancy? If so, relevancy to what? Number of back links only?
Posted 24 November 2003 - 11:12 AM
These are two entirely different thing, and the answer to your question will vary depending on which you are asking about.
Posted 24 November 2003 - 11:20 AM
Posted 24 November 2003 - 12:18 PM
The graph you see on your toolbar is not really what your true PageRank is, so don't put too much stock in it.
If one page of your site has a higher PR then others, it's probably due to the linking structure of your site. More pages of your site, probably point to that page, and/or outside pages also point to it.
You can read my summary of Chris Ridings PageRank paper here for more technical explanations: http://www.highranki...ssue070.htm#seo
Hope this helps!
0 user(s) are reading this topic
0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users | <urn:uuid:973f252b-bded-4ecf-ad10-ce83fdca9a34> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.highrankings.com/forum/index.php/topic/2110-can-anyone-explain-google-page-rank/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924541 | 245 | 1.671875 | 2 |
- Sunday, March 13, 2005
Real teachers buy Excedrin and Advil in bulk at Sam's.
Real teachers will eat anything left in the teacher's lounge.
Real teachers grade papers in the car, during commercials, in faculty meetings, in the bathroom, and at the end of nine weeks have even been seen grading in church.
Real teachers know that sixth graders get hormones from Santa at Christmas.
Real teachers cheer when they hear that April 1st does not fall on a school day.
Real teachers can't walk past a crowd of kids without straightening up the line.
Real teachers never sit down without first checking the seat of the chair.
Real teachers have disjointed necks from writing on boards without turning around.
Real teachers are written up in medical journals for the size and elasticity of their bladders.
Real teachers wear glasses from trying to read the fine print in the teacher's manuals.
Real teachers have been timed gulping down lunch in 2 minutes 18 seconds. Master teachers can eat faster than that.
Real teachers can predict exactly which parents show up at open house.
Real teachers understand the importance of making sure every kid gets a Valentine.
Real teachers never teach the conjugations of "lie" and "lay" to eighth graders.
Recently on Educational Jokes
Have something to say about this article? Leave your comment via Facebook below!
Listen to Your Favorite Pastors
Add Crosswalk.com content to your siteBrowse available content | <urn:uuid:ddf35ba2-0c2d-4de7-a99e-83ef3c5505c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.crosswalk.com/resources/humor/educational-jokes/real-teachers-1317811.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948119 | 310 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Top cops placed under Freedom of Info law
Uni admissions body fitted with loose kimono also
The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), along with the Association of Chief Police Officers of England, Wales and Northern Ireland (ACPO) and the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS), was added as a public authority under the Freedom of Information (Designation as Public Authorities) Order 2011.
FOS has the power to resolve individual financial disputes under the Financial Services and Markets Act. ACPO is a body that represents chief police officers from individual forces in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. UCAS is responsible for managing student applications for higher education courses in the UK.
The bodies join a host of other public authorities – such as government departments, local councils, NHS bodies and education institutions – which are subject to FOI laws.
The Freedom of Information Act and Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act came into full force on 1 January 2005. The laws give individuals the right to see information held by government departments and public bodies.
Under the FOI laws anyone of any nationality living anywhere in the world can make a written request for information and expect a response within 20 working days. The public authority will be obliged to meet that request unless exemptions apply or unless meeting it will be too costly or difficult.
Kellie Blyth, an expert in FOI laws at Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said that it is expected more bodies will become subject to FOI under further expansions of the laws.
The extension of FOI laws has been debated in recent years, with the previous Labour government ruling that some bodies should be brought within its reach, but that companies should not, even when they perform the functions of a public body.
In January, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg promised that more publicly-funded and charitable organisations would be subject to FOI in an extension of the laws.
The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), which is responsible for ensuring public authorities comply with FOI laws, told Out-Law.com that it "welcomed" the extension of the laws. The watchdog has previously campaigned for more bodies to be subject to FOI. In a government consultation in 2008, the ICO said any new organisations coming under the FOI remit to should be introduced in stages so as it could advise them on how to comply with the laws.
Copyright © 2011, OUT-LAW.com
OUT-LAW.COM is part of international law firm Pinsent Masons. | <urn:uuid:fc116ead-4727-4e68-9215-2ba3c8a9a3f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/08/foi_expansion/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958593 | 522 | 1.71875 | 2 |
That story started 20 years ago, when Congress appropriated $289 million for a Milwaukee-area transit project. It was first slated for a bus-only highway between Milwaukee and Waukesha, but then-Gov. Tommy G. Thompson vetoed that idea in response to neighborhood opposition.Read the whole thing to see how this played out in Milwaukee politics, with Walker favoring buses over trains and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett favoring rail. Barrett was the Democratic candidate for Governor last fall, and now he's got his rail project approved. He's not seeking state money, and the the settlement in the lawsuit supposedly "prohibits the state from blocking the streetcar project."
Congress then took away $48 million, and state and local officials started a major study of how to use the remaining $241 million. The study recommended building a light rail system, adding bus-and-car-pool lanes to I-94 and expanding bus service.
Walker, then a state representative from Wauwatosa, was among the suburban Republicans who helped kill that plan, persuading fellow Republican Thompson to rule out using any state or federal money to study light rail.
In frustration, Milwaukee community activists filed two civil rights complaints against the state with the U.S. Department of Transportation in late 1998.
The complaints noted that many of the central city's African-American residents didn't have cars, but nearly all white suburbanites did. Therefore, activists argued, the state was discriminating against minorities by favoring freeways over public transit.
IN THE COMMENTS: Readers are pointing out that the proposed route for the streetcar does not extend into Milwaukee's minority neighborhoods.
The real goal of a lawsuit often fails to match up with the legal ground that is used to invoke judicial power. Similarly, political rhetoric often exploits values that don't square with what politicians are really doing. There are many reasons to play the race card, and only one is that you actually intend to serve the individuals you are leveraging your argument on. | <urn:uuid:59d0b7c7-f4be-4a0f-881a-9fef346f36d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://althouse.blogspot.com/2011/07/why-gov-scott-walker-isnt-talking-about.html?showComment=1312041101689 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968046 | 402 | 2.109375 | 2 |
For all of the time we corporate communicators spend talking about our audience, it’s astounding how little we think about the actual people we communicate with (or, to be precise, who we communicate at).
Sure, we talk quite a bit about who we aspire for that audience to be. Perhaps we have a lot of survey data, focus group results and other market research data to draw on. Or perhaps we have some segmentation profiles that imagine some aggregate person we could communicate with.
One thing is for sure: Turning people into numbers or segments makes them a lot easier to deal with and control.
But we lose a lot in that quest for control. In the process of simplifying our audiences, our understanding of them becomes rudimentary and crude. In the name of measurability and scalability, we lose the color of who these people are. And that means we start seeing the world in gray scale.
This phenomenon is certainly not isolated to corporate communications; it pervades the way business logic operates.
However, it’s especially sad to see this happening to us. After all, we’re the department tasked with engaging the audience. If anyone should truly understand the audience, it should be us.
LONG DISTANCE PR?
In her book Your Call Is (not that) Important to Us, journalist Emily Yellin (a collaborator of ours) points out that, in the early 20th century, “public relations” referred to the people who answered customer calls at AT&T.
It’s amazing to look at all the effort we’ve put into distancing ourselves from actually relating to the public since that time. We seek out mass advertising and professional journalists to stand in for actual interaction. And people throughout many marketing/communications teams have never actually experienced the company as a customer or potential customer.
Yet, we are supposed to be communication experts. And Communications 101 told us that listening is more important than talking; that responding to audience feedback is crucial; and that communication only works when it addresses what the audience wants and needs to hear rather than what the speaker wants to say.
We know this on an interpersonal level, but we often forget to translate it to our work. Advertising focuses on how to align the audience with what the company wants to sell. Press releases are too often written to consider only what the company wants to say.
In the process, there’s one thing missing from our “communications”: actual communication.
In a world where customers can tweet about our companies or ask us questions directly, this mentality is starting to change. But we’re still doing all we can to keep that direct interaction contained. An obsession on impressions, circulation, views and “likes” remains. We still build branded platforms and then focus most of our energies on these controlled environments where we can prod audiences for data.
If we do have to stray outside our own space, we try to build something that can go viral, in hopes of infecting the masses with a message. These are all shortcuts to avoid actual communication in our communications.
The only way to overcome this issue is to devote energy into actually understanding our company—and the world—from our audience’s perspective. This requires:
• Ethnographic forms of research;
• Online listening programs that consider the context of what people say and applies that intelligence to the way companies think and operate; and
• Most importantly, communicators who personally spend some time in their audiences’ shoes as best they can, bringing that way of thinking to their job every day.
At Peppercom we are launching an Audience Experience offering that immerses a company in its audience’s point of view.
