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February 29, 2008.
The issue of civilian casualties in Afghanistan is a highly contentious issue, and for good reason. In an opinion poll commissioned by the BBC, 29% of Afghans said the international troops were doing a bad job. The number one reason given (at 39%) was civilian casualties. The issue of bad intelligence has been discussed here, while the over-reliance on air power is frequently mentioned at Registan and Abu Muqawama. But that’s not what I’ll be discussing today.
What I’ll analyze today is the issue of compensation. But first some quantitative analysis: According to Human Rights Watch, in 2006 there were approximately 1200 civilian casualties in Afghanistan, of which as many as 300 could be blamed on international forces (and if the increased coverage of civilian casualties in the press accurately reflects what’s happening on the ground, I’m assuming 2007 will prove to be significantly higher).
Pic: Anger over the killing of Afghan civilians in March 2007.
The paper trail on US compensation for civilian casualties in Afghanistan is a little slim, amounting to only 17 claims that the ACLU obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (now allegedly available in this user-unfriendly database). But other incidents of compensation have been discussed in the media, such as the compensation payed out after Marines killed uninvolved bystanders after a suicide bomber attack in Jalalabad. Various amounts have been discussed, and I’ve usually heard figures in the $2000 dollar range. The ACLU report noted that payments for a life lost is capped at $2500.
Other payments are made as well. For example, since 2005 the US government has paid out about $40 million for property damage, personal injury and loss of life in Iraq. However, I couldn’t find any total for what is being paid out in Afghanistan. So what I’ll focus on is the compensation for loss of life and that $2500 figure. I’m not going to go searching for quotes, but I recall terms used for this level of compensation such as “arbitrary,” “shameful,” and various words to indicate that the commentator sees this compensation as grossly insufficient.
Pic: Karzai has angrily complained of civilian casualties numerous times (in Dari and Pashto).
A $2500 payment for the loss of a human life is many things, but surprisingly it may not be completely arbitrary. I don’t know how the Pentagon came up with this figure. It may indeed be arbitrary, but it is (at worst) actually about half of what was determined to be the value of a human life in the traditional Pashtun version of civil court (using a rather confusing economic comparison). To support this point, I’ll refer to Alef Shah Zadran’s 1977 PhD dissertation Socio-economic and legal-political processes in a Pashtun village, southeastern Afghanistan.
And yes, I know the problems of trying to apply one case study for a village in Paktia to all Pashtun areas of Afghanistan. But there are strong similarities between the various rural Pashtun areas. And indeed, the Pashtun tsali (practise) set amounts for the value of damages to body and for loss of life. Zadran (page 264) showed these tsali figures:
Bodily Injury Compensation Schedule in Afghanis: body part injured level of compensation. 1970′s: 1$=50 afghani.
- Right eye 7,500 afs
- Left eye 7,500 afs
- Right ear 5,000 afs
- Left ear 5,000 afs
- Nose 30,000 afs
- Middle incisor 5,000 afs
- Side incisor 5,000 afs
- Canine 2,500 afs
- Premolar 2,000 afs
- Molar 1,000 afs
- Hands 15,000 afs
- Right hand 10,000 afs
- Left hand 5,000 afs
- thumb 3,750 afs
- index finger 2,500 afs
- middle finger 2,000 afs
- ring 1,500 afs
- pinky 1,000 afs
- Feet 15,000 afs
- Right foot 7,500 afs
- Left foot 7,500 afs
- Amputation of foot 30,000 afs
- Fingernails or toenails (visible) 150 afs
- Fingernails or toenails (not visible) 100 afs
In the case of murder, a maraka (sort of an ad hoc but formalized arbitration court that fits within the Pashtunwali “code”) will be convened. In mid-1970′s currency, the blood-price (nake or khun) was set at $1200 (60,000 Afghanis). I stuck this in an inflation converter and came up with a figure of about $5000. But that’s using an American scale. I honestly have no idea of what 60,000 Afghanis ($1200) in rural eastern Afghanistan would be equivalent to today. But Zadran makes the point that this figure was still the standard in the 1970s, despite the perception by some that it was too low.
Pic: Probably no compensation for this.
In the case of murder, it was also common for the arbitration to include an unmarried girl to be given to the victims family in order to tie the families together and prevent future fighting (Jenna Bush to wed in Paktia Province?). But using American legal terms, we’re not talking murder in the vast majority of civilian casualty cases, we’re dealing with manslaughter or negligent homicide. And we’re talking about this in the context of war. Indeed, NATO has no rules in Afghanistan about compensation for civilian casualties, letting individual countries, such as Denmark, set their own rules.
As for the US, did they actually inquire in Afghanistan as to what would be the traditional level of compensation for loss of life and take that $1200/60,000 Afghanis figure as an approximate guide? Again I don’t know. But the point is that by traditional Afghan standards, it is at worst only half of what the level of compensation ideally is in rural Afghanistan. [Again I offer the caveat that taking a figure from 1970s Afghanistan and coming up with an amount for 2008 is a job for some sort of economist detective, which I'm not].
Personally, I think that the Pentagon should play it safe and go double the rate of that I came up with using the US inflation rate and make the compensation $10,000 rather than capping it at $2500. And yes, they should come up with a system of standards to govern the process. I recall a TV (or newspaper) report from Iraq that featured some beleaguered American officer inundated with locals demanding compensation for their imaginary livestock that the Americans has viciously massacred the previous week. If someone starts handing out compensation payments without doing much investigating, he will soon have a very long line of people forming outside his tent. And that applies whether the tent is located in Kansas City or Spin Boldak.
But at the moment there is that $2500 cap and the lack of clear guidelines. Or as Zalmay Khalilzad said in a different manner, American officers on the ground have “flexibility” in regards to compensation payments. And importantly, it seems that many incidents have occurred without compensation being granted. It does not seem that the quick delivery of compensation in wake of the US Marines killings of civilians in Jalalabad is the model for other incidents where US forces killed innocent bystanders (is this the “flexibility” that Khalilzad is referring to?).
Pic: A civilian killed by US Marines in Jalalabad.
The other issue is that of going beyond compensatory damages. In an American civil court damages are awarded as compensatory and punitive. The punitive damages are meant to punish the negligent/guilty party. This is where you see damages against large corporations going into the 100s of millions. Personally, I don’t support punitive damages against governments for incidences that occur during war (but I’m fine with compensatory damages).
Of course, it is not the issue of compensation that is the real problem here, it is the issue of the casualties themselves. Barnett Rubin’s quote reflects my position on the issue:
“What really hurts is the civilian casualties, at least when there are civilian casualties, there should be a mechanism for redressing those grievances. The civilian casualties and the apparent impunity of coalition and NATO forces — and also I should add, of private security contractors — is a big issue in the minds of Afghans. So if [compensation] can help address that, then that would [help] to some extent. But of course, it would be more important to eliminate civilian casualties.”
Some final extra, additional caveats: this blog entry is more to get people to think about the issue of compensation. I’m not offering my musings as a strong suggestion for determining compensation rates. That job should be left to some independent lawyer economist type who’s on the ground. And yes, I realize I used a rural case study and then showed pictures of the city of Jalalabad, that’s all I could find in the way of imagery.
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1. Justin's History of the World extracted from Trogus Pompeius, in Justin, Cornelius Nepos and Eutropius, John Selby Watson, tr. (London: George Bell and Sons, 1876), pp. 272-283
2. Wetzel has Spartanos in his text, but observed in his note, that the right reading is unquestionably Sparnos, the Sparni being mentioned by Strabo in conjunction with the Dahae.
3. Populorum. This word is undoubtedly corrupt. J. F Gronovius would alter it to optimatum. Procerum would perhaps be better.
4. Patrius et Scythicus mos. He seems to mean that their arms were partly of their own contrivance, and partly adopted from the Scythians.
5. Credas simulacra moveri; Ferrea, cognatoque viros spirare metallo; Par vestitus equius. Claudian, In Ruf. ii. 35.
6. I think that this custom is erroneously attributed to the Parthians by Justin, being rather that of the Hyrcanians. Herodotus also, as I am aware, attributes it to the Persians i. 140. Is. Vossius. See Cic. Tusc. i. 44, 45.
7. Not weaker with respect to the particular time at which the Bactrians were exhausted by wars, but to other times, when the Bactrians had been their superiors in strength.ÑScheffer.
8. Very improbable.
9. Or rather Artoadistes, as the name is written in six of the old editions. He is called Artavasdes by Strabo and Plutarch. Wetzel.
10. A hyperbole for there were none but Greeks. Wetzel. Faber, for totius orbis, would read totius Graeciae.
11. Aeetes is a conjecture of Faber for etiam, which is useless. There is no account of Jason's second voyage to Colchis in any other author.
12. Whom most authors call Absyrtus.
13. Either he killed only twenty-nine, or there were thirty-one survivors of Pacorus.
14. Augustus. Comp. c. 4.
15. All the texts, except that of Dubner's little edition, have in Hispaniam, but the sense, as Faber observes and Wetzel admits, evidently requires in Hispania.
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By Jamie Henneman
One of the drawbacks of a small farm can be its comfortable, manageable size.
While a small, family operation can turn out a high-quality product, it is limited when it comes to marketing the vegetables, meat or other goods to buyers like restaurants and grocery stores that traditionally need to order by volume.
Working with other producers to form a cooperative is one strategy for getting your foot in the door so you can work with these high-volume buyers.
Although cooperatives are usually comprised of full-time growers who have the funds to invest in a full-time salesperson (think grain growers or orchardists in a fruit co-op), a twist on the traditional model may be advantageous for small farmers who are willing to work together.
© Tami Zigo
One of the major draws of working with other farmers is the organization of efforts under one product label.
Instead of a handful of growers trying to sell “Joe’s Produce,” “Sally’s Produce” and “Tom’s Produce” to the same regional markets, those growers could come together and coordinate their efforts.
This prevents doubling-up at the same markets or multiple pitches to the same restaurant or grocery store. By unifying under a product label, “Joe, Sally and Tom” could work together to provide both volume and efficiency to the restaurants and stores that are unaccustomed to working with small farms.
Working with a group of farmers with the same target product can also be encouraging as you share production information, divide tasks and share advertising costs. You can also opt to take turns at a farmers’ market or implement other labor- and time-saving activities.
However, for this unconventional set-up to work properly, the farmers in the cooperative group all need to have the same vision.
© Tami Zigo
Do you just want to sell a small amount on the weekends? Are you working toward full-time production? How much growth does the cooperative want to experience? How many markets/restaurants/stores do you want to service?
Agreeing on a common production goal is very important because it directly relates to the amount of time members will be willing to invest.
A retiree who is raising poultry as a hobby, for instance, may not have the same interest and drive for growth as a young couple who want to make farming their occupation. If a group of producers is mixed in this way, you’ll have people who want to participate for social reasons and not for business reasons. This, of course, hurts those who are trying to make farming a vocation. If everyone has the same goal, much heartache and conflict can be avoided.
- Determine how co-op decisions will be made and have a regular meeting schedule.
- Choose a co-op label, slogan or other identifier and make sure all producers have the same promotional materials to hand out.
- Set standards for a consistent product and have producers sign agreements promising to adhere to those standards.
- Have all producers determine the amount of product they have to sell and when it will be ready, possibly committing to that volume in a vendor/sales agreement.
It is also important to determine early on how decisions will be made. Will there be a board of directors? Officers? Who gets to vote? Do the number of votes depend on the volume of product raised?
It’s also very helpful to establish a format for meetings; Robert’s Rules of Order (parliamentary procedure) and similar procedures ensure business matters are attended to.
Get it in Writing
Although lots of farmers have good intentions or are spurred on by big dreams, their commitment to supplying the co-op with “X” number of a product really needs to be on paper in some kind of notarized contract or agreement.
This prevents producers from casually committing up front and then not having the product when orders need to be filled.
In organizing your cooperative, you will likely decide how much product each producer is willing to sell through the cooperative and when the product will be available. It’s important to get this commitment in writing, signed and notarized.
Nothing is worse than cooperative members securing orders only to discover that someone has backed out and the volume isn’t there.
This not only hurts your cooperative, but gives chefs and stores a negative opinion of family farms. In many instances, your interrelations with these establishments will pave the way or close the door for future farmers.
If you decide to share sales, pay membership dues or share expenses, establishing a checking account dedicated to your cooperative will be important for tax purposes. When opening a checking account, your group will need to decide if it wants to be a business that retains profits for later use or a nonprofit organization that does not retain monies. Both for-profits and nonprofits will need to obtain a business license from their state government.
Nonprofits may also have to obtain nonprofit status through the federal government, which can be a long and involved process. Be sure to address this issue first to keep the wheels greased and things moving right along.
In order to market as a group, it’s helpful to agree on a cooperative logo, trademark, business name, slogan or other identifier to be used in advertising.
Co-op labels can be as fancy as one made by a professional designer or as simple as one put together on a home computer. What’s important is that each member has the same signage, brochures, business cards, labels, etc., to create uniformity in selling the product.
This lends credibility to the cooperative and shows that all producers are on the same page. The buyer, therefore, can invest some certainty in knowing that goods will be delivered on time, they will be consistent and that the company will be reliable.
Though it may sound like a no-brainer, products sold through the co-op need to be consistent in quality—uniform in appearance, in growing standards and in the manner they are delivered. This is a crucial element to establishing a good relationship with restaurants, stores or institutions that are accustomed to buying everything from napkins and ketchup to meats and vegetables from the same wholesaler.
Little things like keeping (or removing) the neck on every whole chicken for sale, the color and ripeness of every box of peaches, and the tenderness of every cut of beef is important. Chefs, grocery managers and cooks don’t like surprises. Products that aren’t consistent will eventually turn off these buyers who could make the decision not to order from your co-op again.
Your Story is an Asset
One of the small producer’s biggest assets is their personal story. Meeting real producers, hearing their stories and being able to take seasonal tours of cooperative farms invites buyers to obtain a valuable, personal connection to their food.
Big box stores try to replicate this sense of connection through slick advertising campaigns, but chefs, managers and everyday consumers can ultimately be won over by you—the farmer. By meeting people in person, being on time with deliveries and remaining easily accessible by phone, e-mail or fax, you’re giving big-time (and small-time!) buyers the efficiency of a wholesaler with the personal touch of a family farm.
One of the most rewarding aspects of agriculture is getting to bond with other farmers. Although we all have different ideas, production tactics and methods, there is the common thread of growing food that runs through every farming operation. When it comes to small farming, it’s extremely beneficial to remember that “a high tide floats all boats.”
Everyone has to eat; as the interest in family farms continues to grow, there will be plenty of markets for all farmers. Being territorial, divisive or overly competitive hurts everyone in the long run. As a farmer, you are part of a special group of people who gets to put good food on the plate of every American. That’s something to be proud of, as well as to enjoy.
About the Author
Jamie Henneman is a diversified small farmer in Washington State who raises chickens, beef, rabbits, cabrito, pigs and produce. In 2006 she was the coordinator for a Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education grant that worked to establish a pastured poultry co-op.
This article first appeared in the May/June 2007 issue of Hobby Farms magazine. Subscribe to Hobby Farms>>
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This article for teachers suggests ideas for activities built around 10 and 2010.
Mr. Sunshine tells the children they will have 2 hours of homework.
After several calculations, Harry says he hasn't got time to do
this homework. Can you see where his reasoning is wrong?
Which times on a digital clock have a line of symmetry? Which look
the same upside-down? You might like to try this investigation and
On Planet Plex, there are only 6 hours in the day. Can you answer
these questions about how Arog the Alien spends his day?
On the table there is a pile of oranges and lemons that weighs
exactly one kilogram. Using the information, can you work out how
many lemons there are?
Twizzle, a female giraffe, needs transporting to another zoo. Which
route will give the fastest journey?
Lolla bought a balloon at the circus. She gave the clown six coins
to pay for it. What could Lolla have paid for the balloon?
Go through the maze, collecting and losing your money as you go.
Which route gives you the highest return? And the lowest?
Use your logical-thinking skills to deduce how much Dan's crisps
and ice-cream cost altogether.
A lady has a steel rod and a wooden pole and she knows the length
of each. How can she measure out an 8 unit piece of pole?
Here are the prices for 1st and 2nd class mail within the UK. You have an unlimited number of each of these stamps. Which stamps would you need to post a parcel weighing 825g?
Investigate the different distances of these car journeys and find
out how long they take.
There were chews for 2p, mini eggs for 3p, Chocko bars for 5p and
lollypops for 7p in the sweet shop. What could each of the children
buy with their money?
Add the sum of the squares of four numbers between 10 and 20 to the
sum of the squares of three numbers less than 6 to make the square
of another, larger, number.
Ben has five coins in his pocket. How much money might he have?
Ram divided 15 pennies among four small bags. He could then pay any sum of money from 1p to 15p without opening any bag. How many pennies did Ram put in each bag?
If the numbers 5, 7 and 4 go into this function machine, what
numbers will come out?
These sixteen children are standing in four lines of four, one
behind the other. They are each holding a card with a number on it.
Can you work out the missing numbers?
On a calculator, make 15 by using only the 2 key and any of the
four operations keys. How many ways can you find to do it?
Ten cards are put into five envelopes so that there are two cards in each envelope. The sum of the numbers inside it is written on each envelope. What numbers could be inside the envelopes?
The clockmaker's wife cut up his birthday cake to look like a clock
face. Can you work out who received each piece?
Annie cut this numbered cake into 3 pieces with 3 cuts so that the
numbers on each piece added to the same total. Where were the cuts
and what fraction of the whole cake was each piece?
Can you make square numbers by adding two prime numbers together?
Find out what a Deca Tree is and then work out how many leaves
there will be after the woodcutter has cut off a trunk, a branch, a
twig and a leaf.
Rocco ran in a 200 m race for his class. Use the information to
find out how many runners there were in the race and what Rocco's
finishing position was.
There are three buckets each of which holds a maximum of 5 litres.
Use the clues to work out how much liquid there is in each bucket.
Amy has a box containing domino pieces but she does not think it is
a complete set. She has 24 dominoes in her box and there are 125
spots on them altogether. Which of her domino pieces are missing?
Try adding together the dates of all the days in one week. Now
multiply the first date by 7 and add 21. Can you explain what
The Scot, John Napier, invented these strips about 400 years ago to
help calculate multiplication and division. Can you work out how to
use Napier's bones to find the answer to these multiplications?
Fill in the numbers to make the sum of each row, column and
diagonal equal to 34. For an extra challenge try the huge American
Flag magic square.
Can you put plus signs in so this is true? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 = 99
How many ways can you do it?
Use 4 four times with simple operations so that you get the answer 12. Can you make 15, 16 and 17 too?
In this investigation, you are challenged to make mobile phone
numbers which are easy to remember. What happens if you make a
sequence adding 2 each time?
This magic square has operations written in it, to make it into a
maze. Start wherever you like, go through every cell and go out a
total of 15!
48 is called an abundant number because it is less than the sum of
its factors (without itself). Can you find some more abundant
Zumf makes spectacles for the residents of the planet Zargon, who
have either 3 eyes or 4 eyes. How many lenses will Zumf need to
make all the different orders for 9 families?
There were 22 legs creeping across the web. How many flies? How many spiders?
Arrange the numbers 1 to 6 in each set of circles below. The sum of each side of the triangle should equal the number in its centre.
Woof is a big dog. Yap is a little dog.
Emma has 16 dog biscuits to give to the two dogs.
She gave Woof 4 more biscuits than Yap.
How many biscuits did each dog get?
There are three baskets, a brown one, a red one and a pink one, holding a total of 10 eggs. Can you use the information given to find out how many eggs are in each basket?
Can you work out how many flowers there will be on the Amazing Splitting Plant after it has been growing for six weeks?
Vera is shopping at a market with these coins in her purse. Which
things could she give exactly the right amount for?
There is a clock-face where the numbers have become all mixed up. Can you find out where all the numbers have got to from these ten statements?
I throw three dice and get 5, 3 and 2. Add the scores on the three
dice. What do you get? Now multiply the scores. What do you notice?
Where can you draw a line on a clock face so that the numbers on
both sides have the same total?
This problem is based on the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Investigate the different numbers of people and rats there could have been if you know how many legs there are altogether!
Winifred Wytsh bought a box each of jelly babies, milk jelly bears,
yellow jelly bees and jelly belly beans. In how many different ways
could she make a jolly jelly feast with 32 legs?
You have 5 darts and your target score is 44. How many different
ways could you score 44?
What is happening at each box in these machines?
Can you score 100 by throwing rings on this board? Is there more
than way to do it?
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25 April 2010
With Justice John Paul Steven, the last Protestant on the Supreme Court, just months away from retirement, the White House says President Obama is considering a more diverse pool of candidates , including whites, blacks and Hispanics – men and women -- to tap for his replacement.
With Justice John Paul Steven just months away from retirement, the White House says President Obama is considering a more diverse pool of candidates, including whites, blacks and Hispanics -- men and women -- to tap for his replacement.
"I think he will have a broad group of people that represent many – that represent America as a way of looking at the nominee," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Wednesday.
Fox News has confirmed the latest name in the mix: Judge Ann Claire Williams of the 7th Circuit, who was the first black nominated to the federal bench, by President Reagan in 1985, and then elevated to the appellate level by President Clinton.
Williams is a graduate of Wayne State University and Notre Dame Law School and used to be a music teacher.
A bipartisan group of top Senate leaders met with the president at the White House to discuss the upcoming Supreme Court nomination and confirmation process.
Though no specific names were discussed Wednesday, several key players, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, have repeatedly urged the president to pick someone who is not a federal appellate court judge.
All eight justices left on the bench once Stevens steps down share that background. They are also all Ivy League graduates – predominantly white and male – and none of them are Protestant.
Solicitor General Elena Kagan and Diane Wood, a judge on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, are the two names most commonly mentioned as successors. D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Merrick Garland has also emerged as a top-tier candidate. Obama is said to have about 10 names on his short list.
Obama could also try to make history again by nominating an openly gay candidate to the high court. Former Stanford Law School professor and dean Kathleen Sullivan and Stanford Law professor Pam Karlan have been mentioned as possibilities. Both are also known for their liberal-leaning writings, legal work and commentary.
Another history-making choice would be Leah Ward Sears, the former chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court. If chosen, she would be the first black woman on the Supreme Court.
In an effort to build on Wednesday's bipartisan meeting, the president reached out by phone to nine additional senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee, including three Republicans.
Despite the president's best efforts at building some consensus. Republicans say there are critical philosophical differences that may simply make that impossible.
"I just don't believe judges should be empowered to redefine the meaning of our Constitution , of our statues, to enhance the government's power, to intervene in a lot of different areas," said Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The president says he hopes to announce a nominee by the end of May.
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The 2008 U.S.News & World Report America's Best High Schools methodology, developed by School Evaluation Services, a K-12 education data research business run by Standard & Poor's, is based on the key principles that a great high school must serve all its students well, not just those who are bound for college, and that it must be able to produce measurable academic outcomes that show the school is successfully educating its student body across a range of performance indicators.
We analyzed 18,790 public high schools in 40 states using data from the 2005-2006 school year. This is the total number of public high schools in each state that had grade 12 enrollment and sufficient data to analyze for the 2005-2006 school year. A three-step process determined the best high schools. The first two steps ensured that the schools serve all of their students well, using state proficiency standards as the measuring benchmarks. For those schools that made it past the first two steps, a third step assessed the degree to which schools prepared students for college-level work.
College readiness. The first step determined whether each school's students were performing better than statistically expected for the average student in their state. We started by looking at reading and math test results for all students on each state's high school test. We then factored in the percentage of economically disadvantaged students (who tend to score lower) enrolled at the school to find which schools were performing better than their statistical expectations.
For those schools that made it past this first step, the second step determined whether the school's least-advantaged students (black, Hispanic, and low-income) were performing better than average for similar students in the state. We compared each school's math and reading proficiency rates for disadvantaged students with the statewide results for these disadvantaged student groups and then selected schools that were performing better than this state average.
Schools that made it through those first two steps became eligible to be judged nationally on the final step: college-readiness performance, using Advanced Placement data as the benchmark for success. (AP is a College Board program that offers college-level courses at high schools across the country.) This third step measured which schools produced the best college-level achievement for the highest percentages of their students. This was done by computing a "college readiness index" based on the weighted average of the AP participation rate (the number of 12th-grade students who took at least one AP test before or during their senior year, divided by the number of 12th graders) along with how well the students did on those AP tests or quality-adjusted AP participation (the number of 12th-grade students who took and passed (received an AP score of 3 or higher) at least one AP test before or during their senior year, divided by the number of 12th graders at that school). For the college readiness index, the quality-adjusted AP participation rates were weighted 75 percent in the calculation, and 25 percent of the weight was placed on the simple AP participation rate. Only schools that had values greater than 20 in their college readiness index scored high enough to meet this criterion for gold medal selection. The minimum of 20 was used since it represents what it would take to have a "critical mass" of students gaining access to college-level coursework.
The top 100 high schools nationwide with the highest college readiness index scores were ranked numerically (ties were broken using the average number of AP exams passed per test taker) and awarded gold medals. The next 405 top-performing high schools nationwide based on their college readiness index earned silver medals. An additional 1,086 high schools in 40 states that passed the first two steps were awarded bronze medals.
Why Some States (and D.C.) Weren't Included
Analysts from School Evaluation Services developed the methodology and compiled the analysis. At schoolmatters.com, SES provides one of the largest, most easily searchable collections of education data ever available.
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Puppy love? Puh-lease
Wisconsin teen wins Doodle 4 Google contest!
10-minute DIYs to dress up your bedroom
Book series you’ve gotta start this summer
Exactly what to wear to your summer job interview
5 safest sunscreen picks of the season (and serious dos and don'ts)
Who's your celeb style clone?
Show some #GLcrew love, babes!
Bella Thorne rocks WAT-AAH!'s Move Your Body Flash Mob
More Friends = More Fun
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AN HOUR AGO #EdObsession: Primp out your keyboard for under $20: Click Here!
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17 Comments | Add Yours
I'm learning German! I hope to be fluent one day
by unicornninja on 12/10/2012 5:43:23 PM
My friends both speak other languages. One of them is from an Iraq culture and speaks Arabic. My other friend is from Romania and speaks Romanian. She is also trying to learn French. We are all learning Spanish in school. It is so cool to learn another language!
by fullhousefan1987 on 12/8/2012 6:13:11 PM
I use livemocha.com to work on learning new languages, because you can go at your own pace and it's easy. Plus, other people review things you submit, so if you're taking Spanish, a person from Spain might help you learn. Some of the features require money, but I have never paid a cent for it.
by crazyhepper17 on 12/3/2012 9:30:38 PM
ASL! I love sign language and most people don't realize how important it is and it is really fun! Some of the signs can be really funny, too
by xxnycbeauty on 12/2/2012 10:22:46 PM
They fail to mention Latin It is a huge help in everything- I just took the PSAT as a freshman and am sure I did much better than most of the sophomores and juniors with the help of two years of Latin... it IS a dead language, but can be spoken (just by the way, my teacher went to Italy and spoke Latin with a priest)... if you learn Latin first, French, Spanish, etc. are a TON easier ANY language is helpful- even if it isn't 'popularly spoken' it can still be useful
by kiwi116 on 11/30/2012 9:45:47 PM
Learning a second language is important, plus if you want to travel someday it will be a big help. And meeting cute guys and other people is easier when you know two languages.
by fashionqn on 11/30/2012 12:22:31 PM
I'm learning to speak Russian! I got really fasinated over the summer when my camp counselor told us she was born there. So far I know to say all my family's name, hello, goodbye, no, yes. And so much more! Learning a new language is tons of fun! I only used Google Translate to speak Russian! I actually feel better about myself. And I feel smarter.
by LivieLoo on 11/28/2012 6:45:56 PM
Flavor: Pop the top for this electrifying, citrus-flavored gloss.
Fab Fact: This soda goodness has been slicking lips with a yummy fizz since 1976.
Write your roots...and win a vacay for the fam!
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Posted on 28-Jun-2007 13:36.
Filed under: News
A Linux version of Google Desktop has been released, with this tool now available on Linux, Apple Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. Tthe Google Desktop application allows users to search their desktop and the web as easily as they search the web with Google.
One of the major features of Google Desktop for Linux (beta) include a comprehensive indexing function, that will enable searching the full text of virtually all of a computer's content, including text, PDF, PS, source code, HTML files, email from Thunderbird, OpenOffice.org documents, Man and Info pages, folders, images, and music.
Google Desktop for Linux can even find previous versions of files or recover those that have been accidentally deleted.
The Quick Search Box is the fastest way to do web and desktop searches. Hitting the command key twice calls it up, instantly displaying results as users type.
The software also makes it easy for users to simultaneously search their Gmail webmail, web search history and the web at large. And because their index is stored locally on their own computer, users can even access their Gmail and web history while they're offline.
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|Beat the Heat... Check the Back Seat!|
Stifling heat and humidity are a hallmark of the summer in the Rio Grande Valley. This August is running a shade hotter, and more humid, than average; more of the same is expected through the middle of the month. One of the biggest weather related risks during the summer months is the possibility of a child dying in a vehicle from heat stroke. The temperature inside a vehicle can rise 20 degrees in as little as 10 minutes, and 50 degrees in an hour. In the Rio Grande Valley, actual temperatures are well into 90s, and heat index ("feels–like" temperature) routinely between 100°F and 105°F (38°C and 41°C) on most days from June to September. When this heat enters a closed vehicle, actual temperatures inside the vehicle can reach 130°F (54°C) in minutes, and approach 150°F (66°C) in less than an hour! This can cause hyperthermia (heat stroke) in only minutes, particularly in children, whose body temperatures warm at a rate three to five times faster than an adult.
In the last 12 years, 482 children have died nationwide from heat stroke suffered while in a vehicle. Half of these were children that were forgotten by a parent or other caregiver, and nearly 20 percent died when parents knowingly left their child in a vehicle. The other died playing in an unattended vehicle. Of these 482 fatalities, 66 occurred in Texas. Since 2003, eight children have died from vehicle hyperthermia in the Rio Grande Valley, an average of 1 per year. In July, 2010, an infant was rescued from a hot car just as hyperthermia was setting in. Through early August, 38 children have died nationwide from heat stroke while in a vehicle. These include 11 more unfortunate deaths since August 11th; 2010 has now eclipsed 2009 (33) with more heat to come.
All of these tragic deaths are preventable. To help bring awareness to this issue, the NWS is using the slogan "Beat the Heat, Check the Backseat" to remind people to remember to check for small children in a car seat, and to never leave children unattended in a vehicle, even for a few moments.
The following are basic safety recommendations:
If you have any questions about "Beat the Heat, Check the Backseat", please contact Mr. Barry Goldsmith, Warning Coordination Meteorologist, with the National Weather Service in Brownsville, serving the Rio Grande Valley and all of Deep South Texas.
Much of the information on this page is based on research by Mr. Jan Null, Certified Consulting Meteorologist, Adjunct Professor of Meteorology at San Francisco State University, CA, and a 34 year veteran with the National Weather Service. You can find his research and information at: Golden Gate Weather Services.
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Sunday, August 1, 2010
Sightline Payments: ATM Hacking- Fact or Fiction?
The Sightline Payments LLC Team and IT group are working with industry resources to determine “fact or fiction” in this identified hacking scheme. Sightline uses enterprise level NCR ATM3X devices which do not use the Windows CE systems (which is the operating system the vulnerability has been shown to occur). Sightline uses the latest proprietary PCI tools, firewalls, and secure telecommunications to detect and stop these types of hacking events.
In the gaming industry, Windows CE based systems are used on certain ticket redemption and ATM devices(confirm with your provider).
An article in ZD Net discussed this in more detail.
Using home-brewed software tools and exploiting a gaping security hole in the authentication mechanism used to update the firmware on automated teller machines (ATMs), a security researcher hacked into ATMs made by Triton and Tranax and planted a rootkit that dispensed cash on demand. Barnaby Jack, Director of Research at IOActive Labs, used a laptop with a custom-built software tool called “Dillinger” (named after the famous bank robber) to overwrite the machine’s internal operating system, take complete control of the ATM and send commands for it to spew cash on demand.
At the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, Jack demonstrated two different attacks against Windows CE-based ATMs — a physical attack using a master key purchased on the Web and a USB stick to overwrite the machine’s firmware; and a remote attack that exploited a flaw in the way ATMs authenticate firmware upgrades.
He did not provide any technical details that would allow anyone to reproduce the attack techniques but suggested that a skilled hacker could exploit these weaknesses if ATM manufacturers continue to create software with gaping security holes.
“There are attack vectors in all these standalone or hole-in-the-wall ATMs,” Jack warned, noting that many ATMs are protected by a master key that can be bought for $10.78 on hundreds of web sites. ”With this master key, I can walk up to a secluded ATM and have access to USB [and] SD/CF slots. In some cases, opening and inserting my USB key was faster than installing a skimmer,” he said.
The most impressive attack, which used the “Dillinger remote ATM attack/admin tool, was done via a laptop connected to the ATM. It launched an exploit against an authentication bypass vulnerability in the ATM’s remote monitoring feature (this is enabled by default on all ATMs) and allowed the hacker to retrieve ATM settings, master passwords, receipt data and the location and name of the business hosting the ATM.
The Dillinger tool came with a graphical UI that included features to “Retrieve Track Data,” or simply “Jackpot!”. A click of the Jackpot button and the commandeered ATM started spewing cash on demand.
The “Black Hat” computer security conference originated in 1997 as an annual conference. Its attendee list includes government representatives, FBI agents, computer hackers and other computer experts. The 2010 Black Hat Conference was just held in Las Vegas. One speaker, Barnaby Jack, did a presentation pertinent to the ATM industry. His topic: “Jackpotting Automated Teller Machines.” In his demonstration, he took a detour from the commonly known ATM hacks (skimming devices or smash and grabs). Barnaby was able to have the terminal spew out currency by attacking the terminal’s software.
Updating the gaming industry on issues like this to protect their business is one more example of how Sight Line Payments is on your side.
Regards, The Sightline Payments LLC Team- Kirk Sanford, Tom Sears, and Diran Kludjian
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Understanding Culture and Cultural Responsiveness
In this module we explore culture and diversity as it applies to educators and education, by exploring the influence of culture on everyday activity, on individual identity development, and as it relates to systems of power and privilege in our education systems. In education, what works for some students may not work for others. By understanding the lives of the students and what they bring to their education, we can build on those strengths. To do this, we must become culturally responsive and get to know all students on an individual basis, with openness and respect.
Download the materials in each of the following three academies. All files will open in a new window. Please print the manuals and save the PowerPoints for use with the academy presentations.
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War and defense powers
"[T]he war power of the federal government is not created by the emergency of war, but it is a power given to meet that emergency. It is a power to wage war sucessfully, and thus it permits the harnessing of the entire energies of the people in a supreme co-operative effort to preserve the nation. But even the war power does not remove constitutional limitations safeguarding essential liberties. When the provisions of the Constitution, in grant or restriction, are specific, so particularized as not to admit of construction, no question is presented. Thus, emergency would not permit a state to have more than two Senators in the Congress, or permit the election of President by a general popular vote without regard to the number of electors to which the States are respectively entitled, or permit the States to ‘coin money’ or to ‘make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts.’"
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Algeria is located in North Africa, bordering the Mediterranean Sea. It shares borders with Morocco, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Libya, and Tunisia.
Angola is located in southern Africa, and borders the South Atlantic Ocean, Namibia, Zambia, and both Congos—the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of the Congo. Angola has a total area of 1,246,700 square kilometers (481,351 square miles).
Benin is a slim, rectangular country situated in West Africa. Benin has a narrow 100-kilometer (62-mile) coastline along the Bight of Benin, in the Atlantic Ocean.
Botswana is a landlocked country in southern Africa, located just north of South Africa. Botswana has a total area of 602,957 square kilometers (232,802 square miles), making it about the same size as the state of Texas.
Burkina Faso is a landlocked West African state. With a total border length of 3,192 kilometers (1,984 miles), Burkina Faso is bordered by Mali to the north and west; Niger to the east; and Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Cote d'Ivoire to the south.
Burundi is a landlocked state in Central Africa, east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, south of Rwanda, and west of Tanzania. It has an area of 27,830 square kilometers (10,745 square miles), slightly smaller than Maryland.
Located on the west coast of Central Africa, Cameroon covers an area of 475,400 square kilometers (183,695 square miles), slightly more than California. Land boundaries extend for a total of 4,591 kilometers (2,853 miles) between Nigeria to the northwest, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic (C.A.R.) to the east, and the Republic of the Congo, Gabon, and Equatorial Guinea to the south.
