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How To: Deal With Identity Theft
Identity theft happens when a criminal gets a hold of your personal information such as your Social Security number, credit card number or bank account information, and uses the info to commit crimes. This can leave you in a bad position, with a ruined credit rating or even in jail for crimes someone else has committed. It could take years and plenty of your hard-earned money to restore your name and credit rating.
Here's what to do if you think your identity has been stolen.
someone stole your nameBy the time you first learn that you're a victim, it's too late. You've already been scammed. You may get a call from a collection agency about an unpaid loan you didn't take out. Or worst of all, you can get pulled over for a simple traffic violation, only to be arrested for an outstanding warrant and thrown in jail, left wondering what just happened.
But if you want to be safe, play detective and look for these five signs that warn of identity theft:
1- Bills arrive for a credit card account you never opened.
2- Credit card bills include charges you didn't make.
3- Credit card statements don't arrive before the billing cycle passes.
4- Bank statements include unfamiliar transfers or withdrawals.
5- New checks you ordered do not arrive at your house.
what to doOnce you realize you've been a victim of identity theft, time is of the essence, so act quickly. U.S. residents should call the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) Identity Theft Hotline immediately. The toll-free number is 1-877-IDTHEFT. The FTC will file your complaint and help you deal with the credit-related problems that could result.
Next take these steps:
Contact credit bureaus
Call the fraud hotline of any one of these three major credit bureaus. They'll place a fraud alert on your credit file to alert financial institutions.
Equifax: (800) 525-6285
TransUnion: (800) 680-7289
Experian: (888) 397-3742
Cancel credit cards
Cancel the credit card accounts that you know or think have been used for unauthorized transactions.
Go to the police
Go to your local police station and file a police report to submit to credit card companies and banks that will require proof of identity theft.
Call the bank, check with the post office and call the media if no one's helping... Next Page >>
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While Ann Arbor, influenced by the University’s presence, has been known for its medical web and mobile application startups, Detroit’s tech companies are focused on supporting e-commerce, automotive and manufacturing industries. One startup, Detroit Labs, created a Chevy Game Time app and the Domino’s Ordering app to support their online ordering system. Detroit Labs develops web, iOS and Android apps, and is only a few years old.
Detroit Labs received an investment from Detroit Venture Partners (DVP), a firm that funds seed and early-stage tech companies in efforts to rebuild the city by supporting entrepreneurship. According to National Venture Capital Association data as reported by Bloomberg, venture capital firms have invested $79.9 million in 13 Detroit companies last year, proving to be the third-highest total investment.
The principle of fueling entrepreneurship to fuel long-term economic growth is also held by the Michigan Economic Development Corp. (MEDC). Their economic gardening program is based on the concept of growing local businesses, rather than attracting large businesses from out of state. Online Tech was featured in Crain’s Detroit Business last year as a case study for positive business growth in Michigan as one of the 54 Michigan companies to receive consultation during the state’s pilot program. While there is a wealth of existing talent in Michigan, the program acknowledges that business, infrastructure and financial assistance is necessary to fuel entrepreneurship and subsequent economic growth.
Most recently, the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center (MMTC) received a $1.1 million grant from the federal government to assist its endeavors to help small and medium-sized manufacturers throughout the state create new high-tech jobs. The MMTC offers personalized solutions, including business development services, lean business solutions, sustainable manufacturing and environmental systems, quality management systems and more.
Similarly, the MEDC has launched a Michigan Advanced Technician Training Program (MAT²) in attempts to revive manufacturing employment by offering a work-study program in which employers pay a student’s tuition while they attend school and work, alternating every six weeks. This type of program both cultivates and funds the development of skills of future manufacturers while keeping talent in-state.
An article by AnnArbor.com’s Tech Beat reported last month that Michigan ranked third in a national study of high-tech job growth in 2010-11. Michigan’s 6.9 percent growth was strides ahead of the national average of 2.6 percent when it came to high-tech employment, noting that Lansing and the Detroit suburbs of Warren, Troy and Farmington Hills were the leading growth regions.
The mobile app market is also growing in Detroit, as the Huffington Post reported. The first Detroit Mobile City iOS conference, hosted by Develop Detroit, a collective of software engineers and tech professionals, will be held February 2 in downtown Detroit.
According to Bloomberg, expertise in cloud computing, mobile software applications and energy management are in demand in Detroit, as automotive technology advances with Internet radio and lithium-ion battery-powered engines. The demand for developers is quickly outpacing the number of qualified local graduates in Michigan, thus spurring the need for programs like MAT² that support technology education and skill development while maintaining ties to local employers.
To support the growing mobile app industry, both secure and reliable data hosting is essential to maintaining uptime and meeting industry compliance standards for data security. Michigan data centers offer a local solution to hosting for mobile software applications. For more on mobile security, download our Mobile Security white paper.