These efforts are built on the belief that effective communication requires listening and empathy. Such a philosophy can uncover gaps between what a company says and what its audiences experience.
To do our jobs, we have to think as much—maybe more—about the interests of the audiences we are trying to reach and what life is like in their shoes as we send the message our company wants us to deliver. After all, in the long run, communication that doesn’t serve the audience doesn’t actually serve our employers or clients. PRN
[For more content about customer relations, visit PR News ’ Subscriber Resource Center]
Sam Ford is director of digital strategy at Peppercom. He can be reached at email@example.com. | <urn:uuid:abe21832-0892-4b52-a066-2f1c037d3819> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.prnewsonline.com/featured/2012/01/09/tip-sheet-put-the-humanity-back-in-communications/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948755 | 927 | 1.882813 | 2 |
“Not of friendship. It was Christian charity, eh, Gilbert? If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; and so on. It was not the act of a friend?”
“No, John Saltram, between you and me there can never again be any such word as friendship. What little I have done for you I think I would have done for a stranger, had I found a stranger as helpless and unfriended as I found you. I am quite sure that to have done less would have been to neglect a sacred duty. There is no question of obligation. Till you are on your feet again, a strong man, I will stand by you; when that time comes, we part for ever.”
John Saltram sank back upon his pillow with a heavy sigh, but uttered no protest against this sentence. And this was all that came of Gilbert’s vengeful passion against the man who had wronged him; this was the end of a long-cherished anger. “A lame and impotent conclusion,” perhaps, but surely the only end possible under the circumstances. He could not wage war against a feeble creature, whose hold on life was still an uncertainty; he could not forget his promise to Marian, that no harm should come to her husband through any act of his. So he sat quietly by the bedside of his prostrate foe, watched him silently as he fell into a brief restless slumber, and administered his medicine when he woke with a hand that was as gentle as a woman’s.
Between four and five o’clock the nurse came in from the next room to take her place, refreshed by a sleep of several hours; and then Gilbert departed in the chill gloom of the winter’s morning, still as dark as night,—departed with his mind lightened of a great load; for it had been very terrible to him to think that the man who had once been his friend might go down to the grave without an interval of reason.
A FULL CONFESSION.
Gilbert did not go to the Temple again till he had finished his day’s work at St. Helen’s, and had eaten his modest dinner at a tavern in Fleet-street. He found that Mr. Mew had already paid his second visit to the sick-room, and had pronounced himself much relieved and delighted by the favourable change.
“I have no fear now,” he had said to the nurse. “It is now only a question of getting back the physical strength, which has certainly fallen to a very low ebb. Perfect repose and an entire freedom from care are what we have to look to.”
This the nurse told Gilbert. “He has been very restless all day,” she added, “though I’ve done what I could to keep him quiet. But he worries himself, now that his senses have come back, poor gentleman; and it isn’t easy to soothe him any way. He keeps on wondering when he’ll be well enough to move, and so on, over and over again. Once, when I left the room for a minute and went back again, I found him attempting to get out of bed—only to try his strength, he said. But he’s no more strength than a new-born baby, poor soul, and it will be weeks before he’s able to stir. If he worries and frets, he’ll put himself back for a certainty; but I daresay you’ll have more influence over him than I, sir, and that you may be able to keep him quiet.” | <urn:uuid:0d212b8e-af6d-4e38-8b86-54cee7a34cc6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/11720/234.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.99184 | 776 | 1.757813 | 2 |
|Critical thinking: Or making me the straw man
By Tom DeWeese
They are one of the biggest publishers of textbooks in the world, and they wanted to use some of my writings in one of their products. My first thought was, "Gee, I'm coming up in the world." The second was, "How do they intend to use it?" So I asked for a sample. A good thing I did.
The textbook will be entitled Invitation to Critical Thinking, and apparently will be distributed to children's classrooms in Canada. It will cost the schools $59 each. "Critical Thinking," of course, is a major tool in the arsenal of today's restructured government schools that are designed, not to educate, but to indoctrinate. Education expert Charlotte Iserbyt, in her landmark book, The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America, describes Critical Thinking as "challenging students' fixed beliefs." It's a tool to get them to question their values system.
Of course, when I saw the title, my alarm bells began to sound. How could anything I have ever written fit into the concept of such a book? Everything I have ever produced was designed to expose, attack and kill such an "educational system"
So I began to read the sample pages the publisher sent to me. It contained three excerpts, including mine. Here are two, exactly as they would be printed in the book:
Critical Thinking Tip 11.5 (these are instructions for the children at the top of the exercise)
Remember that issues are complex, so a diversion may on occasion be warranted and reasonable. A warranted and reasonable diversion should eventually return to the issue. Keep the issue(s) in mind. In other words, the teacher will decide what is to be a "warranted and reasonable diversion" and if you take a different path than the predetermined one, your argument will not be "warranted or reasonable."
Exercise 11.16 Fallacies of Relevance II
In each of the following examples, check all fallacy categories that apply. More importantly, explain each fallacious instance you identify.
EXAMPLE: AND THE LORD GOD COMMANDED MAN, SAYING, "YOU MAY EAT FREELY OF EVERY TREE OF THE GARDEN; BUT THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL YOU SHALL NOT EAT, FOR IN THE DAY THAT YOU EAT OF IT YOU SHALL DIE." (GENESIS 2:16-17)
(Here are the choices given the children to describe that statement)
EXPLAIN YOUR ANSWER
Are you starting to get the picture as to how this book is used to challenge a values system? Now here's my text they wanted to use in the book.
EXAMPLE: IN A GROUP WORKBOOK (EDUCATIONAL TOOL FOR CHILDREN) ENTITLED: SUNDAY SCHOOL SPECIALS, A CHAPTER TELLS STUDENTS THAT "REAL CONSERVATION MEANS REMEMBERING TO TURN OFF THE LIGHT, HIKING OR BIKING INSTEAD OF HITCHING A CAR RIDE, AND COOLING OFF IN THE SHADE INSTEAD OF IN AIR CONDITIONING. KIDS ARE OFTEN TEMPTED TO DO THINGS THE EASY WAY INSTEAD OF THE ‘GREEN WAY'. THEY NEED LOTS OF ENCOURAGEMENT AND AFFIRMATION TO DEVELOP AND STICK TO AN ENVIRONMENT-CONSCIOUS LIFESTYLE…" THAT ONE LINE DEMONSTRATES AN IMPORTANT KEY TO THE PURPOSE OF GROUP'S SUNDAY SCHOOL CURRICULUM – TO PROMOTE A POLITICAL AGENDA BASED ON PAGAN EARTH WORSHIP RATHER THAN CHRISTIAN VALUES.
EXPLAIN YOUR ANSWER
They were using as the exercise in Critical Thinking quotes from an article I wrote a few years ago entitled "Is your church teaching pagan earth worship in Sunday School?" I wrote that article to describe how a popular new Sunday School curriculum contained the same Outcome-base education behavior modification indoctrination process that was being employed in government classrooms. This curriculum taught the children to play a game of tree hugging and taught them that the Endangered Species Act was the new Noah's Ark. This is clearly a political agenda, not education. And I said so.
The point of my article was to expose the very process this new textbook is employing. Now I found myself being used in an exercise, as an apparent example of someone promoting fear and creating straw "persons."
My response to their request to grant them permission to use my article in this way was swift and to the point. "I'm sorry, but I will not grant permission to use my work in this way. Your ‘textbook' is the root of the very curriculum I was talking about in the article you want to quote. Obviously the entire section of the book where my material was to appear is a critical discussion of Christianity. Your selections offered Appeal to anger; fear; pity; straw person; two wrongs; common practice – all are negatives. There is no room for a person to agree with the statements. I can only imagine the classroom discussion your teacher's guide will offer. This is not education, it is propaganda. Sorry, but no, I will not help you in perpetrating it on innocent minds. Shame on you for trying to call it education. Now, is my message an appeal to anger, fear or do I just pity you?"
Tom DeWeese is the publisher-editor of The DeWeese Report and president of the American Policy Center. The Center maintains an Internet site at www.americanpolicy.org. © Tom DeWeese 2006
Get weekly updates about new issues of ESR! | <urn:uuid:5a3f0fd0-02f3-4039-a6cf-cdde39c504b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0506/0506ct.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936502 | 1,209 | 2.15625 | 2 |
RAMALLAH - Russia will join an international
investigation to determine whether the first Palestinian president, Yasser
Arafat, was murdered, the current Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, said on
French and Swiss experts are due to exhume Arafat's body in
Ramallah later this month in an attempt to discover how he died after an Al
Jazeera documentary in July suggested he was killed by a rare radioactive
"There's full cooperation these days between us and the French
investigators and Swiss experts, and also from the Russian government," Abbas
told a rain-drenched ceremony on the eighth anniversary of the death in France
of the former guerrilla who led Palestinians' campaign to create a state through
years of war and peace.