Cape Verde is an archipelago of 10 islands and 5 islets situated 483 kilometers (300 miles) due west of Dakar, Senegal, in the North Atlantic Ocean. Cape Verde's total land area is 4,033 square kilometers (1,557 square miles), which makes it slightly larger than the U.S.
The former French colony of Ubangi-Shari, now the Central African Republic (CAR), is well named; it is a landlocked country in the center of the African continent. Land boundaries extend for 5,203 kilometers (3,233 miles) connecting Cameroon to the west, Chad and Sudan to the north, and the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo to the south.
The former French colony of Chad, a landlocked country located in northern Central Africa, is more than 3 times the size of California. The country has an area of 1,284,000 square kilometers (495,755 square miles), with a land boundary length of 5,968 kilometers (3,708 miles).
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC; the country is often simply called the "Congo" or "Congo-Kinshasa" to distinguish it from the neighboring Republic of the Congo) is located in Central Africa. The Congo is the third-largest country in Africa.
The Republic of the Congo (ROC) is located in Western Africa and has an area of 342,000 square kilometers (132,000 square miles). It has a modest coastline of 169 kilometers (105 miles) along the Atlantic Ocean in the southwest and shares land borders with Gabon, Cameroon, and the Central African Republic on the west and north.
Côte d'Ivoire (which means "Ivory Coast") is a West African country bordering the North Atlantic Ocean between Ghana and Liberia. It has an area of 322,460 square kilometers (124,502 square miles) of which 318,000 square kilometers (122,780 square miles) are occupied by land while water occupies the remaining 4,460 square kilometers (1,722 square miles).
Djibouti is situated in the Horn of Africa, at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, bordering the Gulf of Aden. To the north lies Eritrea with a shared border of 113 kilometers (70 miles); to the north, west, and southwest lies Ethiopia, with a border length of 337 kilometers (209 miles); and to the southeast lies Somalia, with a border length of 58 kilometers (36 miles).
The Arab Republic of Egypt is located in North Africa, bordering on the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Libya to the west, the Gaza Strip to the east, and Sudan to the south. With an area of 1,001,450 square kilometers (386,659 square miles) and a coastline of 2,450 kilometers (1,522 miles), Egypt is slightly more than 3 times the size of New Mexico.
Equatorial Guinea is a small West African nation of 28,051 square kilometers (10,830 square miles), roughly the same size as Maryland. It consists of a mainland enclave called Río Muni, on the west coast of Africa bordering Cameroon and Gabon, and 5 small islands off the coast of Cameroon in the Bight of Biafra: Bioko, Annobón, Corisco, and the 2 small islands known together as Islas Elobey.
Eritrea is an eastern African country occupying an area of 121,320 square kilometers (46,841 square miles), which makes it slightly larger than the state of Pennsylvania. It borders Sudan to the north and west, Ethiopia and Djibouti to the south, and the Red Sea to the east.
Located in the Horn of Africa— the pointy peninsula-like landmass that emanates out of the eastern part of the continent—Ethiopia has a total area of 1,127,127 square kilometers (935,183 square miles), rendering it slightly less than twice the size of Texas. A landlocked country completely surrounded by other states, Ethiopia has a total border length of 5,311 kilometers (3,300 miles).
The Gabonese Republic lies along the equator on the west coast of Africa with a border length of 2,551 kilometers (1,585 miles) and a coastline of 885 kilometers (550 miles). Gabon is bounded to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the north by Equatorial Guinea (350 kilometers/218 miles) and Cameroon (298 kilometers/185 miles), and to the east and south by the Republic of the Congo (1,903 kilometers/1,183 miles).
The Republic of The Gambia measures 11,295 square kilometers (4,361 square miles) and consists of a long narrow ribbon of land sitting astride the river Gambia, one of the major waterways in West Africa. Apart from the 50-kilometer (31-mile) stretch of coastline on the Atlantic ocean, it is entirely surrounded by Senegal.
The Republic of Ghana, formerly the Gold Coast, is a West African country lying on the Gulf of Guinea. It has a total border of 2,093 kilometers (1,300 miles), including 548 kilometers (341 miles) with Burkina Faso to the north, 688 kilometers (428 miles) with Côte d'Ivoire to the west, and 877 kilometers (545 miles) with Togo to the east.
Guinea lies on the West African coast, bordered by Sierra Leone and Liberia to the south, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal to the north, and Mali and Côte d'Ivoire inland to the east. It has 320 kilometers (199 miles) of coastline, and a land area of 245,857 square kilometers (94,925 miles).
Guinea-Bissau lies on the west coast of Africa, with Senegal to the north and Guinea to the east and south. With a total area of 36,120 square kilometers (13,946 square miles), the country is a bit less than 3 times the size of the U.S.
Located in east Africa, Kenya has a total area of 582,650 square kilometers (224,962 square miles), rendering it slightly larger than twice the size of Nevada. With a coastline of 536 kilometers (333 miles), Kenya borders the Indian Ocean to the east, Somalia to the northeast, Ethiopia to the north, Sudan to the northwest, Uganda to the west, and Tanzania to the south.
Formerly called Basutoland, Lesotho is a small, landlocked, and mountainous state in southern Africa. The total area of 30,355 square kilometers (11,718 square miles) is a geographic enclave completely surrounded by the Republic of South Africa.
Liberia is situated on the West African coast, bordered by Sierra Leone to the northwest, Guinea to the north, and the Côte d'Ivoire to the east. Liberia also has 300 kilometers (186 miles) of coastline on the Atlantic Ocean.
Libya is a North African country, which shares a border with the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt and Sudan to the east, Niger, Chad and Sudan to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west. With 1,759,540 square kilometers of area (679,358 square miles), it is slightly larger than the State of Alaska.
Madagascar lies in the southern Indian Ocean some 400 miles off Africa's eastern shore. With a land area of 587,039 square kilometers (226,656 square miles) Madagascar is a little less than twice the size of Arizona.
Malawi is located in southeast Africa, landlocked between Mozambique to the east and south, Zambia to the west, and Tanzania to the north. Malawi is separated from Mozambique and Tanzania to a large extent by Lake Malawi, which lies on the country's eastern edge.
Mali is a landlocked country in West Africa covering an area of 1.24 million square kilometers (478,764 square miles), of which 1.22 million square kilometers (471,042 square miles) is occupied by land and 20,000 square kilometers (7,722 square miles) is occupied by water. Its border is 7,243 kilometers (4,500 miles) long.
Located in northwestern Africa, bordered by Western Sahara (occupied by Morocco) and Algeria on the north, by Mali on the east and south, by Senegal on the southwest, and by the Atlantic Ocean on the west, the country has an area of 1,030,700 square kilometers (398,000 square miles), making it slightly larger than 3 times the size of New Mexico. Its total estimated boundary length is 5,828 kilometers (3,622 miles), including 754 kilometers (469 miles) of coast on the Atlantic Ocean.
Mauritius is an island in the Indian Ocean, located 2,400 kilometers (1,491 miles) off the southeast coast of Africa. It has a total area of 1,860 square kilometers (781 square miles), and a coastline of 177 kilometers (110 miles).
Morocco is located in the northwestern corner of the African continent. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the north, and Algeria to the east and southeast.
Located in southeast Africa, Mozambique has a total area of 801,590 square kilometers (309,493 square miles)—an expanse which is slightly less than twice the size of the state of California. The coastline of the country, which spans 2,470 kilometers (1,535 miles) along the entire eastern frontier, borders the Mozambique Channel and the Indian Ocean.
The Republic of Namibia lies across the Tropic of Capricorn in the south of Africa and covers an area of 824,292 square kilometers (318,259 square miles), making it slightly more than half the size of Alaska. It is bordered by South Africa to the south and southeast, Botswana and Zimbabwe on the east, Angola on the north, and the South Atlantic Ocean on the west.
Niger is a landlocked West African country. It is bordered by Algeria and Libya to the north, Nigeria and Benin to the south, Mali and Burkina Faso to the west, and Chad to the east.
Nigeria is located in Western Africa, and borders the Gulf of Guinea, between Benin on the west and Cameroon on the east. It has a compact area of 923,768 square kilometers (356,376 square miles).
The Republic of Rwanda is a land-locked country located in central Africa. It is bordered on the east by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with which it shares the shores of Lake Kivu; on the north by Uganda; on the west by Tanzania; and on the south by Burundi.
São Tomé and Príncipe is located in the Gulf of Guinea 290 kilometers (180 miles) west of Gabon, which is located on the western edge of Africa. The 2 mountainous main islands of the republic are São Tomé and Príncipe; other rocky islets include Caroco, Pedras, and Tinhosas off Príncipe Island, and Rolas off São Tomé Island.
A relatively small country located in West Africa, Senegal has a total area of 196,190 square kilometers (75,748 square miles), making it slightly smaller than the state of South Dakota. Water composes 4,190 square kilometers (1,618 square miles) of this area, while the coastline, which borders the North Atlantic Ocean, stretches for 531 kilometers (330 miles).
The Seychelles are a group of islands in the Indian Ocean about 925 kilometers (575 miles) northeast of Madagascar. The country consists of 115 small islands with a total land area of 455 square kilometers (176 square miles) and a total coastline of 491 kilometers (305 miles).
Sierra Leone is located in West Africa, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean, with an area of 71,740 square kilometers (27,925 square miles) and a total coastline of 402 kilometers (250 miles). The country shares a border with Guinea in the north and east and with Liberia in the southeast.
Somalia, formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic, is a coastal country covering a land area of 637,657 square kilometers (246,199 square miles) and a water area of 10,320 square kilometers (3,985 square miles), with a land-bordered circumference of 2,366 kilometers (1,470 miles). It has a coastline of 3,025 kilometers (1,880 miles) stretching along the Indian Ocean to the southeast and along the Gulf of Aden in the southern mouth of the Red Sea to the north.
South Africa is situated at the southern tip of the continent of Africa. Ranging from west to east across its northern border are the neighboring countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; Mozambique lies to the east, as does the small nation of Swaziland, which is nearly encircled by South Africa.
Sudan is located in North Africa. Sudan borders the following countries: Central African Republic (1,165 kilometers, 724 miles), Chad (1,360 kilometers, 845 miles), Democratic Republic of the Congo (628 kilometers, 390 miles), Egypt (1,273 kilometers, 791 miles), Eritrea (650 kilometers, 404 miles), Ethiopia (1,606 kilometers, 998 miles), Kenya (232 kilometers, 144 miles), Libya (383 kilometers, 238 miles), and Uganda (435 kilometers, 270 miles).
Swaziland is a small landlocked country in southern Africa, with an area of 17,363 square kilometers (6,704 miles), extending 176 kilometers (109 miles) north to south and 135 kilometers (84 miles) east to west. By comparison, it is slightly smaller than the state of New Jersey.
A relatively large country located in East Africa, Tanzania has a total area of 945,087 square kilometers (364,900 square miles), rendering it slightly larger than twice the size of California. The area of Tanzania includes the islands of Mafia, Pemba, and Unguja; the latter 2 form a semi-autonomous region called Zanzibar that is part of an official union with the republic of Tanzania.
The Togolese Republic is situated in West Africa. It is a narrow rectangle of land which extends north from the Bight of Benin, on which it has a small coastline of 50 kilometers (31 miles).
Situated in northern Africa, Tunisia is bordered by Algeria on the west and Libya on the southeast and by the Mediterranean Sea on the north, where it has a coastline of 1,148 kilometers (713 miles). Tunisia has an area of 163,610 square kilometers (63,169 square miles), making it slightly larger than the state of Georgia.
A landlocked state in Eastern Africa, west of Kenya and east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (former Zaire), Uganda has an area of 236,040 square kilometers (146,675 square miles) and a total land boundary of 2,698 kilometers (1,676 miles). Comparatively, the area occupied by Uganda is slightly smaller than the size of Oregon.
A landlocked state located in southern Africa, east of Angola, Zambia has an area of 752,614 square kilometers (290,584 square miles) and a total land boundary of 5,664 kilometers (3,520 miles). Comparatively, Zambia is slightly larger than Texas.
The Republic of Zimbabwe is a landlocked country in southern Africa, covering an area of 390,757 square kilometers (150,872 square miles), of which land occupies 386,670 square kilometers (1,929 square miles), and water occupies 3,910 square kilometers (1,509 square miles). Zimbabwe is bounded on the north and northwest by Zambia (797 kilometers), southwest by Botswana (813 kilometers), Mozambique (1,231 kilometers) on the east, South Africa (225 kilometers) on the south, and Namibia's Caprivi Strip touches its western border at the intersection with Zambia.
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Thank a Trail on National Trails Day
With over 200,000 miles of hiking trails to choose from, Americans have plenty of reason to celebrate National Trails Day on Saturday, June 4. Help maintain these amazing resources by participating in the 19th annual edition of this American Hiking Society-sponsored event. More than 2,000 restoration projects, educational activities, and hikes will take place throughout the country to mark the occasion.
Here in the Bay Area, opportunities abound to get your hands dirty in honor of your favorite hiking trail. Some highlights:
In San Francisco, help put the final touches on the city’s newest hiking path: the half-mile Lost Historic Trail on Mount Sutro. Join the Sutro Stewards for a morning of trail and habitat restoration projects, followed by a celebration to mark the reopening of Interior Grenbelt Park, the twelve-acre area that encompasses the trail. Live music, food and beverage stands, and a raffle promise to make this a spirited afternoon. Read more>
Across the Bay Bridge, join REI Concord and California State Parks for a day of trail restoration at Mount Diablo State Park in Rock City. Resurface trails, remove nonnative plants, and prune overgrown trees to keep this beloved area recreation-ready. And feel free to bring the whole family- there will be special kids’ activities on site. Read more>
In Marin, help improve the Gertrude Ord Trail on Mount Tam with the Marin Municipal Water District. You’ll rebuild a bridge and stairs, update drainage, and maintain vegetation. Afterward, enjoy a free BBQ lunch at the Log Cabin by Phoenix Lake. Basket-maker Charles Kennard (a frequent Bay Nature photo contributor!) will be on hand to talk about his ancient craft. Read More>
And if you’re in the South Bay, head to Wunderlich Park in Woodside, where you’ll work with staff from REI and the San Mateo County Parks Foundation to restore trails at this former ranch. Abundant oak trees, open meadows, and a redwood forest will make for a breathtaking morning. Ages 14 and older are invited to participate. Read more>
For more National Trails Day events (and other stuff too!), check out our calendar.
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Soccer and football started this week. I'm not sure how I'm going to survive this season. T, M, and S are all playing soccer, and T is also playing football. Soccer is on Tuesdays and Thursdays. How am I going to get 3 kids to 3 different soccer games on 3 different fields, at the same time? That is the big question. T plays football on Wed. and Sat. So, that's 8 games per week I get to go to, not to mention my own co-ed game once a week. We also get to juggle in scouts, homework, ballet, PTA, enrichment (I just called to be the leader), friends, FHE, and any other unexpected event that happens to pop up. We are going to be busy, busy, busy. But, I'd much rather be busy than bored.
Today is my first activity as EL. We are having an emergency preparedness olympics. I hope it'll turn out as good and as fun as it sounds. We are touching on 5 areas:
Earthquakes - We are going to have an earthquake drill, and then have someone from the ambulance to come in to talk about what to do in case of an earthquake. Then we are giving dust masks as the hand outs.
Financial - The bishop is coming in to talk about the importance of being financially prepared; getting out of debt, paying your tithing, etc. Each person will get a Pay Day candy bar with a scripture attached.
72-hour Kits - We are having a relay race where you have to dial 911, flip the breaker switch, turn off the water, roll up a sleeping bag, put together a 72-hour kit, and then put it all in a back pack. Then we'll talk about the importance of having your kits put together before an emergency happens. I put a package of top ramen, a water bottle, and an emergency blanket in a bag and wrapped them all together as the handout to give ideas of some things you might want to have in your kits.
Food Storage - My friend is coming in to talk about food storage; what to store, how to store it, where to store it, and how to use it. For this handout, they are getting salt, granola bars, and hot chocolate. All things that can easily be stored.
Spiritual - For our last station we will have our teacher give a short lesson on being spiritually prepared, and how important it is that we be ready. Each person will get a scripture pencil, with a scripture attached.
For refreshments we are having samples of things you could make from your food storage. I know there'll be pinto bean fudge, which sounds totally disgusting, but I've heard it's actually pretty good. I'm not sure what other samples our "food lady" decided to make. Then, we'll also have some normal food: a fruit tray, and a veggie tray.
Then, we'll have closing prayer. Afterwards the people who signed up will stay and put together 72-hour kits. We've got a full evening planned and I really hope it turns out okay.
So as soon as the kids get home from school, we'll do homework and then get ready for our crazy evening.
T - soccer practice 5:00-6:00
M - soccer game 6:00 - 6:45
S - soccer game 5 :15 - 6:00
Me - drive everyone everywhere and be at the church by 6:00 to set up
DH and I - softball game 7:30-8:30
DH - work meeting at 8:30
I'll be able to manage everything except making it to my own game, and DH will have to leave our game about 15 minutes early. Other than that we should be good! And then we'll all be ready to crash so we can do it again tomorrow.
2 days ago
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Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) is pleased to announce a groundbreaking new photography exhibition, Being Untouchable, by Marcus Perkins.
CSW’s Chief Executive Mervyn Thomas said, “India’s Dalits – one in 40 of the world’s population – are a people whose history reverberates with oppression, exploitation and injustice because of their status as the lowest caste group. The impact of casteism is felt in many ways, and connected with almost all human rights concerns in India. Supporting the cry of India’s Dalits in all religious communities for social justice, is one of the pressing needs of our times.
“Being Untouchable is a moving and hard-hitting collection which exposes the present-day impact of centuries of oppression, and is a means by which we will urge foreign political and business leaders to promote an end to casteism through their interactions with India.”
A press viewing on 18 October will be addressed by acclaimed Dalit poet and scholar, Meena Kandasamy, and award-winning publisher of anti-caste literature, S. Anand.
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So I am learning MSIL right now to learn to debug my C# .net applications.
I've always wondered: what is the purpose of the stack?
Just to put my question in context:
Why is there a transfer from memory to stack or "loading?" On the other hand, why is there a transfer from stack to memory or "storing"? Why not just have them all placed in the memory? (reflective question)
- is it because it's faster?
- is it because it's RAM based?
- for efficiency?
I'm trying to grasp this to help me understand IL codes much more deeply.
Thanks for the help.
I've always wondered: what is the purpose of the stack?
I assume you mean the evaluation stack of the MSIL language, and not the actual per-thread stack at runtime.
Why is there a transfer from memory to stack or "loading?" On the other hand, why is there a transfer from stack to memory or "storing"? Why not just have them all placed in the memory?
MSIL is a "virtual machine" language. Compilers like the C# compiler generate IL, and then at runtime another compiler called the JIT (Just In Time) compiler turns the IL into actual machine code that can execute.
So first lets answer the question "why have MSIL at all?" Why not just have the C# compiler write out machine code?
Because it is cheaper to do it this way. Suppose we didn't do it that way; suppose each language has to have its own machine code generator. You have twenty different languages: C#, JScript .NET, Visual Basic, Iron Python, F#... And suppose you have ten different processors. How many code generators do you have to write? 20 x 10 = 200 code generators. That's a lot of work. Now suppose you want to add a new processor. You have to write the code generator for it twenty times, one for each language.
Furthermore, it is difficult and dangerous work. Writing efficient code generators for chips that you are not an expert on is a hard job! Compiler designers are experts on the semantic analysis of their language, not on efficient register allocation of new chip sets.
Now suppose we do it the IL way. How many IL generators do you have to write? One per language. How many jit compilers do you have to write? One per processor. Total: 20 + 10 = 30 code generators. Moreover, the language-to-IL generator is easy to write because IL is a simple language, and the IL-to-machine-code generator is also easy to write because IL is a simple language. We get rid of all of the intricacies of C# and VB and whatnot and "lower" everything to a simple language that is easy to write a jitter for.
Having an intermediate language lowers the cost of producing a new language compiler dramatically. It also lowers the cost of supporting a new chip dramatically. You want to support a new chip, you find some experts on that chip and have them write an IL jitter and you're done; you then support all those languages on your chip.
OK, so we've established why we have MSIL; because having an intermediate language lowers costs. Why then is the language a "stack machine"?
Because stack machines are conceptually very simple for language compiler writers to deal with. Stacks are a simple, easily understood mechanism for describing computations. Stack machines are also conceptually very easy for jit compiler writers to deal with. Using a stack is a simplifying abstraction, and therefore again, it lowers our costs.
You ask "why have a stack at all?" Why not just do everything directly out of memory? Well, let's think about that. Suppose you want to generate IL code for:
int x = A() + B() + C() + 10;
Suppose we have the convention that "add", "call", "store" and so on always take their arguments off the stack and put their result (if there is one) on the stack. To generate IL code for this C# we just say something like:
load the address of x // stack now contains address of x call A() // stack contains address of x and result of A() call B() // addr of x, result of A(), result of B() add // addr of x, result of A() + B() call C() // addr of x, result of A() + B(), result of C() add // addr of x, result of A() + B() + C() load 10 // addr of x, result of A() + B() + C(), 10 add // addr of x, result of A() + B() + C() + 10 store in address // result is now stored in x, stack is empty.
Now suppose we did it without a stack. We'll do it your way, where every opcode takes the addresses of its operands and the address to which it stores its result:
allocate temporary store T1 for result of A() call A() with address of T1 allocate temporary store T2 for result of B() call B() with address of T2 allocate temporary store T3 for result of first addition add contents of T1 to T2, then store the result into address of T3 allocate temporary store T4 for result of C() call C() with address of T4 allocate temporary store T5 for result of second addition ...
you see how this goes? Our code is getting huge because we have to explicitly allocate all the temporary storage that would normally by convention just go on the stack. Worse, our opcodes themselves are all getting enormous because they all now have to take as an argument the address that they're going to write their result into, and the address of each operand. An "add" instruction that knows that it is going to take two things off the stack and put one thing on can be a single byte. An add instruction that takes two operand addresses and a result address is going to be enormous.
We use stack-based opcodes because stacks solve the common problem. Namely: I want to allocate some temporary storage, use it very soon and then get rid of it quickly when I'm done. By making the assumption that we have a stack at our disposal we can make the opcodes very small and the code very terse.
UPDATE: Some additional thoughts
Incidentally, this idea of drastically lowering costs by (1) specifing a virtual machine, (2) writing compilers that target the VM language, and (3) writing implementations of the VM on a variety of hardware, is not a new idea at all. It did not originate with MSIL, LLVM, Java bytecode, or any other modern infrastructures. The earliest implementation of this strategy I'm aware of is the pcode machine from 1966.
The first I personally heard of this concept was when I learned how the Infocom implementors managed to get Zork running on so many different machines so well. They specified a virtual machine called the Z-machine and then made Z-machine emulators for all the hardware they wanted to run their games on. This had the added enormous benefit that they could implement virtual memory management on primitive 8-bit systems; a game could be larger than would fit into memory because they could just page the code in from disk when they needed it and discard it when they needed to load new code.
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Posted By Scott Shane On May 31, 2010 @ 8:50 pm In Venture & Angel Capital | 3 Comments
Recently there has been a lot of discussion of what the recession has done to venture capitalists’ efforts to exit their investments. Clearly, the bad economic situation has made cashing out more difficult, but viewing the data over time suggests that the economic downturn may have only exacerbated longer term trends.
Looking at the numbers back to 1992, I see three strong patterns:
• A shift to mergers and acquisitions as the primary exit mode that began in the late 1990s.
• A decreasing share of VC-backed investments resulting in exits that began around the same time.
• A decline in the real dollar value of exits through IPO in the aftermath of the Internet bubble.
TREND AWAY FROM IPOs
While the number of venture capital-backed IPOs dropped substantially in 2008 and 2009, the figure below shows that this decline is part of a longer term trend. Since the late 1990s, exits from venture capital investments have been primarily through acquisition, a very different pattern than in the early to mid-1990s when IPOs and acquisitions were equally common.
DECREASING RATIO OF EXITS TO INVESTMENTS
Since the end of the 1990s, the share of venture capital investments with a positive exit has dropped substantially. While the economic downturn left IPOs as a percentage of companies financed five years earlier at a paltry 0.3 percent, even the pre-recession numbers are not that robust. As the figure below shows, the ratio of IPOs to investments made five years before has not exceeded five percent since 2000; yet it did not fall below five percent from 1992 through 1999.
Adding in acquisitions improves the picture some. But since 2001, total exits as a percentage of investments made five years earlier broke 17 percent only once, while this ratio never failed to do so from 1992 through 2001.
THE AMOUNT RAISED FROM IPOs
The effects of the recession are most clearly seen in the size of the exits. The average amount raised from venture capital-backed M&A and IPO deals dropped significantly over the past two years, from $90.9 million in 2007 to $58 million in 2009 for IPOs and from $114.6 million in 2007 to $43.3 million in 2009 for M&As (in real dollars).
Here the longer term trends are less obvious. For M&A deals, there doesn’t appear to be a clear pattern to the size of the average deal. But as Figure 3 shows, the average IPO tended to increase in real dollar terms from 1992 to 2002, and has shown net downward movement since then.
In sum, venture capital-backed exits were adversely affected by the Great Recession, but the declines are part of a greater long term trend. Exits have become rarer and more likely to occur through mergers and acquisitions than through IPOs. Moreover, the average VC-backed IPO is significantly smaller now than in the early 2000s.
Article printed from Small Business Trends: http://smallbiztrends.com
URL to article: http://smallbiztrends.com/2010/05/trends-in-exits-from-vc-backed-investments.html
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Book lovers love words, and a number of sidelines manufacturers are currently offering fun new products to satisfy their passion.
The original Magnetic Poetry Kit was created in 1993 by Dave Kapell as a tool for writing song lyrics. It has since spawned a trillion refrigerator poets in eight tongues, including sign language, via a staggering array of thematic collections such as Romance, Dog Lover, Shakespearean, Erotic and the South, and in several sizes, from the standard small proportions to Bumper-Poet dimensions and Really Big Words. Capitalizing on the recent school-age backpack mania, Magnetic Poetry has also appeared in clip-on mini-kits ranging in motif from the verbal Friends Forever, Hugs & Kisses and Smile to Rant & Rave, Wild Things and Superstar to traditional games such as backgammon, checkers, chess, dominoes and tick-tack-toe. New kits based on imagery include the photographic Freaky Faces and Portraits, and the abstract Shapes. Educational kits abound.
What could possibly be next for Magnetic Poetry in Minneapolis, Minn.? Well, those innovative Minnesotans have taken the magnetic poetry concept several giant steps further. Available this spring and summer are Magnetic Poetry: The Game, a fast-paced board game of word play; Poetry Beads, a kit for making necklaces, bracelets and more using over 75 two-sided word beads; Sidewalk Poet, complete with spray bottle, spray color and stencils to create original sayings on sidewalk or driveway; and the Magnetic Poetry 2002 Calendar, which includes exercises, quotes and an attached magnetic board with 200 magnetic word tiles.
Best of show goes to the company's new Poetry Stones Kit, which takes concrete poetry to its most literal level as decorative, word-bearing cobblestones. The kit is ideal for gardeners with a literary bent or for anyone who wants to create distinctive borders, garden paths, plant labels, pet memorials and even address blocks. The kit contains all the necessities: 40 press-in letters, numbers and punctuation; five cobblestone forms of different lengths (from 31/2 to 137/8 in.) and one adjustable form (up to 15 in. by 15 in.); three concrete pigment packets—terra-cotta, buff and gray; one three-pound trial sample of concrete mix; a wooden-handled trowel, gloves, craft stick, a Magnetic Poetry Gardener Kit (to assist the muse), instruction booklet and reusable storage box. Forms and letters can be reused indefinitely with additional concrete mix from any hardware store. What fun—Sissinghurst ho! Call (800) 370-7697, fax (612) 638-1079, www.magneticpoetry.com.
Mine Design, of Beverly Hills, Calif., creators of funky desk, wall and magnetic refrigerator clocks; glass pushpins and magnets sporting amusing words and images; and magnetic masterpiece (of art) puzzles, presents Bodytalk, temporary word tattoo kits for those who want their bodies to be their billboards. Bodytalk comes in three versions: Original (to express the inner poet or philosopher), Romantic (to evoke love, romance and steamy affairs) and Phrases (to mix or match popular sayings and sound bytes). Each kit, packaged in a stylish metal tin, comes with over 800 words, letters and symbols plus instructions. Simply cut out the desired words or phrases, arrange on any area of the body (except near eyes and mouth) and apply to the skin using water. At last, a grown-up alternative to kids' temporary tattoos. Call (800) 973-0555, fax (310) 914-3205.
What combines letter-writing, journal- and diary-keeping, e-mail, greeting cards, pen pal messages and scrapbooks? A Circle Journey Correspondence Kit. Circle Journey founder Paul Westrick, of Columbus, Ohio, wanted a way to communicate with adult siblings scattered around the globe. His solution: a single book, sent from one person to another. From his personal experience, Circle Journey Books was born. The cover art of each of the kit's 12 books is color-keyed according to its theme. For a personalized introduction, the sender can insert a photograph or drawing behind the transparent vellum sheet covering the first pages. The back pocket contains stickers, like "confidential" and "handle with care," plus photo corner stickers for mounting treasures within the volume's 60 pages of acid-free recycled paper. Kits include the book, stickers, envelopes, a keepsake box and an idea starter brochure. Cover designs are graphically appealing and varied to suit a range of tastes. These books are effective vehicles for very personal, old-fashioned communication. Call (614) 297-7000, fax (614) 297-7795, e-mail firstname.lastname@example.org, www.circlejourney.com.
Tin Design, of Boston, introduces Bob's Your Uncle, a line of greeting cards, calendars, T-shirts and mugs featuring words, served up with wit and bold graphics. Greeting cards cover holidays, birthdays, get well wishes, bon voyage, new baby, wedding and zodiac signs. A series of Smiley Cards plays with punctuation to create facial expressions well beyond the usual e-mail symbols. Wall and desk calendars and mugs feature words describing typical zodiac sign characteristics ("Aries dynamic impulsive adventurous cynic"). T-shirts sport the phrase "Bob's your uncle," a popular phrase in the U.K., home of the company's founder, Martin Yeeles. The phrase has an amusing origin: Robert Cecil (Bob) was a 19th-century British prime minister who appointed family members to government posts. Thus, if Bob was your uncle... everything was just fine. As are these products. Call (617) 504-5220, fax (617) 868-4315, www.tindesign.com
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This silk general guide flag in the
U.S. National pattern includes 42 gold-colored, embroidered stars
and the regiment's numeric designation, "7," embroidered
in white in the canton. The U.S. flag officially included 38 stars from
July 4, 1877 until July 4, 1890, when the 43-star flag became official.
Five states joined
November 2, 1889 and July 3, 1890. Washington, the forty-second state,
joined the Union on November 11, 1889. Regardless of when a state joined
the Union, its star did not officially appear on the national flag until
the next July 4. Consequently, a 42-star U.S. National flag did not "officially"
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Adult Literacy and Essential Skills
| How does the NWT Literacy Council Support Adult Literacy in the NWT? |
| What is Workplace Literacy? | What are the Essential Skills? |
| Adult Literacy and Essential Skills Resources | Adult Learners' Week | Links |
To be literate means that you have the skills to understand what you read, communicate with others and engage fully and confidently in life’s activities and opportunities – at work, at home and in the community. (ABC Life Literacy Canada)
Adults with low literacy skills often attend adult literacy programs. Adult literacy can involve both informal and formal learning. Informal learning is when we learn outside the classroom at home, at work or in the community. Learning from Elders, or going out on the land, would be considered informal learning. Formal learning is classroom based or through a formal program. Adult upgrading or trades programs would be considered formal learning.
Essential skills are the skills needed for work, learning and life. They provide the foundation for learning all other skills and help people in their jobs adapt to workplace change.
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Describing India as "an incredibly important country in the world", the White House has said US president Barack Obama will continue to enhance the depth of the country's relationship with New Delhi in his second term.
Obama will consider it a success if at the end of his second term India-US bilateral relationship is even stronger than at present, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters here on Thursday, while responding to a question about the future direction of US policy towards India and the Indian-American community which overwhelmingly supported Obama during the November presidential poll.
"The president's views have not changed, both on the importance and value of the Indian American community and the importance and value of the bilateral relationship that we have developed with India," Carney said.
Obama who has famously described India-US ties as "one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century" has at over a score more Indian-Americans in high places in his administration than any other previous president.
Taking up a similar refrain, Carney said Thursday, "India is an incredibly important country in the world, not just in the region, and the President looks forward to continuing to enhance the depth of our relationship to work together on common goals in the region and around the world."
"And I think you can expect in his second term that he will consider it a success if at the end of his second term that bilateral relationship is stronger even than it is today," Carney said.
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Andrew Mollenbeck, wtop.com
ROCKVILLE, Md. - A standout student who was facing deportation has been released from federal custody and granted a one year reprieve.
Jorge Steven Acuņa, 19, and his parents were arrested at their Germantown home last week after immigration authorities turned down their request for political asylum.
He grew up in Montgomery County and studied at Montgomery College.
Before their release Wednesday, the three family members had been at a detention facility on the Eastern Shore.
"What I've lived through these past couple days is something that I was never really expecting," Acuņa says. "You're brought to this country by your parents, and all you're willing to do here is get an education, have a dream, set some goals up."
By most accounts, that's what he did in the years since his family arrived from Colombia. Acuņa graduated from Northwest High School with a 3.8 grade point average.
Last month, Montgomery County joined in the federal Secure Communities program, which allows the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to share information about suspected illegal immigrants. The county, along with the city of Baltimore, was the last jurisdiction to implement the program in the state.
"In other words, we send all fingerprints in to the FBI - every jail in America does - and the FBI will now share those with homeland security and ICE," Montgomery County Department of Correction and Rehabilitation Director Arthur Wallenstein told the Gazette.
Immigration advocates have decried the program, saying that it would increase deportation and unfair profiling.
During Acuņa's detention, friends and supporters launched an online campaign to draw attention to the family's story and call for government intervention.
He thanked dozens of those supporters after his release.
"What I really want this message to be is that it doesn't stop here," he says. "It doesn't stop just getting me and my family out of where we were at."
"I ended up having to spend my night with my father in a maximum security cell. He was my cell mate," Acuņa says. "We wouldn't even see the sunlight."
His father was clearly emotional at the rally as he described the detention.
"We haven't committed a crime," says Jorge Acuņa, who shares the same name. "My son is a very good student."
The reprieve served as both a celebration and a rally for those who support the Dream Act in Maryland.
"In a very strange way this has been a catalyst for many young people to see that their participation actually can result in a tangible answer," says Councilmember Nancy Navarro.
But immigrant rights supporters still called for an end to deportations that rattle the community.
"Since we passed Secure Communities, thousands of people are just a police stop away from being jailed and deported from this country," says Councilmember Valerie Ervin.
She went on to add that some are "living in fear there is a whole community that's living in fear that an honors student like Jorge and his family who have sought political asylum in this country can have the police show up at their home, handcuff them, take them to jail."
(Copyright 2012 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)
A tornado survivor finds an answer to prayer in the rubble. (Video)
Clothes have a starring role at the Cannes Film Festival. (Photos)
While waiting for help, one man chose to entertain himself.
This cutie needs a new home. She's WTOP's Pet of the Week.
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The inherent flexibility of structured cabling - the ability to move users within the system, or add new users to it easily and cost-effectively - is both a key benefit and a management challenge. Keeping cabling documentation up to date is a headache many network managers could do without. Now, new intelligent patching systems are appearing on the market which monitor networks in real time, bringing significant management advantages and cost benefits.
Every element of a Physical Layer One Network infrastructure goes through a lifecycle from planning, design, installation, maintenance and ultimately, retirement. The concept of ‘Lifecycle Management’ ‘ is not new to the world of IT but it is a new concept to apply ‘Advanced Physcial Layer Lifecycle Management’ (APLLM) principals to structured cabling. Cabling infrastructure is all too often considered a necessary evil, a burden on pathways and spaces, a limiting factor in implementing change, and according to some industry experts a not so infrequent source of network outages. Along with power, cooling and weight, cabling infrastructure was also recently classified as one of the four biggest challenges facing data centres today by Ron Hughes of the California Data Center Design Group.