Abbas asked Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov for Moscow's help during talks in Jordan last week, Palestinian sources
Allegations of foul play have long surrounded the demise of
Meanwhile on Sunday, Arafat's sister called on officials not to exhume his Ramallah grave, Palestinian news agency Maan reported.
The case returned to the headlines in July when a Swiss institute
said it had discovered high levels of the radioactive element polonium-210 on
Arafat's clothing supplied by his widow Suha, who called for exhumation of her
Polonium is the radioactive substance found to have
killed former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006.
French forensic experts are expected to visit Arafat's limestone sepulchre in
the West Bank capital of Ramallah on Nov. 20, and investigating magistrates plan
to visit four days later, a diplomatic source told Reuters.
Headed by the
intelligence chief at the time of Arafat's death, the Palestinians' own forensic
team has repeatedly butted heads with French investigators over their
supervision of the exhumation, proposed for this month.
official Wasel Abu Yousef described contacts with the French as ongoing but
insisted that interrogating any Palestinians must be done through Abbas's
administration, "as a matter of sovereignty," he told Reuters.
on Monday accused Qatar-based Al Jazeera of "hyping" the affair.
investigation is unfolding as West Bank leaders gear up for a UN General
Assembly vote on Palestinians becoming an "observer state" later this
Arafat's direct kin have rejected an exhumation.
openly that our leader, our founder was assassinated by Israel with poison. The
overwhelming majority of the Palestinian people is convinced of this," Nasser
al-Kidwa, Arafat's nephew and a senior official in Abbas's Fatah group, said on
"Some have spread about the repugnant idea that Arafat's tomb
should be opened up and desecrated. There is no justification for this: we know
the real truth," he said.
Jpost.com staff contributed to this report. | <urn:uuid:99635daf-05aa-4c47-9d18-b7d2c754dc03> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=291365 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949825 | 605 | 1.625 | 2 |
|Department of Public Information • News and Media Division • New York|
United Nations SECrETARY-GENERAL RECALLS ‘UNSPEAKABLE HORROR’ ENDURED BY CHEMICAL
WEAPONS VICTIMS, IN ADDRESS TO TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION
Following is the text of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks to the High-Level Meeting to Commemorate the Tenth Anniversary of the Chemical Weapons Convention (Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction), in New York, today:
I am pleased to have the opportunity to address this High-Level Meeting on the Tenth Anniversary of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Amid continuing concerns over threats to international peace and security posed by deadly indiscriminate weapons, I welcome this occasion to commemorate a truly significant accomplishment in the field of disarmament.
The Convention’s entry into force on 29 April 1997 was a milestone in international efforts to achieve a world free of chemical weapons. It was the culmination of attempts made over several centuries to curtail or prohibit the use of poisons in war -- a legacy dating back to the poisoning of wells in the age of the Roman Empire. The Convention stands as a monument to the world’s determination to eliminate one of the most inhumane weapons ever conceived.
It provides for the elimination of an entire category of weapons of mass destruction. It is the first such agreement negotiated completely within a multilateral forum. Much of this achievement was due to hard work by Governments and representatives of civil society, working together in United Nations arenas.
In 1946, the very first resolution of the United Nations General Assembly called for the elimination of all major weapons “adaptable to mass destruction”. Over the half century that followed, numerous additional resolutions would address the issue of chemical weapons disarmament. Finally, the text of the Chemical Weapons Convention was negotiated in the Conference on Disarmament.
This history shows that real disarmament is possible through collective action within the framework of the United Nations. And the world is increasingly recognizing the benefits of disarmament. Participation in the Chemical Weapons Convention continues to grow. Today, the 182 States parties to the Convention encompass 98 per cent of the world’s population.
However, the non-adherence by a number of key States is a matter of grave concern. I urge all States that have not yet ratified or acceded to the Convention to do so, without delay. Instead of competing in a race to acquire more arms, we must all work together in a race to achieve full universal membership of the Chemical Weapons treaty.
The tenth anniversary of the entry into force of the Convention provides a fitting opportunity to renew the commitment of all nations to the multilateral treaty system and to the objective and purpose of the Convention.
The Convention has already contributed to steady progress in the destruction of declared chemical weapons stockpiles. One third of the world’s declared stockpiles of chemical agent have been verifiably destroyed. Just over two months ago, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) confirmed the destruction of Albania’s entire stockpile of chemical weapons. I call upon all possessor States to complete their destruction according to the deadlines.
I congratulate Member States on the progress achieved thus far. I also pay tribute to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for its contribution to this effort. The Organisation has demonstrated that international verification is not only possible, it can be undertaken without compromising national security or corporate secrets. The lesson is that international verification is beneficial, both to the security of all States and to legitimate commerce. As disarmament advances, the world advances.
During my tenure as Secretary-General, I will do all I can to promote full implementation of the Convention, and to help free the world from chemical weapons. The United Nations will work together with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Member States, and civil society to achieve these noble objectives.
As we recall the unspeakable horror endured by victims of chemical weapons, let us all reaffirm our common commitment to eliminate the dangers posed by such instruments of mass destruction. And let us redouble our efforts to build a chemical weapons-free world.
I wish you success in your deliberations today.
Thank you very much.
* *** *For information media • not an official record | <urn:uuid:e8f76a66-686d-4923-9499-986c703eb4d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/sgsm11187.doc.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915188 | 909 | 2.703125 | 3 |
The Royal Children’s Hospital
Bates Smart Architects and Billard Leece Partnership designed a beautiful $AUD 1 billion Royal Children’s Hospital located in Melbourne, Australia.
Description by Bates Smart Architects
The design of Melbourne’s $AUD1 billion Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) is based on ‘state of the art’ ideas developed by the hospital around a family-centred care model that puts children and their parents at the centre of the tertiary level paediatric care facility. Using innovative and evidence-based design principles, the RCH reflects changing healthcare practices, workplace patterns, user expectations, community aspirations and environmental responsibility.
The building’s formal arrangement, as well the internal and external spatial experiences, has been assembled to promote a restorative and healing environment for children and their families.
The resulting architectonic language has been directly informed by the Royal Park setting, a park with a character much like a typical slice of Victorian bushland. Special attention was paid to the natural textures, forms and colours of the park and how this could directly inform the material expression of the building. A detailed study resulted which indicates how the built environment infused with the experience of nature can speak to children and help provide a therapeutic hopeful backdrop for those visiting the hospital. Considered detailing invites the human touch, acknowledges the child in a respectful way, provides a robust and safe environment yet de-institutionalises the hospital genre.
The building has been split into campus masterplan with a central street joining major new public gardens to the north and southwest. The north orientation breaks away from the city grid and turns instead to the park enabling the collection of buildings light-filled landscaped gardens around their full perimeter, avoiding a ‘front and back’ portrayal and enhancing the connection between child and park. The use of narrow footprints for the clinical buildings provides for abundant natural light to enter all corners of the Hospital. The natural slope of the site meant the new facilities could link to the park at three different levels intertwining the Hospital with its park setting.
The Inpatient Building is designed in a star shape, connecting the rooms to the park. More than 80 per cent of the rooms have park views, others look into courtyards. Specially designed glass sunshades on the Hospital’s exterior allow activity in the grounds below to be viewed from the patient’s bed.
Bedroom spaces, 85% that are single occupancy, have been designed to be calm and comforting, befitting a place of recovery and respite. Medical procedures are conducted away from the bedroom whenever possible, leaving the bedroom to be a haven for rest and family time. Desk surface for schoolwork, sofa beds for family stays and opportunities for personalisation are provided to encourage a normalisation of the hospital stay.
A significant feature of the building is the sweep of coloured ‘leaf’ blades along Flemington Road. Fabricated in curved panels, they provide protection from the sun whilst creating a shimmering organic structure and identity for the RCH.
At the heart of the new facility is the six storey atrium and Main Street which links the elements of the Hospital together through a naturally lit public thoroughfare with expansive views of the parkland beyond. A truly civic space, the Main Street features a two-storey coral reef aquarium, large-scale artworks, a meerkat enclosure and a range of places to eat and meet with family, colleagues or friends. Partnerships with the zoo, science museum and cinemas have resulted in popular activities for children and families which distract and engage the imagination of all age groups.
Recognising the health of our environment and the health of people are inextricably linked, the new hospital campus delivers a holistic approach to sustainability – environmental, emotional, physical and psychological.
The integrated design solution separates support from clinical areas enabling shut down of areas not required to run 24 hours per day; provides views to parkland wherever possible; optimises natural daylight; and significantly reduces the carbon footprint through a combination of tri-generation, bio-mass heating, solar thermal panels and water conservation including blackwater treatment and rainwater recovery among other initiatives. Energy efficiency measures mean the hospital produces 45 per cent less greenhouse gas emissions compared to a conventional hospital and water saving measures achieve at least a 20% reduction in water use.
The co-location on campus of clinical, research and education elements is an important feature of the design. | <urn:uuid:618a5099-6811-4159-b6db-5a46fd65389e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.homeadore.com/2012/10/16/royal-childrens-hospital/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936467 | 910 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Could the City of Austin Do More to Promote Cycling?
I just came across a post from Grist, a Seattle-based environmental news site, about how Long Beach is usingbike-friendly shopping districts to boost their growing recognition as one of America’s most popular cities for biking.
By comparison, the City of Austin has helped install 4,500 bike racks, well surpassing Long Beach’s 1,200. There are also more bike trail and lane mileage in Austin, based on the Austin Bike Map, which covers 450 square miles.
But you don’t always think about the difference in amenities needed for bikes versus cars. Take the quote from April Economides in that piece (By the way, is that a great name for a business consultant or what?):
“The math is pretty simple,” says Economides, the principal strategist of Green Octopus Consulting and the leader of the city’s outreach to local businesses. “You can park 12 bikes in the amount of space it takes to park one car. And someone who shifts from owning a car to a bicycle tends to have more discretionary income, because, for a commuter, the typical cost of a bicycle is $300 a year, compared to $7,000 a year for a car.”
When businesses seek “working professionals who want to live a healthy, planet-friendly lifestyle” clientele, putting bike facilities outside their locations makes sense. Creating a safe and easy way for people to get from place to place car-free makes not only a positive environmental impact, but an good economic one, too.
The mayor of Long Beach, Bob Foster, who just happens to ride about a hundred times a week, is leading the charge:
“It’s easy to get around here, we encourage a car-light lifestyle, it’s still a great beach town, and there’s all these hip places to enjoy, too."
Take away the "beach town" aspect, and that place sounds pretty familiar, doesn't it?
So could Austin businesses look to the cycling community as a demographic for sales? I’ve known about bars and restaurants who serve as after-party locations for social bike rides, offering discounts if you show up with your wheels.
How much further would it need to be taken? Austin already has a cycling infrastructure. Could the situation be improved, both for cyclists and those who could view them as repeat customers?
Grist is a great site, with a full-scale economic impact series on cycling that is totally worth checking out. That can be found here, and by clicking on the topics in the gray rectangle on the right. | <urn:uuid:56d85006-e611-43bf-b5f1-1b0988920cb3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.austinpost.org/bike-city/could-city-austin-do-more-promote-cycling | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961846 | 557 | 1.867188 | 2 |
However, we have heard from them that they purposely include some saturation change consistently with contrast change because their research demonstrates that most people would not find the result of a pure luminosity change of contrast to look "natural".
The true is that a change in exposure, i.e. a linear scaling of the RGB values that can for example be achieved with a curve passing by (0,0) as described, is the only possible pure luminosity change.
Anything else: HSB/HSV colour models, Lab, blending modes, etc... are just perceptual models to help us deal with the concepts of luminosity and colour (typically split in these models into hue and saturation, or the ab channels, etc...). E.g. if you push L a lot in Lab mode, the proportions between R, G anB will change to finally end in pure white. Speaking in physical terms, that is not only pushing luminosity but also desaturating, i.e. changing colour. Changing the luminosity of a red lamp consists of producing more red light, not turn the red lamp into a pink lamp and finally white.
So paradoxically, changing luminosity using those tools or modes typically intended to allow a control of luminosity without altering colour, means changing not only luminosity but also colour (of course in a way perceptually as pleasant and natural as possible). | <urn:uuid:5a47ab2e-b012-4005-993e-b9863bf6dd97> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=36881.40 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941844 | 280 | 2.125 | 2 |
Global Risk/Global Opportunity
This book provides business leaders, managers, and consultants with tools that help strategize the future along with illuminating the past.
It is an attempt to show how independent-thinking managers, using basic economic tools, can track the three elements that together drive the world’s complex and somewhat unstable economic system—minds, markets, and money. Written in an anecdotal style, the book is packed with case studies covering major episodes of risk and crisis and extended globally-managed Indian companies. The book is accompanied by a DVD that further illustrates all concepts through video lectures and PowerPoint slides. | <urn:uuid:7485e225-c5cf-4eb3-99c6-2c86f082af5d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iimb.ernet.in/research/books/global-riskglobal-opportunity | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924166 | 127 | 1.507813 | 2 |
All of us have experienced being in a new place and feeling certain that we have been there before. This mysterious feeling is commonly known as déjà vu. Déjà vu is the dream like familiarity of something encountered for first time. It is more than just a sense that you have seen or done something before.
About 90% of people claim to have experienced déjà vu. Some people are convinced that déjà vu experiences are evidence of a past life. Others interpret it as prescience—the sudden ability to predict the future, at least for a few seconds.
The current theory says that déjà vu is caused by delays between the many parts of the brain involved in processing memories. For instance, an area called the hippocampus is important for storing long-term memories, and another part – the temporo-parietal junction – is important in recognizing something as familiar. Normally, these two systems work hand-in-hand but déjà vu may occur if there’s a temporary delay between them. This could lead to a false sense of familiarity being triggered without there being a true memory to base it on.
It’s caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. When events are occurring in the present, our brain processes the activity in a part of the brain called the amygdala. Dejavu occurs when present events are processed in a part of the brain typically used to recall past memories. The parahippocampal cortex, which is very closely connected to the hippocampus. Because the event is processed in the parahippocampal cortex, it has a past ‘flavor’ associated with it. | <urn:uuid:4bdd1b73-ec59-4417-8348-181d2f9dfd2f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.glideidea.com/scientific-explanation-for-deja-vu/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962361 | 344 | 3.65625 | 4 |
The pain in Spain – redux
Spain’s borrowing costs are likely to soar at an auction of 12- and 18-month T-bills after its 10-year yields were pushed through the totemic 6 percent level on Monday. The history of the euro zone debt crisis shows that once above 6 percent the spiral accelerates and before you know it you’re at 7 percent – the level generally seen as unsustainable for state financing.
Worryingly, Spain is dragging Italy’s yields up in its wake. But in Spain’s case, there are strong reasons for caution about imminent disaster. The government cannily used ECB-created benign market conditions in the first part of the year to shift nearly half its annual debt issuance needs already and the banks – which look like they will need recapitalization at some point – are well funded for now having also loaded up on the European Central Bank’s three-year liquidity splurge.
We also know Europe’s banks, too scared to invest elsewhere, are depositing 700-800 billion euros back at the ECB daily. If Madrid could engender a shift in confidence, some of that money could flow back into its bonds, particularly by Spanish banks.
There is no getting away from the fact that confidence has evaporated since Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy ripped up Spain’s agreed deficit target for 2012 without consulting his partners. One way of clawing it back could be a framework that would guarantee the autonomous regions would agree to tough debt-cutting measures.
Last year’s ballooning of the deficit beyond forecast was in large part down to the regions’ spending. Government sources told us yesterday that Madrid may intervene to curb regional finances, which account for around half of national public spending, in return for some help in raising finance from the markets which some are finding difficult. Ministers meet the regional government heads on Wednesday. They have to present plans to save around 15 billion euros in early May.
Today, Madrid aims to raise up to 3 billion euros and will then try to sell up to 2.5 billion of longer-term bonds on Thursday. 12-month yields stood at around 2.7 percent on the secondary market yesterday whereas the last 12-month auction was done at a yield of 1.4 percent, so a big jump is inevitable.
The only other possible sentiment shifter in the short-term would be if the IMF managed to raise significant new crisis-fighting resources which could be deployed to defend a country like Spain (even though Christine Lagarde insists the monies would be used to help non-euro zone nations inadvertently caught up in the backwash). Overnight, she was quoted by Italy’s Il Sole 24 Ore as saying she was after more than $400 billion. EU sources have told us similar — $400-500 billion. That’s less than was first talked about and there are doubts it is deliverable.
The euro zone deal last month on its new rescue fund was spun as more than it was. Finance ministers claimed an 800 billion euros firewall had been erected. In reality, it was really only 500 billion. It’s not that the latter is an insignificant sum, it was the cack-handed attempt to overplay it that is likely to have gone down badly with non-European contributors to the IMF.
Furthermore, the anointing of the U.S. pick to head the World Bank despite pressure for an emerging nation candidate may not do much for harmony at the IMF/G20 meeting in Washington at the back end of the week. However, given the possible ramifications of doing nothing on the debt crisis front remain too ghastly to contemplate, a deal is likely to be done soon. Japan has committed $60 billion today. | <urn:uuid:cbfce769-2a3a-464b-b816-ea31ee0b024e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.reuters.com/macroscope/2012/04/17/the-pain-in-spain-redux/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967409 | 774 | 1.59375 | 2 |
By GABY WOOD
OUT BEYOND PÈRE LACHAISE CEMETERY, in the Parisian suburb of Bagnolet, is a narrow road called Future Street, where 28 master craftsmen are busily reviving the past. Bronze is being burnished at one end, entire tree trunks are stacked at another and between them hang gigantic metal chandeliers, wrapped up for delivery—like prehistoric finds on their way to a museum.