IT security is a well documented and widely discussed issue, but despite the many technologies available, security breaches are still a major issue for all types of organizations. Security is a business problem not just an IT problem and it is not getting any easier. This wide and complex area includes the threat to sensitive information, business systems and hardware.
The Physical Layer, Layer 1 of the OSI model, is fundamental to the existence of any business yet ironically still often the most overlooked aspect when it comes to identifying crucial cost savings opportunities and improved efficiency targets. As both private and public organisations face flat budgets or even budget cuts within IT we are seeing more back to basics approaches to try and squeeze more out of existing infrastructures. This article discusses how advanced Physical Layer technology can work towards identifying and resolving these critical aspects within an organisation.
It is a widely accepted statistic that 70% of LAN failure is attributed to cabling**. This does not mean organizations are purchasing faulty systems, on the contrary, modern cabling is a stable system which seldom fails and is backed in most cases by comprehensive long term 25 year warranties. Network failures attributed to cabling are effectively management failings in the form of poor control and documentation practices that must be addressed.
The working environment has seen quite a transformation over recent years. Where once typewriters and telex machines formed the hub of the office, servers, email and Wi-Fi now take precedence. Today, even the fax machine is considered antiquated. But while the office space of the future will be shaped inevitably by technological advances, it will also be influenced by social factors.
Installation of a cabling system in healthcare facilities involves consideration of many factors. The healthcare field provides one of the most demanding environments for a structured cabling system. Facilities are designed to operate for 50 years or longer. Adoption of 10GBase-T Ethernet is rapidly increasing and is expected to be the standard for the foreseeable future in healthcare facilities.
This article discusses the best solution for the modern day healthcare facilty.
The need to deliver more user-friendly cabling networks has led to a change in the infrastructure model for structured cabling systems. This white paper examines some of the issues involved with the new architecture and provides guidance on design and testing of such systems to facilitate successful implementation.
With most of the new technologies that continue to flood the world today, there is a myriad of accompanying “best practices” that also emerge. Not surprisingly, managing all of the change wrought from new technologies is a tremendous task. New cabling media, wireless media, factory-built cabling systems and changing standards are placing an enormous amount of stress on designers, installers and end users. This stress comes in the form of new challenges.
This article looks at the effects of water ingress on data cables and how different cables may be affected by flooding. It discusses the issues that the IT manager and cabling installer should be aware of regarding the possibility of flooding of the cabling system and what measures can be taken to prevent damage.
World Expositions have long been established as grand events for economic, scientific, technological and cultural exchanges, serving as important platforms for exchanging innovative ideas and showcasing future trends. The 2010 Shanghai Exposition is the first registered World Exposition in a developing country and utilises advanced technologies from Molex to support the iconic event.
In December 2009 Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum was officially re-opened by Her Majesty the Queen following a £61 million redevelopment program to double its display area and create 39 new galleries, an education centre, art conservation studios and Oxford’s first rooftop restaurant.
SRC Infonet, a leading Slovenian company in the field of healthcare and pharmacy system offering solutions that support the work of experts in the majority of Slovenian hospital install the first MIIM™ system in their on-site Data Centre.
Unicom Tower, the headquarters office of China Unicom Shanghai Branch, and Molex designed a Category 6 , Optical Fiber Cabling Solution and flexible PDS solution comprised of five subsystems.
Sutter Health has installed one of the first 50micron 10 Gigabit fiber optic cable installations in its new IT headquarters.
Molex Premise Networks’ PowerCat™ copper and Lightband™ fiber product ranges installed in The Department of Emergency Services’ new Data Center.
Cal IT chooses Molex Premise Networks system solution, which includes singlemode and multimode fiber optic backbone, plug-and-play fiber cassette termination and Category 6 cable for the horizontal.
Worcestershire Hospital selected a Molex Premise Networks shielded Category 5e computer cabling system consisting of five km of fiber optic cable and 300km of copper and a total of 4,800 points.
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Benjamin L. Hooks, a champion of minorities and the poor who as executive director of the NAACP increased the group’s stature, has died. He was 85.
State Rep. Ulysses Jones, a member of the church where Hooks was pastor, said Hooks died early Thursday at his home, following a long illness.
Hooks became executive director of the NAACP in 1977, taking over a group that was $1 million in debt and had shrunk to 200,000 members from nearly a half-million in the 1950s and 1960s. He pledged to increase enrollment and raise money for the organization.
“Black Americans are not defeated,” he told Ebony magazine soon after his induction. “The civil rights movement is not dead. If anyone thinks that we are going to stop agitating, they had better think again. If anyone thinks that we are going to stop litigating, they had better close the courts. If anyone thinks that we are not going to demonstrate and protest, they had better roll up the sidewalks.”
By the time he left as executive director in 1992, the group had rebounded, with membership growing by several hundred thousand. Toward this, he created community radiothons to make the public more aware of activities by local NAACP branches and boost membership.
“He came in at a time the NAACP was struggling and gave it a strong foundation. He brought dignity and strong leadership to the organization,” Jones said.
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Rail Transit of Portland, Oregon
Transit diagram of Portland, Oregon that shows the MAX light rail and the Portland Streetcar as one integrated service, rather than relegating the Streetcar to a tiny squiggle behind the MAX lines downtown. Click through to view the diagram large, or read the full story behind its design on my blog.
Future Map: Rail Transit of Portland, Oregon, 2015
My own work, so modesty prevents me from giving this a score or critique. However, I’d love to hear what people think! Prints of this diagram are for sale at my Society6 store.
Historical Map: Stuttgart VVS Map, circa 2000
Without a doubt, this has to be one of my favourite transit maps ever. As far as I know, this isometric approach is unique and it is staggeringly effective. Everything is beautifully labelled, and lovely icons highlight important sites like the zoo, museums and sports stadiums. Unfortunately, this stunning map has since been replaced by a far more conventional diagram - a great loss in my opinion.
Have we been there? I’ve changed trains at the Hauptbahnhof, but have never ventured into the city itself.
What we like: The clever three-dimensional representation of the Hauptbahnhof, complete with corner tower, does a lot to complete the illusion of dimensionality. The isometric layout is a clever way of allowing all the type to be set horizontally without hitting route lines. Subtly different line weights for the S-Bahn and U-Bahn work really well.
What we don’t like: The isometric effect is so effective and convincing that the one and only horizontal line - the R31 across the top of the diagram - looks strangely out of place.
Our rating: Undeniably brilliant. 5 stars.
(Source: Stuttgart City Information Site)
Official Map: Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany
A transit diagram exhibiting many of the “standard” features of a German transit map: clean design, rectangles for interchange stations that increase in size according to the number of lines that pass through them, and an absence of curves on route lines. A few features set it apart from other similar maps, including the angled type used throughout, set in a slightly odd choice of Futura Condensed - not always the most legible typeface at smaller sizes. The coloured lines representing the tram routes stand out well from the grey bus routes, and some care has been taken to make all the routes easy to follow.
Have we been there? Yes, backpacking in 2003. One tram driver went completely out of his way to help me - yelling out his window that his tram was the right one to get to the youth hostel, holding the tram so I could run across the road and get on, then stopping at the VAG information centre so he could go and get me a map and information on fares. Amazing!
What we like: Showing route numbers in the route line it represents works very effectively and helps in following the route from beginning to end. Excellent disabled access symbology.
What we don’t like: Labels set at multiple different angles, making reading more difficult. The huge red swoosh that the VAG logo is placed in is ugly and overpowering.
Our rating: A solid three-and-a-half. Nothing spectacular, but a good example of German design.
(Source: VAG website)
Official Map: Barcelona Metro, 2011
An attractive and easy to follow map with a few unusual features. At first glance, it appears to be a diagrammatic map in the form of the London Underground Diagram, but it’s actually overlaid on a simplified, but accurate street grid, allowing easy reference to the features of the city. Especially prominent is the Avenue Diagonal - a major feature of the city emphasized by excellent design. It also cleverly rotates the map to fit the available space (note that north is not to the top of the page), instead using the coastline as the major reference point. Finally, it shows every form of rail transport used in the city - Metro, tram, commuter rail, funicular and cable car.
Have we been there? Yes
What we like: clean design, integration of all services, markers for multi-line stations give at least some indication of length of walk between lines (the walk between the two furtherest platforms at Passeig de Gracia is looooong!)
What we don’t like: No indication of how ridiculously steep the walk from Leseps or Vallarca stations to Parc Guell is.
Our Rating: 4.5 stars!
Original source: Official Barcelona Metro site
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- n 1. referring to women of an age to have sex. 2. used in opposition to sausages (as in sausage party).
For a successful party, one must have the proper roast-beef-to-sausage ratio.
Last edited on May 16 2011. Submitted by Kevin B. from Pottstown, PA, USA
on Nov 19 1998.
- a vagina. usually used to indicate when someone wants to 'eat you out.'
He ate her roast beef last night.
Last edited on Dec 03 2001. Submitted by Ashley J. from Meriden, CT, USA
on Dec 03 2001.
- n. 1. Term applying to a promiscuous female, probably one that you wouldn't touch with a 10-ft. pole. Origins stem from the appearance of female genitals in this state. Can be used with many cultural references, i.e. "roast beef and stinky cheddar." Disgusting term, to be used only in the most extreme of circumstances.
Stay away from that girl, she's roast beef.
Last edited on Dec 16 2001. Submitted by Matt from Franklin, IN, USA
on Dec 16 2001.
- very large, dark colored labia
That chick had roast beef.
Last edited on Jun 26 2008. Submitted by Chris V. from Olathe, KS, USA
on Jun 26 2008.
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The US Patent and Trademark Office has granted patents for magnesium L-threonate, marketed as Magtein, for cognitive function and neurological disorders.
The ingredient, developed by Magceutics and distributed by AIDP on an exclusive basis, is now covered by two patents: “Magnesium compositions and uses thereof for cognitive function” (Patent 8,178,118 ) and “Magnesium compositions and uses thereof for neurological disorders” (Patent 8,142,803 )
“We truly believe that Magtein is a game changing ingredient that will benefit millions of busy and stressed consumers by helping to improve their quality of life,” said Edward Lee, PhD, president of AIDP.
Magtein – which is self-affirmed GRAS, soluble in water, odorless, tasteless and colorless - has already attracted a lot of interest in the dietary supplements and food sector following the publication of studies the journal Neuron and The Journal of Neuroscience .
The former study showed that Magtein could increase learning ability, working memory, and short- and long-term memory in young and aged rats. It also showed that common magnesium compounds do not effectively improve brain magnesium levels (Neuron. Vol. 65, pp. 165-177).
The latter study suggested that the ingredient could elevate magnesium levels in the brain and offer a “novel approach for enhancing synaptic plasticity in a regional-specific manner leading to enhancing the efficacy of extinction without enhancing or impairing fear memory formation”.
The ingredient was discovered by Guosong Liu, MD, PhD, and a group of scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.
Magnesium supplement sales are rising sharply
According to data from SPINS, sales of vitamins and supplements with magnesium as a primary ingredient were up 19% to $11.87m in the natural retail channel (excluding Whole Foods Market) and up 24.6% to $18.61m in the conventional retail channel (excluding Walmart) in the 52 weeks to August 6.
To put this into context, total sales of vitamins and dietary supplements over the same period across both channels were up 7.5% to $3.2bn.
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Association ou organisation à but non lucratif
Dernière mise à jour: 17 mai 2013 11:22:17
Behavioral economics has changed how we think about how we think. Now, ideas42 is moving it out of the lecture hall and using behavioral economics to design new products, services, and policies.
The practice of applying research insights from behavioral economics to real problems is very much an emerging science. Focused on exactly this practice, ideas42 is a unique behavioral ideas lab and consulting firm bringing together highly creative practitioners and industry and policy experts with world-renowned economists and psychologists from top-tier universities. Our mission is to apply our expertise in behavioral economics to invent fresh solutions to the world's toughest social problems with the goal of improving tens of millions of lives. We are a social enterprise funded by many of the largest philanthropic foundations.
We believe we will be successful in achieving real change only if we pair real-world, high-energy, entrepreneurial and execution skills with the insights and rigor that academia brings.
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I keep referring to this case because I see it is a prime example of the threat Bush, Ashcroft and the Patriot Act pose to our civil liberties. The reason is that he is a US citizen who was detained on US soil. Both Discourse.net and Atrios have excellent comments regarding an MSNBC report that contains the following paragraph:
[A]dministration officials now concede that the principal claim they have been making about Padilla ever since his detention—that he was dispatched to the United States for the specific purpose of setting off a radiological “dirty bomb”—has turned out to be wrong and most likely can never be used against him in court.
So, we’ve detained this guy for two years, much of it in solitary confinement, with little or no access to legal counsel and no opportunity to go to court or some other independent body to challenge the grounds for his detention. So why does this matter to anyone other than Padilla? As Atrios says, “If they can do it to Padilla, they can do it to you.”
As a related aside, the lede to a recent Reuters article headlined “Americans Would Trade Rights for Security,” summarizes the sad state of affairs in the US today: “In today’s America, prisoners are held incommunicado for years, newspapers can’t photograph soldiers’ coffins returned from Iraq and the government can secretly track the books citizens read and the movies they watch.” (Via War Blogging).
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View Full Version : Attorney at Law
06-05-2000, 10:38 AM
What other kinds of Attorneys are there? When you say 'Attorney at Law' it suggests there are other kinds of Attorneys or else it's redundant. Attorneys may be a verbose lot but I doubt this would have gotten into our language this way unless it is NOT redundant. My father is an Attorney and general whiz at language and he doesn't know the answer to this so I figured maybe the Teeming Millions might.
As an aside on redundancy in language this one always gets me. As a Network Engineer I frequently have other engineers ask me to get them a NIC card. NIC stands for Network Interface Card. So saying NIC card is the same as saying Network Interface Card Card. A small thing I know put one of those pet peeves nonetheless.
06-05-2000, 10:43 AM
One may be an attorney in fact, as when someone grants you a limited or general power of attorney, the written authority to act on the grantor's behalf. One need not be a lawyer to be an attorney in fact. Generally speaking, you must be a lawyer to be an attorney at law, a practitioner in a court of law who is permitted to prosecute and defend actions on behalf of clients, and to advise clients as to legal rights and obligations.
06-05-2000, 10:55 AM
Possible reason: Traditionally in English law, there were two types of courts: law and equity. The two have intermingled now, but the distinction used to be quite real. Perhaps there were attorneys at law and attorneys at equity.
Another possible reason: there still are attorneys who practice in canonical (religious) court. They may not be considered attorneys-at-law.
06-05-2000, 02:48 PM
Having toyed with the idea of getting a doctorate in canon law, and being reasonably active in the diocecse now, I can tell you that those who practice law for the church are known as "canon lawyers", and they practice "canon law". I suppose it's possible that this was distinguished from "attorney at law", but I'm going to stand by my earlier post that it simply is meant to distinguish attorney in fact.
06-05-2000, 02:51 PM
I concur with Mr. Justice Bricker.
06-06-2000, 01:22 AM
I too concur with Mr. Justice Bricker, but would just add my own concurring opinion (don't you just hate it when they do that?)
According to the Oxford Companion to Law, the attorneys at law started out in England as someone authorised to appear in courts of law and make committments on behalf of the principal, but in 1574 they diverged from the common law inns of court and instead were associated purely with the Inns of Chancery. For several centuries thereafter, they could only appear in Chancery, not in the common law courts.
When the various courts were amalgamated into one "Supreme Court of Judicature" in 1875, the professions also merged, under the title of "solicitors," the term previously used in the common law courts. The attorneys (from Chancery) and the proctors (from Doctors Commons, the ecclesiastical and admiralty courts) became solicitors of the Supreme Court.
(Note: the English bar is still divided between barristers and solicitors; my reference to the merger of the professions is to the three branches of the profession that fulfilled solicitor-like functions, but did not appear in court.)
I don't think the term "attorney at law" is used any more in England; it certainly isn't in Canada. Its survival in the United States is likely the influence of Blackstone, writing a century before the term was abandoned in England.
vBulletin® v3.7.3, Copyright ©2000-2013, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
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The Metropolitan Agricultural Preserve Program is a property tax deferral program for certain agricultural property in the metro area, according to Minnesota Statute 473H.01.
If your property is zoned long-term agricultural by the local community, with a maximum residential density of one house per 40 acres, you may want to consider enrolling in this property tax program.
Owners sign an eight-year perpetual covenant/agreement to leave the property in agricultural use, and farm using acceptable practices as approved by the County Agricultural Service.
The Agricultural Preserve market value is based on sales of agricultural property in non-metropolitan counties as determined by the Minnesota Department of Revenue.
All owners of qualifying agricultural property may apply regardless of homestead status. The property must:
- Be zoned long-term agricultural by the local community, with a maximum residential density of one house per forty acres.
- Be 40 acres in size, however, smaller tracts may qualify in certain instances. Contact the Assessor’s Office at 651-438-4200 or the city/township authority for information.
Property owners apply for the Agricultural Preserves with the local city or township. The application must be approved by the city/township by June 1 of each year, and filed with the County Recorder as soon as possible after approval. The County Assessor must also receive a copy of the approved application. Each city/township handles applications differently—ask your city/township who is responsible for filing.
Benefits of the program
There is no deferred tax like there is in Green Acres. Special assessments cannot be levied on Agricultural Preserve property. Annual property taxes are based on the agricultural market value only.
An additional property tax credit of $1.50 per acre is applied or the tax calculated using 105 percent of the statewide average tax rate is used if that tax is less than calculated using the $1.50 per acre credit.
Getting out of the program
Owners may file an Expiration Notice with the County at any time to get out of the program. The local city/township may also file an Expiration Notice.
Eight years after the Expiration Notice is filed, the property is out of Agricultural Preserve.
A waiver of the eight-year requirement may be granted only by action of the Governor due to some emergency.
Contact the Assessor’s Office at 651-438-4200 for additional information.
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Technology -> Infrastructure
By: Clive Longbottom, Head of Research, Quocirca
Published: 23rd November 2012
Copyright Quocirca © 2012
The growing use of virtualisation has really helped many organisations.
Not only have the average utilisation rates of servers and storage improved, but the use of applications and other software packaged ready for installation – commonly known as virtual images or virtual machines – has meant that systems can be implemented or recovered far faster than they used to be.
However, this can be a two-edged sword.
The good side of being able to implement a runtime application rapidly is seen in hosted systems, cloud computing and private datacentres; but the bad side is seen most in development and test departments, and is spreading out into the runtime.
The problem is that virtual machines (VMs) are just too easy to use. In the past, if you wanted to install a copy of an application, the first thing to do was order a server. Then wait to receive the server. Then get it up and running, install all the patches to the operating system that the supplier had neglected to put in place. Then install all the support software that is required – app server, database, whatever, followed finally by the software you want to run. Long-winded? Yes – and often enough to put a general developer off, and they would just re-use a single server time and time again, cleaning the server down after each test and building back up from a golden back-up image to then test the next iteration of their software. Maybe a couple of hours each time to get to a “clean” position.
Today it is possible to grab some spare resource from a virtualised hardware base, spin up a VM and then install your software. This takes just a few minutes, and as the resource pool can be pretty big, it is easy for the developer to “forget” that they have a live VM running and just start up another one. IT departments could experience greater problems with VM sprawl – with test groups growing the VM pool and users being able to self-service systems that they may only use a couple of times.
The move towards a development/operations (DevOps) model for organising IT, where the development and test employees can push new images directly into the runtime, will make it much harder for IT administrators to keep track of all VMs.
Effective management of software licences and VMs
The result is that not only are resources being locked down by VMs that are not doing anything useful, but there could also be licences tied up in these VMs that are doing absolutely nothing useful. For many, it may not appear to be an issue – unless someone from the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) walks in through the door asking to carry out a licence inspection.
Managing licences is something that many organisations still do not do. Suppliers such as Flexera offer full-service licence management, which can not only track licence usage, but also manage them against suppliers’ licence agreements and, in most cases, against their tiering systems, ensuring that an organisation gets the best value from its licences. Others, such as Centrix Software, can track licences and advise on how they are being used so that an organisation can decide how licences should be allocated more effectively, although Centrix really is for dealing with virtual desktop systems. However, what a buyer really should be looking for is a system that not only manages licences, but also manages the lifecycle of the VM itself. Features to look out for include:
Optimising the virtual environment
Most of the incumbent systems management companies – IBM with Tivoli, CA, BMC – are moving in this direction in one way or another. However, others are doing more. Dell has been building on its Kace acquisition, and now that it has acquired Quest Software, expect to see a rapid move to a more full-service physical/ virtual systems management toolset.
Another company to watch is Serena Software. Under the umbrella of “orchestrated IT”, Serena is taking its existing application lifecycle management (ALM) approach and expanding it through to offer an organisation the choice of running as separate, but closely managed, development and test teams and a runtime team, or moving towards a more seamless DevOps approach where the various VMs are all fully managed according to a corporately and technically defined set of rules.
Outside of its Tivoli systems management capability, IBM also has its PureSystems and its z/Enterprise groups, with a universal resource manager that can ensure that a workload is placed on the best available resources – whether this be Windows, Linux or even a mainframe platform in the case of z/Enterprise, and also whether an Intel or Power chip is the best place for that workload to lie. This still needs the basic capabilities of Tivoli for other areas of managing the build and management of VMs, but gives good pointers as to the probable future of a fully managed virtual environment.
Virtualisation is a definite positive evolution in the use of available hardware resources.
However, organisations and technical teams have to understand that it is no silver bullet on its own. In fact, uncontrolled usage of virtualisation can lead to bigger problems where VM sprawl happens, at both the resource and the corporate responsibility levels. It is incumbent on those responsible for the IT function to ensure that the right systems are in place, to enable VMs to be managed at the right levels of granularity for full lifecycle management, with licence recovery and full audit capabilities in place to ensure that everything works to the best possible level.
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Published by: IT Analysis Communications Ltd.
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How did people get around in 1800?
October 18, 2006 7:14 AM Subscribe
What was the predominant means of transportation for the common american man in 1800?
posted by davidvan to society & culture (20 answers total)
Any other resources regarding things like life expectancy, average height/weight, etc. for u.s. citizens in 1800 interest me, but mainly interested in what sort of transportation they used, or were aware of.
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The English word "poison", first used around the early 14th century, meant "dose" and indeed dose were the days when a favourite method of getting rid of people who stood in your way or who had something you coveted was to poison them. Take the case of Pope Alexander VI, the patriarch of the notorious Borgia family. He appointed rich men as Bishops and Cardinals, encouraged them to become wealthier and then invited them to dine with his family which included his daughter Lucrezia who, like the invitation, had a hollow ring. Hers, however, had a mechanism that allowed her to release poison into a glass of wine. According to Cathy Newman in a National Geographic article "Twelve Toxic Tales": "The house wine, dry, with overtones of arsenic neatly dispatched the guests, whose wealth, by church law, then reverted to their host." In other words, Lucrezia proved lucrative.
Poison was first used around 4500 BC to kill animals and later the Romans used it for assassination. The National Geographic article listed several famous stories through the years. Socrates was executed with a cup of hemlock. Medieval Tatars catapulted plague-infected corpses over enemy walls to spread disease. Hannibal's sailors tossed pots of venomous snakes onto the decks of enemy ships. The British gave blankets infected with smallpox to Indians during the French and Indian War. At the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps during World War II, the Nazis killed more than a million people with a cyanide-based gas called Zyklon B. In the 1960s, the CIA planned to poison Cuban dictator Fidel Castro's cigars or his scuba gear. In 1978, a Bulgarian dissident was assassinated in London with a poisoned umbrella tip.
In addition to Lucrezia, there have been several famous female murderers. Agrippina, the wife of the Emperor Claudius; Mary Ann Cotton, a 19th century poisoner; Nannie Doss, known as the "Black Widow"; Anna Marie Hahn, an American serial killer (1938); a woman known as Arsenic Annie who fed cyanide to her four husbands and most of her family; and then there is the woman known as "Banana Pudding Lily" who filled her husband's banana pudding with arsenic.
Wives poisoning husbands is not unusual. Take the case of Jake who was dying and whose wife Becky maintained a candlelight vigil by his bedside. She held his weak hand, tears running down her face. Her praying roused him from his slumber. He looked up, and his pale lips began to move slightly. "Becky, my darling," he whispered. She told him, "Shhh, my love, rest. Don't try to talk." He was insistent. "Becky," he said in his tired voice. "I have something that I must confess." "There isn't anything to confess," replied the weeping Becky, "everything's all right, go to sleep." "No, no, I must die in peace, Becky. I... I had illicit relationships with many women!" "I know," whispered Becky sweetly, "that's why I poisoned you."
Generally, the poison is put in food but in a recent case a Brazilian woman attempted to murder her husband by putting poison in her vagina and inviting him to perform oral sex on her. The husband became suspicious because the odour was unfamiliar and then had to rush the woman to the hospital because it seemed that the poison had seeped into her system. It was both bizarre and ironic. She tried to take his life and, even though he now wants her charged with attempted murder, he ended up saving hers. If this proves anything it is that the proof of the pudding is not necessarily in the eating.
As the Trinidadian man revealed to his priest. He was deeply disturbed and told the priest, "Father, there is something terribly wrong happening in my life. My wife is slowly poisoning me." The priest was aghast and asked the man if he was certain. The priest did not believe the man but wanting to calm him down promised that he would personally speak to the man's wife, find out what he could and then advise him what to do. A week later the priest called the man and said, "Well, I spoke to your wife on the phone for three hours. You want my advice?" The man anxiously says, "Yes." "Take the poison," advised the priest.
Sometimes the roles are reversed. Answering a call of nature deep in mesquite territory, the Lone Ranger was bitten by a deadly rattlesnake right where it hurts most. Reeling from the shock and pain, he called his Indian buddy Tonto who, on seeing his friend in trouble, raced to nearby Dodge City, found Doc Holliday and asked him what to do. The Doc advised, "You must work quickly, time is of the essence if your friend is to live. You must take a sharp knife, make a very small incision at the bite area and suck the poison out. Place your mouth over the wound and gently suck, then spit, suck, then spit. Do this for at least fifteen minutes. Now hurry back." When Tonto returned, the Lone Ranger was barely conscious and asked weakly "Well, what did the doctor say?" Tonto replied stoically, "He said you're going to die."
* Tony Deyal was last seen saying that two men were served rum on the rocks from the same bottle. One drank slowly and died. The verdict was poisoning. The other man drank fast, left hurriedly and lived. Why? The ice was poisoned.
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Lambert filed suit against Greg Hartmann and the Hamilton County Board of County Commissioners under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violating her constitutional right of privacy. In 2003, Lambert had been issued a speeding ticket, which was published along with her name, signature, home address, birth date, driver’s license number, and social security number on the Hamilton County Clerk’s website. Publication of this information resulted in identity theft: an individual used Lambert’s identity to obtain a credit card and charge thousands of dollars of goods before being apprehended.
The court granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss, holding the Lambert had not stated a claim for a constitutional right to privacy in her personal information. While recognizing that the Ohio Supreme Court had previously found a federal constitutional right of privacy in social security numbers, State ex. rel. Beacon Journal Publ’g Co. v. City of Akron, 640 N.E.2d 164 (Ohio 1994), the court concluded under more recent precedent that the constitutional right to privacy cannot be automatically applied to a broad category of information. Specifically, under the Sixth Circuit’s interpretation of Supreme Court precedent “the Constitution does not encompass a ‘general right to nondisclosure of private information.’” Lambert v. Hartmann, No. 1:04CV837, 2006 WL 3833529, at *3 (S.D. Ohio Dec. 29, 2006) (citing J.P. v. DeSanti, 653 F.2d 1080 (6th Cir. 1981)). Rather the court followed the Sixth Circuit’s two-step test to analyze right-of-privacy claims: First, “the interest at stake must implicate either a fundamental right or one implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.” Id. at*4. Second, “the government's interest in disseminating the information must be balanced against the individual's interest in keeping the information private.” Id.
Under this test, the court concluded that Lambert’s alleged privacy interest in her personal information did not meet the first prong, neither implicating “a fundamental right” nor “a right implicit in the concept of ordered liberty” since the Plaintiff only identified the risk of financial harm resulting from its disclosure. The court distinguished other Sixth Circuit cases identifying a constitutional privacy interest in personal information based on the interest in personal security and bodily integrity, Kallstrom v. City of Columbus, 136 F.3d 1055 (6th Cir. 1998), or highly personal details of a rape case before the public interest in prosecution predominated, Bloch v. Ribar, 156 F.3d 673 (6th Cir. 1998). While “not unmindful of the problems which may result from the release of personal information,” the court nonetheless found it “beyond dispute that plaintiff's injury from the release of information in this case bears no equivalence to the potential and actual harm suffered by the Kallstrom and Bloch plaintiffs.” Lambert, 2006 WL 3833529, at *5.
Upon dismissing Lambert’s federal claims, the court then refused to retain jurisdiction over her state law privacy claims. Instead the court found these issues more appropriate for state court resolution.
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island, where he starved and was afterwards found dead, on his knees, stiffened
in a praying posture, with his hands lifted to heaven.
S. Josias Welch, the third son, was a man highly favoured of God,.... and
commonly called 'the Cock of the Conscience,' because of his extraordinary
talent in awakening and arousing the conscience of sinners. He was extremely
troubled with doubts about his own salvation. He was still young when he
Whitaker, William, D.D. See under NOWELL.*
u. Alexander Nowell,* D.D.
Wilkins, John, D.D., Bishop of Chester. See under Dod.*
g. John Dod.*
Witsius, Herman, D.D. (16361708, aet. 72). Born in Friesland, a premature child.
Was always puny in stature, but had vast intellectual abilities. Was Theological
Professor at Utrecht. His fame was European. Till within a little before his
death he could easily read a Greek Testament of the smallest type by
[g.] A most pious minister.
u. The learned Peter Gerhard.
[2S., 3 s.] His family consisted of two sons, who died young, and of three
remarkably pious and accomplished daughters.
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OATH, OAUTH, OpenID - this is all getting too complicated. We need simple identification for the future.
The reason it caught my attention was not because I agree with him (I do), but because the idea of simple authentication, especially among disparate systems, has been the Holy Grail of IT, and every time we think we have it solved, the solution seems to fall apart in our hands. In fact, OpenID/OAUTH/OATH is only the most recent attempt at solving the authentication problem. The last attempt was a little standard called X.500, and Jan's tweet this morning reminded me, not only of x.500 and its promises, but how far the standard has failed, because of its complexity.
I have not really thought about Directory Services lately because I have been in so many shops where it has been so badly implemented (or not) that it is almost not worth thinking about, even though millions of users use it, or rather its baby brother, LDAP, every single day, most notably in the form of Active Directory, but also Novell Directory Services, Oracle Directory Services, Fedora Directory Services and other LDAP systems, too numerous to mention, most depending on some form of the OpenLDAP project.
But Directory Services were, themselves, an attempt to solve the user virus problem of large, disparate, interconnected networks where tools like NIS and NIS+ were functionally running out of gas, while providing access to other, more secure authentication features as this thing we call the Internet was really beginning to take off. The X.500 standards were designed to make it easier to interconnect systems using a standard lookup mechanism. It was, of course, a hideous disaster, as anyone who has had to work with a pure X.500-based system can tell you, at least from a functional standpoint, but from a theoretical standpoint, it was the right direction.
In the 1990s, companies like Oracle and Novell both posited that there needed to be some form of interconnected directory service that would facilitate the ability to prove you were who you were without having to register with each and every web site and system that you needed to connect to, whether you were on your private intranet or the public Internet. And like simple authentication, the idea of single sign on has been a snipe most of us have spent our careers chasing.
For example, I worked at an organization where Microsoft's Active Directory was the law of the land. It controlled everything from how your desktop looked and performed (if you were running Windows of course) to how you accessed your email, to how you accessed the VPN. But when you connected to the education and training system, you had to have a completely different set of credentials. And since most people only connected to the system yearly for those mandatory sessions we all have to take in the corporate world, there would be a huge flush of trouble tickets at the beginning of the year for password resets (the system did not have an automated password reset system either - that was for security reasons...yeah, yeah, I know, I did not design the system, I just had to use it, but I digress). The point here is that when the system was being designed, there were discussions about how to integrate authentication with the Active Directory structure and the powers at large decided that it would be a bad idea to do that. This was not some antique mainframe that could not be connected without a Herculean effort, this was a simple web site, running on Microsoft software.
If you use LDAP, you know how much of a challenge it can be to not only set up, but integrate and manage. Creating a usable LDIF file is almost an arcane science (and a hold over from the X.500 days), and integrating LDAP authentication with some systems is easier than with others. It has gotten better than in the early part of the century, but it is still not as easy or as seamless as we would like it to be, especially when you are going across platforms to some that are less LDAP aware or even support a different implementation of LDAP.
Several years ago, I actually signed up for an OpenID. Between then and now, something in the OpenID standard must have changed, because my OpenID credentials from then no longer work now, which really defeats the purpose.
The point here, though, is that in 2010 we are still looking for a method to connect to systems without having to register with all of them. And with all our current solutions, we still have not quite got that problem solved. And if someone mentions web of trust I might scream. Because, after all, that is the root of the problem, or at least one of them.
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Businesses strategize to land more contracts
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SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- For years, there have been requirements on government programs that a portion of the work go to businesses run by women or minorities. But often, local companies that meet those requirements find themselves on the "outside," unable to tap into that source of business.
The people in charge of awarding contracts met with those business people at Syracuse's South Side Innovation Center Wednesday. The business owners are being told to be more active in seeking out that business.
“Going to these expos, going to these seminars, getting information about businesses, especially when you look at starting up a business. That's the toughest part, as you know,” said Derek Coleman, former SU-NBA basketball player.
“Now there are various types of MWBE requirements -- city, state, county, regional, whatever those things are -- to try to get everybody hooked up in the way that they should be hooked up is one of the purposes of a conference like this,” said Bob Herz, South Side Innovation Center Director.
Organizers say local, state and federal governments are helping to administer close to a billion dollars in contracts. As much as ten percent of that business is expected to be earmarked for minority and female owned businesses.
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How much we need to pay for the electricity cost in 61 days when
a water-desalination machine runs normally from 8AM to 4PM every
day? (It draws 25A in its warming-up time (15 minutes) and draws,
on average, 7A in its normal working time at 240V).
(Assumption: electricity price is $0.18/kWh and power factor is 1)
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Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character (1995)
Using Homer's epic, the Illiad, Shay, a clinical psychiatrist specializing in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, compares the experience of the warriors in the Trojan War with the GIs who fought in Vietnam. He reveals that the causes of PTSD remain unchanged across the centuries, but that the conduct of the war in Vietnam aggravated the severity of the disorder in its combatants and hindered their re-integration back into normal society. This is an important and insightful book and should be read by all who have been touched by war.
A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (1989)
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction, A Bright Shining Lie offers an insightful look into a doomed strategy through the career of Lt. Col. John Paul Vann who participated in both the opening and closing phases of the war. Vann, a colorful and controversial maverick, was a constant thorn in the side of an intransigent bureaucracy that was more interested in promoting a politically palatable version of the war than learning lessons gained in the battlefield. This book is both an eye-opening indictment of American policy and a paean to a man who paid the ultimate sacrifice for his country.
Robert C. Mason
Mason's harrowing autobiography describing his career as an army helicopter pilot is one of the definitive accounts of combat in Vietnam. The author vividly depicts what it is actually like to land in a hot LZ with bullets ripping through the fuselage as troopers jump into battle. Told with both eloquence and a dry wit, Chickenhawk reveals the traumatizing nature of combat and how one individual managed to cope with it day after day. This book remains a modern day classic.
Chickenhawk : Back in the World: Life After Vietnam (1994)
Robert C. Mason
In his sequel to Chckenhawk, decorated vet Mason tells about perhaps an even more difficult fight he faced when he returned to the states - his attempt to readjust to normal life. Read about his descent as he battles with anxiety, joblessness and alcoholism until he is arrested for drug smuggling just days before his book is released to become a best seller. Mason's eventual salvation, largely through the steadfast loyalty of his wife, Prentice, is a testament of hope to others suffering from the effects of PTSD.
Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam
Bernard Edelman (Editor)
These poignant and revealing accounts by GIs writing to friends and loved ones tell simply and honestly what is was like to have served in Vietnam. Filled with both humor and heartbreaking pathos, the letters tell of daily life, camaraderie, personal fears, and the loss of close friends. Several contain the last written words by GI's before their untimely death. This book was made into a remarkably moving March '88 HBO Film.