This is the workshop of Hervé Van der Straeten, designer of some of the most coveted furniture in the world. One-off pieces, or objects made in editions mostly limited to eight, they are breathtakingly luxurious and built from materials rarely heard of in this century: sheepskin parchment, Gabonese ebony, alabaster. And although his brass-circled convex mirrors and silver-plated crystalloid console tables seem to have sprung fully formed from Van der Straeten's mind, they actually take hundreds of hours to make.
Photos: Modern Art's Take on Opulence
For years, Van der Straeten has pioneered this single-site craftsmanship, while other designers have farmed out work piecemeal. Adored by such notable interior designers as Muriel Brandolini and Jacques Grange, bought by collectors from the United States to the Middle East and acquired for France's presidential palace, these precious objects will be on view in New York, when Van der Straeten's work is shown at the Ralph Pucci gallery in January.
In the designer's 2,800-square-foot gallery in the Marais district of Paris, the craftsmanship on display is exceptional, but so is the unexpected effect on the senses: the smell of waved sycamore; the dizzying detail in the interior marquetry of a cabinet; the springy, almost living softness of creamy goat-skin parchment. "I like it because it's very clear and there's a real depth to it," Van der Straeten says of the latter. "It's a little bit like a piece of butter." The work involved in creating such pieces determines the prices—$100,000, for example, for a limited-edition sideboard—and they are valued in a context that justifies the price tag: namely, contemporary art.
"What's interesting now is that the design field is also attached to the art world," Van der Straeten says, sitting beneath a Jason Martin painting hanging above one of his console tables. "The contemporary art world is really taking over a certain level of taste—internationally—and this gives a lot of energy to the design field. A lot of our clients collect contemporary art, and they want furniture that can be in dialogue with it."
Van der Straeten came early to this idea. He opened his gallery 12 years ago, so that he could show all the different strands of his work, and he is keen to emphasize that the notion was not born of a cynical attempt to sell things for more money. "These days," he explains, "a lot of people think, OK, let's make some limited editions and sell some expensive furniture. But my interest was always in manufacturing my pieces myself. The idea was that the manual work would always give a more pleasing result than any industrial process. So it's contemporary design made in a traditional way."
Van der Straeten refers to his pieces as "hybrids." And, in fact, not all of his processes are traditional: He favors a form of metallic lacquering borrowed from the automobile industry; he works in stainless steel, anodized aluminum and, recently, plexiglass. Some of his regular shapes are outsize crystals, and one cabinet is covered in bright-blue rubberized spikes—it's as if Yves Klein had considered working in Kryptonite.
“"I don't think about tradition—I think about quality. If you want quality, you end up looking at tradition."”
Van der Straeten, the youngest of three boys who grew up in a suburb of Paris, was taught to draw in perspective by his father, an engineer. "Though I didn't end up becoming an engineer, knowing how to design an engine is interesting to know for my job today," he suggests. "It's like preparing your brain to have a 3-D program." His parents had a book about the 15th-century painter Jan van Eyck, whose Flemish roots Van der Straeten shares, and whose famous Arnolfini Portrait comes to mind when looking at the designer's convex mirrors.
Van der Straeten was always drawn to the imaginative and the decorative: a gigantic Salvador Dali spoon with a life-size car in it; the designs of Art Nouveau. He attended the École des Beaux-Arts for a time, but even before he'd finished his degree, the jewelry he made by hand—figurative pieces of monsters, dragons and little ghosts made of gold leaf—was being sold at Bergdorf Goodman and shown on the runway by Yves Saint Laurent, Jean-Paul Gaultier and Christian Lacroix. He dropped out of school and moved on to mirrors and lamps; before long his work became more monumental.
Jewelry—which has now evolved into architectural pieces that he describes as "a little laboratory for exploring shapes"—still makes up 10 percent of what he sells, and his work has taken on miniature mainstream form: He designed the bottle for Dior's perfume J'adore and the case for Guerlain's Kisskiss lipstick.
When asked if he sees himself as preserving tradition or breaking with it, he replies that neither of those things is uppermost in his mind. "I don't think about tradition—I think about quality. If you want quality, you end up looking to tradition. And if you want to evolve in your design, you have to look to the past. I'm not a spokesperson for arts and crafts, just because I want quality. On the other hand, it's very satisfying to work with a team—it's nice to see that they are proud, and that it's a real collaboration."
“Only the best carpenters were allowed to use ebony. They became ébénistes. Modest as he is, these are Van der Straeten's skilled antecedents.”
The word for cabinetmaking in French (ébénisterie) comes from the word for ebony, and dates from the 17th century, when cabinetmaking became so elaborate as to require a word to distinguish it from mere carpentry. Only the best carpenters were allowed to use ebony, which was very rare: They became ébénistes. Modest as he is, these are Van der Straeten's skilled antecedents. Though his clients may be international, in France he has been claimed by the nation: He's been made a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (he keeps the medal hidden in a box on his bookshelf); his work has been awarded the coveted Living Heritage label; and many of his pieces have been purchased by the Mobilier National—an institution that has existed since the 17th century to provide furnishings for the king of France, which now collects, preserves and archives objects of French manufacture, from Poussin tapestries to Van der Straeten's alabaster lamps.
Fittingly, Van der Straeten lives—with his partner, the shoe designer Bruno Frisoni—in a former cabinetmaker's workshop in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, the district historically devoted to such pursuits. Although the space contains pieces of his own, he has mixed these with mid-century Danish furniture and some 17th- and 18th-century antiques. "I have a Spanish-carved wood-gilded mirror—very extravagant and very strict at the same time—and a Regency period desk, black and gold," he says. He always advises people that pieces shouldn't match ("you have to keep the tension between them") and aims, in his own home, for an atmosphere that is, as he puts it, "both peaceful and stimulating."
In the Bagnolet workshop, Van der Straeten shows me his sketches, and the scientific calculations by which they are rendered with astounding faithfulness to the original thought. In the front office, he toys with some samples and picks up an unevenly dyed marquetry. "I like this prune-colored straw," he says to his cabinetmaking workshop manager, Stéphane Delage. "Can we actually do that?"
Delage wrinkles his nose. "Not really," he replies, undecided, "it's very unpredictable. It was actually a test for black that went wrong."
"That went right!" Van der Straeten says, laughing. Then he looks up and shrugs, his eyes alight with a new idea. "The beauty of accidents," he says. | <urn:uuid:6f166ae2-ec42-48be-828e-9466482596dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.opinionjournal.com/article/SB10001424127887324894104578115230083518740.html?mod=WSJ_LifeStyle_Lifestyle_5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97481 | 1,867 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Entire UK will be on ID database sometime in next 3 millennia
If it was down to them, that is
Applications to join the ID card register are running at 50 a day, meaning the Labour government will achieve its aim of chipping the entire population of these islands in somewhere between 136 and 3,342 years.
Or never, if the Tories live up to their promises and kill the scheme should they get into power.
In a series of Commons answers yesterday, ID minister Meg Hillier and Alan Johnson, outlined progress on the scheme in perfect harmony.
In one answer, Alan Johnson said that between October 20 and January 16, over 3,700 applicants had enrolled or made an appointment for an ID card.
In another answer, Hillier said that between October 20 and January 18, over 3,800 applicants had enrolled or made an appointment.
That's a jump of 100 applicants in just two days, suggesting a run rate of 50 per day. A few quick sums, and that leads to the magical figure of 3,342 years to register the current 61 million odd Britons.
Other nuggets from Hillier and Johnson included the news that so far, 2,700 ID cards had actually been issued to applicants up to January 18. Last week, Hillier revealed that up to January 14, 1,300 people in Manchester has applied for cards.
It should be noted this doesn't take into account leap years, population changes, or the chances of humanity being wiped out by an unexpected asteroid. Neither does it take into account the fact that at least some of the lucky so-and-sos who've applied for cards to date are journalists looking to produce a quick first person story on "My quest to be the first to file a story about my ID card applications."
Of course, the government could argue that the 50 a day run rate should only be seen in relation to the population of Manchester, as that is where the pilot scheme is currently running. Taking the population of Greater Manchester as the base, we get a figure of 136 years before the population is recorded in the ID register.
This is much sooner than three and a half millennia, obviously, but still probably a little longer than the government was hoping for.
The ace up the government's sleeve is that if you don't want an ID card, you'll still end up in the ID database if you renew your passport. Hillier said that at present, around 80 per cent of the UK population apply for a passport over a ten year period. Which still raises the question of how the government will get the other 20 per cent - 12 million people - registered.