Herr, a reporter for Esquire magazine, conducted on-the-ground interviews with troops in Vietnam, and put together a collection of dozens of brutal, dispassionate and sometimes horrifying first-hand accounts. Although the historical validity of the book is marred by the fictional nature of some of the material, Herr's compelling narrative was the first to capture the visceral nature of the hell that so many GI's endured in Vietnam.
Everything We Had: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Thirty-Three American Soldiers Who Fought It (1988)
Santoli has put together an excellent and varied collection of oral reminiscences of the war by veterans, told in a direct, matter-of-fact way. These accounts are not only vivid depictions of combat but give good descriptions of daily life off the battlefield by those who served support troops. For those who have not served, this book is an eye opener; and for those who have, it is a rich source of memories and reveals the common bond that all vets share.
Nam: The Vietnam War in the Words of the Men and Women Who Fought There
Baker has compiled a compelling oral history of the war that has been very favorably received by Vietnam veterans. Nam reveals how diverse the experience was for each of the vets interviewed depending on the branch of service, their job (MOS), the area they served in and the year. Although the book is now out of print, it is a valuable addition to any library dealing with the war.
The Only War We Had: A Platoon Leader's Journal of Vietnam (1987)
Michael Lee Lanning
This book should be required reading for any infantry officers-in-training. Lanning, a 1st Lieutenant serving with the199th Light Infantry Brigade in the Delta, offers a unique perspective of what it is like to command a platoon in combat, including operations in close support of South Vietnamese irregulars. His detailed account, taken from his official log, is supplemented with astute observations of the land and its people and often reads like an adventure novel.
A Rumor of War
A young gung-ho Marine lieutenant, Caputo won a Pulitzer Prize for this engrossing and emotionally charged first-hand account of action in Vietnam. A gifted writer, Caputo takes us on the journey with him as he is thrown into the chaotic violence of Vietnam and descends from patriotic idealism to pathos. This book was one of the first and is still one of the best personal narratives to come out of the Vietnam War.
The Sorrow of War: A Novel of North Vietnam
And now for a word from the other side --
Based in part on the author's own experiences, this tale of an infantryman has to be one of the most searing and horrific portrayals of war in print. Covering both the field of battle and the home front, The Sorrow of War is a poetic tale of sacrifice, loss and ultimate disillusionment. This is a surprisingly candid work to come from a Communist country and offers an absorbing glimpse into the heart and mind of America's enemy.
Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History (1998)
B. G. Burkett
Winner of the Colby Award, Stolen Valor is the result of ten years of research in the National Archive. Burkett debunks many of the negative stereotypes associated with Vietnam vets through distortion by the media and imposters. His personal crusade to expose fake vets, from convicted criminals to prominent members of society claiming to be Medal of Honor winners, has done much to restore the honor due to genuine heroes. This is a revealing expose that pulls no punches in its quest for the truth.
The 13th Valley
John M. Del Vecchio
Perhaps the best novel to come out of the Vietnam war, Del Vecchio draws off of his own combat experience to give a vivid portrayal of an infantry squad operating in the notorious Ashau valley. Del Vecchio excels in detailed descriptions of day to day humping in the boonies under a triple-canopy jungle seeking out a dangerous and elusive enemy. This is a hard book to put down as the reader increasingly becomes drawn into the lives and fates of young soldiers in a distant and often mystical land.
Unknown Warriors: Canadians in Vietnam (1990)
Gaffen, chief historian at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, provides dozens of oral accounts by Canadians who served with the US armed forces in Vietnam. Thousands crossed the border to enlist and fought in disproportionately large numbers in the Army combat infantry and US Marines units. Unknown Warriors illuminates this little-known chapter in the history of the war and honors their memory with stories of dedication and courage.For more information see Canadians in Vietnam.
Vietnam: A History
This Pulitzer Prize winning book is considered by many scholars to be the definitive history the Indo China war. Karnow has meticulously researched his information and personally interviewed key players on both sides of the conflict - from ordinary soldiers to high government officials. This dispassionate and objective study, well documented with photos and maps, has recently been revised with findings from secret documents as part of a PBS documentary special.
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Max Brooks, bestselling author of The Zombie Survival Guide, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, and the graphic novelThe Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks, was interviewed for BookCast by Fairfax County Public Library Director Sam Clay. BookCast is sponsored by the Fairfax Library Foundation.
The Zombie Survival Guide, published in 2003, is a survival manual dealing with the fictional potentiality of a zombie attack. It contains detailed plans for the average citizen to survive zombie uprisings of varying intensity and reach and describes "cases" of zombie outbreaks in history, including a reinterpretation of the Roanoke Colony.
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, a U.N. representative writing a report on the great zombie war interviews survivors in the wake of World War Z. The book will be released as a film in 2012 starring Brad Pitt.
Brooks was part of an Emmy Award-winning writing team on “Saturday Night Live” from 2001-2003. He also has acting and animation voiceover credits.
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Amidst a business credit drought, more small businesses are relying on credit cards for everything from capital investment to putting gas in the delivery van. Using personal credit cards for these purposes is a bad idea. But business owners may not realize that even company credit cards are personally guaranteed--late payments on such a card could affect a business owner's personal credit score. A business credit card also has fewer consumer protections than a personal credit card.
As small-business cards have pretty thoroughly replaced lines of credit, company owners have become painfully aware of revolving balances that grow as interest rates rise and of the fact that lenders are quite capable of raising rates and reducing credit limits--at any time and for any reason.
A more sensible alternative might be a credit union business loan. Credit unions have not been exposed to the same losses as other financial institutions, enabling them to up their business lending by 36% in the first six months of this year.
Find this article at
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G. I. Taylor
|Geoffrey Ingram Taylor|
Sir Geoffrey Ingram Taylor
7 March 1886|
St. John's Wood, London
|Died||27 June 1975
|Alma mater||Trinity College, Cambridge|
|Academic advisors||J. J. Thomson|
|Doctoral students||George Batchelor
|Known for||Fluid dynamics
|Notable awards||Knight Bachelor
Order of Merit
1962 Franklin Medal
Sir Geoffrey Ingram Taylor OM (7 March 1886 – 27 June 1975) was a British physicist, mathematician and expert on fluid dynamics and wave theory. His biographer and one-time student, George Batchelor, described him as "one of the most notable scientists of this (the 20th) century".
Taylor was born in St. John's Wood, London. His father, Edward Ingram Taylor, was an artist, and his mother, Margaret Boole, came from a family of mathematicians (his aunt was Alicia Boole Stott and grandfather George Boole). Taylor followed in the latter's footsteps reading mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge. As a child he had become fascinated by science after attending the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures and had performed experiments using paint rollers and sticky-tape.
His first paper was on quanta showing that Young's slit diffraction experiment produced fringes even with feeble light sources such that less than one photon on average was present at a time. He followed this up with work on shock waves, winning a Smith's Prize. In 1910 he was elected to a Fellowship at Trinity College, and the following year he was appointed to a meteorology post, becoming Reader in Dynamical Meteorology. His work on turbulence in the atmosphere led to the publication of "Turbulent motion in fluids," which won him the Adams Prize in 1915.
In 1913 Taylor served as a meteorologist aboard the Ice Patrol vessel Scotia, where his observations formed the basis of his later work on a theoretical model of turbulent mixing of the air. At the outbreak of World War I, he was sent to the Royal Aircraft Factory at Farnborough to apply his knowledge to aircraft design, working, amongst other things, on the stress on propeller shafts. Not content to simply sit back and do the science, he also learned to fly aeroplanes and make parachute jumps.
After the war Taylor returned to Trinity and worked on an application of turbulent flow to oceanography. He also worked on the problem of bodies passing through a rotating fluid. In 1923 he was appointed to a Royal Society research professorship as a Yarrow Research Professor. This enabled him to stop teaching which he had been doing for the previous four years and which he both disliked and had no great aptitude for. It was in this period that he did his most wide-ranging work on the mechanics of fluids and solids including research on the deformation of crystalline materials which followed from his war work at Farnborough. He also produced another major contribution to turbulent flow, where he introduced a new approach through a statistical study of velocity fluctuations.
In 1934, Taylor, roughly contemporarily with Michael Polanyi and Egon Orowan, realised that the plastic deformation of ductile materials could be explained in terms of the theory of dislocations developed by Vito Volterra in 1905. The insight was critical in developing the modern science of solid mechanics.
During World War II Taylor again worked on applications of his expertise to military problems such as the propagation of blast waves, studying both waves in air and underwater explosions. These skills were put to the service of scientists at Los Alamos when Taylor was sent to the United States as part of the British delegation to the Manhattan project between 1944 and 1945. In 1944 he also received his knighthood and the Copley Medal from the Royal Society.
Taylor continued his research after the end of the War serving on the Aeronautical Research Committee and working on the development of supersonic aircraft. Though officially retiring in 1952 he continued researching for the next twenty years, concentrating on problems that could be attacked using simple equipment. This led to such advances as a method for measuring the second coefficient of viscosity. Taylor devised an incompressible liquid with separated gas bubbles suspended in it. The dissipation of the gas in the liquid during expansion was a consequence of the shear viscosity of the liquid. Thus the bulk viscosity could easily be calculated. Other late work included the longitudinal dispersion in flow in tubes, movement through porous surfaces and the dynamics of sheets of liquids.
Aspects of Taylor's life often found expression in his work; his overriding interest in the movement of air and water, and by extension his studies of the movement of unicellular marine creatures and the weather, were related to his lifelong love of sailing. In the 1930s he invented the 'CQR' anchor which was both stronger and more manageable than any in use and which was used for all sorts of small craft including seaplanes.
His final research paper was published in 1969, when he was 83. In it he resumed his interest in electrical activity in thunderstorms, as jets of conducting liquid motivated by electrical fields. The cone from which such jets are observed is called the Taylor cone for his namesake. In the same year Taylor was appointed to the Order of Merit. He suffered a stroke in 1972 which effectively put an end to his work; he died in Cambridge in 1975.
See also
- Buckingham π theorem, for an example of Taylor's computation of the energy released by the Trinity atomic bomb
- Taylor cone
- Taylor dispersion
- Taylor number
- Taylor vortex
- Taylor–Couette flow
- Taylor–Goldstein equation
- Rayleigh–Taylor instability
- Taylor–Proudman theorem
- Taylor–Green vortex
- Taylor microscale
- Taylor column
- The Life and Legacy of G. I. Taylor, by George Batchelor, Cambridge University Press, 1994 ISBN 0-521-46121-9
- Taylor, Geoffrey Ingram, Sir, Scientific papers. Edited by G.K. Batchelor, Cambridge University Press 1958–71. (Vol. 1. Mechanics of solids — Vol. 2. Meteorology, oceanography, and turbulent flow — Vol. 3. Aerodynamics and the mechanics of projectiles and explosions — Vol. 4. Mechanics of fluids: miscellaneous papers).
- Batchelor, G. K., "Geoffrey Ingram Taylor. 7 March 1886 – 27 June 1975," Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, Vol. 22, pages 565–633 (November 1976), doi:10.1098/rsbm.1976.0021 .
- Batchelor, G. K., "G.I. Taylor as I knew him", Advances in Applied Mechanics 16, Academic Press, 1976, pages xii, 1–8, doi:10.1016/S0065-2156(08)70086-3.
- Brian Pippard, "Sir Geoffrey Taylor", Physics Today 28(9), September 1975, p. 67, doi:10.1063/1.3069178: (pdf).
- O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "G. I. Taylor", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews.
- A Real Media stream of Taylor's Hydrodynamic demo courtesy of the folks at MIT
- Classical Physics Through the Work of GI Taylor. Course given on Taylor's work
- Article on the course above
- G. I. Taylor at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- G.I. Taylor Medal of the Society of Engineering Science
- Video recording of the K.R. Sreenivasan's lecture on life and work of G.I. Taylor
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It was and still is difficult to do fine stitching in poor light. Before modern lighting was available most quilting was done in the daylight, outside if possible. A good deal of quilting was done in the summer due to longer daylight hours. Farm women may have been too busy to quilt during planting and harvest time but they quilted when they could find the time in the lighter months. Sometimes the quilting frame was brought outdoors in good weather so the quilters could enjoy the good light.
More likely women worked on things like mending and knitting when the light was too poor to do careful hand stitching. Yet the quilting by the fireside myth persists along with the myth of Colonial quilting.
Hand Quilting History: Gathering Around the Frame
Learn more about the kinds of quilting frames used in the past.
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Help! I've Got Pac-Man FeverBy Williams, Marvin; AT Messenger , Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 3-5
Publication Date: Spring 2004
Article discusses a number of video game adaptations for people with disabilities, including: (1) the PlayStation 2 Mouth Controller, which was designed by Ken Yankelevitz Enterprises, (2) the Game Boy Adapter from Enabling Devices, and (3) Terraformers from Pin Interactive. The PlayStation 2 Mouth Controller has one mouthpiece that operates as a digital joystick. The controller’s mouthpiece uses a combination of two lip switches and three sip-and-puff switches for a total of six functions. A second sip-and-puff function provides the user with access to the “start” and “select” functions. The Game Boy Adapter allows the user to play a Game Boy Advance Standard Play (SP) using switches. The device is available off-the-shelf, and does not require any additional modifications. The Game Boy Adapter only works with the Game Boy Advance SP, as it is incompatible with Game Boy, Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance. Terraformers is a three-dimensional video games designed for people who are sighted as well as people with visual disabilities. Every aspect of the game features and audio interface, as everything in the game’s virtual environment can be represented by a sound. For example, one mission is to find keys to several doors and open each door with its key. Each key makes a distinct sound, which is also made by the appropriate door. A sound compass and sonar also help players to navigate movements in the virtual world. A free, downloadable demonstration version is available at http://www.pininteractive.com/terraformers/eng/download.php.
Assistive Products Discussed: MOUTH CONTROLLER WITH SONY PLAYSTATION 2 CABLE
GAME BOY ADAPTER (MODELS 4034, 4035, & 4036)
Delaware Assistive Technology Initiative (Web Site: http://www.dati.org )
Link to text: http://www.dati.org/newsletter/issues/2004n2/spring2004.pdf
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— CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Three months ago, the White House stirred up a space controversy when it called for the cancellation of NASA's Constellation back-to-the-moon plan.
Some in Congress feared that canceling Constellation was a prescription for turning the United States into a second-rate space power — and they pledged to restore funding for the development of new NASA rockets known as the Ares 1 and Ares 5.
Since then, NASA, the White House and Congress have been hammering out the details of a three-pronged plan for America’s future in space. The plan that's emerging would restore hundreds of skilled jobs that might have been lost due to the retirement of NASA's shuttle fleet, and would revive elements of the Constellation.
A consensus is beginning to build in support of the revised plan, which will get NASA moving ahead on three fronts. The plan is still in flux, but here's what each front looks like from a Cape Canaveral vantage point:
The frontier: Sending humans beyond Earth orbit
NASA's goal is to send people to Mars when it knows how. The plan calls for a series of steppingstones — the so-called flexible path — beginning with a six-day return to the vicinity of the moon. The voyage around the moon would be followed by a month-long trip to one of the Earth-sun Lagrange points, known as L1.
A Lagrange point is a position of gravitational equilibrium in a system consisting of three masses in space. Five such points exist, designated L1 through L5. In theory, a spaceship could park at L1 and stay there using little energy. The Earth-moon L1 point is about 200,000 miles from Earth, and the Earth-sun L1 point is about 930,000 miles from Earth.
When NASA is comfortable with these near-Earth flights, in the 2025 time frame, the next step will be to undertake weeks-long missions to asteroids. Then, astronauts would set out on a one- to two-year journey to fly by or land on one of Mars' moons. The time required for the trip would be determined by the capabilities of advanced rocket engines.
Touching down on one of the Red Planet's natural satellites would allow the astronauts to return to Earth using less energy than they would need for landing on and blasting off from Mars itself.
This plan is receiving higher marks than President George W. Bush's vision of returning and landing on the moon before trying for Mars.
In Congress, one big concern about the flexible-path plan was whether enough money would be available for developing the heavy-lift rockets required for trips beyond Earth orbit. U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat and former spaceflier who now chairs the Senate's subcommittee on space policy, is gaining the support of other influential Senate committees for adding $726 million to the president's budget request for the next fiscal year.
The money would go toward preparations for another Ares 1 launch with a high-altitude abort test in 2013, followed by additional tests in 2014 and 2015. Nelson says this would save hundreds of space jobs and also shave years off the development cycle for the heavy-lifters.
Nelson has arranged a high-profile Senate hearing on the future of U.S. human spaceflight for May 12, just two days before the shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to lift off on its final trip to the International Space Station. Among those who may testify are Apollo astronauts Neil Armstrong and Gene Cernan, the first man and the last man to walk on the moon.
Closer to home: Commercial space taxis
California-based SpaceX is No. 1 on the runway when it comes to replacing the space shuttle with new made-in-the-USA transports to the International Space Station. The commercial company has been dealing with a series of delays, and the first launch of its Falcon 9 rocket is now scheduled to occur no earlier than the second half of this month.
The idea is that a commercial rocket and spaceship would cost less, but would it?
Critics say commercial spaceships are like commercial airliners, needing government-run airports, control towers and centers, flight simulators, weather bureaus and forecasters. Even if SpaceX is successful, it will need similar services from NASA. The space effort will also need the U.S. Navy to recover astronauts at sea.
The commercial guys say they're ready to take care of trips to the space station in low Earth orbit while NASA takes care of the challenging deep-space missions.
Consensus? We'll see.
Science in space: Send out the robots
Consensus? Spend more. Not just on orbital observatories and interplanetary missions, but on Earth missions, too.
The next big thing in space science will be an Atlas 5 launch in August 2011 that will send a solar-powered probe named Juno toward Jupiter. Juno will follow a pole-to-pole orbit around the giant planet to map its internal structure, its atmosphere and magnetosphere.
Following Juno is GRAIL, a mission due for launch in September 2011 to study our moon's interior from crust to core. Then there's the next big Mars mission: The Curiosity rover, a mobile science laboratory that will assess whether or not the Red Planet supports microbial life.
Why explore the solar system? Why send humans outward from our home planet? It's simple: We need to learn what's out there, and how to get out there in a sensible, step-by-step manner. Earth may be our cosmic cradle, but eventually we'll have to leave the cradle and make other homes in the universe. We have to explore. Our long-term survival depends on it.
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Arnold Schoenberg was a hated man. This is the consequence of being a pioneer, an original thinker, his big mouth notwithstanding. I’m not trying to crown him with infallibility, but only to give credit where it’s due. Our culture loves the yellow journalism technique of painting with broad strokes of sycophancy or character assassination, depending upon the frenzy of the moment. There is little room for careful discussion.
We live by a kind of cult of personality that obsesses on surface details, and I’m not sure it’s anything new. Human history is a monument to the permanence of stupidity, and that’s largely a fact that has to be accepted. With this backdrop, the prophets and the geniuses can look like dreadful fools. I prefer to see them as heroes. It takes great dedication to turn one’s head into the wind in the hopes that a massive effort will yield the tiniest result, the slightest movement of mankind away from absolute buffoonery. Alas, most of us would rather admire a fireman that climbs a tree to rescue the neighbor’s cat.
Style and Idea is a collection of Schoenberg’s essays on a wide range of musical and other topics. The title is well-chosen: His central thought revolves around the essence of the idea. He shuns superficial appearances in fanatical fashion, to the point of overstating his case at times. This is forgivable. After all, what philosopher hasn’t overstated his case? Schoenberg is concerned with what the composer has to say: What is his thematic material? How does he apply it? How does he develop it? To Schoenberg, style grows naturally out of an idea. It is backwards, in his mind, to sit down and say, “I want to write a piece in the style of early 20th century France, or in the style of Anton Heiller.” This leads to hollow music making. I’m reminded of Prokofiev’s “Classical Symphony” or the churchy ear candy of Dom Lorenzo Perosi.
Schoenberg’s obsession with the musical idea itself is refreshing in the age of music that the author himself describes as having limited psychological appeal; music that “goes right to the feet.” There is nothing wrong with vapid music if it is played in the dance club or the gym; the problem is that too much music is vapid. The head of the Second Viennese School, however, runs a bit off course at places, in my opinion, because of this admirable core belief in the idea. For instance, he writes about the “primitive ears” who prefer to relish tone colors over other musical matter. I guess we know what he thought of the music of Olivier Messiaen! Related to this is his strange idea about instrumentation and orchestration. While he doesn’t argue for anything coming close to a total absence of colorful variety, he calls for a slimmed-down orchestra, one that gets rid of “useless” instruments that have a limited scalar, dynamic, or artistic compass. He asks whether the bassoon, for example, has ever been anything but comical. I’m more inclined to agree with Ernest M. Skinner that the bassoon can assume any character. The Berceuse from Stravinsky’s The Firebird comes to mind as an instance in which it is something other than funny.
All the same, Schoenberg claims that the orchestra’s power comes from its variety of tone color, and he cites the pipe organ as an example to prove this. Baroque organs, which were built on largely homogenous choruses, were not powerful, but Romantic organs, which were conceived with solo voices in mind, can knock the walls down. (Organ aficionados will relish the ironical choice of Schoenberg’s words that “loudness is achieved through mixture.”) This is completely on Cloud Kookooland, and it’s pretty safe to say that Schoenberg was not acquainted with the research of Skinner, who discusses this subject in his book The Composition of the Organ. It was progress in the ability to develop higher wind pressures in organs, and therefore more largely-scaled pipes, that have allowed more modern instruments to blow off the archbishop’s mitre with a middle C. None of this is to say that I find Schoenberg’s streamlined orchestra to be an attractive idea; he simply chose the wrong example in arguing for what he sees as a moderate approach to this reform.
Schoenberg also has a strange approach when it comes to modality. He sees the efforts of late 19th and early 20th century composers to write in modes to be useless, an adoption of an outdated musical technique. To his credit, though, this might be the only point in the book when he caves in to the temptation to Whiggism. Schoenberg thinks this attitude is based on progress, but it really seems like it’s actually based upon a misapprehension of the modes. Implying that the half-step relationships of a scale are the only ones capable of establishing a tonal center in certain stereotypical ways, he says that all the ancient modes can be reduced to two: major and minor. And yet, he forfeits his argument when, in a later essay, he rightly states that the establishment of a key can be a difficult thing that is often only achieved by restating the tonic until it can be perceived as home base. Can’t the same repetition be used in modal constructions? Is E not the final of Pange lingua? Is it really just a melody in C Major that ends on the third? I don’t think so.
Naturally, Schoenberg spills a great deal of ink on the concept of “atonality,” a term which he disliked. He takes issue with those who claim he was a revolutionary; he saw his music, rather, as an outgrowth of everything that came before it. It might seem preposterous to those obsessed with initial impressions, but it makes perfect sense. Think of Hans von Bulow’s reaction to the first movement of Mahler’s Second Symphony: “If that is music, it makes Tristan sound like Haydn.” The assertion that a new piece of music is aural nonsense has been a favorite game of the stodgy for a least five centuries, and it is useless. Moreover, if by “atonality” we mean music that lacks a key, we are describing a lot of music that existed long before Arnold Schoenberg. Tonality, like metrical music, might well prove to be a passing fad in music history, in the long run. Schoenberg cites some examples of dissonance in history—Mozart’s “Dissonance Quartet” and Beethoven’s Great Fugue. I would add certain measures of Frescobaldi’s Fiori musicali to that list, and one could make some very powerful arguments that in Bach’s music tonality was not always front and center. So much for revolution.
Schoenberg takes the time to discuss formal considerations viz. “atonality.” In older music, sections were often demarcated by modulations; in the absence of key centers, other methods of formal articulation are needed. This seems to him to be the primary problem to be solved with the new style of music, and not any notion that dissonance is against the “laws of nature.” Gravity pulls us downward, Schoenberg reminds us, but airplanes carry us upward. Planes are contrary to nature, yet they use the laws of nature. This is in addition to the fact that even the most remote dissonance is somewhere on the overtone series, which is the “law of nature” of harmony. Moreover, in Schoenberg’s music, dissonance is not a thing in itself, not necessarily a manner of poetic expression, but rather a result of the musical ideas. It’s a far cry from Charles Ives going back to his scores and adding crunchy chords in order to make his music sound “modern.”
Schoenberg’s writing comes from the fire in his belly. He might be a logician, but he is not the cold logician that many cartoon writers claim he is. The proof of this is in his rejection of the many efforts of Hauer and other theorists to codify the musical language of the Second Viennese School. Most music majors have had to make at least one matrix in their careers, writing a tone row and sticking to it slavishly. It feels more like calculus than music. This is not Schoenberg, who was more comparable to Palestrina, who never hesitated to change a note to make a passage work. These men are music-makers, not pipe-layers. This truth is not convenient for those who brandish their historicist clubs in the dungeons of what passes for music criticism these days, and many listeners, hungry for an excuse to dislike Schoenberg’s music, are all too quick to latch on to these careless ideas rather than to listen to the music from the inside out, focusing on the ideas rather than the surface impressions.
It is enough to be an innovator in musical language, but as it turns out Schoenberg was even more, as he invented a new system of musical notation which, as far as I know, has not really been adopted. With three broadly-spaced lines, it’s reminiscent of the early efforts at diastematic notation. Exact pitches are notated by placing noteheads directly adjacent to or away from the lines, with the additional help of slashes that further clarify a note’s position. Using this technique allows the composer to notate a much wider range in an equal vertical space, and in many ways it might be superior to the standard five-line staff. But I can’t see it ever being adopted. As it is, string players don’t like to play in flat keys; how will we ever convince everyone to completely learn a new notation system, even just for modern music? Nonetheless, these efforts show the fertility of Schoenberg’s mind; if he were just a rabble-rouser he wouldn’t have bothered with a project such as this.
There are other things to admire about Schoenberg, too. He was certainly an astute observer. His thinking on vibrato reminds me of Lilli Lehmann and Joseph Joachim, both of whom used vibrato as an ornament and did not indulge in the “goat-like bleating” that Schoenberg rails against. He has interesting thoughts on the relationship of the music to the text as well: While one might (might…) be able to accuse Handel of word-painting at a superficial level, Schoenberg is more concerned with more hidden relationships between the music and the text, aspects that might not be apparent at first blush. I’m reminded of the work of certain chant scholars in this regard, who find definite relationships between the text and the music that are missed by those who go at the problem with the Baroque model in mind. Then there is the question of the downbeat. From Bach, Schoenberg says, he learned disregard for the strong beat of the measure. How many performances have been ruined by a continuous assault on the downbeat? Schoenberg offers a remedy for this tendency: aiming for the “center of gravity” of a phrase. There are debates about whether the melody or the rhythm is primary in music; Messiaen, for instance, says that any melody will always have rhythm and therefore that rhythm is primary, but does this mean we should forget the line? Rhythm is a method of organization or articulation and not in all cases the primary thing. Schoenberg asks us to remember the melodic line, and I don’t see how anyone can argue with that. It’s a pretty reasonable response to an argument that is more or less myopic.
As one would expect, Schoenberg takes some time at the end of the book to comment on several composers. He loved Mahler and thought him a saint; hated Stravinsky and regarded him a panderer; offers well-measured praise for George Gershwin. He sees in Brahms not the pure classicist but the progressive who was a master of the irregular phrase. The book wraps up with some comments on social and political matters. At the end of it all, Schoenberg, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Austria, seems to have been in a very healthy, a-political place. Politics, after all, is for lesser men.
On many of the subjects that Schoenberg takes on, one can quibble, or even boldly object, and I in fact don’t find myself in complete agreement with him. In one thing, however, I hope there will be unanimity: Arnold Schoenberg was a true artist. By this I’m not necessarily referring to the way his work turned out, but rather the spirit in which it was created. He was a man who had the need, the urge to create. There was the desire, as he put it, to let off the “internal pressure” of a gestating work. More than that—fundamentally, even—he wanted to say something, to create a thing of beauty: Not just to pander to stylistic expectations, not to sell records, not to get in tight with a conductor or an orchestra manager with an agenda, but to make music. That is, after all, the vocation of the musical artist. We could do far worse in finding a role model.
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Learn from Brics in dealing with migration to the cities
SA CAN learn useful lessons about the relationship between growth, poverty reduction and urbanisation from the other Brics nations. The economies of China, India, Brazil and Russia accounted for almost half of growth in world output between 2000 and 2010. The role of urbanisation in the economic transformation of these countries has not been widely appreciated — but now a set of reports have been published that compares urban growth in each nation.
The timing is apposite, with Census 2011 revealing far stronger growth of SA’s cities than expected. Gauteng’s population increased by 31% between 2001 and last year, while the number of households (and hence the demand for housing and services) rose by 43%. In Johannesburg and Tshwane, the number of households almost doubled.
People in towns and rural areas have been moving to the cities in response to a widening gap in economic and social opportunities. This "urban transition" is mostly informal, because migrants cannot afford decent living conditions. People end up in shacks on unauthorised and hazardous sites on the periphery. The census found that nearly one in three urban households now live in informal settlements or backyard shacks. The average residence period in these areas has risen from about three years in the early 1990s to 10 years at present.
Urbanisation places severe strains on metropolitan municipalities and intense social stresses on overcrowded settlements. These are also the destinations for international migration flows and are vulnerable to xenophobia. All three spheres of government have been slow to respond to these migration patterns and poverty traps.
The government has been facing a dilemma: should it try to push back the tide of migration by making it more difficult for people to access land and services? Some sections of society would prefer to keep the poor out of cities in order to sanitise living and working environments, protect property values and create better tourist destinations.
Alternatively, should the government accept, accommodate and actively plan for urbanisation on the basis that it is inevitable and probably desirable? There may be opportunities to be seized from the process — both to reduce poverty and to stimulate growth and development.
The experience of the other Brics countries is useful in highlighting the role of the government in managing the urban transition. These nations have faced difficulties as they have urbanised, especially when they have tried to hold back the process, or when they have inadvertently steered people or firms to unsuitable economic locations.
The comparison also provides many positive examples of how to harness the potential of urbanisation to lift people out of poverty by strengthening national economies through concentrated activity and efficient infrastructure. Countries that plan and manage urban growth well can generate all-round benefits for productivity and social inclusion.
The character that urbanisation takes also has a major effect on the use of energy, water, natural ecosystems and other environmental resources, so it makes sense to steer the form of urban development onto a more compact and sustainable path.
China demonstrates the benefits of taking urbanisation seriously in national development strategies. Its radical shift from anti-urban policies during the Cultural Revolution to the aggressive pursuit of urban growth in selected coastal locations, has had a dramatic effect on economic progress. More than 400-million people have escaped poverty over the past 20 years. Municipalities were given powerful incentives to provide land and infrastructure, which they used to attract vast domestic and foreign investment in production and construction. A large labour supply replenished by a steady stream of internal migration has fuelled the process.
China’s urban growth coalitions have been slower to take into account the environmental damage caused by unrestrained development. About a third of urban dwellers also lack permanent residence rights in the cities, which excludes them from access to schools, clinics and other amenities.
Brazil tried in vain for several decades to resist urbanisation. Failure to prepare for migration gave rise to the infamous favelas. Urban inequalities and environmental hazards persist for these communities, despite sustained economic growth. Since the 1990s, urban policy has been central to the country’s efforts to boost participatory democracy and tackle entrenched social divisions. Brazil’s cities have pioneered social innovations that improve the security and assets of poor households by giving them legal rights to the land they occupy. A new approach to upgrading the favelas is also raising living standards, education and health.
Russia shows the dangers of forcing economic activity and population into unfavourable locations for narrow political purposes. The demise of the Soviet Union left behind badly situated cities that struggle to compete in the global economy. Half are based on a single industry or employer and are battling to diversify.
Russia’s government faces tough decisions whether to accept the decline of these places and to support people migrating elsewhere. This would enable investment to be redirected towards relieving the pressures of congestion caused by Moscow’s economic dynamism. The alternative is a costly and uncertain exercise of trying to restructure and modernise the industries and infrastructure of the lagging peripheral cities.
India has not yet come to terms with its urbanisation. It lacks a coherent approach to managing the growing rural labour force that cannot be absorbed into agriculture. Strategic indecision threatens India’s economic success, particularly for poor households that battle to gain a foothold in the cities.
India’s urbanisation is sluggish and informal because public services are skewed towards middle-and upper-income groups. The large cities have benefited from recent government spending on economic and social infrastructure. However, urban elites make no provision for an influx of low-income migrants, because they see them as a threat to local security and hygiene.
Alienating millions of people by continuing to restrict long-established channels of social mobility risks instability and unrest. More inclusive urban policies could help to alleviate rural poverty by accommodating migrants in thriving cities.
A basic lesson for SA is that urbanisation can promote prosperity if poor households can be integrated into our cities more efficiently and equitably. Planning ahead and finding suitable locations is more effective than reacting after the event to proliferating shacks in the wrong places. Belated programmes to rearrange and upgrade informal settlements are more complicated, disruptive and costly than a proactive approach.
Government funding for municipalities needs to be aligned more closely with shifts in population and not lag years behind. Increased investment in underused "brownfield" urban land, infrastructure and services could help to unlock economic opportunities and improve the life chances of migrants.
More functional urban housing markets that recognise variable affordability would enable people to progress into better homes as their circumstances improve. Urban policy should go beyond land and housing — to build stronger communities and genuinely sustainable human settlements.
• Turok is deputy executive director of the Human Sciences Research Council.
More in this section
- Dismantling the euro is the answer
- IN THE MARKETS: Better ways to get investment than through blackmail
- Africa: a new haven for the hospitality industry
- Platinum industry faces a new time bomb
- Russia ‘rediscovers’ Africa after a decade of neglect
- THE INSIDER: Tax dodge like an Amazon throwing a dwarf
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Third in a series: Integrating Social Media and Public Relations
Quora is a social media site of a different stripe – it’s a Q&A site that is subtle and intellectual, rewarding thoughtful discourse, and dispensing with badges and scores as measures of influence. The crowd votes good answers up, and can express their thanks for answers. They can also vote answers down, or flag them for a variety of reasons. Content is judged by a jury of your peers.
The vibe is different too. Quora is more focused and crowd isn’t terribly tolerant of flippant answers, and unlike many sites, Quora isn’t terribly conversational – at least, not in the Q&A section. A friend of mine found a blog post she penned was being discussed favorably on Quora. Delighted, she posted a note thanking the person who originally mentioned the blog. To her horror, she was told in no uncertain terms that such things simply weren’t “done” on Quora. The crowd truly wants the Q&A to remain pure and focused.
In a nutshell, Quora combines potent content and discussion with an element of social networking. You can really get a handle on a person’s style, professional know-how and intellectual bent by perusing their answers.
Quora is easy and straight-forward to use. Take the time to fill out your complete profile, and post a picture. Then follow the topics that interest you, and add a few lines describing your expertise where indicated.
As with any social network, the look first/leap later approach is a good one to take in Quora. Browse the discussions underway in your areas of interest. Look at popular answers, and compare them to those that are voted down. In many cases, popular answers offer sophisticated perspective and robust detail. This is not the place for chat shorthand and LOLs.
Applications for PR:
Quora does offer PR pros some specific opportunities – but none are easy or automated. Quora demands a high touch approach – and it offers a specific and focused audience.
- Getting to know peers and influencers: Time and again, I’m struck by the level of discourse on Quora, and that is due in part to the fact that the Quora community is populated by savvy – and often senior – people. Quora is a great way to get to know them – and you’ll find that many are influential within their areas of specialty. In my mind, Quora is a good way to learn more about the interests and expertise of key influencers.
- Ideas: One of the coolest things about following a topic on Quora is seeing the questions people pose. Some generate discussion, others go unanswered, and both types offer opportunity for PR pros. In addition to participating in the discussions, a thoughtful thread can also be the basis of a pitch, in which you offer your company’s take. If you’re charged with content production, threads can also be the basis of a blog post or articles. Here’s an example of one I wrote in March about getting PR for startups. The discussions – and the questions sparking them – are an ongoing source of ideas available on Quora.
- Search engines: Quora has a very search engine friendly design, and content from the network is indexed by search engines. It’s not uncommon to see a discussion thread listed in Google results, and little wonder – discussions are as real and authentic as content gets, and are loaded with the common vernacular (versus incomprehensible jargon) that are also used in searches. While being relevant and adding value to a conversation is absolutely crucial, it’s perfectly OK to reference a blog post or other web page in your answer – as long as the context is there. And doing so will help build visibility for key messages within search engines. You can gild the lily by tweeting or sharing your answer, too.