Hillier added that as of 2012 the government will require people applying for a passport or ID card to submit ten fingerprints for recording in the National ID database. However, she said that "Where an individual is unable to record a full set of ten fingerprints (eg due to an amputation), they will be able to register as many fingerprints as it is possible for them to record". Excellent news. ® | <urn:uuid:f1488169-c2e8-4c02-95c9-fd0980231280> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/26/id_cards_rate/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971283 | 618 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Leading the way in sustainability
At Loughborough University sustainability is key. Through our cutting-edge research we are helping the world to tackle global warming by developing new technologies that reduce carbon emissions, preserve the earth's environment and resources, and provide clean energy for all.
As an organisation we are committed to ensuring we operate in a sustainable way. We work with our own academics, and others across the sector, to ensure that innovative ideas are considered for application in the management of our own campus.
We enhance the sustainability of the campus by the adoption of appropriate techniques and technologies to make Loughborough one of the UK's leading exemplars of sustainability in the academic sector.
The University is internationally acclaimed for its research in the area of sustainability. It is home to the world leading CREST (Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology) and in 2006 launched a Sustainability Research School. The School brings together a multi-disciplinary team of experts in sustainability-related research from across the University, and promotes collaboration with other academic institutions and industry.
In recognition of its research expertise in this field Loughborough, in partnership with the Universities of Birmingham and Nottingham and with support from the East Midlands Development Agency (emda) and Advantage West Midlands, was chosen to host the Government’s new £1 billion national Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) to help accelerate the UK's transition to a low-carbon economy. The headquarters of the ETI are now based at the University.
A hydrogen refuelling station has also been installed at the campus, which will enable Loughborough to drive forward its research in this area, as well as provide a refuelling service to non-polluting hydrogen vehicles used by campus-based organisations.
In April 2010, Loughborough University achieved the Bronze EcoCampus award for the phased implementation of an Environmental Management System.
To achieve Bronze the University has provided evidence to show planning for our own Environmental Management System and that we have senior management commitment, environmental awareness training, completed a baseline environmental review and produced a draft Environmental Policy.
This achievement means we now have an externally audited and accredited Environmental Management System in place giving cohesion to the excellent work going on across the many disciplines on campus that feed into the sustainability strategy. As this is an operational system we will be expected to show continual improvement and the next phase is Silver which the University will begin working towards this Summer.
Finding out more
You can read more about the University's commitment to Sustainability on our Sustainability website » | <urn:uuid:e120c539-8f49-4d5f-ad5a-2472430908da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.loughborough.ac.uk/about/sustainability/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940214 | 517 | 1.914063 | 2 |
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
30 Days of Night by Steve Niles
We've all heard that "the book is better than the movie." But what if the movie is based on a graphic novel? 30 Days of Night, by Steve Niles, is an 80+ page graphic novel originally published in 2003. The movie came out just last month.
The graphic novel is by illustrated by Ben Templesmith in a shaky and low detail style. The bulk of the illustrations are in black, white, brown and shades of the three, giving the work a murky, dark feeling. When other colors are used, they are also darker, muddier tones...except for reds, yellows and oranges. Fire and blood are illustrated with vibrant tones, making them pop from the pages for maximum impact (and there is a lot of blood). The story itself is a simple one, though creative and well-written. It recounts the town of Barrow, Alaska's horrifying fight to survive when the sun went down for an entire month, and vampires came to party. There is a lot of tension in the story, as a small group of humans struggle to keep their lives, and their sanity; hiding, and waiting for the sun to come up once again.
The movie retains the basic storyline of the graphic novel. The differences are in the character relationships, added characters and situations and location changes. It's understandable that the filmmakers would need to pad the story in order to make a feature length film from an 80 page book. Their changes don't detract from the plot, and their more fully developed characters help the viewer become more engaged, and therefore more horrified, by the events that transpire.
The graphic novel and the book contain enough differences that one will not detract from the pleasure of the other. | <urn:uuid:d1637c15-a600-4b95-b9ad-815741d74d8c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://weknowbooks.blogspot.com/2007/11/30-days-of-night-by-steve-niles.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965187 | 366 | 1.625 | 2 |
A review of
Bird Lovers, Backyard
by Thalia Field
In “Apparatus for the Inscription of a Falling Body,” the first piece in Thalia Field’s Bird Lovers, Backyard, a group has been called together to address the “pigeon problem” at a heap of “scattered umbrellas,” “trash stations,” and a “highway entrance,” also known as a food court, near an “unbuilt field.” Electricity, spikes, and fireworks have been employed by the food court in its war on urban wildlife, and as the group surveys the ruin it discovers that humans have built a world that is failing them and demolishing everything else. Tragic as humanity’s fall may be, it lays the ground for alternatives here and now. In the food court we find ourselves exposed to a space of diplomatic negotiation between collectivity and architecture, narrative and science, poetry and language, a space where the human problem becomes an opportunity for tracing critical thought and addressing failures of communication.
An urgent call to think through faulty communications resounds throughout Field’s book in essayistic pieces ruptured all over by wit and, one might venture, love. In a piece on philosopher and animal trainer Vicki Hearne, “Recapitulation: Youthful Folly,” for example, a dog who bites the hand that beats it is condemned for being antisocial. Language itself may be at the root of this miscommunication. But, for Field, the possibility of communication lies in literary writing, which calls us to think critically and to become activists at play.
In “Recapitulation,” Field focuses on Vicki Hearne’s work with the dog Bandit, a case study arguing that the master/pet binary be abolished for mutual interpretation without hierarchy. Working to understand Bandit, Hearne approached her “vicious dog case” in a “literary way.” And although Hearne felt poetry couldn’t solve our problems, she also believed that “thinking through problems about language can bring back awareness.” To think and act in a literary way can facilitate communication that attends to unpredictable results. “In teaching someone to love language with us,” writes Field, “we must allow they will say things we didn’t teach them to say.” If language is the architecture of communication, then a poetics can help all types of animals live together.
Relatively dissonant with Hearne is Konrad Lorenz, animal psychologist and opportunist under Nazi rule, who is explored at length in “Exposition: He Told Animal Stories.” Here, science and story face off as Field probes the way Lorenz’s behavioral studies of geese reflect the human desire for narrative. The animal psychologist believed that “our fellow creatures can tell us the most beautiful stories, and that means true stories.” In Lorenz’s claim on truth, Field sees a tendency “to own other creatures’ actions, translate them into our language, extend them our fantasies.” The question is whether Lorenz, an architect of narrative and knowledge, has provided a sustainable design for human and animal existence alike.
We hope you enjoy this excerpt.
To read the full piece, please purchase a copy of the magazine from The McSweeney’s Store. | <urn:uuid:4ec6528c-7584-4bb6-81fe-ab5ca89626ad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.believermag.com/issues/201102/?read=review_field | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942389 | 722 | 1.867188 | 2 |
Cuban authorities ordered the temporary detention of several dissidents who had gathered in front of a Havana police station Thursday to demand freedom for a group of activists and independent lawyers.
Among those detained were blogger Yoani Sánchez, former political prisoner Guillermo Fariñas, and writers Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, Angel Santiesteban and Eugenio Leal. Several former political prisoners from the Group of 75 also were detained. They included Angel Moya, Félix Navarro, Julio Aleaga, Eduardo Díaz Fleitas and Librado Linares.
Yoani Sánchez was freed late Thursday, according to a Twitter message from her husband, Reynaldo Escobar.
The activists were detained outside a police station at Acosta and 10 de Octubre in a Havana neighborhood called La Víbora where they were demanding the immediate, unconditional release of more than a dozen activists who had been detained at midweek.
A pro-government group that blogs under the name Yohandry said on Twitter that Sánchez was detained for creating a “public disturbance” and for “social indiscipline.”
“A wave of repressive has been noted in the capital. It has a spiral or domino-effect,’’ Elizardo Sánchez Santa Cruz, a spokesman for the Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation told El Nuevo Herald.
The arrests coincided with reports of a critical situation for human rights and zero tolerance on the part of the Castro government for requests for freedom and democracy.
Sánchez Santa Cruz added that the arrest of dissidents and police threats mark a new chapter of indiscriminate repression.
On Wednesday, police arrested independent lawyers Yaremis Flores, Laritza Diversent and Veisant Boloy.
The commission also confirmed the arrest of the director of State of Sats Project, Antonio Rodiles, and activists Andres Perez and Mario Morales. The project is a movement based in Havana, which promotes the exchange of ideas. On several occasions, the group has made written demands for an end to the Cuban government’s censorship practices. In this context, it organizes monthly meetings, panel discussions and analyses on art and social activism.
The organization has repeatedly asked the government not to prohibit entry into the island of various intellectuals and artists now barred by the government because they do not fit in with the island’s political expectations.