Many of the same rules you learn from using Quora also apply to the forums and discussion groups that are so popular today. Mastering the art of engagement on Quora will stand the communications pro in good stead in the future, and will generate important contacts and ideas in the present. Have you found other ways to use Quora?
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Activists Push Clean Energy on National Day of Action
The last week of September, Sierra Club activists from coast to coast participated in a National Day of Action to voice their support for clean energy. At rallies, public hearings, press conferences, town hall meetings, brown bag lunches, and coal tours, citizens drove home the message that the country is ready to move beyond coal and invest in clean energy.
Above, Kansas Chapter activists held a press conference in Lawrence, calling on Topeka-based Westar Energy to install more effective pollution controls and improve compliance with the Clean Air Act. Sierra Club representative Stephanie Cole is pictured speaking at the event.
As part of the Day of Action, the Club's Campuses Beyond Coal campaign held photo petition events on a dozen college campuses. At the University of Colorado, below, students heard Club organizer Roger Singer talk about ways to phase out coal-based energy from Xcel Energy and the Valmont coal plant in Boulder, then collected more than 240 photo petitions to help make it happen.
In Washington and Oregon, hundreds rallied and testified at public hearings held by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council on its draft plan for energy use in the region over the next 20 years. Below, ralliers in Eugene, Oregon.
In Louisiana, activists rallied outside Entergy's headquarters in New Orleans, below, to demand serious investment in renewable technology and energy efficiency. The theme of the rally was "Christmas in September," and Santa had a bag of coal addressed to Entergy's CEO. "We received support not only from people on the street, but surprisingly, from those working in Entergy Tower," says Sierra Club organizer Jordan Macha.
In Virginia, citizens gathered outside City Hall in Alexandria to protest the mountaintop removal that is devastating the southern Appalachian Mountains. People signed postcard petitions to the state's Council on Environmental Quality, calling for a freeze on new MTR permits in the state.
West Virginians, below, protested MTR and the Department of Environmental Protection's failure to protect the state's drinking water supplies. At a stand outside DEP headquarters in Charleston, activists handed out "coalfield kool-aid" representing the slurry water coming out of residential faucets near the coal operations.
In Missoula, Montana, 70 people gathered on the University of Montana campus calling for a stop to the proposed Otter Creek coal development. And in Reno, below, the Club's Toiyabe Chapter held a panel discussion, "Beyond Coal in Nevada," focusing on renewable energy and how the state can wean itself off coal.
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March 14, 2013
The English edition of Heriberto Araujo and Juan Pablo Cardenal’s The Silent Chinese Conquest, which was apparently published under the title China’s Silent Army, has been reviewed by Bristol University psychology lecturer and blogger Zeng Biao, who also owns a consultancy on Chinese-British relations, for the newspaper 21st Century Economic Herald. Zeng notes the author’s “betrayal” of their interviewees, the Chinese entrepreneurs and managers who proudly showed them around their businesses, but add that such betrayals are the stock in trade of “political and social affairs journalists”. He adds that he feels some empathy for the small traders the authors describe, and wagers that,
if China’s global influence continues to increase and develop bit by bit, as it has, then history’s take on these Chinese peddlers will surely be full of the humour and intimacy of today’s British writings on the East India Company.
Overall, Zeng’s opinion of the book is favourable; his “only regret is that it was not written by Chinese.” And, “in order to avoid more regrets,” he recommends that it be published in Chinese.
Does Zeng agree with the authors’ alarmist tone and sees it as a positive thing, as some Chinese nationalists tend to do with Western books warning of China’s “rise?” Or does he agree with the warning, that the “silent army” has dire consequences in terms of crime, environmental hazards, exploitation and so on, as well? Or does he simply think the authors’ research deserves discussion? This is not clear.
October 25, 2011
Spanish journalists Heriberto Araujo and Juan Pablo Cardenal, who traveled around the world documenting Chinese investments and migration, have now published their book in Spanish. The title, La silenciosa conquista china, leave little doubt about their take on the subject. English, Polish and Chinese versions are in the pipeline. An excerpt of the book has been published in El Pais.
February 26, 2011
Spanish journalists Heriberto Araújo and Pablo Cardenal are working on a new book on China’s impact around the world, based on a year of travel across 24 countries, ranging from Ecuador to Burma and from Mocambique to Iran. To my knowledge this is the first book that documents Chinese investments on the ground with a global reach.
A preview of the book has just been published as a photo essay in Foreign Policy. Nice photos that nonetheless seem to emanate a rather sinister message of an invasion.
In a recent article in Hong Kong’s Sunday Morning Post, Araujo and Cardenal focus on Mozambique, where, they report, violent clashes between Chinese mine managers and African workers have continued over demands for higher wages and shorter working hours. They conclude that wages and working conditions remain worse than at Western employers (although, of course, in most places there aren’t any Western employers). But the article quotes a Zambian labour union leader as acknowledging that the Luanshya Copper Mines, owned by China Nonferrous Metals Mining Co., comes “close to the required labour standards.” According to the mine’s general manager, it has only 42 Chinese employees out of 2,500, wages start at $400, shifts are eight hours, five days a week, and there is free health care.
Considering that Zambia has seen the most protests and violence around Chinese mines, this is rather rapid improvement, although clearly, smaller companies may not be following these standards.
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Revelation 1:1,4,9 and 22:8 specifically identify the author of the Book of Revelation as the apostle John.
Date of Writing: The Book of Revelation was likely written between A.D. 90 and 95.
Purpose of Writing: The Revelation of Jesus Christ was given to John by God “to show his servants what must soon take place.” This book is filled with mysteries about things to come. It is the final warning that the world will surely end and judgment will be certain. It gives us a tiny glimpse of heaven and all of the glories awaiting those who keep their robes white. Revelation takes us through the great tribulation with all its woes and the final fire that all unbelievers will face for eternity. The book reiterates the fall of Satan and the doom he and his angels are bound for. We are shown the duties of all creatures and angels of heaven and the promises of the saints that will live forever with Jesus in the New Jerusalem. Like John, we find it hard to describe what we read in the book of Revelation.
Key Verses: Revelation 1:19, "Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now and what will take place later."
Revelation 13:16-17, "He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name."
Revelation 19:11, "I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war."
Revelation 20:11, "Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them."
Revelation 21:1, "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea."
Brief Summary: The Revelation is lavish in colorful descriptions of the visions which proclaim for us the last days before Christ’s return and the ushering in of the new heaven and new earth. The Revelation begins with letters to the seven churches of Asia Minor, then goes on to reveal the series of devastations poured out upon the earth; the mark of the beast, “666”; the climactic battle of Armageddon; the binding of Satan; the reign of the Lord; the Great White Throne Judgment; and the nature of the eternal city of God. Prophecies concerning Jesus Christ are fulfilled and a concluding call to His Lordship assures us that He will soon return.
Connections: The Book of Revelation is the culmination of the prophecies about the end times, beginning with the Old Testament. The description of the antichrist mentioned in Daniel 9:27 is developed fully in chapter 13 of Revelation. Outside of Revelation, examples of apocalyptic literature in the Bible are Daniel chapters 7-12, Isaiah chapters 24-27, Ezekiel chapters 37-41, and Zechariah chapters 9-12. All these prophecies come together in the Book of Revelation.
Practical Application: Have you accepted Christ as your Savior? If so, you have nothing to fear from God’s judgment of the world as described in the Book of Revelation. The Judge is on our side. Before the final judgment begins, we must witness to friends and neighbors about God’s offer of eternal life in Christ. The events in this book are real. We must live our lives like we believe it so that others will notice our joy about our future and want to join us in that new and glorious city.
© Copyright 2002-2013 Got Questions Ministries.
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Cleveland State University’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences and Department of Anthropology will host Alice Lasoi, a Maasai woman from Kenya, who will speak about her culture and in particular the need for girls to be educated, on Sunday, November 9 at 12:30 p.m. and Tuesday, November 18 at 6:00 p.m. at the Trinity Commons Art Gallery. The lectures are free and open to the public.
Lasoi is in Cleveland to share her culture and speak out on the need for girls to stay in school and not be forced into early marriages. She will also speak to classes at Cleveland State, and present lectures at Case Western Reserve University, John Carroll University, and Kent State University/East Liverpool Campus as well as at Trinity Cathedral and Ten Thousand Villages/Sacred Path Bookstore.
Lasoi, 34, will display and sell her beadwork at the events, and all profits will support her efforts to continue her own education and to support other African women in her community and beyond through the non-profit organization she helped establish: the Fund for the Education of Women of Africa (FEWA).
Lasoi’s time at Cleveland State is a valuable way to increase students’ exposure to international cultures, languages and diverse ways of life. She lives in a small Maasai community southwest of Nairobi. Her connection to Cleveland is Cleveland State professor Barbara Hoffman, a cultural and visual anthropologist who met Lasoi while doing research during her Fulbright Scholar year in 1997-98. Part of her project included interviewing Maasai women about their lives and how their culture was changing at the end of the 20th century.
In the course of her interviews, Hoffman became aware that, although extremely bright, Lasoi’s education ended in the 7th grade when her father took her out of school and gave her in marriage to a man who already had two wives. By the time Lasoi met Hoffman, she had three children and lost a fourth due to her abusive husband. Eager to help her escape from this situation, Hoffman employed Lasoi as a member of her research team, and their lives have been intertwined ever since.
In 2003, Hoffman brought Lasoi to Cleveland as part of a cultural exchange program with three other Maasais who discussed their culture, performed its songs and dances, and displayed and sold their traditional beaded jewelry and crafts. While at Cleveland State, Lasoi noted a number of older women who were students, some old enough to be her grandmother. Upon learning that many of them had not completed their college education because of marriage and children, she felt the thrill of recognition. Inspired by them, she determined to return to Kenya and to school — primary school. She would have to complete the 7th and 8th grades as a 30-year-old pupil.
In Kenya, students in public primary schools must wear uniforms. Despite much ridicule and discouragement from members of her community, Lasoi seized her courage, put on a uniform and went back to school. In December 2005, she passed her exams, won her Primary School Diploma, and applied for admission to secondary school at age 32.
Although Lasoi was admitted to a prestigious secondary school in Nairobi and had completed the 9th grade there, her school was closed indefinitely last January as a result of the civil unrest that followed Kenya’s last presidential election. She is in Cleveland for the rest of the semester taking GED preparation classes in addition to lecturing. She is available to speak on her culture and in particular on the need for girls to stay in school and not be forced into early marriages.
For more information about Alice Lasoi lectures, please call 216.687.3549.
# # #
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Dogon Family Life
Category: Sense of Place
Photo and caption by Philip Greenberg
This woman was grinding grain in the village of Begnimato, Mali in the Dogon region atop the Bandiagara Escarpment on January 6, 2012. When someone else entered the room, the child's gaze upward caused him to lose his balance and topple over in to the pile of freshly ground meal. This caused an eruption of laughter from (presumably) his mother.
Location: Begnimato, Mali
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In a wide-ranging and thoughtful speech later today, Michael Gove will cover schooling, the family, inequality and the "hedonism" of lads' magazines like Zoo and Nuts:
"I believe we need to ask tough questions about the instant-hit hedonism celebrated by the modern men's magazines targeted at younger males. Titles such as Nuts and Zoo paint a picture of women as permanently, lasciviously, uncomplicatedly available. We should ask those who make profits out of revelling in, or encouraging, selfish irresponsibility among young men what they think they're doing."
Mr Gove's remarks fit with the concerns already expressed by David Cameron with regard to gangsta rap and the need for private business to act in more socially responsible ways:
"The relationship between these titles and their readers is a relationship in which the rest of us have an interest. The images they use and project reinforce a very narrow conception of beauty and a shallow approach towards women. They celebrate thrill-seeking and instant gratification without ever allowing any thought of responsibility towards others, or commitment, to intrude. The contrast with the work done by women's magazines, and their publishers, to address their readers in a mature and responsible fashion, is striking."
A leader in The Telegraph welcomes Mr Gove's speech and the attempt to shift the focus away from single women and towards the men who often abandon them:
"Mr Gove is elaborating and extending that most elemental of Tory creeds: the belief that we should take responsibility for our actions. The tenant who won't tidy his garden because he thinks it's up to the council; the young offender who blames the absence of recreational facilities; the adult who won't tick off a misbehaving child because it's someone else's job; the man who beats his girlfriend and says "the pills made me do it" - all are consequences of severing the link between action and consequence."
Mr Gove will also talk about Tory plans for health visitors and maternity nurses. He released statistics yesterday that showed that half of poor children leave school without a single 'good' GCSE.
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Nairobi — When the country experienced El Nino rains in 1997, the downpour left in its wake a trail of destruction through floods and landslides.
The anticipated torrents in a few weeks are a welcome blessing in disguise. The country has been in the grip of a severe drought; farmlands are bare, rivers and dams are drying up and water rationing has added to the agony of millions of households.
In some parts of the country, it hasn't rained for two years. It was far from sufficient in the few regions that received some rains. The result is some 10 million Kenyans are currently dependent on relief food due to widespread crop failure. The drought has also caused water levels to shrink in major rivers.
Major urban areas like Nairobi have been under a punitive water rationing regime for the best part of this year. Hydro-electricity generation has also been adversely affected to the extent that power cuts are experienced three days a week across the country.
In a press brief posted in the Meteorological Department's website this week, its director, Dr Joseph Mukhabana, urges both farmers and the ministry of Agriculture to work closely to maximise on the rains which he believes can greatly mitigate the current grave food situation in the country.
Mr Lawrence Simitu, the director of water and irrigation, says Sh400 million has been set aside for the rehabilitation of 3,000 water pans and dams to harvest the rain water.
"We will also try to source more emergency funds to build dams. We are encouraging Kenyans to invest in storage facilities such as tanks. Where possible, they can dig small pans on their farms to take full advantage of the rains," says the director.
At electricity generator KenGen, the news of impeding El Nino rains has been received with excitement. "The El Nino rains are just what we need. All our dams are in good condition and we don't foresee any problems," said KenGen spokesman Mike Njeru.
But in the North Rift, the country's grain basket, farmers are worried that they will lose the crop that has survived the drought should the El Nino rains arrive before harvest time. They say the rains will make it difficult for machinery to move and pick the yield while some crops are likely to be either submerged or swept away by floods.
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Mar 2, 2012Print This Post
A British medical journal is defending the publication of an article that argues it should be permissible to kill newborn babies because they don’t have the “same moral standing as actual persons.”
“After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?” was published last week in the Journal of Medical Ethics. It was written by Alberto Giubilini, of the University of Milan and Francesca Minerva, of the University of Melbourne and Oxford University.
The writers suggested that newborn babies are morally equivalent “potential persons” whose family’s interests override theirs, according to the Sydney Morning News.
The authors argue “that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.”
Both academics said they have received death threats after writing their paper, which Minerva said was “theoretical” and intended for an academic community.
“This was a theoretical and academic article,” she told the newspaper. “I didn’t mean to change any laws. I’m not in favor of infanticide. I’m just using logical arguments.”
But pro-life advocates in the United States scoffed at such a defense.
“It’s not just theoretical,” said David Prentice, a senior fellow for life sciences at the Family Research Council. “As soon as you propose this type of idea, there are people who will pick it up and try to put it into practice.”
Prentice said the academic paper is further evidence “of the erosion of any sort of consideration for human life and human dignity.”
Prentice, who has a Ph.D. in Bio-chemistry, said article shows how this could “easily become a real life and death situation for many people.”
“They are saying a newborn essentially has no moral standing as a human being,” Prentice told Fox News.
Robert Jeffress, the senior pastor at the First Baptist Church in Dallas, said the medical journal exposed the true nature of the pro-choice movement.
“Those of us who are pro-life should welcome this article because it unmasks the pro-choice movement for what it really is – a license to kill,” Jeffress told Fox News. “This is more indicative of the culture of death in which we are living. This shows the natural end of the abortion argument – which is killing children for convenience.”
Penny Nance, the president of Concerned Women for America, condemend the article.
“This is deeply, darkly disturbing,” she told Fox News. “It’s just carrying the abortion argument to its logical conclusion – that there are only certain rights for human beings and perhaps when you reach a certain level that society judges you useful, that you have full rights to life.”
The company that owns the Journal of Medical Ethics strongly defended the authors and their article, while denouncing critics as “fanatics.”
“What is disturbing is not the arguments in this paper nor its publication in an ethics journal,” wrote Julian Savulescu, editor of the Journal of Medical Ethics. “It is the hostile, abusive, threatening responses that it has elicited. More than ever, proper academic discussion and freedom are under threat from fanatics opposed to the very values of a liberal society.
But Jeffress said all movements start somewhere.
“Every movement begins with an academic argument to lay the moral justification,” he said. “That certainly included the genocide that took place in the Holocaust. You have to have an academic basis before society will buy into something.”
“I believe it would have been unthinkable fifty years ago that our nation would have legalized the killing of unborn children in the womb,” Jeffress said. “What is unthinkable today becomes a part of public policy ten years from now.”
And Nance said that what the article is advocating is not exactly a new concept.
“We also saw this same line of reasoning from Peter Singer at Princeton University,” she said. “He has argued that there should be a time after a child is born that parents decide whether or not they want to keep it.”
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With the recent rash of plagiarism exposure, one of the most frequent questions we get is "how do you find plagiarism?" Our methodology is home-grown and very simple. We assume that we are only catching some of it, and that our methodology causes us to miss some cases. Rather than read our layman views on the matter, we encourage you to read the NYU Ethics Handbook written by Professor Adam Penenberg. The entire handbook is worth reading, but you can jump to section 9, "Cardinal Sins", to read about plagiarism.
Before we get into the "how", we want to address a second question and concern; what is plagiarism and how can I avoid it?
First, we must clarify that a lot of our work uncovers copyright violation, not plagiarism. There is a big difference between the two, while both are unethical and unacceptable in academic and professional circles. Using Wikipedia, there are four important definitions and concepts to understand before discussion on the topic:
What is plagiarism?
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work...
What is copyright?
A copyright is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to the creator of an original work or their assignee for a limited period of time upon disclosure of the work. This includes the right to copy, distribute and adapt the work.
What is copyright infringement?
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.
What is 'fair use'?
In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders. Examples of fair use include commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching, library archiving and scholarship.
In layman's terms, the difference betwee plagiarism and copyright violation is that a person who plagiarizes will typically make small edits to the original text or clip pieces from multiple sources to form a new work, without contributing their own original thoughts or material. A person who takes a large block of text, reprints it in full, and does not take measures to change the text is likely violating copyright. The easiest way to avoid issues like plagiarism and copyright infringement is to cite your sources. Even if the material is your own, citing the source(s) that influenced your work is a good practice and gives your audience insight into your background as well as additional material if they are interested in the topic. If the positive aspect of citing sources doesn't appeal to you, let us appeal to the negative; detecting plagiarism and copyright infringement is pretty simple. If someone bothers to check, they will find it if it is there.
The methodology that we have developed is home grown and evolved through repetition. Over time, there are several tips and tricks we have picked up that help to more easily identify plagiarism. In summary, we use basic Google searches for blocks or groups of text, and compare the results to the text being reviewed. Yes, it is rather slow and repetitive, but ultimately very effective. We do not use commercial services such as iThenticate for several reasons, both technical and financial.
The following list is in no particular order, and contains the basics, tricks, and hurdles in detecting plagiarism.
As you can see, it isn't rocket science. Our method requires being meticulous and persistent, with a healthy dose of booze to maintain sanity. As always, we encourage you to check books and articles for plagiarism. It typically takes a couple minutes to find evidence of it. With that, mail us the details and we can help out if you are pressed for time.
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Faced with exhaustion of class B address space and the explosion of routing table growth triggered by a flood of new class Cs, IETF began implementing Classless Interdomain Routing (CIDR), in the early 1990s. CIDR is documented in RFC 1518 and RFC 1519. The primary requirement for CIDR is the use of routing protocols that support it, such as RIP Version 2, OSPF Version 2, and BGP Version 4.
CIDR can be thought of as "subnetting on steroids". The subnetting mask, previously a magic number set in a computer's boot sequence, becomes an integral part of routing tables and protocols. A route is no longer an IP address, broken down into network and host bits according to its class. A route is now a combination of address and mask. Not only can we break networks into "subnets", but we can combine networks into "supernets", so long as they have a common network prefix. CIDR defines address assignment and aggregation strategies designed to minimize the size of top-level Internet routing tables.
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Walter Boas Building, The University of Melbourne
The Walter Boas Building (NE), Old Metallurgy Building (SE), Electrical and Electronic Engineering (W) and Wilson Hall (NW)
The uni campus features a number of beautiful gum trees including this lemon-scented gum (Corymbia ci...
One of hte older parts of the university. Old Arts (W), Old Physics (N) and Law (E)
By the German-born Australian Inge King, this was donated by Eileen Kaye Fox in memory of her parents...
A gigantic dance event is held on the grounds of Melbourne University, as part of the Melbourne Anime...
A chance meeting with the University Librarian on the Swanston St overpass.
Victoria is Australia's second smallest State and covers only 3% of Australia's land area but has the second highest population of all States and Territories.
Victoria's mainland and islands have a total length of 2,512 kilometres coastline which is about 4.2% of Australia's 59,736 kilometres of coastline.
Australia is the driest inhabited continent and Victoria is no exception although the state capital Melbourne has the reputation to have 4 seasons in one day.
Victoria is located in the southeast of mainland Australia and includes the most southern point on mainland Australia at Wilsons Promontory National Park.
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Haunting memories offer detours to the past
I wonder sometimes which memories my children will carry with them from childhood to adulthood. Like most of us, they will likely suppress the bad stuff and elevate the good stuff to legendary status. Already they have become mythmakers, remembering family occasions through the shiny veneer of love and our mutual quest for happiness. In spite of divorce, living in two households and the requisite amount of family turmoil in their short lives, their motto is "Be happy; we don't want Mom to worry."
But they will also harbor memories that lurk like sharks just beneath the surface of consciousness memories that will come up and bite them, confuse them, make them stronger for the remembering. The details will be fuzzy but the impact will be unmistakable.
One such memory has haunted me for years, and bared its razor-sharp teeth on a trip to the South a few years back. The way I remember it, I am with my family on a Sunday afternoon in 1963. We are visiting our relatives in Clarksville, Tennessee, about an hour up the road from the small town in Kentucky where we live. It is a drizzly winter afternoon, football weather.
As we drive down the two-lane highway toward the dirt turnoff to my grandfather's farm, I notice the prone figure of a man, stretched across a side street. I say to my dad, "Hey, it looks like a coat in the road." My father says it looks to him like a dead nigger. We turn the car around to check it out. A black man wrapped tight in a coat is passed out cold in the middle of the road. Someone tells a woman in a nearby house to call the police. We drive on to my grandfather's house and the story is retold, embellished, laughed over by the grownups as the children huddle around the coal fireplace warming their knees and hands.
For years, after leaving the South to live in other areas of the country, this memory colored my confused and anxious feelings about the place. I argued with friends in Hawaii that the South was no more racist than other sections of the country, that Southern white people had more exposure to blacks, more familiarity with African-American culture, more interracial friendships.
I feared that I would be exposed as a racist just because of my association with the place, just because of what I had seen and been a passive participant in -- separate entrances to restaurants, separate water fountains, good ol' boys with too many beers in 'em telling jokes about coons, the specter of the coat in the road on that chilly Sunday afternoon.
On a visit to Memphis a few summers back -- the city of my high-school and college years where, on the day after my 14th birthday, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated -- I spent an afternoon in the National Civil Rights Museum. Here, multi-media displays wind through the gutted and reconfigured interior of the Lorraine Motel, site of King's murder on April 4, 1968.
A familiar pang of fear and guilt washes over me as I shadow a large group of black tourists walking past television screens with clips of white men spewing obscenities at stoic black demonstrators in Nashville, Birmingham, Atlanta. A woman standing near me shields her child's eyes and turns his face into her skirt at the display featuring a Ku Klux Klan uniform and photographs of lynchings.
Grandmothers wearing elaborate hats and carrying big pocketbooks dab at their eyes with handkerchiefs in the room where famous speeches from the movement are broadcast. I remember my mother crying, saying, "Why'd they have to kill him? He was a man of God," while my father fumed at the television set. School kids, white and black, push the buttons on the interactive displays to see what will happen.
Outside, beyond the blistering pavement of the parking lot, decayed inner-city buildings stand silently, though just up the street the once boarded-up jazz clubs of Beale Street are packed to overflowing with a colorful mix of tourists. As in many Southern cities, the mayor of Memphis is a black man.
The coat in the road is my badge of shame. The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on this Memphis street is our nation's badge of shame.
I drive the remaining thousand miles back to Colorado, my eye frequently drawn to quiet, rural side roads. I wonder what I might find if I turn down any one of them. I am looking for detours to the past, to the haunted shadows of forbidden memories.
A version of this essay first appeared in the Independent in 1997.
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For the last couple of days I have been testing out the Amazon CloudFront service using my blog as a sandbox. My goal was pretty simple: To set up Amazon CloudFront on my blog, enabling static files like images and styles to be distributed for fast access. This post describes my experimentation with it. It is not just straight forward work, and there are different approaches you may choose among. So I thought I should write a short walk through of the steps that I have taken. If you wonder what Amazon CloudFront is, or looking for information on how it could be used in conjunction with WordPress this post can give you an overview and help you getting started.
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Let’s start with Amazon CloudFront and what this actually is. CloudFront is a Content Distribution Network (CDN). The service distributes your data out to multiple datacenter locations, ensuring faster access times. It works together with another service from Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service). Amazon S3 is a data storage service where your files is stored initially. To be using CloudFront for distribution you need to have a S3 account and store the files there.
Setting up an Amazon Web Services account
As I have blogged about before, I use Amazon S3 already, so it was not necessary for me to create an Amazon Web Services account. If you do not have an Amazon Web Services account head over here to register. After you have registered, you must enable both the Amazon S3 service and the Amazon CloudFront service to your account (just follow the links and sign up).
With an AWS account and enabled both S3 and CloudFront to this account I was ready to start experimenting. Amazon Web Services is just services. This means that they only offers their services via APIs. Uploading a file to your S3 account must be done by a client. If you are a programmer it’s easy to just develop a client, but there are a lot of clients/programs around. An easy and simple client is S3Fox, a Firefox extension that that lets you upload files to Amazon S3 and manage the files’ access control. I use S3 Browser, a great application that handles the administration of my S3 files. Using S3Fox or S3 Browser makes it easy to test the S3 and CloudFront account, making sure it works. Objects (or files) are organized into buckets that can be created, listed, and retrieved using either a REST-style HTTP interface or a SOAP interface.
The first thing I had to do was to grab the AWS Access Key and the AWS Secret Access Key. Log in to the AWS account and click on ‘Security Credentials’ in the left menu. The first thing I did was to set up the S3 Browser account with this Access Key and Secret Key. I created my bucket and named it ‘static.larre.com‘, then uploaded some files to be sure everything worked:
Setting up CloudFront for my WordPress blog
Now I had an Amazon Web Services account, enabled Amazon S3, installed S3 Browser, created a bucket named ‘static.larre.com’, and uploaded files to this bucket. So far so good. Time to concentrate on the Amazon CloudFront and how to integrate it into my blog, that runs WordPress. There are several approaches that can be used. I have tried a couple of different approaches that I’ll try to describe.
Besides hilarious monthly newsletters DreamHost is a great web hosting company. I use DreamHost for hosting of this blog. Last year DreamHost integrated CloudFront into their hosting service. A pretty amusing blog post from DreamHost about it is here. With CloudFront as a “Goodie-service” smoothly integrated in my hosting environment it is really simple to get started. The step is to create a cloudfront domain filling out this form:
What it does is to create a directory where you can put all files and directories that is going to be stored at S3 and distributed by CloudFront. A very simple admin view where you can handle simple tasks like delete, rescan etc is also part of this “goodies” service. When creating the CloudFront Domain, DreamHost creates a distribution for you at Amazon CloudFront. A distribution specifies the location of the original version of your objects. A distribution has a unique CloudFront.net domain name that you can use to reference your objects through the network of edge locations. If you wish, you can also map your own domain name to your distribution. DreamHost adds a CNAME record (in this case it was ‘static’), that has the cloudfront.net address as value. Using a CNAME enables me to use a domain name (in this case static.larre.com) instead of the domain name CloudFront provides. So looking at my own CloudFront distribution I have the following:
- http://static.larre.com (my own mapped domain to the distribution)
- http://d20o1nml9my7kd.cloudfront.net (the unique cloudfront.net domain)
- http://static.larre.com.s3.amazonaws.com (the origin bucket at S3)
One of the most annoying thing about this service, is the lag from I request a rescan until my files are uploaded to S3. During the test period for the last couple of days it has taken everything from 10 minutes to several hours before DreamHost actually did rescan and upload/delete files in my S3 bucket. When DreamHost had finished scanning the directory and uploaded the files to S3, they where accessible. It seems that the only way to upload files is to do it manually within the DreamHost Admin Panel.
Using the service from Dreamhost may be a bit simple and manually copying all the needed files to the specified directory is not a very elegant solution. A more scalable solution is to make some scripts and jobs that pretty much does the work for you. Here is a blog post that describes one solution to make scripts and jobs for copying static files from Dreamhost to Cloudfront.
Adding a WordPress plugin
I’ve found one plugin: W3 Total Cache developed by Frederick Townes It’s a plugin improving the user experience of your blog by adding page caching, database caching, minify, content delivery network (CDN) functionality and more. Late last year they implemented integration with AWS and CloudFront. I have used the WP Super Cache until now, but it’s necessary to deactivate it before trying to install and activating the W3 Total Cache. Setting up this plugin is straight forward. After installing the plugin and activated it, I rolled over to the settings sections. First of all I had to activate the CDN and chose Amazon CloudFront as the CDN Type. Under the CDN settings I had to enter my Access Key, Secret Key, bucket and CNAME:
The plugin makes it easy to upload whatever static content you have on your WordPress blog to CloudFront. In the settings sections you specify extensions and files for upload to S3. During the testing period (a couple of days) I have found one issue with this plugin. I use WPtouch. It is a mobile theme, that automatically transforms your WordPress blog into a web-application experience when viewed from an iPhone, iPod touch, Android, or BlackBerry Storm touch mobile device. The default settings for W3 Total Cache captured the mobile devices and bypassed WPtouch. I solved it by adding mobile user agents in the corresponding field under the settings for page cache, minify and CDN.
As far as I can see, the DreamHost integration is not the solution for integrating my WordPress blog with Amazon CloudFront. With other needs than to get static WP content out to the edges it may be a nice functionality. But probably you will have to write some scripts and batch jobs working with the CloudFront directory before you get an elegant and effective solution. The W3 Total Cache plugin seems to be an easy and effective tool to use for mye goal. Setting up an AWS account, enabling S3 and CloudFront and adding a CNAME record is what you have to do before working with the plugin. Everything else seems to be achievable within the settings section.
Everything that is referenced with http://static.larre.com is now hosted by Amazon S3 and distributed out by Amazon CloudFront services.
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Forget Cinco de Mayo – September 15 to October 15 is Hispanic Heritage Month!
The national event celebrates “the histories, cultures and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America.”
Several Latin American countries mark the anniversary of their independence on 9/15. Independence Day for Mexico and Chile, as well as Columbus Day (Dia de la Raza), fall within the 30-day period. Much love this month to our Latina NotMoms!
In 2011, the U.S. Census Bureau and Pew Research Center revealed that white women are much more likely to be childless than women of color. Using age 44 to mark an average end of childbearing, data show that 20.6% of white women were childless, compared with 17.2% of black women, 15.9% of Asian women and 12.4% of Hispanic women.
Conclusion? Latinas are more likely to have children than the rest of us. Gee, doesn’t THAT keep the stereotypes alive.
But…if that’s true, then my thoughts fly to Latinas without kids who may be living that “square peg/round hole” life…in Spanish.
A poster at Latina.com asked, “Is it un-Latina not to want a family?”
Public voices of “By Chance” Latina NotMoms are harder to find, but they’re out there. Last April, in her 13th year struggling with infertility, the director of the Center for Hispanic Leadership told CNN of how it felt to be the only childless woman in a large, extended family. She asked, ” As a Latina, isn’t it my God-given right to be a mami?”
Usted no está solo, mi NotMom hermanas.* I can’t wait for more of you to speak up and speak loud…online and off.
*You are not alone, my NotMom sisters.
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Values, Beliefs, and Desires
To understand what motivates us you, you'll need to understand what is important to you. If you have never thought about this question, do it now. Consider issues such as family, relationships, learning/school, grades, work, aspirations, achievement, status, money, travel, social causes, social life, following a dream, etc. People's goals and desires grow from their values and beliefs. Once you have made your personal list, begin to think about how the items relate to one another. Are some issues more important to you than others? Are some more important in the short-term while others are more important in the long term? Are they linked in some critical way? These issues and relationships are always alive inside us. By becoming consciously aware of them, you can begin to modify, control and understand them.
Judging the quality and depth of your motivation is important, because it is directly related to your commitment. Often students find that they "want" a good academic outcome, but they can't seem to make it happen. Sometimes, this gap occurs when there is a clash between what they are striving for (a good academic outcome/degree) and what they would rather be doing (following a dream of singing in a country-western band). It's OK for values, beliefs, and desires to be in conflict, but it is important to recognize when they are and act appropriately on this information. In the example above, this student needs to both rethink and internalize the relationship of school and dream or she needs to change her circumstances. But without such a clarification her motivation will continue to lag and her performance will be less than it could be.
Strengths, Weaknesses and Goal Setting
One of the keys to college success is having a realistic view of your strengths and weaknesses. Do an informal assessment of your abilities. Reflect on what you have learned about yourself in the past from classroom experiences, conversations with teachers and advisors, standardized tests, projects and activities, and outside activities. Consider specifically your reading, writing, oral communication, math, computer, musical, artistic, physical, interpersonal, and analytic skills. An accurate and honest assessment of your abilities is essential. It prevents you from under-estimating or over-estimating your skills and directs you toward attainable and appropriate goals. Having an accurate direction is important in maintaining motivation.
Knowing what you value and desire, along with an assessment of your strengths and weaknesses, makes it possible to establish personal goals. Most people already have a mix of short-term and long-term goals of some type in mind for themselves. Students often are aiming towards a particular test, project, class, grade point, degree, graduate program, professional school, or career. These are often complemented by other goals such as living a healthy lifestyle, maintaining personal integrity, volunteering, working, nurturing relationships, or growing as a person. It is not unusual for short-term goals to support long-term goals. For example, a student's long-term goal to teach elementary school might be supported by a series of short-term goals related to class attendance, study habits, project preparation, test performance and commitment to outside activities. All goals, whether short-term or long-term, should incorporate these common attributes:
· Be realistic. Goals should be based on your abilities and circumstances.
· Be possible. Don't establish constraints that make the realistic, unrealistic.
· Be flexible. Anticipate bumps in the road and expect to work around them.
· Be measurable. Have a target in mind so you know when you have reached your goal.
· Be under your control. Set your own goals based on your values, interests, and desires. Target things where you can control the outcome.
Write down your goals and post them somewhere you can review them regularly. This will serve as a reminder of what you're working toward and help to keep you motivated and on track. When your goals slip from sight and lose importance, motivation and success deteriorate as well.
Once you have set goals that match your beliefs, values and desires, you should be in position to act on them successfully. However, your motivation can be undermined if you fail to consider your circumstances or if your circumstances change, but your goals don't. A goal may match your values ("I want to earn a degree in nursing") and may be realistically set ("I want to do it in 4 years") when you begin your academic journey, but may need modification and readjustment as time passes. If you earned grades lower than you expected to, you may need to lighten your course load or adjust your work and/or leisure hours. A loss of interest might mean you need to investigate other majors. Changes in relationships or family make-up can also introduce new constraints on your plan.
Unfortunately, when circumstances change, students are often unwilling to make related adjustments in their self-expectations. In these cases, students rarely perform up to their expectations, become frustrated, and lose motivation. However, motivation and performance can be maintained when personal circumstance is taken into account. Students who are willing to redefine their goals to account for their changed circumstances can remain motivated and on the path to success.
Motivation + Goals + Circumstance = Success
Motivation, goals, and circumstance are all related to success. You can increase the odds of your success by first, defining what is important to you, establishing goals based on these values, desires, and beliefs, and finally, tailoring your achievement expectations to match your circumstances. If you fail in any of these steps, you will undercut your motivation, fail to work up to your abilities, and diminish your chances of success.