Wilfredo Vallín, a Havana lawyer who heads the Cuban Law Association, described the arrests as a new expression of intolerance and authoritarianism in Cuba.
“We do not know what the condition of these people arrested and have no information of their whereabouts. These arrests were made without any legal basis,’’ Vallín said. “We’ve heard that some of them were beaten. Obviously, this cannot be allowed to continue.”
Others detained were Vladimir Torres, Rolando Reyes, Reinaldo Figueras and Luis Manuel Fumero. All were taken to police stations run by the Cuban State Security.
“At this time, most of those arrested are unaccounted for, but we know they have been placed in prison cells at different stations of the national revolutionary police and being held incommunicado,” Sánchez Santa Cruz said.
The wave of oppression against the ranks of dissidents continue to aggravate the already critical situation inside the island. In October, the Cuban rights commission identified 520 arrests of dissidents for political reasons. The report described a high level of consistent repression, harassment and persecution.
In early October, Yoani Sanchez was briefly detained in a research center in the eastern city of Bayamo along with her husband, an independent journalist, and blogger Agustín Lopez.
At the time, the trio was traveling to attend the trial of Angel Carromero, a Spanish citizen charged in the July death in a car crash of famed dissident, Oswaldo Payá. A second dissident, Harold Cepero, also died in the accident.
Minutes before her arrest on Thursday, Sánchez sent a Twitter message about the repression the activist were encountering.
“They released Ailer Gonzalez but the rest are still behind bars, the group being held at the Acosta police station is still here,” Sánchez tweeted.
Rodiles, who also is in police custody, had been arrested in July in Havana and released hours later. At that time, no charges were levied against him, but authorities did not explain the reason for his arrest. Rodiles’ release came after several of his friends and independent journalists staged a “sit-in” at the station where he was being held incommunicado.
In Miami, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen on Thursday condemned the crackdown against opposition ranks in an email to El Nuevo Herald.
“Just one day after Obama’s reelection, the brutal Castro regime continues to do what it does best: arresting and beating peaceful pro-democracy activists,” said Ros-Lehtinen. “I have hope that this administration [Obama] will see these despots and tyrants for what they are.” | <urn:uuid:6cef55cc-3942-44fb-8d4f-f8b894bba01e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/11/08/3088460/yoani-sanchez-and-other-cuban.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963767 | 1,090 | 1.523438 | 2 |
London has got a new icon. The ArcelorMittal Orbit Tower is the newest addition to the Olympic Park and provides an attraction to rival those visited the world over.
Designed by Anish Kapoor, the most influential British sculptor alive, and Cecil Balmond, a structural engineer who can realize the follies of the best architects, the Orbit Tower could only be built with the participation of the billionaire Lakshmi Mittal, the richest man in the UK, considered the king of steel.
With 114.5 meters (22 meters longer than the Statue of Liberty) Orbit Tower is made of steel its officially name is ArcerolMittal Orbit Tower. Two elevators allow us the access to the top, with capacity for 21 people each, capable of carrying 500-770 people per hour.
Two covered platforms offer an excellent views of the Olympic Park and the city of London. It will also be able to cater for events and conferences offering delegates and organisers alike a unique setting and location for their event. | <urn:uuid:64bef3eb-7faf-4f11-a2a6-40b527d87286> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bocadolobo.com/blog/architecture-orbit-tower-by-anish-kapoor/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941863 | 207 | 1.6875 | 2 |
A new puzzle from the makers of Sudoku Ball. There are 16 symbols, and 6 4-by-4 blocks arranged on a sphere, although it might as well be a cube. The sudoku rules apply: symbols are used once and once in each block, row or column. The catch here is that the rows and columns extend around the sphere.
In a 16-by-16 sudoku, there are 16 4-by-4 blocks. Each block interacts with the other 3 blocks horizontally, and the other three blocks vertically, for a total of 6 blocks. In the Quadoku, each block interacts with all 5 other blocks, but it interacts with the block on the other side of the sphere twice, once with the rows and once with the columns. So, in a way, each block is involved in 6 block-to-block interactions, just as in the 16-by-16 sudoku. The difference is that every block interacts with every other block, while in a 16-by-16 sudoku, each block has 9 other blocks that it doesn’t interact with at all.
6 blocks times 16 cells is 96 cells, compared to 81 cells in a 9-by-9 sudoku and 256 cells in a 16-by-16 sudoku. With fewer cells and more interconnections, I’d expect it to be a more interesting puzzle than a 16-by-16 sudoku.
In a flat sudoku, I can see everything at once. I can follow rows and columns with my eyes. With the Quadoku, I can only see one block at a time and have to manipulate the controls to see the others. The opposite block is always either flipped vertically (top and bottom) or flipped horizontally (left and right) from the way I last saw it, depending on whether I’m navigating North and South, or navigating East and West. This is a problem, because I have only so many brain cells left, and I want to use them solving the logic problem. I don’t want to waste them on hand-eye coordination to manipulate the controls.
I suppose it gets easier with practice. The more I remember about the contents of the unseen blocks, the less I have to turn the sphere around. Two-dimensional representations of three-dimensional puzzles are awkward. What I’d really like to see is an actual object that I can hold in my hands while I solve the puzzle. | <urn:uuid:47769237-9f4d-4062-9f63-1e6b038425db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.regruntled.com/2008/12/17/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934409 | 512 | 2.671875 | 3 |
We took tips for our how-to guide from Appropedia's and Gardens for Health's bag garden pages and Send a Cow's video tutorial for making a bag garden in Uganda. This is how we did it.
Step 1: Materials, tools and build time
*1 burlap coffee sack. Feed sacks and food aid sacks work, too, as would any large bag.
*3 cubic feet of soil. We used organic compost, but a soil-manure mixture would work, as would compost from an ecological toilet, a household waste compost bin or any nutrient-rich soil.
*Gravel. *A large yogurt container with the bottom cut out. Coffee cans or other similar-sized containers also work.
*Starter plants. We planted serrano and habnero chiles, sweet potato, sweet pepper and two kinds of basil.
*Trowel or shovel (optional)
We spent about one hour gathering the materials and 1.5 hours putting it together the first time. It could go much faster once you know what you're doing.
Step 2: Begin making the center column of gravel and fill the bag
Shovel the soil around the rock-filled container and fill out the sack to the edges. When the soil reaches the top of the container, pull it up gently, leaving the rocks in a column in the center. Repeat until the bag is full with a center column of gravel. The column is for drainage and water distribution throughout the sack.
Tip: In hindsight, wire mesh (ckicken wire) or (maybe) a wide PVC pipe (or some other material that makes a cylinder) would make it easier to create the central column of gravel. Shape the wire into a long cylinder, put it upright on the bottom of the bag, fill it with gravel then fill in the bag with dirt around the thing. You could leave the wire mesh inside when you're finished. And if you used a PVC pipe, you would have to pull it out when the bag is full of dirt.
Step 3: Plant it
Tip: Try putting root crops on top and leafy vegetables and herbs in the sides.
Step 4: Plant the sides
Tip: We cut the holes too big. Try making a small cut that looks like an upside down "T," then scoop out soil from below the cut to make a little shelf for the plant.
Step 5: Ta da! | <urn:uuid:a82ddd5c-9571-4aad-a08e-071a1df3156f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.instructables.com/id/A-garden-in-a-sack/?ALLSTEPS | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918358 | 498 | 3.03125 | 3 |
A MAN WHO WENT TO
HEAVEN WITHOUT DYING
After Cain killed his brother Abel, God punished him by sending him away from his homeland and away "from the presence of the Lord." Genesis 4:16 says that Cain went eastward and settled "in the land of Nod" (Nod means "wandering"). Cain married, and had a son named Enoch. Even though he was a nomad, Cain built a city for his firstborn son, and called it by that sonís name: Enoch. Perhaps this was Cainís way of trying to give his son permanent roots, and a place to call "home." Sadly, he gave Enoch a city, but did not give him a loving respect for God.
After Abelís death, God gave Adam and Eve another son whom they named Seth. Genesis 4:26 says that during the lifetime of Seth "men began to call upon the name of the Lord." The descendants of Seth turned to God, instead of away from Him, as Cainís descendants had.
One of Sethís descendants also was named Enoch. This Enoch was a righteous man because he was "one who walked with God." He enjoyed a special relationship with God because of his devotion to Him. He separated himself from the wickedness around him, and devoted his whole life to God.
When Enoch was 365 years old, God decided that Enoch should go directly to heavenówithout dying like all other men. (Enoch was the only man, besides Elijah, to go directly to heaven without dying.)
Enoch was a righteous man. He loved God and wanted more than anything to do what was right. God rewarded Enoch with heaven. God wants us to love Him and do what is right, too. And He has promised that if we choose to do what is right, as Enoch did, He will give us a special home in heaven, too.
How did Enoch know what was right? What does it mean that he "walked with God"? He listened to God, and he talked to God. And he tried to make good choices, based upon what he learned from God. We listen to God by studying His Word, and we talk to Him in prayer. If we want to "walk with God," we will have to make choices about what we say and do every single day, just like Enoch did, based on what we learn from Godís Word.
What is heaven like? We know that heaven is such a beautiful, special place that words canít really describe it. We do know that God, Jesus, and the angels are there, and all the souls of all the righteous people who have died are promised heaven. We know that there will be no more sadness, sickness, dying, or pain. There will be no bad people, no war, no lying, no murderónothing bad at all there. We know that in heaven it never will be dark. It never will be too cold or too hot. Everyone in heaven is very happy because they are with God, and always will be with God.
Jesus talked about Heaven as if it were a great mansion with many rooms, enough rooms for everyone who chooses to obey God. He said that He was going on to prepare the way and get things ready for us. Just as God provided a beautiful, perfect home in the Garden of Eden for Adam and Eve in the beginning, God has provided a beautiful, perfect home in heaven for us. | <urn:uuid:8bae8914-8119-4d31-a91e-83edbd28e8de> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.discoverymagazine.com/articles/d1997/d9710f.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984994 | 718 | 2.296875 | 2 |
|AUTHOR||Ingrid Palmary, PhD|
This report outlines the situation facing children who migrate across international borders to South Africa. There is lack of capacity for intervention with child migrants in South Africa. Many of the migrant rights organizations that exist do not specifically address the rights of children and many children's organizations lack the knowledge on migrant children's rights to intervene effectively. Access to rights is almost entirely facilitated by NGOs in South Africa with migrant children having very limited direct access to government departments and services. This report makes recommendations for intervention by the United Nations Children's Fund and other partners for strengthening migrant children's access to basic rights in South Africa. | <urn:uuid:e49fd3c5-31c9-4f47-9a2b-3968f96169fb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.unicef.org/socialpolicy/index_51075.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928954 | 131 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Microsoft plans to sell a somewhat crippled version of XP to the makers of low-cost PCs like the Eee PC and XO laptop for only $25. The major catch the PC vendors that make ULPCs must limit screen sizes to 10.2 inches and hard drives to 80G bytes, and they cannot offer touch-screen PCs…the systems can have no more than 1G byte of RAM and a single-core processor running at no more than 1GHz.
Besides limits on the screens and hard drives, to be eligible, the systems can have no more than 1G byte of RAM and a single-core processor running at no more than 1GHz. The program makes an allowance for some chips, including Via Technologies' C7-M processors, which run between 1.0GHz and 1.6GHz, and Intel's upcoming Atom N270.
The program is outlined in confidential documents that Microsoft sent to PC makers last month, and which were obtained by IDG News Service.
Microsoft has said it plans to stop selling new Windows XP licenses after June 30, but it has made exceptions, including for the use of XP Home in ULPCs. | <urn:uuid:39fa3f13-9251-409a-bad3-8037adee9d22> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.geek-news.net/2008/05/microsoft-will-sell-25-windows-xp-to.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948777 | 237 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Denies Immunity in Civil Rights Action Filed by Parents of Teenager Shot and Killed by CHP Officer
In Adams v. Speers, eighteen year-old Alan Adams was pursued by numerous Merced County Sheriff's Office deputies, after running numerous stop signs. Paul Speers, a CHP officer, picked up the chase on his radio, and before his assignment ended picked up a friend, and without advising law enforcement vehicles of his identity or his intentions, pulled his car out and tried, but failed, to ram Adams' vehicle. Speers then continued on in the chase and proceeded to the front of the police procession. Finally, Speers crashed his car into Adam's vehicle and pushed it into an embankment. Officers surrounded Adams' vehicle, and one officer used his baton to break the driver's side window in an attempt to extract Adams from the car. Before the officer could act, Speers, without any warning, drew his service weapon and fired six rounds, killing Adams.
The deceased teenager's parents filed suit pursuant to 42 U.S.C section 1983, the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, and wrongful death. Per the standard set forth in the United States Supreme Court case, Saucier v. Katz, the district court first determined that if all facts were viewed in favor of the Adamses, Speers had violated the Fourth Amendment. The court stated that it was unreasonable for a police officer to seize an unarmed, nondangerous suspect. The court determined that per the second Saucier step the actions of Speers were no reasonable, therefore the district court denied him qualified immunity. The Ninth Circuit found the district court's judgment was "impeccable," and therefore upheld the judgment in its entirety.ShareThis | <urn:uuid:48e05d03-a4ec-4ba2-ab05-08fc52fe5e52> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://meyersnave.com/public-blawg/2007/01/ninth-circuit-court-appeals-denies-immunity-civil-rights-action-filed-parents-t | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979324 | 361 | 1.78125 | 2 |
AutoGuide News Blog
The AutoGuide News Blog is your source for breaking stories from the auto industry. Delivering news immediately, the AutoGuide Blog is constantly updated with the latest information, photos and video from manufacturers, auto shows, the aftermarket and professional racing.
Complaints that certain Chevrolet Corvette sports cars might suffer from headlights going dark without warning are prompting an investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
You probably take them for granted and forget to turn them on from time to time, but headlights have made a remarkable journey from the lanterns they literally used to be. Now, they might be able to make rain invisible… sort of.
Results from a new test being conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) could prompt automakers to modify their cars by making them heavier, more expensive and less fuel efficient.
Considering their prevalence today, it’s easy to forget that just five years ago we saw our first set of LED headlights on a production vehicle. Even back then car makers were putting LEDs on concept cars to dazzle show-goers and catch the eyes of the media. But today, LED (light-emitting diode) lights are no longer isolated to just one-off concepts or premium luxury vehicles.
Porsche may have made a serious mistake in hiring an ex Wile E. Coyote illustrator to assemble their Cayenne SUVs. Sure it’s funny to see the sneaky canine’s eyes pop out, but there’s nothing funny about that happening to your car.
Jokes aside, more than 20,000 Porsche Cayennes from the 2011-12 model year, including the Cayenne, Cayenne S, Cayenne S hybrid and Cayenne Turbo are experiencing just that. It seems that there’s a chance your headlights might become detached during one of those athletic sprints to get the kids to a soccer game, or any time for that matter.
The recall was expected to begin on February 23, owners will be contacted by the automaker if their vehicle needs to be repaired.
GALLERY: 2011 Porsche Cayenne
BMW engineers are currently working on the introduction of laser light technology as the next logical step in car light development. Laser lights offer a vast improvement over the stock LED bulbs, currently used in luxury cars because lasers use less energy, are brighter, smaller, and can be directed at a smaller area.
LED lighting generates only around 100 lumens per watt, but laser lighting generates approximately 170 lumens, meaning they’re much brighter. The new technology is much more efficient and interestingly, because lasers are much smaller, designers can create very thin lights, seen on futuristic concepts. BMW also sees no reason why they can’t implement all the familiar lighting functions to lasers such as Adaptive Headlights, the Dynamic Light Spot spotlighting system and the Anti-Dazzle High-Beam Assist.
[Source: e90 Post] | <urn:uuid:66c4c3c7-7d2f-44bb-8e86-b65e37fc19f0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/tag/headlights | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937552 | 607 | 1.78125 | 2 |
The Baldridges owned the ranch for 38 years. Texas-born Baldridge came to California at a very young age and later opened a livery stable at 35 E. Villa St. in Pasadena. One day while driving around, he came upon the property and decided it suited his needs. By the next year, he had built a hilltop nest for himself and his wife and named the property "Onondarka," which means, in the language of one of the area's indigenous peoples, "House on the Hill," according to "Scraps of History," a column from a 1947 Ledger newspaper provided by Crescenta Valley historian Mike Lawler.
Baldridge was known as "the Colonel," although he was never in the military. Current owner Dolores Knox recalled that Baldridge "told us he was a colonel in name only. One of his workers was a captain, so he took on the nickname of colonel in order to boss the captain."
The Knoxes only met Baldridge once, but Dolores Knox described him as a memorable character.
"It was an exciting day for us," she said. "He was a very vigorous man. We could hardly keep up with him although he was in his 80s. He was telling us minute by minute what he had done. We walked up the hill and he showed us how he brought the water and gas to the house."
Baldridge told them that when the house was built, carpenters were getting $3 a day and lumber was sold at $3 a hundred board-feet. Baldridge's workers hauled rocks by mule wagon up from the wash for two weeks to build the house's foundation. Then for five more months they hauled more rock to build a small wall from the entrance of the property up to the house.
The old homestead built by Englehardt became a residence for others. | <urn:uuid:41c7c488-24d1-4673-a241-819eb4b6101e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.glendalenewspress.com/2007-01-19/news/gnp-yamada19_1_sold-verdugo-wash-jose-maria-verdugo | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.994611 | 384 | 2.40625 | 2 |