Watch out for these two common pitfalls:
· If you're not honest with yourselves about what is important to you and how these factors relate to each other - you can be in a position where you are acting on weaker motivations, but allowing your stronger motivations to interrupt your progress. For example, a student might be in school and performing poorly because she really wants to be establishing her own web-based business. In this case she either needs to commit to a reprioritization of values (school is more important than the dream) or adjust her goals to better match her desires and say "I'll follow my dream first and then go to school". Watch out for a mismatch of values/beliefs/desires and goals.
· Be realistic in setting your goals and always consider your circumstances. When goals aren't realistic or when circumstances conspire against you, it is important to adjust. A student who comes to college with the goal of expecting to earn a nursing degree in 4 years, but finds the work more difficult than he anticipated may need to adjust his time frame in order to achieve his goal. Likewise, if this same student found that he needed to work to support his college costs or took on greater family responsibilities, it might be similarly necessary for him to adjust his goals as well.
When your goals are realistic and match your desires, you will be motivated. When you're motivated and work hard towards your goals, you will succeed. When you succeed, your motivation will grow, you will set new goals, and continue to achieve.
Know yourself, know your circumstances, set realistic goals, and start to succeed now!
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Remember the report that surfaced a few months ago detailing how Apple will sometimes put employees on fake projects in an effort to determine their honesty?
Well, it turns out that there isn’t much evidence to substantiate such claims.
Ars Techncia did some legwork and touched based with various Apple employees and discovered that no one had really even ever heard second hand of an employee’s time being wasted on projects that were merely hollow.
“Apple always seemed to be a no-bullshit kind of place when it comes to the seriousness of your work and what you get done,” one former engineer told me when I asked him about fake projects. “I find it suspect that they’d ever waste their own and the employee’s time on something that didn’t directly contribute to their bottom line somehow.”
I spoke to Apple employees from various areas of the company at differing levels, some who are still at Apple and others who have moved on, but all expressed the same sentiment. No one reported any direct experience of being put on a fake project at Apple, and no one knew a friend or colleague at the company who had. A single former employee acknowledged having heard about fake projects—but only from a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend, and the employee was quick to acknowledge that the rumor should be treated with a skeptical eye.
Given that Apple is busying itself with trying to change the world, I sincerely doubt it would put talented engineers to work on products and initiatives without a clear endgoal in sight.
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GAO: E-Waste Largely Unregulated
A scathing federal report issued Sept. 17 slammed the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to enforce U.S. laws for exporting electronic waste. According to the Government Accountability Office, a "substantial quantity" of U.S. discarded electronics is shipped to developing countries where unsafe recycling practices can cause health and environmental problems.
Although 170 countries have signed an agreement to notify developing nations of incoming hazardous waste shipments, the United States is the only industrialized nation not to sign the 1989 agreement. Under U.S. law, products such as televisions and computer monitors containing CRTs (cathode ray tubes)-which contain harmful levels of copper and lead-are the only e-waste under EPA regulation. U.S. exporters must obtain EPA consent before exporting the products.
The EPA's CRT rules took effect in January 2007.
"EPA officials acknowledged compliance problems with its CRT rule but said that given the rule's relative newness, their focus was on educating the regulated community," the GAO report states. "This reasoning appears misplaced, however, given GAO's observation of exporters willing to engage in apparent violations of the CRT rule, including some who are aware of the rule."
The report adds, "[The] EPA has done little to ascertain the extent of noncompliance, and EPA officials said they have neither plans nor a timetable to develop an enforcement program."
To find the extent of EPA enforcement, the GAO posed as foreign buyers of broken CRTs in Hong Kong, India, Pakistan and other countries. The GAO found 43 U.S. companies willing to export these items. "Some of the companies, including ones that publicly tout their exemplary environmental practices, were willing to export CRTs in apparent violation of the CRT rule," the report states.
The EPA responded to the GAO report in a letter, contending, "We are not convinced that developing a regulatory scheme to address these issues is the most appropriate course of action." The EPA said it supports voluntary industry measures.
U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, does not and introduced legislation Sept. 17 calling for a ban on the export of toxic e-waste to developing nations. According to the Commerce Department, as much as 80 percent of e-waste collected for recycling is sent to developing countries that lack disposal regulations and few environmental or worker safety protections. Materials from the e-waste is used in the production of toys and jewelry for children and shipped back to U.S. stores.
Discarded televisions, computers and other electronics amounted to more than 2.6 million tons of e-waste in 2005, the latest year for which EPA data is available. Many of the electronics contain toxic chemicals such as lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium and brominated flame retardants.
"Instead of reacting to a crisis, our nation should prevent it," the Ohio Democrat said. "We need to ensure that toxic e-waste is not being exported, much less reimported as a child's toy or jewelry. We must ban this practice immediately."
Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, introduced similar legislation in the House. Neither bill is expected to be acted upon in the 110th Congress, which hopes to wrap up business by the end of September.
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Samek Art Gallery to exhibit works by Xiaoze Xie
March-April 2003, L.T., 2003, oil on canvas
Posted: September 28, 2010
By Kathryn Kopchik
LEWISBURG, Pa. — The Samek Art Gallery at Bucknell University will host the exhibition, "Xiaoze Xie: Amplified Moments (1993-2008)," in the main gallery from Oct. 11 through Nov. 21.
Curated by Dan Mills, former director of the Samek, this is the first major exhibition to include significant works from each of Xie's painting series: the "Library Series," "Chinese Library Series," "The Silent Flow of Daily Life," "Fragmentary Views," "Museum Libraries," and Chinese ink and wash paintings based on news images. It also will feature a select group of work in other media.
Xie will speak about his work on Thursday, Oct. 14, at 7 p.m. in the Gallery Theatre of the Elaine Langone Center.
Born in China in 1966, and educated in China and the U.S., Xie is the Paul L. and Phyllis Wattis Professor in Art at Stanford University; he was with the Bucknell art faculty from 2000 to 2009.
The exhibition will present a remarkable breadth of work in media, including paintings in oil, ink and wash on paper, photography, installation, and video, Mills said. "Since the mid-1990s, Xie has produced a substantial body of work that, on one hand, focuses on the inextricably intertwined contemporary news and the media, and on the other, is a meditation on time, memory and history. And during this period, he has created many powerful and iconic images," said Mills.
"Xiaoze Xie has long been interested in books and newspapers as carriers of cultural memory," said Eleanor Heartney, contributing editor to Art in America and Artpress.
"As more information is disseminated via the Internet, these exemplars of 'old technology' begin to take on the aura of antique relics, resembling ancient parchments full of fragmentary messages from a half-forgotten past. Unlike their digital kin, they are physical objects that suffer the ravages of time. Thus they provide a haunting metaphor for the gradual decay of human knowledge and recollection," she said.
The Samek Art Gallery is on the third floor of the Elaine Langone Center, and is accessible by elevator. Admission is free. Gallery hours during the academic year are weekdays 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursdays 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., weekends 1 to 5 p.m., and by appointment.
Contact: Division of Communications
Next story >>
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Though many see it as a modern problem, the hockey fight has been part of the game since the rules of the sport were first written in the 1800s.
The NHL issues long suspensions for extreme on-ice assaults.
But those penalties usually apply to players who attack with their sticks, or those who go after an unwilling or unaware opponent.
A fistfight between two willing combatants has long been accepted as a "natural" part of hockey and a tactic for motivating team mates and intimidating opponents.
With so many players moving at high speed and competing for the puck in a confined space, collisions and struggles to establish body position were a part of ice hockey from the start.
The physical game also appealed to spectators and many players, and it was allowed to thrive.
Body-checking and other elements of the physical battlwe were written into the early rules.
When some players crossed the line from aggression to violence, spectators cheered and authorities didn't act to eliminate such tactics.
There's little evidence to suggest that the NHL or other hockey leagues seriously considered extreme measures like forfeited games or season-long suspensions to discourage fighting.
The Five-Minute Penalty
The first NHL rules against fighting were introduced in 1922, and set a standard that continues to this day.
Rather than opt for automatic ejection from the game, the league decided fighting should be punished with a five-minute penalty.
"Taking Care of Business"
The "Original Six" era saw fighting established as an ordinary part of the NHL game.
In history books you will find recollections of many infamous fights, such as a memorable bench-clearing brawl at Maple Leaf Gardens on Christmas night, 1930.
The 1936 Stanley Cup Final featured another unforgettable fight night, with the Red Wings and Maple Leafs charging from their benches for a brawl.
Many stars of the post-war era, like Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr, and Stan Mikita, were known for their ability and willingness to "take care of business."
Fighting came to be understood as a useful tactic: a way for players to prove they wouldn't be intimidated, and as a direct challenge to the courage and commitment of opponents.
The Goon Emerges
The 1970s were a turning point for the role of fighting in hockey, and the debate over it.
Two of the best teams of the decade, the Boston Bruins and Philadelphia Flyers, used fighting and intimidation as core tactics.
The 1970s also saw the evolution of the "goon" or "enforcer."
Prior to the enforcer era, just about any player might fight under the right circumstances.
But when a team like the Flyers brought in a fighting specialist like Dave Schultz, other teams responded in kind.
The staged, premeditated fight was commonplace, amd designated "tough guys" were soon found on most NHL rosters.
Bench-clearing brawls are among the most famous images of the 1970s, and network television coverage helped make fighting a trademark characteristic of the pro game.
In 1977, the NHL ruled that any player joining a fight in progress (the "third man in") would be ejected from the game.
Ten years later, the league decided that a player leaving the bench to join a fight would be subject to a 5-to-10 game suspension.
The Instigator Rule
While new rules ended the embarrassing spectacle of the bench-clearing brawl, the one-on-one hockey fight remained as popular as ever.
NHL rules were further tweaked in 1992, with the introduction of the "instigator" penalty.
This imposed an additional two-minute penalty and game misconduct on any player deemed to have started ("instigated") a fight.
In practice, the instigator penalty is rarely called.
Referees tend to decide that most fight are started by agreement of both parties.
The instigator penalty is controversial.
Many believe the rule actually encourages dirty play, by preventing enforcers from properly "policing" the game.
According to this argument, the threat of a fist in the face is a deterrent against dirty tactics like elbowing and high-sticking.
But if the enforcer doesn't want to hurt his team by taking a two-minute penalty and a misconduct, he will be reluctant to step in. So the dirty player roams free.
The Fighting Debate
Opposition to hockey fights has grown more vocal since the 1980s, with medical experts, legal authorities, journalists, and others calling for more severe punishment.
They argue that fighting drives too many spectators away from the game, and discourages many children who might otherwise play minor hockey.
Increasing awareness of concussions and other head injuries has brought the fighting debate to new levels.
Opponents of fighting argue that it's hypocritical for the NHL to take measures against head shots and concussions, while still tacitly encouraging players to punch each other in the head.
Those opponents have been encouraged by long-term trends, which show a slight decline in the number of NHL fights, and the decline in the number of players who do little except fight.
Outside the NHL and other North American pro leagues, fighting has long been discouraged.
But support for fighting as an essential part of the game remains high among fans, NHL players, NHL managers and coaches, and many others in the hockey community.
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Here’s how your radio station should use Twitter. Also, you’ll find seven practical tips for writing powerfully online, and some easy questions to help you figure out when personalities should have Facebook pages.
HOW TO USE TWITTER
I saw a piece recently that suggested that the way to view Twitter is as an information network, not a social network. That resonates with what I’ve recommended that we think of Twitter as a bulletin service. The service we provide with it is to pump out information that our target fan wants. For a news/talk station, it might be news, traffic and weather bulletins. For a sports-talk station, it might be sports related news, or it might be when to listen for specific interviews or topics. For a music station, it might be when to hear something special, when to listen for a contest, or when the morning show is going to address a certain subject.
See, here’s where Twitter is different from Facebook:
- On Twitter, it’s easy to end up with a lot more followers than Facebook. However, the fans that follow you on Facebook are more likely to be passionate fans of yours. There’s more sketchy and odd followers on Twitter.
- On Facebook, it’s more likely that your links get clicked and your photos get viewed. In other words, it’s easier to get people to take action. On Twitter, a lot of people may see your post, but a much smaller percentage will take action on it.
- It’s easy to retweet tweets, so when you consistently offer valuable information in 140 characters or less, people are more likely to pass them on than they are to share content on Facebook.
So first of all, if you’re posting the same content to both Facebook and Twitter at the same time, stop. Now. I mean it. Just open another browser window and change your social media settings. Tweets look lame on Facebook, and quality Facebook posts just don’t come across well on Twitter.
Most people’s Twitter feeds are a real crazy combination of different things. They might have tweets from friends, content about particular subjects they find interesting, and maybe some funny tweets from reliably amusing tweeters. How do you deal with this sea of variety? You be the best version of what people love about you, in brief bursts.
WRITE POWERFULLY ONLINE
It’s been a while since I addressed how to write for the web, including your site and also in your social media. Here are seven practical things to keep in mind to make your content easy to read.
- Write concisely.
- Write simply. Don’t speak in promotion-ese or using DJ clichés.
- Write factually. Lean towards the truth and away from hype.
- Write like you’re talking to one person instead of a lot of people. That’s how your stuff is consumed.
- Write as little as possible. On your website, a list of bullet points is better than paragraphs of copy. On Facebook, one clear, focused sentence is better than three or four sentences that no one will bother to read.
- Remember to use graphics when you can to highlight your copy.
- Edit yourself ruthlessly. People will scan what you write, and zoom through it much faster than you want them to.
WHICH AIR TALENT SHOULD HAVE FACEBOOK PAGES?
- Is the personality or show one of the big reasons people listen to that station? The bigger they are, the more it makes sense for them to have their own Facebook page.
- Is the personality or show willing to provide content throughout the day? If they’re willing to make their page “the show that never ends,” it might make sense.
- Is your station one where there are some real differences in style or content from daypart to daypart? Personality Facebook pages make more sense for a show that has something unique or special going for it. especially for talk show personalities.
It’s easier for a jock or personality to be perceived as a Facebook friend than it is for a brand, so air talent content can get a little looser and more personal than you would want to do with the Facebook page for a full radio station. On the other hand, there are times when I have seen jocks muddy the station’s waters, by not contributing to the station’s page.
By the way, if you’re an air talent and you’re keeping your own professional Facebook page, don’t get caught up in the issue that’s caused conflict at some stations. The company that owns your station may own the rights to your page, so if you get laid off, you will have to turn over control of it to your former employer. There have been some personalities who have put a lot of work into building their Facebook page. When they’ve gotten laid off, they haven’t been able to keep up with their fans; instead, their former employer can approach those people about listening to whoever’s replacing that laid-off jock. This might be something you want to look into so you avoid trouble in the event of a job loss.
DIGITAL NEWS PICKED FOR YOU
Let me filter through the crap for you. Every day, I post a few digital news developments that might actually affect how you do your media job! Click here to follow Chris Miller Digital on Facebook.
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Legal blogs, or blawgs, "have increasingly become vehicles for legal scholars, practitioners, and observers from across the globe to share information on developments in various areas of law, as well as opinions as to how good or bad those developments are."
"The Law Library of Congress has been working since 2007 to archive monthly entries for blawgs such as these, so that the legal events addressed in the blawgs of today may be studied many years from now. This collection is called the Legal Blawg Archive." The Legal Blawg Archive provides the actual captured images for 130 blawgs across 19 subjects.
Thanks to Christine Sellers for her informative post!
Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat
Above the Law - A Legal Tabloid - News, Gossip, and Colorful Commentary on Law Firms and the Legal Profession
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CASKE 2000 > Stories > Adventure > Belize > A Scary Shark Encounter
In the wake of the movie The Big Blue, the sports of freediving and spearfishing have received international recognition and are riding a surge of popularity. But for us, what started as a novelty has become a necessity; it is our sole means to obtain fresh food during our three-year, 5000 mile paddling expedition in Central America. After each paddling day I love to spend a couple of hours in the water. I often encounter sharks, mainly black tip reef sharks and nurse sharks, occasionally hammerheads. These aren't aggressive. When I see them I just move farther on before I start spearfishing. People often ask me, "Aren't you afraid to freedive with sharks?" I always replied, "No, sharks aren't aggressive". However, a nearly tragic experience in Belize recently shook my confidence.
By 5 PM, less than an hour before sunset, I was in the water looking for dinner. The coral was disappointing, but I kept swimming in the channel running between a gap in the reef. I knew that marine life often congregate in channels. I had the strong feeling I would encounter a shark. I like sharks and think they look magnificent underwater. In the Caribbean, they can be sighted daily, something I usually look forward to. Yet, we have to eat and fish is our main food, so I try to avoid sharks when I go spearfishing. After a few minutes in the water I sighted my first prey, a nice blue parrot fish 15 feet just below me. These fish are very quick and if given any warning, are always able to avoid the spear. I dove straight down and arrived on the fish from behind in a way it couldn't see me. The first shot was good. I hit it next to the head and the parrot fish bled profusely leaving a thick trail of green. This is the color blood looks like underwater. I quickly grabbed my rope stringer from my right bootie, ran the stringer through the fish gills, unscrewed the tip of the spear to free the fish and let it drag on the rope 10 feet behind me. I really had the feeling sharks were around and I wanted to leave the water and give the bloody fish to Luke before resuming my hunting. On my way back to shore, a huge spotted eagle ray glided gracefully by me less than 5 feet away. Its wingspan was wider than my arm span. Its tail might have been 10 feet long. The next minute, a squid swam by. Without any hesitation I added it to the stringer after barely avoiding the black cloud of ink it threw in the water. When I reached the shallows, I encountered a large lobster that I grabbed but then released. The season was over and the fine of $1000 wasn't a risk I could afford to take. On shore I called Luke, gave him the fish and squid and returned to the water.
Dusk had come and the visibility was now reduced to 15 feet. In 12 feet of water I spotted my second prey, another blue parrot. The red ones are easy targets but they don't taste nearly as good. I dove in and shot, but the fish saw me at the last minute and moved out. My spear touched it, but the fish came loose and spun all around spreading blood in the water. Back to the surface, I quickly re-set my spear and line, re-stretched the two power bands, and dove back after the injured fish. On the second shot I had the fish on my spear. As I was going back to the surface, large gray masses with lightning speed moved in around me. I feared they were sharks. When I broke the surface, they came closer and I realized that I was surrounded by at least 20 or 30 Tarpons that I would estimate to be between 60 and 80 lbs. A few came less than 4 feet from me. I wished my spear was free from the parrot fish and my gun armed. I could have easily touched their heads maybe even with my arm.
By the time I had the fish on the stringer, the water visibility was less than 10 feet. The Tarpons disappeared. My fish had been bleeding abundantly and I knew I had to get out of the water quickly. I was still in 12-foot deep water but couldn't see the bottom anymore. I re-armed my speargun and before I could swim one more stroke, a gray mass moved right at me. I aimed my gun thinking it might be a large Tarpon. I suddenly choked on my snorkel, swallowed water and quickly kicked backwards. A huge gray shark had stopped just 6 feet from me. My two quick fin kicks seemed to have scared him as much as he scared me, so I thought. Before I had made much progress, the shark was back full speed, coming right at me while shaking its head from side to side. In this water with poor visibility, it quickly disappeared. This time I clearly saw that it was bigger than me. In a few seconds it was back again. I was frozen, unable to swim. I knew my bleeding fish was driving it crazy, but I couldn't look down to my hip to unclip the stringer. I was paralyzed, just holding on to my speargun tightly to fend off my aggressor. Each time I lost sight of it I would quickly spin around, rotating my head, wondering from what direction it would be coming next. I tried to control myself and slowly swam back to shallow water. The shark came back a few times and nearly touched the tip of my spear, each time moving inches from my fins. I felt completely defenseless, as if my speargun was nothing but a toy in my hand. I was the prey and my chance of escaping seemed small.
For some reason the shark didn't even get my fish, maybe because the string had been entangled around my leg. With the fins kicking around in a cloud of fish blood, maybe it thought I was the bleeding animal. I will never know. By the time I reached 6 feet of water it must have been only 2 minutes since the first encounter. I was completely out of breath, but dashed for the shore still swimming on my back aiming the speargun toward deeper water. Both my calves cramped up under the tremendous pressure I put on my long and stiff freediving fins, but my adrenaline boost was much superior to the pain of the cramps. When I reached 30 inches depth, I let loose all the panic that I had contained in the water. I removed my fins and ran out of the water, ripping my neoprene booties on the coral. I was completely exhausted, out of breath and nauseated. I walked back toward camp in a state of half shock and half high on adrenaline. Before I could do anything, I had to walk back and forth around camp to discharge all my emotions. Then in the dark, I skinned the squid and cut it in thin slices of sashimi while Luke fixed us a sauce of ginger and soya. It was marvelous. We finished dinner with Luke's special rice and the delicious flesh of the parrot fish. Then exhausted after such a long paddling day I fell asleep.
In the middle of the night rain woke us up. We quickly pulled out our goretex bivi bags and stuffed our mats and sleeping bags in them. By the time we were protected under our shells, the rain had already almost stopped. It wasn't a great night. We slept uncomfortably, but with the aid of fatigue and a full meal we made the best of our lumpy beds of dead coral.
For years I've been trying to dispel the myth of Jaws. I like sharks and have been in the water with various species a number of times. I really think they're fascinating. Before this encounter, I had never felt threatened in any way in their presence. When I think about what happened, all I can say is that I made a few mistakes. I went spearfishing at dusk, which is the time sharks feed. I was free diving alone which isn't advised. Also I knew that channels are prime spots for sharks and rays. Sighting the eagle ray reinforced this. My first fish had bled a lot for 15 minutes before I came out of the water to give it to Luke. This might have already attracted the shark to the area. It took me 2 shots for the second fish and by the time I had it on my stringer, it had also bled profusely and the shark was of course very excited by all the blood. Still the shark was probably more interested in the fish than me. What made me think otherwise at the moment was both fear and the fact that my stringer rope had been entangled in the knife I was wearing on my left calf. The fish moved along with my fin just inches from it. The shark might have even thought that the blood was coming from those long flippers, which were mine. I don't know for sure. Also, considering the size of the head and body of the shark, and its gray color without any particular markings, despite the low visibility, I strongly believe it was either a "small" bull shark or a large lemon shark. Both species are known to be aggressive, especially around speared fish.
The next morning I jokingly asked Luke: "So, who's going spearfishing today?" In spite of my last experience, I will go back because this shark wasn't there to get me. It was just enraged by the blood I left in his water during his feeding time.
The next day I was back in the water. During the next week I fed us with delicious snappers, chubs, mullets, and barracudas, but sharks still haunted my thoughts. It took me weeks to free myself of irrational fear. Now, when people ask me if I'm afraid of sharks, I still say no with little hesitation, as most sharks aren't aggressive. I learned from my mistakes and with two more years of expedition forthcoming, I will likely meet other bull sharks or the larger tiger sharks before we reach our destination of Panama. Shark-attacks are accidents. They don't normally prey on people and they are one of the stars of the beautiful marine environment one can best experience by freediving.
Read our special page on Sharks
If you liked this story try the following Selected
My Fear of Crocodiles , Facing Fear and Dispelling the Crocodile Myth
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Some genes allow for longer life than other genes. Some creatures have genes that program them for death in days. Other creatures are programmed to live for decades and do so if they manage to escape catastrophe.
Genetic evolution produced species with longer normal life spans. A creature that lived a little longer than others within its species allowed for a gene mutation that produced this longer life. Eventually, those within a species with longer-life genes became dominant within their species.
Some creatures were better able to defend themselves, like tigers through their size and strength, or humans by their adaptability, or turtles with their tough shell. These creatures have genes developed across a great span of time that give them a normally longer life than that of smaller, weaker and more vulnerable creatures.
Small birds that can defend themselves by flying away from danger have genes that give them a normal life of a decade or more. Mice, on the otherhand, cannot escape by flying away and die of old age in a year or two.
Energy use might be involved in longevity. A change in the environment that produced a shorter lifespan lent greater survivability to those members of a species that were more genetically oriented toward putting energy into reproduction rather than bodily repair necessary for longer living. Their genes evolved toward a shorter life-span. Energy involvement worked against the hummingbird's speed and ability to defend itself through flight. A hummingbird's extremely fast wings consume vast amounts of adenosine triphosphate (cellular energy molecules) and cause the hummingbird's heart to deteriorate with permanent and long-term wear. This results in hummingbirds usually dying shortly after reproducing.
Creatures, like the humming birds, wear themselves out. And so, too, do humans. What we see of life on earth is species connected. Regeneration serves a species in the form of births and death. Birth is not a creation of life; birth passes life on. It is a species phenomenon and subject to change.
Copyright © 1999-2011 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.
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Marine Life Id, Critter Books, Marine Life conservation news, etc.
Moderators: Leslie Harris, nwscubamom
Hoping someone can help me identify a pelagic invertebrate I saw at Marine Room in San Diego on 7/11. At first when I saw it, thought it was a salp but closer observation I realized I had no clue and never seen it before. Used 6omm so didn't get entire photo of it. It was long and stringy and skinny.
Here is the link to the photo of it. Any toughts on ID? Thanks in advance and happy diving everyone http://our-sea.com/Diveblog/AlbumMR07_1 ... known.html
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Looking at my book, I believe that is a siphonophore - Apolemia uvaria.
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I've seen that one a few times recently, it can get up to 50ft long or more.. I think Tracey has the id right, it's a siphonophore, same group as a portuguese man of war.
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The ever-improving performance of high-speed data converters is changing the way that designers of portable radios and communications infrastructure are handling signal processing.
Digital technology improves as precision photolithography continues to deliver more transistors per given chip area. And with the improvements come greater impact on RF and microwave designs. High-speed analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), for example, have paved the way for software-definedradio (SDR) architectures that are being adopted in everything from cellular base stations to military tactical radios. And thanks to high-performance digital-to-analog converters (DACs), complex waveforms can be generated with high precision and wide dynamic range.
ADCs and DACs are among the most diversified of electronic components in terms of performance. Specifiers can choose from a wide range of capabilities as defined by clock rate, frequency range, bit resolution, noise levels, power consumption, and dynamic range. Products range from converters with 24-b resolution at lower frequencies for audio applications and lower-resolution, lower-frequency converters for control applications to high-resolution, high-performance converters for medical, military, and wireless communications applications. One basic tradeoff is in precision versus frequency: as the desired frequency range reaches higher, the available bit resolution is lower. For example, ADCs and DACs with 24-b resolution are common through 100 kHz, whereas converters operating past 1 GHz typically hit a ceiling of about 16 b for precision.
Ideally, an analog signal entering an ADC and transferred to a DAC with comparable bandwidth and precision would exit the DAC appearing identical to the original signal. But digital components suffer the same physical and manufacturing limitations as their analog cousins, with substrate and conductor signal losses, manufacturing tolerances, and impedance mismatches resulting in some signal degradation as part of the conversion process. In addition, the bit resolution of a converter determines the number of digital states with which to represent an analog signal. In terms of a DAC, a waveform reconstructed from 256 digital states will appear more like the original than one reconstructed from 16 digital states (4 b). But some applications may only require a few digital bits of resolution, and cost is another tradeoff in specifying ADCs and DACs, with increasing bit resolution coming at increasing cost.
A converter's least significant bit (LSB) determines the smallest step into which the peak or full-scale voltage range into the converter can be divided. It is also used as a measurement of a converter's bit accuracy, by means of parameters known as differential nonlinearity (DNL) and integral nonlinearity (INL). An ideal ADC will produce two successive output codes differing by only 1 LSB, for a DNL value of zero. But variations in gain and phase through the converter's circuitry and package result in some deviations in LSB, so that real-world ADCs and DACs suffer some percentage of variation in LSB as measured by the DNL and INL specifications. Application note 641 from Maxim Integrated Products contains a glossary of converter terms, including concise definitions of DNL and INL; in addition, Maxim's application note 283 covers measurement methods for DNL and INL.
With the growing use of portable electronic devices for personal and professional use, converter manufacturers are constantly seeking design strategies to deliver high performance with reduced power consumption. In the case of the model AD9125 from Analog Devices, the solution lies in having two DACs in one package. Ideal for wireless infrastructure applications, such as generating in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) digital-modulation baseband signal components in cellular base stations, the 16-b converter operates at sampling rates to 1 GSamples/s in support of multicarrier generation at cell sites. The DAC features a flexible CMOS interface (see figure). The output signals from the dual-DAC device can be filtered and fed to analog quadrature modulators (AQMs) and then boosted by a power amplifier (PA) for transmission at the cell site. At 800 MSamples/s, producing an intermediate-frequency output of 70 MHz, the dual DAC achieves a spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) of -72 dBc. At the same sampling rate, for an output of 100 MHz, the two-tone intermodulation distortion (IMD) is -81 dBc. In terms of accuracy, the AD9125's DNL is typically 2.1 LSB while its INL is typically 3.7 LSB.
Although targeting infrastructure equipment, the AD9125 dual DAC is also designed for low power consumption, consuming only 900 mW when operating at a sampling rate of 500 MSamples/s. The device, which is supplied in a 72-lead LFCSP housing, allows full-scale output current to be programmed from 8.7 to 31.7 mA with load matching from 25 to 50 O for true flexibility.
When two DACs aren't enough, Analog Devices' model ADV7123 incorporates three DACs on one chip and in one package. With maximum sampling rate of 330 MSamples/s and 10-b resolution, it is well suited for video processing. It provides a SFDR of 70 dB at 50 MSamples/s and an output frequency of 1 MHz. It operates from a single +3.3- or +5-VDC supply and provides output current from 2 to 26 mA.
NXP Semiconductors also offers a dual DAC for multicarrier wireless transmitters, its model DAC1405D650. It offers 14-b resolution and maximum sampling rate to 650 MSamples/s. It includes an integrated phase-lock loop (PLL) and onboard 32-b numerically controlled oscillator (NCO) for generation of complex modulation. The adjacent-channel power ratio (ACPR) is -71 dBc when tested with two WCDMA carriers at a sampling rate of 614.4 MSamples/s and producing an output frequency of 96 MHz. The thirdorder IMD at that sampling rate and output frequency is -80 dBc. The dual DAC has an on-chip 1.25-V reference and delivers differential scalable output current from 1.6 to 22.0 mA.
Maxim, Linear Technology, and Texas Instruments also have developed DACs targeting wireless communications applications. Maxim's MAX19693 is a 12-b DAC that operates at sampling rates to 4 GSamples/s to synthesize signals with more than 1.5-GHz bandwidth. It provides four 12-b multiplexed low-voltage differential signaling (LVDS) input ports, each operating to 1 GHz in double data rate (DDR) or quad data rate (QDR) mode to achieve the total 4-GHz rating. The high-speed DAC is supplied in an 11 x 11 mm CSBGA package and consumes 1180 mW at 4 GSamples/s. Linear's models LTC1666, LTC1667, and LTC1668 are DACs with 12-, 14-, and 16-b resolution, respectively, at update rates to 500 MSamples/s. Differential outputs boast SFDR of 87 dB for a 1-MHz output signal. The low-power devices consume only 180 mW from 5-VDC supplies. The model DAC5681 DAC from Texas Instruments operates at update rates to 1 GSamples/s with 16-b resolution using an LVDS input signal format and current output format. Its typical SFDR performance is 81 dB.
For sampling analog signals, many of these same suppliers offer high-performance ADCs capable of digitizing the analog signals found in wireless communications and military tactical communications systems. Recently, National Semiconductor introduced its ADC12D1x00 family of two-channel 12-b ADCs in which the channels can also be interleaved for one channel with sampling speeds to 3.6 GSamples/s (see p. S33 in the Defense Electronics supplement to the June 2010 issue of Microwaves & RF). The ADC line includes model ADC12D1800 with sampling speeds to 3.6 GSamples/s in single-channel interleaved mode, model ADC12D1600, which operates to 3.2 GSamples/s in single-channel mode, and the model ADC12D1000, with 2.0-GSamples/s performance in singlechannel mode.
Among its high-speed ADCs, Linear Technology's model LTC2209 is a 16-b unit that operates to 160 MSamples/s. It achieves a full-scale noise floor of 77.3 dB and 100-dB SFDR with a full-power input bandwidth of 700 MHz. Maxim's MAX109 ADC provides 8-b resolution at sampling rates to 2.2 GSamples/s, with a rated full-power input bandwidth of 2.8 GHz. It can be used with singleended and differential input signals and provides output data in standard LVDS format. Analog Devices' model AD6600 is a dual-channel ADC capable of directly sampling analog IFs to 250 MHz. The highly integrated device includes 1-GHz input amplifiers, wideband 450-MHz track-and-hold (T/H) amplifiers, and an 11-b, 20-MSamples/s ADC, which can be used at its full sampling rate for singlechannel operation, or at 10 MSamples/s for each of two channels.
To learn more about data converters, many companies offer application notes with tutorial information. National Semiconductor, for example, has a 64-page "ABCs of ADCs: Analogto- Digital-Converter Basics" for free download in PDF file format.
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The 1960s: “If My Friends Could See Me Now”
In the 1960s, the book musical still dominated; the story’s structure took precedence and songs enhanced the emotional aspect of the story. Different kinds of stories also appeared and more musicals featured a woman as a central character rather than only as part of a heterosexual couple. This chapter focuses on 1960s musicals that featured women on stage alone in song and dance, but that weren’t sure whether to celebrate them or to punish them. It is organized around the social phenomenon of the 1960s Single Girl in Sweet Charity, Cabaret, Hello, Dolly!, Mame, Oliver!, and Man of La Mancha represent that figure (or a middle-aged version of her) on the Broadway musical stage. This chapter focuses on the convention of dance and movement and asks how those elements at once express anxiety about the single woman and greatly empower her.
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
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Good news for the First Amendment! Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has signed orders earlier this week that effectively end the ideological exclusion of Professors Adam Habib and Tariq Ramadan, two prominent scholars who were denied visas to enter the United States under the Bush administration. In two separate lawsuits, the ACLU represents a handful of American organizations that have invited the scholars to speak to American audiences.
Professor Ramadan is Chair of Contemporary Islamic Studies at St. Antony's College, Oxford University. In 2004, he accepted a tenured position at the University of Notre Dame, but the U.S. government revoked his visa just days before he was to begin teaching there. We filed suit in 2006 challenging his exclusion on behalf of the American Academy of Religion, the American Association of University Professors and the PEN American Center.
Professor Habib is a respected political analyst and Deputy Vice Chancellor of Research, Innovation and Advancement at the University of Johannesburg, and a vocal critic of the war in Iraq and some U.S. terrorism-related policies. The ACLU filed a lawsuit in 2007 challenging his exclusion on behalf of the American Sociological Association, the American Association of University Professors, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights.
The orders signed by Secretary Clinton state that, in the future, Professors Habib and Ramadan will not be denied visas on the same grounds that they were denied them in 2006 and 2007. To enter the United States, however, the scholars will need to apply for visas — a process likely to take several weeks. We're hopeful that given the order from Secretary Clinton herself, their visa applications will be granted post-haste.
Melissa Goodman, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project and counsel in the Habib and Ramadan cases, said in a statement yesterday:
The Obama administration should now conduct a broader review of visas denied under the Bush administration, reverse the exclusions of others who were barred because of their political beliefs and retire the practice of ideological exclusion for good.
The practice of ideological exclusion violates Americans' First Amendment right to hear constitutionally protected speech by denying foreign scholars, artists, politicians and others entry to the U.S. To learn more about the history of ideological exclusion, check out our related flash feature.
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SAN DIEGO--()--Pearson Fuels of San Diego, Calif. has announced that it has been granted $1.35 million from the California Energy Commission (CEC) to assist in its expansion of its retail flex fueling network. The funds will be used to install E85, a high blend of ethanol and gasoline, into 19 traditional retail gasoline stations across California. It is expected that the project will displace approximately 2,754,218 gallons of gasoline per year as well as reduce greenhouse emissions by approximately 25,082 tons per year. The funding was made available through CEC's Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology Program.
“There are hundreds of thousands of flexible fuel vehicle owners in California who have been burning imported oil in their vehicles for years while a domestically produced, renewable and cleaner burning fuel is available”
In the United States, the high blend of ethanol used in E85 continues to be produced primarily from corn. However, there have been major technological improvements that have contributed to more advanced production plants and a more advanced fuel made from agricultural waste products and other non-food sources. The California Imperial Valley has several such plants in the development process.
“There are hundreds of thousands of flexible fuel vehicle owners in California who have been burning imported oil in their vehicles for years while a domestically produced, renewable and cleaner burning fuel is available,” said Mike Lewis, Pearson Fuels General Manager. “The problem continues to be a significant shortage of retail stations where the public can buy the fuel, with less than 45 retail E85 Flex Fuel Stations in the entire state. The CEC’s funding, matched with our own and that of the retail fuel station owners will go a long way towards addressing that shortage.”
Lewis said stations will be strategically located in areas where significant numbers of flex fuel vehicles are currently underserved by flex fuel stations. Stations are planned for 19 different communities from San Diego to South Lake Tahoe.
Pearson Fuels opened in 2003 as the world’s first alternative Fuel Depot. From inception the Pearson Fuel Depot offered a number of firsts in what most people thought was the mature retail fueling industry. Specializing in bringing alternative fuels to the public, the Fuel Depot brought the first E85 station to the west coast of the US, the first Biodiesel station to San Diego and the county's first dual pressure CNG station. Using lessons learned from the Fuel Depot, Pearson grew to become California’s largest wholesale E85 distributor and has a large biodiesel blending project nearing completion in McClellan, CA. Several retail hydrogen projects and compressed natural gas stations are also in development. For more information visit www.pearsonfuels.com.
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During the July 20 Board meeting, Trustees unanimously approved naming the district’s newest high school and ninth grade school after Air Force General Benjamin Oliver Davis Jr., who was commander of the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II. Dr. Viola M. Garcia, chairperson of the School Names Committee, along with
committee members Merlin Griggs and Rick Ogden, recommended the Board name the two schools after General Davis. General Davis served the United States with honor and distinction during an illustrious career, in times of war and peace. He was the recipient of the Air Force’s Distinguished Service Medal, the Army’s Distinguished Service Medal, the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit with two oak leaf clusters, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal with four oak leaf clusters and the Army Commendation Medal with two oak leaf clusters. He retired from the Air Force in 1970 at the rank of Lt. General, but in December of 1998, President Bill Clinton awarded him a fourth star raising him to the rank of full general. General Davis was the first African American full general in the United States Air Force. General Davis was the son of O. Davis Sr., a U.S. Army officer who retired at the rank of brigadier general after a distinguished career of military service. Born in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 18, 1912, General Davis died July 4, 2002. That same year, Temple University’s Dr. Molefi Kete Asante, considered by his peers as one of the nation’s most distinguished contemporary scholars, placed General Davis on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.
Taken from July 2010 AISD Actionline
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Ministers committed to uphold human right to HIV prevention and care
Madang, Papua New Guinea, 9 July 2009 — Pacific Health Ministers today re-affirmed their commitment — as a human right and a principle of equity — to the goals of preventing HIV transmission and achieving universal access to treatment, care and support for people living with HIV.
The Health Ministers recognised the progress made in the region over the two years since the Vanuatu Commitment to scale up activities in order to reach this goal, and endorsed a number of new strategies for action.
The Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) reported to Ministers that the Pacific’s experience of HIV is unique. In Papua New Guinea, where HIV prevalence is as high as 2.5 per cent, HIV remains a public health priority. Other Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs) have a low prevalence of HIV.
Recent SPC and World Health Organization (WHO)studies show the region is increasingly vulnerable to a rapid spread of the virus, due to socio-economic and health factors such as gender inequality and gender-based violence, low rates of condom use and high rates of other sexually transmissible infections (STIs).
In response to these emerging trends and new risk factors, SPC’s Public Health Division Manager, Dr Thierry Jubeau, said important progress has been achieved in areas such as human rights, with work on the adaptation of universal legislation to the Pacific, and mainstreaming of gender into HIV programming.
The Pacific Regional Strategy on HIV was extended to 2013 and amended to include other STIs. In parallel, the Pacific Islands HIV & STI Response Fund was launched in 2008 to support the implementation of national and regional HIV strategic plans.
Other key steps include the development of targeted STI communication strategies in many countries and territories, and the endorsement by the Ministers of Health of the Universal Access Policy Framework to ensure adequate supplies and distribution of condoms and the availability of treatment for HIV and other STIs throughout the Pacific.
SPC commissioned a regional technical consultation to assess counselling and testing services in seven PICTs and to identify priority issues to be addressed to scale up such services. In addition, the first phase of the validation of HIV testing algorithms in low HIV prevalence settings in the Pacific has begun with the newly established Pacific HIV Testing Taskforce.
The taskforce is led by the National Reference Laboratory and is composed of a number of regional partners, including SPC and WHO. Papua New Guinea has already validated its own HIV testing algorithm, utilising rapid tests. The number of people tested in Papua New Guinea has more than tripled between 2007 and 2008.
"There are genuine signs of progress across the region," said Dr Shin Young-soo, WHO’s Regional Director for the Western Pacific. "But, of course, continued strong commitment, including political will, is going to be necessary if we are to get to grips with this problem."
For more information, please contact: Mr Wu Guogao, WHO External Relations Office, at +63 2 528 9930, email: email@example.com Ms Lara Studzinski, Acting Coordinator, Health Management Team, Public Health Division, Secretariat of the Pacific Community — in Madang until 9 July, ph: +675 852 2655; email: LaraS@spc.int
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The shortage of raw materials is affecting almost all seafood processors in Viet Nam, especially those in the North and the Central. Bidifisco is specialized in offshore fish species, such as mackerel, oilfish, mahi mahi, marlin, and swordfish; however, their supply was running low in 2011, equal to only 20-30% of the previous year.
Bidifisco’s strategic item is oceanic tuna, which is now in short supply. The Binh Dinh Department of Agriculture and Rural Development estimated that oceanic tuna catch in 2011 would reach 4,000 MT but 70% of which is shipped fresh by air directly to the buyers. Only more than 1,000 MT does go into local processing factories. Meanwhile, there are many processors in the country and the raw material demand of a company like Bidifisco is approximately 200-250 MT/month.
This situation has heightened competition among the seafood processors and increased the price. Still, processors are unable to get enough raw materials. The lack of labour is another obstacle to seafood enterprises. Although Bidifisco has good policies in place to retain the employees, there is a trend that local workers migrate to large cities or major industrial parks, trying to find more simple jobs with higher pay, regardless of the fact that the new jobs may be just seasonal. According to the company’s human resource division, Bidifisco would need to increase its work force by 20-30% in the closing months of the year.
Packing the products in Bidifisco
Besides these two key issues, Bidifisco also grappled with the price of electricity and many other costs, which has risen by 20-25%. However, the company’s leaders were fast to fine-tune their business strategy. They shifted focus to value-added products, which consume less raw materials but still profitable. Efforts were also made to reduce the cost, keep up the company’s cold store, boost import of raw seafood, and increase the loyalty of the employees through greater job satisfaction.
Director Cao Thi Kim Lan said the company has long sought raw materials from Asian countries. Every month, it imports 600-800 MT of seafood on average for processing. However, with all the import costs involved, the company’s products have become less competitive. Meanwhile, competition is harsh as major producers such as Indonesia and the Philippines are striving to regain their market share in the European market. Market and product diversification is the company’s solution to all these problems.
Despites all the hardships, Bidifisco still maintains a high pay roll for its workers, subsidizing their lunch, their commuting cost, and accommodation. It also manages to create a sense of belonging and solidarity among 500 workers.
One very important ingredient for Bidifisco’s success is the long- term vision of the company’s leadership. While many companies were making lost as a result of the soaring input cost, Bidifisco still incur profit from the large inventory it has held since late 2010. Besides, with its reputation, the company can always obtain credit from the banks, even at lower interest rate than other companies. This is a huge competitive edge, especially when the banks are tightening their lending standards.
In late 2011, the company accelerated its ISO 22000-9001 management program to become more competitive in the international market. It also reintroduced the air-shipment of tuna and offered more product lines such as stripped bonito. However, there are still some unsolved problems. “Our clients are numerous. However, our land space is small. Apart from one factory of our own, we have to rent two more. As a result, it is difficult to increase the production. Besides, installing more machinery and warehouse would be impossible,” said Lan. She hopes that with the local authority’s permission, she will be able to scale up her factory and warehouse to respectively 4,000 MT/year and 1,000 MT/year.
By Le The Dong
Compiled by THANH PHUONG
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- About Us
- Research Programs
CRF Scholar Heather Richardson studies adolescent binge drinking and brain development
Neuroscientist Heather Richardson and colleagues have received a $400,000 grant to study how binge drinking during adolescence affects development in the prefrontal cortex, an area that directs decision-making and controls emotions, and one of the last brain regions to mature.
Richardson, doctoral student Wanette Vargas, and others at the Neurobiology of Stress and Addiction Laboratory use an adolescent rat model to reflect the typical teen experience with alcohol, which includes individual variability and intermittent exposure. A two-year grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) at the National Institutes of Health, plus support from the College of Natural Sciences, will fund a series of studies to advance understanding of how risky drinking among teens may change the development of neural circuits and cause potentially long-lasting mental health consequences.
“We use adolescent animals that are not predisposed to drink and we try as much as possible to mimic the typical teenager’s experience with alcohol. This means the experiments include individual variability because the animals voluntarily choose to binge when alcohol is available. But, like teenagers, at times they have no access to alcohol so they can’t drink at all,” Richardson explains.
She adds that alcohol is the most common substance of abuse during adolescence, a time when both female and male teens engage in episodes of heavy, binge drinking. With this work, Richardson and colleagues hope to fill a significant knowledge gap regarding the effects of voluntary drinking early in adolescence on the developing prefrontal cortex.
Specifically, the researchers are investigating how alcohol affects myelin, a fatty insulating layer that coats axons, nerve fibers, and helps brain cells communicate with one another quickly and efficiently. Myelin is still forming around axons in the prefrontal cortex of 28- to 56-day-old adolescent rats. In humans, Richardson says, there is some evidence of an association between reduced myelin in the brain with alcohol use, but it’s not clear whether this is a result of drinking or whether people with less myelin are predisposed to drinking.
In her group’s laboratory studies, animals have intermittent access to alcohol, so they sometimes can press a lever to be rewarded with a sweetened alcohol drink and other times do not have access to the lever. Food and water are always available so alcohol consumption is completely voluntary. Most animals will drink enough alcohol to reach the binge level at least a few times over the exposure period.
Binge drinking is defined by NIAAA as drinking enough alcohol within two hours to reach a blood alcohol level of 0.08. The experiments use sweetened alcohol because teenagers commonly drink sugary alcoholic beverages and because adolescent rats will voluntarily binge drink sweetened alcohol in the laboratory.
A control group will receive sweetened water without alcohol. Groups will be allowed to consume equal amounts of the mixtures on average, and the researchers will track both individual and group differences to look for relationships between drinking behavior and quantitative variables related to myelination in the brain.
If alcohol causes a change in myelinated axons within the prefrontal cortex, the next important step will be to establish whether males and females have different sensitivity to these effects, Richardson says. She also plans follow-up studies to determine whether there is a threshold below which alcohol consumption is not associated with brain changes.
“If drinking a beer or two intermittently through early adolescence causes brain changes, that is something we need to know. Overall, we hypothesize that drinking early in development affects the brain’s ability to function normally. If it does, our ultimate goal will be to uncover possible mechanisms and determine ways in which we can reverse these effects,” she adds.
Richardson’s successful grant proposal was aided by support of the Center for Research on Families Research Scholars Program.
Article courtesy of news feed In The Loop: http://www.umass.edu/loop/content/neuroscientist-studies-adolescent-binge-drinking-and-brain-development
Image: Graduate student Wanette Vargas, left, and Heather Richardson, assistant professor of Psychology, examine a microscopic image of myelinated axons in a rat brain.
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February 16th Nationwide Protest for A Referendum Against the SPP
Canadians Hold a Nationwide Protest for A Referendum Against the Security and Prosperity Partnership
February 17th, 2008
Waking up to the NAU
On February 16th thousands of educated and awake Canadians took part in a nationwide protest against the SPP and NAU.
Through Facebook.com, a handful of Canadians were able to organize and coordinate demonstrations to be held simultaneously in more than a dozen cities from Fredericton Nova Scotia to Victoria BC. Tens of thousands of Canadians were awakened to the threat of the NAU as a result, and it has galvanized ordinary citizens to take part in grassroots political action.
"Wake Up Canada"
In August of 2007 a Facebook group page titled Canadians Against the North American Union launched with the intent to educate Canadians about the dangers of the NAU. A roughly five hundred word statement entitled The Nationwide Call to Action featured links to video clips of Daniel Estulin and Alex Jones in Endgame, as well as downloadable fact sheets and petition links. The Canadians Against the North American Union Facebook group membership received widespread approval. To date, membership exceeds fifty six thousand users.
February 16 Protest for a Referendum on the Security and Prosperity Partnership became the heading for mirrored sites in each province, designed with the intent of promoting and organizing the local demonstrations.
The announcement read:
'What do Toronto, Windsor, Cornwall, Ottawa, Fredericton, Moncton, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, Vernon, Victoria, Chilliwack, Kelowna and Vancouver have in common?
On February 16th, concerned Canadians from all these places will be gathering in central locations with banners, signs & speakers to share information and to send a resounding "NO!" to Stephen Harper and his Conservatives with regard to the Security and Prosperity Partnership. The event has come to be known as the "Jelly Bean Protest for a Referendum on the SPP."
What is the SPP? Don't be surprised if you don't know! The SPP is a so-called "understanding" or agreement between the USA, Canada and Mexico. First discussed and negotiated by Paul Martin, George Bush and Vincente Fox in March 2005, and then endorsed by Stephen Harper upon his election in 2006. The SPP came out of the tragic events of September 11th, and its stated aims are to improve information sharing, reduce trade costs, and facilitate agricultural commerce. But there has been no debate or discussion about it by our elected representatives nor do we hear enough about it in the mainstream media ...
The SPP is wholeheartedly endorsed by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE). It is a secret process that is actually being driven by 30 corporations known as the North American Competitiveness Council - 10 corporations in each of the US, Canada and Mexico. Of the 10 Canadian corporate participants, however, 3 are of American origin and (Home Depot, Manulife Financial & Suncor) and 2 are Canadian corporations that are no longer Canadian (CN Rail & Canfor). There has been no consultation with Main Street or government. 300 regulatory initiatives are taking place -all spearheaded by the NACC.
Since 2005 Canada's auto industry, pesticide and health safety standards (among others) have been lowered to match that of the US. In the latter instance, the HPV vaccine known as Gardasil - manufactured by Merck & Co. (an American participant in the NACC) was approved by Health Canada within 4 months of approval by the US Food and Drug Administration. Further, our federal government has spent $300 million on the vaccination of 9-13 year old school girls who are not sexually active for a disease that is not sexually-transmitted! There are already reports of 3700 severe adverse reactions and 11 deaths reported by countries administering Gardasil. Merck & Co. had suffered billions of dollars in losses when its arthritis drug Vioxx was pulled because of cardiac-related patient deaths.
The SPP has been referred to as NAFTA on steroids, with guns. Canadians who are informed are concerned that we're not been told the real deal and that the sovereignty of 3 nations is actually at stake - that we're being led into a North American Union by stealth. They believe that the SPP must be halted, that it must be put through a microscope and debated in Parliament, and/or put to a referendum of the people. Millions of Americans are also concerned about their sovereignty so we are not alone.
Through a grassroots initiative on Facebook, the idea of a nationwide protest to show the powers that be that Canadians aren't completely dumbed down was proposed. The Facebook group promoting it now has over 3,000 members. Inside that group regional sub-groups got started. Its an idea that took off like wildfire with demonstrations, protests and information sharing planned for all the above cities. It is indicative of the level of unease out there among those who know about it. Whether people show up in tens or in hundreds, it will make a bold statement. A number of Canadian Action Party candidates who are active on Facebook got involved with helping to organize the different protests, but it is definitely a grassroots initiative and all are welcome. Such being the case, speakers in the different cities will vary but several political parties including CAP will participate. The Council of Canadians will send speakers in several but not all cities."
Facebook.com is an internet social netorking site that has gained widespread popularity and hype in the online world. Love it or hate it, it is a force to be contested with. The success of event also proves the use of online social networking has a great potential to change and shape the way people express themselves politically, and gather popular support for causes Canadians feel are important.
This is in largely due to the 'user friendly' nature of Facebook.
Users who register get their own personalized domain to upload blogs and photos as a means of expressing themselves. Users can then find friends through e-mail. When a 'friendship' is made, users are given permissions to see each other's web page, and who else is in each other's social network. Friends can also see updated events through a feed. For example, if a friend writes a message on another friends page, people in the same network can see the message, creating a feedback loop of colleagues and friends.
Creating Common Interest pages for groups can also be done hassle free. Through group pages events can be organized and users can join, RSVP, volunteer and invite their peers. The page offers message board bullitins for knowledge sharing and open forums.
Because of the many automated features for posting, updating and marketing, the group's success, in growth and interest, quickly surpassed everyone's expectations, and best of all, managing the online groups took very little time or effort, in comparison to conventional approaches.
Facebook made it possible. All other activist websites played a peripheral role if only to host educational documents and video. Facebook was the means of posting bulletin updates, and has been central spot to share and find the essential information and new uploaded content.
It may have also been the means of attracting others who would have otherwise not had sufficient time or interest in to follow through. But for some reason, Facebook lends credibility for many, especially younger students, to an issue, because of social proof.
Why Jelly Beans?
Jelly Beans was the theme, as a toung in cheek retort to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's mocking comment on the NAU as being a means of standardizing trade of Jelly Beans among the three nations, Canada the US, and Mexico. Protesters were invited to bring plastic containers filled with Jelly Beans to be used as as noise makers. It made the occasion more festive.
The announcement reads:
"On August 20 and 21 Stephen Harper, George Bush and Mexican president, Felipe Calderón met with NACC representatives at the highly secured Château Montebello in Québec. At the closing press conference, Stephen Harper used the idea of standardizing the manufacture, marketing and sale of jelly beans on both sides of the border in order to minimize and ridicule the valid concerns of Canadians about the SPP. There were minimum 2,000 peaceful protesters there as well, though Mr. Harper also minimized that number. At that same press conference both Harper and Bush reduced concerns of a NAFTA superhighway or mid-continent corridor to a "conspiracy theory." Meanwhile, three months later in the Manitoba Legislature, just such a highway, which has been planned for more than 10 years was announced by the Speaker of the House…
The fourth SPP leaders' summit is scheduled for this coming April in New Orleans, Louisiana."
A Nationwide Protest for a Referendum
Alberta: Calgary and Edmonton
British Columbia: Chilliwack, Kelowna, Vancouver and Victoria
New Brunswick: Fredericton and Moncton
Nova Scotia: Halifax
Ontario: Cornwall, Ottawa, Toronto and Windsor
The Canadian Action Party
CAP played a deciding role in co-ordinating the rallys, getting the permits and booking the speakers. The Canadian Action party has been for many years, the most vocal and effective politically established party to educate and raise concerns on 911, the North American Union and government accountability.
According to a rough count estimate, at least 500 demonstrators gathered outside Queens Park. Speakers included several representatives from the Canadian Action Party, the Green Party, the Libertarian Party university professors, professionals in law and health, and local activist leaders. They spoke to the dangers of Canadian sovereignty imposed by secretive trade deals, reform to legal proceedings, healthcare rights, the impending security restrictions brought on by the NAU, and the phoney war on terror.
The crowd and speakers were also overwhelmingly in support of 911 truth.
The event marked a major bench mark for community leaders and student groups to come together, to meet and speak to their cause. Throughout the course of the rally the microphone was opened up to any and all desiring to make a statement. As the pictures show, the range of speakers at the mic was diverse, and this gave the event a unique and authentic quality.
Where were the cameras?
I asked Toronto organizer and Toronto University Prof. Karen Wittke was asked if the press had been invited. She reached in her bag and handed me an envelope out of a stack of packages of her press handouts. She expressed all the local mainstream news agencies were invited but not one confirmed. There was no sign of news camera vans either. It was disappointing, but hardly surprising. When she asked one reporter she contacted if they attended the demonstration, the answer gotten was "I drove by…"
The verdict isn't quite in as there may still be news developments throughout the week, however the initial lack of media coverage has been noted.
The absence of the mainstream press has frustrated and motivated young activists. Many are new to the political game, but the positive experience inspired and catalyzed them to become more educated and aware of the issues, to lead in community action and to get involved in the democratic process, now in peril.
Jakub K, one of the rallying speakers in Toronto charismatically chanted with the crowd "we have to be the media now. We have our own cameras. We have the power of youtube!"
Canadians are refusing to let the SPP simply 'happen' to them. They educating themselves on the issue because the media has not, and its happining on Facebook.
Find your city on Facebook, Nationwide Protest Against SPP, Canadians Against NAU
CAP: Feb 16 NAU Press Release: http://e3s.ca/t911truth/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=30&Ite...
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the most famous and the most loved singer of Bengal. Salil said once that if God
could sing he would have a voice like Hemanta. Bengalees all over the world lovingly
call him Hemanta or Hemantada. In the rest of India he is known as Hemant Kumar. Bengalees
really fell in love with him when he started singing Rabindrasangeet. His wonderful
deep voice, his delivery and his perfect pronunciation gave Rabindrasangeet a
totally new dimension. Besides recording for most of the Bengali composers, he
himself was an accomplished composer. His first song for Salil was 'Gaanyer Bodhu'.
Rumour has it that when 'Gaanyer Bodhu' was released Salil wasn't even around.
He was hiding from the police somewhere in the Sundarbans due to his associations
with the communist party. Anyway, 'Gaanyer Bodhu' immediately established Hemanta
as an important singer in the Bengali music scene and Salil as the new composer
and lyricist. It was going to be one of the most important and long lasting musical
partnerships in Bengal. I don't think there will ever be another composer like
Salil who would create songs like 'Moner janaala dhorey' or 'Amaay prosno karey
neel dhrubotaara', and any other singer who would be able to sing these songs
like the way Hemanta did.
Hnd = Hindi; Mal = Malayalam; Tam = Tamil; Tel = Telegu; Kan = Kannada; Bng = Bengali; Oth = Other
Hemanta-Salil combination revolutionised bengali modern music completely. Bengalees were stunned after the release of "Gaanyer Bondhu". Never before such a song was composed in bengali. With Hemanta's rich and melodius voice with perfect pronuciation and Salil's unique and unparalleled lyrical and compositional superiority changed the course of bengali modern music for ever. Salil achieved another milestone by composing some of the famous poems of his dear friend the revolutionary poet Sukanta Bhattyacharya. These songs have since become a part of the bengali culture and the poems are not read as poems anymore. They have metamorphosed into songs. Such was the power of Salil's composition.There's a hindi version of Gaa.nyer Bodhu. This song was recorded by Hemanta
most probably on his own initiative. The opening melody line is different and
so is the arrangement. Doesn't sound like Salil at all. And the lyric ( no idea
who wrote it) is pretty pathetic.
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||Cardiovascular diseases are common among the population of Belarus. Belarus lacks quick cardiac diagnostic and treatment services in many remote areas outside of major cities.
Telemedicine offers a solution to this problem by connecting a doctor in a local hospital with a cardiac specialist in a central hospital. This cardiac specialist can be instantly sent test data, such as an electrocardiogram (ECG), and can then quickly provide a diagnosis and recommend a treatment. In addition, patients aren’t required to travel to the central hospital to receive tests, or to wait long periods to receive results.
MobileTeleSystems (MTS), the largest cell phone provider in Belarus, recognized an opportunity to both enter a new market, providing telecommunication services to hospitals, while also improving the health care of the poor. A pilot project was undertaken in 2008 by MTS, along with the UN Global Compact in Belarus and the Ministry of Health.
Now, as of November 2009, four more hospitals in remote areas of Belarus have started using the mobile cardiology systems for providing cardiac consultation to patients, and are paying MTS for using their services.
More than 300 people have received quick ECG interpretation during a period of 9 months, which in some cases saved their lives. In addition to the reduction of travel costs for the poor, telemedicine positively impacts the environment due to the reduction of travel related carbon emissions.
MTS is now extending this model to other regions of the country, including to the territories most affected by the Chernobyl accident. If most hospitals in Belarus begin using this equipment, MTS stands to profit from increased sales, while helping to solve an acute problem with cardiac treatment in remote areas. According to financial projections for 2009-2013, the revenue from services and the gross profit from the sale of devices for MTS could average $17,182 USD a year.
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"Primer cuerpo, Primera seccion"
This "archeology" of the disaster began with the tragedy in Venezuela in December 1999.
Several days of continuous rain culminated in the floods in which more than twenty thousand died. The exact number of victims is still unknown. This catastrophe, Latin America's greatest
in the twentieth century, also changed the geography of the central north coast of Venezuela,
in which the mudslides swept away whole villages and wiped the anatomy of these places
clean off the map.
Format: 50x60 C-prints on metallic paper.
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Interior Prayer: Founded on Loving Much
Interview With Author Father Jacques Philippe
| 2916 hits
ROME, JULY 10, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Interior prayer is not a technique, but an attitude of love that makes our sacramental life more fruitful, says author Father Jacques Philippe.
Father Philippe, of the Community of the Beatitudes, is the author of "Time for God" published by Scepter Publishing, which is also available in French and Spanish.
In this interview with ZENIT, Father Philippe discusses the simple precepts of interior prayer, common misconceptions and the fruit that can be expected when added to the sacramental life.
Q: You describe mental prayer or interior prayer as something that does not involve technique. How, then, does it work?
Father Philippe: It would be better to say interior prayer instead of mental prayer, because in our modern culture, the word "mental" is associated with thoughts -- as something cerebral -- whereas this form of prayer is more an affair of the heart, instead of reflection. St. Teresa of Avila said that it is not an act of thinking much, but of loving much.
Interior prayer is not a question of technique. It is not a process that can be controlled because it is a meeting with God, who infinitely surpasses anything we can achieve through our own efforts.
What must be essentially understood is that there is no method, but an interior attitude. For interior prayer, there are three principles: a true desire for God; the confidence that God will allow us find that which we are looking for; and finally, humility: To accept our poverty and to wait for the goodness and love of God in all things.
Q: What is the fruit of interior prayer? And why is it important? Isn't adherence to the sacraments enough?
Father Philippe: Interior prayer permits the sacramental life to be more fruitful, more alive, more intense. It is important because it is there that we see and endlessly deepen the most essential dimension of Christian life: the personal relationship of trust and love that is established between God and each of his children, the reciprocal exchange where we give ourselves to God and where God gives himself to us. According to Pope John Paul II in "Novo Millenio Ineunte," this reciprocity is "the very substance and soul of the Christian life, and the condition of all true pastoral life."
Q: How does mental prayer differ from those who would wish to compare it to yoga or Buddhist practices?
Father Philippe: The fundamental difference is that it is a question of living and deepening the relationship of one person to another with God, and it is not solely to acquire the power to practice an interior or psychic state. The possibility of this interpersonal relationship is not founded on initiative or skill, but on God's desire to reveal himself and to communicate through love. Moreover, God acts within the Holy Trinity revealed in the New Testament: Through Jesus and thanks to the action of the Holy Spirit, we can enter into communion with the Father.
Q: You describe mental prayer as "just spending time" with God, like two people in love would, but this can often feel like nothing is happening. Could something be happening interiorly despite the feeling that there isn't? Or even during times when one is distracted?
Father Philippe: The life of prayer is much deeper than the intelligence or the senses can perceive. Even when prayer is poor and distracted, provided that it is made with sincerity and faith, God can communicate secretly with the soul. He puts into it the treasures of light and the power of peace that is often made manifest at other times in life instead of just during prayer itself. And if one perseveres despite times of aridity, there will always be moments when God visits and makes his presence felt.
Q: In today's world, many people just don't seem to have time to spend half an hour or an hour in silent prayer. How can it be fit in? Does it always have to be practiced in a church?
Father Philippe: When one activity is considered vital, we find time to do it. The fundamental question is "what are our priorities?" We must be convinced that God will give us a hundred-fold the time that we devote to him in prayer. If we give part of our time to God with fidelity and perseverance, even just a quarter of an hour ever day, our life will be more peaceful and more fruitful.
We can pray at a church, as there is a lot of grace when praying in the presence of the Holy Sacrament, but we can also pray in a corner of our room in front of an icon, out in nature, or even on the bus or the subway.
Q: Many people only want to pray when they have an interior prompting to do so. Why is this not helpful both in prayer and in arriving at true interior freedom?
Father Philippe: All love relationships need, in order to grow, a choice for fidelity. If a husband loves his wife only when he feels the spirit to do so, the relationship will remain superficial, on only an emotional level. Fidelity and perseverance allow love to move beyond merely the sentimental and to become something very beautiful and rich, a life shared, a mutual gift of persons, one to another.
In every love relationship there are times of crisis and difficulty, but if we persevere with fidelity, the love will become stronger and truer.
--- --- ---
On the Net:
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WiMAX Bridges the Last Mile in Broadband
WiMAX is slated to provide high-speed connectivity over distances that dwarf 802.11's effective range. Of course, it also promises to keep things interesting for network administrators just coming to grips with Wi-Fi.
Microwave broadband is actually a very old technology. Your author has some not-so-fond memories of setting up T-1 (1.54Mbps) microwave connections in the early 80s. Proprietary point to multipoint microwave networks from companies like Alcatel and Siemens have existed for decades. But the technology has also been extremely proprietary and that has limited its popularity. What WiMAX brings to the plate is that it's attempting to standardize the technology.
Now, WiMAX may change that not only for rural areas, but for anyplace where the cost of laying or upgrading landlines to broadband capacity is prohibitively expensive.
Craig Mathias, an analyst for the FarPoint Group, says that WiMAX is the commercialization of the maturing IEEE 802.16 standard. In short, "WiMAX is the marketing arm of 802.16."
WiMAX is more than just 802.16 though. According to Dean Chang, Director of Product Management for Aperto Networks and WiMAX board member, "it's both a standardization effort between IP over 802.16 and the ETSI High-Performance Radio Metropolitan Area Network (HiperMAN) broadband wireless MAN (WMAN) standards and an industry group devoted to that goal." Thus, "WiMAX compliant equipment will interoperate with both the European HiperMAN and 802.16."
What's driving WiMAX, according to Edward Rerisi, Director of Research for Allied Business Intelligence is that, "From an operator's standpoint, it gives them a standard that will lower the cost of equipment. Today, this is equipment is very expensive now. A common standard should lead to a more competitive, and cheaper, marketplace." The market will grow enough as a result though that "Equipment vendors will be able to sell more equipment, thus leading to more revenue for them." At the same time, "consumers are very thirsty for broadband."
Mathias sees WiMAX as having two drivers: lower cost for fixed-point to fixed-point wireless and interoperability. "In short, the common benefits of standards." But, he adds, "Fixed microwave has been around for more than 50 years, so one possible scenario is that it's not a price sensitive market at all." Still, he thinks that while "Some will embrace it, some will oppose it, and some will play to see if they get a better Return on Investment (ROI), but the handwriting is on the wall, WiMAX will happen."
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Through combined efforts of key partners, the Adams County Safe Schools Healthy Students (SSHS) initiative has provided the following benefits:
● Key school personnel and first responders completed National Incident Management Systems compliance and emergency crisis management training;
● Tactical site/school safety surveys conducted at all schools;
● School safety equipment installed/updated;
● State of the art fireworks response to dispatch system installed;
● Full-time school resource officers assigned to each school district
● Olweus bullying/violence prevention program implemented in grades K-8;
● Too Good For Drugs Alcohol, Tobacco and other Drug prevention curriculum in grades 3-8;
● Student Assistance Program specialists provided to coordinate bullying/violence prevention and improve student support systems;
● RISQ Program formed — an alternative to out-of-school suspension program to provide academic and behavioral support;
● Mental Health Services — school-based mental health services including assessment/screening, individual/group therapy, and case management;
● Early Childhood social-emotional learning/behavior supports: Second Step social-emotional skills curriculum; evidence-based behavior supports to prevent and address challenging and chronic disruptive behavior; case management and mental health services
These coordinated and sustained efforts have brought about significant changes contributing to positive outcomes for Adams County students, including:
— The reduction of students in grades 6-12 suspended from school for fighting, from 3.8% in 2008 to 1.5% in 2011;
— A reduction of students grades 6-12 who reported that they had been in a physical fight in the past year, from 30% in 2008 13% in 2011;
— Increased number of students in grades K-12 accessing mental health services, from 42 in 2008 to 202 in 2011
— An increased percentage of mental health referrals resulting in service, from 72% in 2008 to 86% in 2011;
— A reduction of eighth-grade students involved in bullying, from 25% in 2010 to 13% in 2011;
— An increased graduation rate, from 89.9% in 2008-09 to 92.5 in 2010-11;
— A 66% reduction in expulsions from 2008-2011
— An 11.4% increase in the percentage of students grades 3-8 passing both math and language arts ISTEP (from 69.4 in 2008-09 to 80.8 in 2011-12).
The key to continuing the momentum and making lasting change will be whether or not we are able to sustain our efforts beyond the federal funding cycle. The Adams County SSHS initiative is midway through the fifth and final year of funding.
School leaders and community partners are looking for creative solutions and needed funding to continue these important initiatives beyond 2012-13 in the face of economic challenges and pressure of state and local budget cuts.
Adams County has benefitted greatly from this community-focused, collaborative approach to addressing community issues related to school safety, substance abuse and violence prevention, and mental health treatment. Given the recent tragedy that has numbed the nation and left us wondering what it will take to keep our children safe, it is critical that — as a community — we resolve to sustain the important initiatives that have been put in place through SSHS beyond the funding cycle and continue to build on our efforts to ensure the safety and healthy development of every child. We all share a role in the effort to prevent youth violence.
— Kim Fullove is the director of the Adams County Safe Schools Healthy Students initiative. For more information on the program, contact her at email@example.com .
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The Rule of Law
Drake University Law School
Encyclopedia of Law and Society: American and Global Perspectives, Forthcoming
Suffolk University Law School Research Paper No. 07-14
This essay explores the problem of establishing the rule of law in the developing world. Democracies in the developing world have regular elections yet lack the rule of law. The solution, it is believed, lies in adopting the best practices of Western democracies by reforming judicial systems and strengthening constitutional judicial review. This argument rests on the view that new democracies lack the rule of law because political actors have the power to trump the legal system and the solution, therefore, is to strengthen the formal institutions that support judicial independence.
The essay argues that this view is incomplete because it fails to take into account the difficulties that new democracies face in implementing the rule of law. These polities enjoy the un-rule of law where nearly all power is given one individual. The un-rule of law is not an aberration but a logical response to the problem of development. For a poor nation faced with a myriad of social and economic difficulties, the logical response is to give nearly all power to one individual to deal with those problems. Rule of law reforms often fail, therefore, because there is considerable political support for this concentration of power.
The key to effectuating the rule of law lies not in adopting rules borrowed from developed democracies but in crafting a constituency for a legal system. Courts are the least dangerous branch. They lack power unless other actors are willing to implement judicial decisions. The reason why the rule of law has proven difficult to implement in the developing world is that there is little political support for the judicial system. Courts are marginal to the politics of developing nations. Developed nations, on the other hand, have effective mechanisms for implementing judicial decisions and political and economic actors, therefore, can use the courts to achieve their aims.
This essay argues that establishing the rule of law requires the construction of an effective transmission belt from courts to society. The conventional view that the developing world needs to borrow the best practices of the West by separating law from politics fails to comprehend the processes by which the rule of law is realized. Understanding the rule of law requires that we reverse this paradigm. It is not the developing world that needs to learn from the West but scholars in the developed world who need to study the un-rule of law. The rule of law does not rest on negating politics but on facilitating the development of the proper linkages between courts and society.
Number of Pages in PDF File: 6
Keywords: Rule of law, globalization, democratizationAccepted Paper Series
Date posted: March 27, 2006 ; Last revised: October 17, 2011
© 2013 Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Social Media for Ministry Article
Mobile is now the fastest growing industry and is expected to grow by 1,000% to 58 billion by 2015. It has also been projected that in the next five years mobile devices will overtake desktop computers. This is an excellent way to stay connected to current members while capturing new members exactly where they are. There are several ways to capture the audience of the community through social media such as daily Facebook inspirational posts along with scriptures. This will enable members who have clicked like on the ministry’s Facebook page to access the ministry, receive encouraging posts throughout the day, as well as communicate with one another one post at a time.
Using a church app will give the ministry the ability to send a message to every registered member, guest, and friend that ever visited or connected with the ministry about upcoming events, new posts to the website, a link for donations, or even weekly announcements. There are currently 1 billion monthly unique YouTube users and Rovio’s Angry Birds was downloaded 1.7 billion times. EBay has 100 million active users while Facebook has 1.6 billion monthly active users with 680 million mobile users including more than 50 million pages and 10 million apps. This is just an example for the growth potential to reach the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. To think that we can send a scripture and it goes viral is amazing to show how many people we can reach for the kingdom of God.
The Bible speaks of going into all the nations and sharing the good news; now we have the ability through social media to literally go into all the nations one post at a time. Moreover, what is simple about social media is once the message is out, friends share with other friends which is also spreading awareness about the ministry by default.
“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him.” (I Corinthians 2:9 NLT) Who would have imagined twenty years ago when pagers were the most popular form of communication that today we would advance in technology to the levels that we have. Jesus said that the things He did, we should do greater; reaching each person we can for the benefit and betterment of their souls is our number one responsibility as believers of Jesus Christ. As in the days of old, Jesus went were the people were; Jesus dwelt among them, and this is what needs to be done in order to reach the lost from a different direction. There has been talk that social media is of the world, but we must remember we are in this world, but not of this world so in order to reach the world we must go into the world so that we can introduce them to Jesus so that He may draw all men unto Himself.
This is an excellent task that has been placed before us, that now, more than ever we are equipped with the very tools to carry out discipleship without burning out our disciples. Think about how social media can benefit an outreach ministry! Instead of having to go door-to-door as in the traditional way to reach out to the community, now through social media, we can send an email to thousands of people all at once. We can complete a phone tree and call 700 members with one phone call. We can post to our website and reach millions of people around the world. The possibilities to reach people are endless. God has blessed us to use social media for His glory just as long as we do not let Facebook replace our faith book.
There are several simple methods of communication that can be completed by the multi-media ministry of the church. What is a multi-media ministry? This is the department of the church that handles all communication and service production of the ministry. The can consist of the technical aspect during service to the website design. The multi-media ministry will usually manage the ministry’s social media pages as well. This is very important when creating awareness for presenting the ministry to the community. If the ministry does not have certain social media pages, their members will go to other ministries for the emotional support they need throughout the week. Most people will go to the people they see on television if their own ministry does not have social media pages. This is vital in keeping connected with members. Posting inspirational quotes and scriptures keeps the members engaged. It gives them something to look forward to while they deal with the obstacles of the day. The greatest thing we can do is use social media to spread the gospel to the current members while bringing in others.
Another excellent benefit of social media is allowing the gifts of the members to be revealed. You would be surprised the gifts that are in the congregation. There are so many ways to bring the social media pages to life! Most multi-media ministries are non-existent in some churches so they have chosen to outsource to local businesses. The businesses manage the website, mobile app, and social media pages for the church. This is a good way to start creating a social presence of the ministry if volunteers are not available. If you decide you want to work with a business make sure you review their work, ask for references, and have your legal team review all contracts to read the fine print. Make sure the business will not be able to sell the ad space on your church page.
Ideally, when starting your social media marketing make sure that every page matches. Try to use the same logos, the same colors, and the something about the church’s upcoming events. The best way to create instant credibility is photos. Pictures speak volumes. On every social media page, make sure there are pictures of the first family, the church officials, and the ministries including men’s, women’s, and children’s ministry, along with anything showing outreach or community involvement. People like to see themselves which makes them want to share the pictures on their pages and create more awareness of the ministry event. Anything that will capture an audience is what needs to be displayed on all social media pages. Having a YouTube page is not only creating a captivating audience, but also a way for traveling members to stay connected to the ministry. If each ministry leader has a twitter account for their ministry, each volunteer can follow them so they can send tweets amongst one another. There are so many ways to use social media for the benefit and betterment of the ministry.
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WATERSMEET, Mich. — If any Indian tribe could ill afford to lose money in a Mexico casino scam, it is the disadvantaged Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.
Anchored in rolling woodlands of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, the tribe's 600 members have faced constant hardship for more than a century.
As recently as the mid-1970s, the median income per household for the tribe was only $2,300, and fully half of its working age members were unemployed.
When the tribe opened a bingo hall with a few slot machines in 1988, the year it was recognized as a separate nation, the new income allowed some members to move from overcrowded, rundown houses into better dwellings.
Over the past two decades, the tribe built the Lac Vieux Desert Casino Resort, the 76-room Dancing Eagles Hotel and a nine-hole golf course, earning enough to finance 30 new homes, a cultural-recreation center, a clinic, childcare facilities, a police force and water and wastewater treatment facilities.
But there were still too few jobs, and the loss of a $6.5 million casino investment in Mexico and ensuing legal fees have kept the tribe in crisis, unable to upgrade the casino's aging slot machines or build new attractions.
"There's no money to take care of our people," said James Williams Jr., 43, a former tribal chairman.
In hindsight, the investment in Mexico was unwise. But what's more surprising, tribal members say, is the lack of interest among elected officials into what they say amounts to a racketeering scam in which U.S. Indian tribes were specifically targeted by foreigners using a Louisiana lawyer and intermediaries.
The tribe has gotten almost no help from legislators, most recently Republican Rep. Dan Benishek, whose 1st Congressional District includes Michigan's Upper Peninsula. His press aide did not respond to an email query.
Queries to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City also brought no response.
"The FBI is supposed to be taking care of Native Americans," said William A. Graven, an Arizona investor who took another $2 million from the Lac Vieux Desert Band for a joint investment with Mexican "casino czar" Juan Jose Rojas-Cardona, throwing in nearly $1 million of his own money, all of it now lost. "Why aren't they down there frying his ass?"
Graven noted that federal law gives Native Americans special protections, such as requiring that those who swindle tribal members repay twice the value of what is taken.
"If you've taken an Indian's money, you've taken federal money," said Graven.
Whatever the case, the loss in Mexico has renewed the tribe's difficulties.
"Our revenues keep going down. For the last four years, they've gone down, down, down," said Tyrone McGeshick, slot director at the casino resort.
"We haven't been able to give our employees raises for at least five years," added Thomas J. McGeshick Sr., Tyrone's uncle and a member of the tribal council, adding that most make $7.50 an hour.
The two McGeshicks and Williams talked to a visiting reporter at a table in the casino restaurant. Chippewa artifacts lined the walls. A 17-foot-long birch bark canoe adorned the entrance.
Tribal leaders hoped the Mexico investment would finance an expansion of the casino resort, allowing them to add a water park, a bowling alley and perhaps another hotel.
"We would've been a full-blown destination resort," Williams said.
Instead of expanding, the tribe pedals backward, reeling from the loss.
"In the casino industry, you try to update your slot floor by 20 percent each year, and we haven't changed any machines in five years. We have older games now," said Tyrone McGeshick.
On a weekday in early November, as snow fell outside, only a few dozen people sat at the casino slots.
"During our wintertime, the locals keep the doors open. They may come in every other day, and spend $20 or $30," McGeshick said.
In October, the casino underwent a fresh round of layoffs, sacking some 15 people and cutting back the blackjack tables from three shifts a day to just one shift. Managers have their hands full keeping the mood up.
"If we can't keep our employees happy, the customers feel it," Williams said.
Tribal businesses are able to employ only 30 percent of adult members, he added, and a majority of others can't find jobs. Many feel reluctant to seek work away from tribal lands.
"A lot of our people have low self-esteem for going out to do something for themselves outside of the tribe," Williams said.
Some 50 tribal members have no fixed place to live, going from house to house, relying on the generosity of relatives.
"They are not homeless but they are always moving from one place to another," Tyrone McGeshick said. "It's kind of hard to see."
MORE FROM MCCLATCHY
Follow Tim Johnson on Twitter
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Dr Tewhida Ben Sheikh
I come from a well-known Tunisian family. I never knew my father: we were four children, three girls and a boy. The son was born after my father’s death. I was thus raised by my mother who was a most extraordinary woman. She was educated in Arabic and did not speak French. She was a devout Muslim and very open minded. Despite the fact that she was alone, widowed young, she managed to see to it that all of us had secondary school educations. My sisters and I were the first Tunisian girls to complete secondary school. That’s the way she was, my mother, she wanted us to go as far as we wanted in school. I was the first girl to pass the baccalauréat degree In Tunisia, in 1928. But, of course then came the question, what was I going to do with it?
It was about then that I met a Russian woman, the wife of a well-known French doctor, Dr Burnet. He was the Deputy Director of the Pasteur Institute here in Tunis. His wife was a wonderful woman; she knew one of my professors at secondary school, who was interested in what I would do next. I wanted to do social work, help others; I thought I could work in one of the institutes or charities or the Pasteur Institute, So this woman suggested that I talk with her husband. Dr Etienne Burnet was a literary man, a philosopher who had studied Greek and Latin. He was also a famous medical researcher. I still remember going to see him. It was a summer day, in June or July. They lived on a hill in the Belvedere neighbourhood of Tunis. I went alone. It was 1929. I remember it so well. As soon as I arrived he asked, ‘Now my little one, what is it you would like to do?’ ‘I would like to do something, perhaps study medicine,’ I replied, ‘but there is no medical school here in Tunis — so perhaps Algiers?’ He looked at me; he hesitated, then said. ‘My little one. If you want to accomplish something, to study medicine, you must enter by the big door. You must go to Paris.’ I almost laughed. ‘You are dreaming, sir.’ ‘I can help you.’ he said. ‘I know many people in Paris and can arrange for you to go there.’ So I went home and told my mother, sisters and brother. My brother had received his baccalauréat at the same time as I, but my mother hadn’t yet thought about sending him off to pursue university studies. I watched my mother’s reaction to my story. She didn’t reject it outright so I began to think that perhaps there was hope.
My mother had never left Tunisia, but she was very broadminded and very courageous. Everyone — her mother, brothers. sisters — all of them said she shouldn’t let me go. In the meantime Dr Burnet started writing to his friends in Paris to try to find a family in which I could live while I studied. Finally he found an opening in a brand new centre for women students, a centre founded by an American woman, a Mrs Anderson. It had one hundred students rooms and was called the Foyer International des Etudiantes. They telegraphed Dr Burnet saying there was an opening and, without even consulting me, he reserved a room for me. He was about to leave for Geneva to take up a new position there but, luckily, his wife was staying on a few weeks and would join him later. It meant that I could travel to France with her just before the university classes commenced in October. People in our strict family began to say that my mother had gone crazy. I had one uncle whom I thought I could count on because he had studied in France. He joined the other, saying, ‘Your mother is crazy: she is sending you off to a city of perdition.’
I began to prepare my departure. On the day I was to leave, one of my mother’s brothers was to send his car to take me to the port and the boat for France. A family meeting was called with my uncle Tahar Ben Amar and the husband of an aunt who was our legal guardian, and an Islamic cleric. This was necessary, of course. Here was this young girl, an orphan, who wanted to go off to France to study on her own. As I was waiting for the car, I saw another one arriving. In it was the cleric, my two uncles and a cousin who was just a bit older than I. As he brushed passed me he whispered in my ear. ‘You know, everybody knows, you aren’t to be allowed to leave.’
My aunt told my mother to cover herself and run to receive these men. My mother replied, ‘Have them go upstairs, these aren’t the first men or the last men that I will see.’
So there we were, on the first floor in a sitting-room with our male guests, while the other women, my aunts, grandmother and sisters were all out of sight downstairs. Discussion, arguments. discussion — and in the meantime the car had arrived to take me to the port. I managed to tell the driver not to leave without me, no matter who told him to go away. And the discussions continued, slowly, slowly. ‘How can a young girl who has never even been out of the city of Tunis’ — I knew a bit of the city but not really even that much — ‘be permitted to go so far away?’ Mother answered simply that many people travelled, for pleasure or for health treatment, and that it wasn’t such a big thing. She added. ‘My daughter wants to learn, to study and you know that in Islam it is an obligation for both men and women to learn and improve themselves.’ The cleric became silent. Finally one of my uncles said, ‘Well, then she can leave next week because a young girl should only travel with her father, a maternal uncle or a brother.’ Again my mother replied. ‘She is leaving with a woman of whom I am as confident as my own self.’ At this point I put on my coat and ran downstairs to the car because I knew we were about to miss the boat. In fact, the boat sailed a few minutes late that day because of me.
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A brand of R+ Lipoic acid (GeroNova's RALA-Gel) which I take (and which appears to be an excellent product) uses 'Medium-Chain Triglycerides' to enhance its bioavailability. Currently, GeroNova (the manufacturer) is the only firm which uses this technique, and it definitely seems to increase the effectiveness of this powerful brain antioxidant and mitochondrial energizer.
My concern however is whether the long-term use of 'Medium-Chain Triglycerides' might have adverse effects on ones health.
In the RALA-Gel advertising excerpt below, it is noted that MCT's (Medium-Chain Triglycerides) "are found naturally in milkfat, palm oil and coconut oil."
Since I know from some of Barry Sears previous works that Milkfat, Palm, and Coconut oils can be damaging to the body, I'm wondering if MCT's themselves are an active constituent of what gives these oils their negative health attributes.
Medium-chain triglycerides (MCT) are fats that contain 6-12 carbon fatty acids, as opposed to long chain triglycerides - LCT, those generally found in the diet, which contain more than 12 carbons per fatty acid and are the major storage form of fat in the human body.
Plasma level is optimised by use of the proprietary MCT transport, found in no other lipoic product in the world.
MCT are found naturally in milkfat, palm oil and coconut oil.
MCT are treated by the body quite differently from conventional dietary fats, the LCT.
Most fats are broken down in the intestine and remade into a form (LCFA) that can be transported in the blood, but MCT are absorbed intact and taken to the liver and muscle, where they are used directly for energy. In
this sense, they are processed very similarly to carbohydrates.
In comparison to LCT, MCT are readily broken down into glycerol and medium chain fatty acids (MCFA) and the resulting MCFA are faster absorbed into the gastrointestinal cells than free long chain fatty acids (LCFA). In fact, while the process of digestion and absorption of LCT can take 3-4 hours, MCFA can appear in the circulation within several minutes of
Unlike LCFA, MCFA are not as dependent upon the L-Carnitine shuttle system for entry into the mitochondria, where fat breakdown occurs; therefore this does not represent a limiting step in their metabolism.
MCT therefore represent a readily available energy source to the body. In fact, MCT have double the energy value (calories) of carbohydrates, but contain fewer calories than conventional fats and easily digested and not stored in fat deposits.
Recent human studies also suggest that MCT may have a role to play in weight management.
MCT have the additional benefit of protecting the liver and gut from various toxins.
From preclinical studies, it has been suggested that the hepatic uptake of lipoic acid may be carrier-mediated and selectively inhibited by MCFA, allowing higher levels of RLA to reach the plasma and tissues."
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Rev. Alban Butler (171173). Volume IX: September. The Lives of the Saints. 1866.
St. Catherine of Genoa, Widow
CATHERINE or Catterinetta Fieschi Adorno, was born at Genoa in 1447. Her father, James Fieschi, died viceroy of Naples under Renatus of Anjou, king of Sicily.1 From the first dawn of her reason, she appeared to be a child of spiritual benedictions. By a singular privilege of divine grace, and the attention of virtuous parents, she seemed from the cradle entirely exempt from frowardness, and little passions of anger or the like vices, with which infancy itself is often stained. It was something still more admirable and more edifying in her, to see a tender child, to join with the most perfect simplicity of heart, and obedience to her parents and others, a serious love of prayer, the most heroic practices of self-denial, and the most tender devotion, particularly towards the sacred passion of Christ. That at twelve years of age she was favoured by God with extraordinary supernatural comforts and illustrations of the Holy Ghost in prayer, we are assured by her own testimony. Experience teaches, that by humble obedience, and fervent love of prayer, the most tender age is capable of making great advancement in the paths of divine love and interior solid virtue; and that the Holy Ghost delights wonderfully to communicate himself to those who so early open their hearts entirely to him. But whilst he attracts them after the sweet odour of his ointments, he prepares them for the most severe trials, which furnish them with occasions for the exercise of the most heroic virtues, and perfects the crucifixion of inordinate attachments in their hearts. This conduct of divine providence St. Catherine experienced.
At thirteen years of age she earnestly desired to consecrate herself to the divine service in a religious state, thinking a contemplative life the most secure for her, and it best suited her inclinations. But she was overruled by obedience to her parents, and by the advice of those from whom she hoped to learn what the divine will required of her. Three years after, she was married by her father to Julian Adorno, a gay young nobleman of Genoa. Her husband, drunk with youth, and giddy with ambition, brought on her a long series of grievous afflictions, which she suffered during ten years, and which, by the good use she made of them, exceedingly contributed to her more perfect sanctification. His brutish humour afforded a perpetual trial to her patience; his dilapidation of his own patrimony, and of the great fortune she had brought him, perfected the disengagement of her heart from the world, and his profligate life was to her a subject of continual tears to God for his conversion. This, her prayers, patience, and example at length effected, and he died a penitent in the third Order of St. Francis. Catherine had a cousin named Tommasa Fieschi, who being left a widow about the same time, made her religious profession in an austere nunnery of the Order of St. Dominic, and died prioress in 1534. Our saint seeing herself freed from the servitude of the world, and in a condition now to pursue the native bent of her inclination to live altogether to herself and God, deliberated some time in what manner she might best execute her holy desire. At length, in order to join the active life with the contemplative, and to have the happiness of ministering to Christ in his most distressed and suffering members, she determined to devote herself to the service of the sick in the great hospital of the city. Of this house she lived many years the mother superior, attending assiduously upon the patients with incredible tenderness, performing for them the meanest offices, and dressing herself their most loathsome ulcers. So heroic is this charity, that with regard to the institutions set apart for the relief of the poor, and attendance on the sick, Voltaire forgets his usual censorious malignant disposition in regard to religious institutions, to give them due praise. He declares that nothing can be nobler than the sacrifice which the fair sex made of beauty and youth, and oftentimes of high birth, to employ their time at the hospitals in relieving those miserable objects, the sight of which alone is humbling to our pride, and shocking to our delicacy. In overcoming this repugnance of nature in doing many offices about certain patients it cost our saint much difficulty in the beginning, till by perseverance she had gained a complete victory over herself.
Her charity could not be confined to the bounds of her own hospital; she extended her care and solicitude to all lepers and other distressed sick persons over the whole city, and she employed proper persons, with indefatigable industry, to discover, visit, and relieve such objects. Her fasts and other austerities were incredible, and it was her constant study to deny her senses every superfluous gratification, and still more vigorously to humble her heart, and overcome her own will in every thing. Even whilst she lived in the world with her husband, it was a rule with her never to excuse herself when blamed by others, but always to be readily inclined sincerely to accuse and condemn herself. She made it her constant earnest request to God, that his pure and holy love might reign in her heart, and in her whole conduct, by the extinction of all inordinate self-love, and in this sense she took for her device that petition of our Lords prayer: Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. The necessity of the spirit of universal mortification and perfect humility to prepare the way for the pure love of God to be infused into the soul, is the chief lesson which she inculcates in the two principal treatises, which she wrote, the first entitled, On Purgatory, and the second called, A Dialogue. In this latter work, she paints strongly the powerful effects of divine love in a soul, and the wonderful sweetness and joy which frequently accompany it.2 St. Catherine having suffered the martyrdom of a tedious and painful illness, in which, for a considerable time, she was scarcely able to take any nourishment, though she received every day the holy communion, expired in great peace and tranquillity, and her soul went to be united to the centre of her love on the 14th day of September, 1510, she being sixty-two years old. The author of her life relates certain miracles by which God was pleased to testify her sanctity to men. Her body was taken up eighteen months after her death, and found without the least sign of putrefaction. From that time it was exposed aloft in a marble monument in the church of the hospital, as the body of a saint; and she was honoured with the title of Blessed, which Pope Benedict XIV. changed into that of Saint, styling her in the Martyrology St. Catherine Fieschi (in Latin Flisca) Adorno.3 See her life compiled by Marabotti, her confessor, published in 1551; also her works. And the comments of Sticker the Bollandist, ad 15 Sept. t. 5, p. 123. For the justification of her doctrine, and the commendations of her sanctity, see Parpera, the Oratorians book entitled B. Catherina Genuensis illustrata. Printed at Genoa A. D. 1682.
Note 1. The family of the Fieschi was for many ages one of the most illustrious in Italy. Its chiefs were counts of Lavagna in the territory of Genoa. They were for some ages perpetual vicars of the empire in Italy, and afterwards enjoyed very extraordinary privileges in the republic of Genoa, and among others that of coining money. This house gave to that commonwealth its greatest generals during its long wars, both in the East and against the Venetians; and to the church many cardinals and two popes, Innocent IV. and Adrian V. The family of Fieschi suffered much by the miscarriage of the conspiracy formed by count John Lewis Fieschi against the Dorias, then masters of the commonwealth, in 1547. The plot only failed by the death of count Fieschi, who was drowned by falling into the sea, as he was going out of one galley into another. [back]
Note 2. These treatises are not written for the common class of readers. [back]
Note 3. Bened. XIV. De Canoniz. Sanct. l. 3, c. 3, p. 20. [back]
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Animal Rights Activists Want to "Recall" Animal Services Director Sara Pizano
Reads the press release:
After careful deliberation and conference calls with numerous organizations; at this time, The Miami Voice, The No Kill Nation, and the Miami Coalition Against Breed Specific Legislation are "Officially" requesting the resignation of Dr. Sara Pizano from her position as Director for the Miami Dade County Animal Services...effective immediately!Notably, Vanessa Brito, the director of Miami Voice, the group that led the effort to recall Seijas, signed the letter.
Pizano, a veterinarian by trade, has served in the position since 2005 but has been hounded by animalloving activists for most of her tenure. Pizano took the job promising to reduce the number of animals that are killed in the shelter, but activists claim that more than 325 cats and dogs are killed a day on the taxpayer's dime. Complaints that euthanasia actually increased under Pizano's reign date as far back as to 2006, just six months after she took the job.
Activists are also against a method called the "heart stick" used to kill cats. A needle with fatal drugs is injected directly into the feline's heart. Pizano is publicly against the method, but animal activists say she hasn't taken enough steps to ensure it doesn't happen again in her department.
Follow Miami New Times on Facebook and Twitter @MiamiNewTimes.
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ROCHESTER — Rochester students at Spaulding High School weighed in with their thoughts on the Rochester Police Department's new policy for truant behavior, which imposes fines on parents of students who miss an excess amount of school.
Junior Shatayah Emerson, 16, said she wasn't sure how she felt about the new policy, since she doesn't miss a lot of school herself. But, she thought a fine could positively pressure more of her peers to attend class.
“I know a lot of kids who skip school for no reason,” Emerson said.
Senior Devin Sobleski, 17, said he sees a lot of students missing class, possibly because they don't feel they're getting anything out of their education. In Sobleski's mind, though, that's a mistake, he said, he doesn't want to see parents held accountable for their children's mistakes.
“I feel that (truancy) shouldn't have anything to do with the parents. It's not the parent's fault. It's all the kid's,” he said. “If the students feel like they don't want to go to school, it's their life they're throwing away.”
The Rochester police's new policy allows violators to opt out of pleading guilty in court to a large fine and instead take a four-week educational course at the police station with their children.
Senior Katie Lagace, 17, said heard a lot of her peers talking about the new “diversion program” at school this week and she thought maybe they were blowing it out of proportion.
“It might sound extreme but I don't think it's as bad as everyone's drumming it up to be,” she said. “ … I don't think (truancy) is like, a humongous issue, but it's big enough that it's affecting certain students.”
Senior Cassie Miltner, 17, said she was recently called to a “truancy meeting” at the high school where dozens of students were told about the new policy and how they could face fines. Miltner said she had mononucleosis, a viral infection, for several weeks this year, and had to miss a lot of school. Even with her doctor's notes, she said, she has been singled out. She feels it isn't fair for students who genuinely need to miss class.
“I feel like it applies to a lot of kids at the school … I definitely think (officials) made (the policy) out to be more than it should be,” she said. “They said they'd get the police involved and we'd have to go to court. They're definitely making a bigger deal of it than they should … A lot of kids don't really care that much, but there are a lot of kids who really do try to go to school. So, I think it's half and half, basically.”
Junior Jenny Diamond, 16, said she had mixed feelings on the subject because she doesn't miss a lot of school.
“It is a problem. A lot of the kids are always absent,” Diamond said. “ … I feel like a (fine) would scare people and make them angry, maybe. I've been hearing a lot of kids complaining about it already.”
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Date of birth uncertain; d. about A.D. 392. He was of noble family, probably of Antioch. St. Basil calls him a "nursling" of Silvanus, Bishop of Tarsus, but whether this discipleship was at Antioch or at Tarsus is not known. He studied at Athens, then embraced the monastic state. He became head of a monastery in or near Antioch, and St. Chrysostom was his disciple. When Antioch groaned under Arian bishops, he did not join the small party of irreconcilables headed by Paulinus, yet when Bishop Leontius made Aëtius a deacon Diodorus and Flavian threatened to leave his communion and retire to the West, and the bishop yielded. These two holy men, though not priests taught the people to sing the Psalms in alternate choirs (a practice which quickly spread throughout the Church), at first in the chapels of the martyrs, then, at Leontius's invitation, in the churches. When at length, in 361, the Arian party appointed an orthodox bishop in the person of St. Meletius, Diodorus was made priest. He seems to have written some of his works against the pagans as early as the reign of Julian, for that emperor declared that Diodorus had used the learning and eloquence of Athens against the immortal gods, who had punished him with sickness of the throat, emaciation, wrinkles, and a hard and bitter life. In the persecution of Valens (364-78), Flavian and Diodorus, now priests, during the exile of Meletius kept the Catholics together, assembling them on the northern bank of the Orontes, since the Arian emperor did not permit Catholic worship within the city. Many times banished, Diodorus, in 372, made the acquaintance of St. Basil in Armenia, whither that saint had come to visit Meletius. On the return of the latter to his flock, he made Diodorus Bishop of Tarsus and Metropolitan of Cilicia. Theodosius soon after, in a decree, named Diodorus and St. Pelagius of Laodicea as norms of orthodoxy for the whole East. Diodorus was at the Councils of Antioch in 379 and of Constantinople in 381. Sozomen makes him responsible at the latter council for the proposal of Nectarius as bishop of that city, and represents him as one of the chief movers in the appointment of St. Flavian as successor to Meletius, by which the unhappy schism at Antioch was prolonged.
Diodorus came to Antioch in 386 or later, when St. Chrysostom was already a priest. In a sermon he spoke of Chrysostom as a St. John the Baptist, the Voice of the Church, the Rod of Moses. Next day Chrysostom ascended the pulpit and declared that when the people had applauded, he had groaned; it was Diodorus, his father, who was John the Baptist, the Antiochenes could bear witness how he had lived without possessions, having his food from alms, and persevering in prayer and preaching; like the Baptist he had taught on the other side of the river, often he had been imprisoned--nay, he had been often beheaded, at least in will, for the Faith. In another sermon he likens Diodorus to the martyrs: "See his mortified limbs, his face, having the form of a man, but the expression of an Angel!"
St. Basil in 375 asked Diodorus to disown a fictitious letter circulated in his name, permitting marriage with a deceased wife's sister. In the following year he criticizes the rhetorical style of the longer of two treatises sent him by Diodorus, but gives warm praise to the shorter. Diodorus's style is praised by Chrysostom, Theodoret, and Photius, but of his very numerous writings of a few unimportant fragments have been preserved, chiefly in Catenæ (q.v). He wrote against some of the heresies and still more against heathen philosophy. Photius gives a detailed summary of his eight books "de Fato"; they were evidently very dull from a modern point of view. According to Leontius he composed commentaries on the whole Bible. St. Jerome says that these were imitations of those of Eusebius of Emesa, but less distinguished by secular learning. Diodorus rejected the allegorical interpretation of the Alexandrians, and adhered to the literal sense. In this he was followed by his disciple Theodore of Mopsuestia, and by Chrysostom in his unequalled expositions. The Antiochene School of which he was the leader was discredited by the subsequent heresies of Nestorius, of whom his disciple Theodore of Mopsuestia was the precursor. Theodoret wrote to exculpate Diodorus, but St. Cyril declared him a heretic. The damning passages cited by Darius Mercator and Leontius seem, however, to belong to a work of Theodore, not of Diodorus; nor was the latter condemned when Theodore and passages of Theodoret and Ibas (the Three Chapters) were condemned by the Fifth General Council (553). It seems certain that Diodorus went too far in his opposition to (the younger) Apollinarius of Laodicea, according to whom the rational soul in Christ was supplied by the Logos. Diodorus, in emphasizing the completeness of the Sacred Humanity, appears to have asserted two hypostases, not necessarily in a heretical sense. If the developments by Theodore throw a shade on the reputation of Diodorus, the praise of all his contemporaries and especially of his disciple Chrysostom tend yet more strongly to exculpate him. It will be best to look upon Diodorus as the innocent source of Nestorianism only in the sense that St. Cyril of Alexandria is admittedly the unwilling origin of Monophysitism through some incorrect expressions. Against this view are Julicher [in Theol. lit. Z. (1902), 82-86] and Funk [in "Rev. d' hist. eccl.", III (1902), 947-71; reprinted with improvements in "Kirchengesch, Abhandl." (Paderborn, 1907), III, 323].
The fragments of his Commentaries on the Old Testament are collected in Migne, P.G., XXXIII, from the Catena of Nicephorus and that published by Corderius (Antwerp, 1643-6), also from Mai, "Nova Patrum Bibl.", VI. A few more are found in Pitra "Spicilegium Solesmense" (Paris, 1852), I. A long list of the lost works is in Fabricius, "Bibl. Gr.", V, 24 (reprinted in Migne loc. cit.). Some Syriac dogmatic fragments are in Lagarde, Analecta Syriaca", (Leipzig and London, 1858). Four treatises of Pseudo-Justin Martyr have been attributed to Diodorus by Harnack ("Texte und Unters.", N.F., VI, 4, 1901).
APA citation. (1909). Diodorus of Tarsus. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05008a.htm
MLA citation. "Diodorus of Tarsus." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 5. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05008a.htm>.
Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Joseph P. Thomas.
Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. May 1, 1909. Remy Lafort, Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.
Contact information. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is feedback732 at newadvent.org. (To help fight spam, this address might change occasionally.) Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.
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Florida’s Jobless Rate Dips to 10.6 Percent in May
Around the State
Florida's unemployment rate dropped slightly again in May, falling 0.2 percentage points to 10.6 percent overall, according to numbers released Friday by the state Agency for Workforce Innovation.
It's the Sunshine State's lowest unemployment rate since August 2009, when the jobless rate was also 10.6 percent. The numbers mark a year-over-year decline in the jobless rate of 0.7 percent. There are 980,000 unemployed workers out of a total work force in the state of 9.25 million, and there were 28,000 nonagricultural jobs added in May.
"Today's announcement that unemployment continues to drop and businesses continue to add thousands of jobs shows that Florida's economy is moving in the right direction. Our unemployment rate is now the lowest it has been in 21 months, and we can expect our state‘s heightened focus on economic recovery to spur additional job growth in the months ahead," said AWI director Cynthia Lorenzo.
Gov. Rick Scott exulted in the numbers, which show a fifth straight month of declining unemployment, coinciding with his term in office. The state unemployment rate is still ahead of the national rate, which stands at 9.1 percent, but the U.S. jobless rate is up slightly over the previous month.
“Florida is leading the nation in job creation and our unemployment rate has dropped for the (fifth) straight month, a huge win for Floridians. It is unfortunate the federal government can’t say the same thing for the rest of the country. Our efforts to make Florida the most business-friendly state are clearly paying off and we are bucking the national trend," Scott said.
The total number of nonagricultural jobs in Florida last month was 7.24 million, reflecting an increase of 24,900 jobs from May 2010.
The added jobs revealed a continuance of recent trends. The leisure and hospitality industry is driving the job gains, posting 45,100 more jobs than 12 months ago -- an increase of 4.9 percent. The private education and health services (24,500 added jobs), trade, transportation, and utilities (10,500 added jobs) and professional and business services (6,600 added jobs) sectors also saw job increases over the year.
Much of those gains, however, were wiped out by business sectors that have continued to struggle in the wake of recent deep economic recession. There were 14,300 less construction jobs in Florida last month than in May 2010, a reflection of the troubled housing market. The rampant foreclosures and vacancy rate in the state has wrecked the construction industry, which has lost more than half of its jobs since the peak of the housing boom last decade.
The information (4,700 lost jobs) and financial activities (1,300 lost jobs) sectors also gave back jobs over the year, but it was government jobs that saw the steepest decline. Losses in federal government jobs drove the majority of the 41,500 government jobs that were shed over the past 12 months in the state, but that was due mainly to the loss of workers involved in the 2010 U.S. Census.
“This is the first time that government has led the job losses, but most of it is federal government because again, a year ago, we had the Census workers,” said AWI chief economist Rebecca Rust.
Construction losses were also behind the 3,600 jobs lost in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers metro area over the year, the second largest losses among Florida’s metro areas. The Space Coast metro area of Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville posted the most year-over-year job losses with 6,800, due mainly to the imminent retiring of the space shuttle program.
Reach Gray Rohrer at firstname.lastname@example.org or at (850) 727-0859
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Assuming SUNY has done all the proper investigation into this incident (the police have filed charged after all) we say “good for them.”
In the past, many colleges have investigated these types of incident and found any excuse possible–including ignoring their own hazing police–to avoid having to admit they have a problem like this at their schools. They go to great lengths to explain how something like this incident at SUNY Geneseo, where freshman were allegedly blindfolded, handcuffed and forced to drink large amounts of alcohol, was NOT hazing and merely horseplay, a non-team activity, or our favorite “inappropriate behavior.” Anything but hazing.
Will this action put an end to all hazing at SUNY Geneseo? We would hope so, but after doing this site for more than twelve years we can honestly say that we don’t think it will end it completely. But students at that school who continue these barbaric practices have now been put on notice that their social or athletic program could also face the death penalty if they’re caught. A clear message has been sent.
This is an update to a story from last week about the blindfolded, SUNY Geneseo women’s volleyball team and an off-campus “team bonding” exercise that seems to have gotten off track.
According to police, 11 young women have now been arrested and face charges of hazing and unlawfully dealing with a child after one freshmen member of the team was hospitalized for alcohol poisoning. Now, before you dismiss this as just another bunch of college kids doing what college kids do, let’s look at what the police are saying happened that evening at an underage drinking party in Geneseo. Okay, we don’t have a lot of detail but police are saying that the eight freshmen members of the squad were summoned to an apartment off-campus, then blindfolded, handcuffed and forced to drink alcoholic beverages . . . to the point that one of them had a BAC of more than three times the legal limit (.0.08%) to drive. Not surprisingly, many people die from a BAC that high, which is why she probably ended up in the hospital.
What’s interesting to note is that of the 11 young women arrested, 8 are current members of the volleyball team. A team that, according to the school’s website, has only 8 upper-class players on a team of 17 with the majority (9) being freshman. And, if you look at the names of the three women arrested who are not on the squad, all three to appear to have played last year. Did they all graduate and come back for this little party? Or were they kicked off the team last year for some reason (as sources are indicating to me) which explains why the team has so many freshmen players this year? On the police report these three are all listed as either 20 or 21-years-old. Kind of young to graduate, but you never know.
Is this hazing incident not the first discipline problem for the SUNY G volleyball team?
As we said last week, it appears the school acted appropriately in suspending the entire team (what else are you going to do when the upperclassmen are all in jail the freshman are all hungover?) but is this the first year such an activity has been held? And if not, did anyone on the coaching staff know about any previous booze hazing events like this one?
Ball is in your court SUNY Geneseo. (If anyone who attends this school can shed light on the situation, please let us know: email@example.com).
Source – Greece Post
Let’s see: yesterday we had a report about the dance squad at FAMU being suspended for an alleged hazing incident, less than a year after a member of the school’s marching band died from hazing. Today, we have reports that 11 members of the SUNY Geneseo women’s volleyball team were charged with 1st degree Hazing and Unlawful Dealing with a Child for serving alcohol to minors after an off-campus underage drinking party sent one student to the hospital with a BAC over 3 times the legal limit. And this happened at a school where another student died from binge drinking less than 3 years ago.
What are you people thinking? Do we need to lay the bodies of your fallen classmates in front of you to get this to stop?
The women’s volleyball team has been suspended by the university (polite applause) while the investigation continues. Some will argue the charges are harsh for common “underage drinking” at a college campus, but there must be enough evidence the gals were coerced into drinking that much or the DA wouldn’t have filed the charges. SUNY Geneseo claims it has a tough anti-hazing policy, so we’ll see if they have the guts to follow through on this one.
Source – WHAM
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