Thought-Starters: Detroit Venture Partners Re-Imagines the Madison Theatre Building
Mich. Manufacturing Technology Center Gets Boost
MEDC Launches New Michigan Advanced Technician Training Program to Train Next Generation of Manufacturers
Tech Jobs from Engine.is
Tech Beat: Michigan Ranks 3rd in National High-Tech Job Growth
Detroit Mobile City IOS Conference Hopes to Spur City’s Tech Economy
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".... this country has frankly become a warfare state built on affluence, a power structure in which the interests of big business, the obsessions of the military, and the phobias of political extremists both dominate and dictate our national policy. It also seems that most people in this country are by and large reduced to passivity, confusion, resentment, frustration, thoughtlessness, and ignorance, so that they blindly follow any line that is unraveled for them by the mass media."
Trappist monk Thomas Merton wrote that in 1963 in the preface of his collected letters for peace "The Cold War Letters." I read that earlier today and just found it fascinating that it was written almost fifty years ago yet if you didn't know you would think it was written yesterday. I'm not trying to say anything with this but I felt like sharing.
Early reviews of the State of the Union speech say well done Mr. President, time will tell. Republican response, "Washington shouldn't be in the business of picking winners and losers." Isn't that exactly what Washington is in the business of?
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|Powers and Abilities||Powerful Robot|
|Family and Friends|| Ant-Man (Creator)|
Ultron is a powerful robot and deadly enemy to the Avengers.
As part of Ultron's mad rampage, it created the android Vision. Vision also became fully sentient and rebelled against Ultron, warning the Avengers of Ultron's scheme to attack the President of the United States of America. Ultron fought a tremendous battle against the Avengers ending in its own destruction.
Remnents of Ultron later resurfaced in Japan, posing another major threat to the Avengers. It battled the Avengers once more and again was defeated.Vision later became obessesed with finishing off Ultron and used himself as bait
to lure Ultron out. The plan worked a little too well. Ultron attacked and almost destroyed Vision. When the Avengers showed up, Ultron was destroyed once and for all.
Ultron was voiced by John Stocker.
First animated version of the character.
The character, along with the rest of the series, was heavily criticized as he changed forms in every appearance. Fans felt this was to sell different Ultron toys, one for each model.
In the ComicsEdit
Built itself a body of adamantium.
Once held captive in a Doombot.
Built a wife for itself called Jocasta.
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< Browse to Previous Essay | Browse to Next Essay >
University of Washington Regents asks for resignation of President Thomas Franklin Kane on June 12, 1913.
HistoryLink.org Essay 2115
: Printer-Friendly Format
On June 12, 1913, the Board of Regents for the University of Washington votes to ask for the resignation of President Thomas Franklin Kane (1863-1938), effective August 1, 1914, to allow time before the new school year begins to find a replacement. The board cites its doubts about Kane's leadership as the reason for his dismissal, whereas his supporters claim that he is the victim of conservative politicians who want to rein in academic freedom.
Kane came to the University in 1900 as a professor of Latin. He was made acting president in 1902 and president the following year. Under his leadership, enrollment at the University grew from 600 to 3,300, and he established the beginnings of the schools of Forestry and Journalism, the Friday Harbor Laboratories, the summer school, and chairs in Scandinavian and Japanese languages. After the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition in 1909, the University took possession of several new buildings and a much improved campus. He also recruited a number of important faculty members including the renowned Professor of Literature and author of Main Currents in American Thought, Vernon Louis Parrington (1871-1929).
During the election of 1912, the Board of Regents prohibited on-campus appearances of political candidates. The Board was concerned that students, most of whom were under age or non-residents of King County, might be encouraged to break the law by voting. Kane reluctantly enforced this rule. When Seattle Times publisher Alden J. Blethen (1845-1915) donated some chimes to the university, students wrote an open letter calling him "one of the most malign influences in the State of Washington" and complaining of his "persistent and shameless ridicule of morality and virtue." (Blethen and The Times supported an "open town" in Seattle where prostitution and gambling were permitted.)
When Kane learned that the letter would be published in The Daily, he shut down the paper and suspended the student editor. Students handed out copies of the letter at the dedication of the chimes on October 22, 1912, and thereby succeeded in embarrassing Blethen.
The matter was referred to a faculty committee, which recommended discipline for the student protesters, but the faculty and Kane took no action. A new Board of Regents was appointed by the new governor in 1913. Historian Charles M. Gates writes that Kane's
"constant reliance upon faculty committees and faculty judgement implied a voluntary acceptance of limits upon his own authority and gave a quality of indecisiveness to his dealings with this board which helped to cause dissatisfaction. The regents believed the government should be sharply focused rather than diffuse."
In December 1913, after Kane had refused to submit his resignation, the board made his termination effective on January 1, 1914. Kane went on to be president of Olivet College in Michigan and from 1918 to 1933, president of the University of North Dakota.
The Blethen chimes were destroyed by fire in 1949.
Georgia Ann Kumor, "A Question of Leadership," Pacific Northwest Quarterly, January 1986, pp. 2-12; Thomas J. Cullen, The Obituaries of University of Washington Presidents (Seattle: The Northwest Center for Studies in Education, 1989), 55; Charles M. Gates, The First Century at the University of Washington, 1861-1961 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1961), 139-144.
Travel through time (chronological order):
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Award winning Chicano author Luis J. Rodriguez. View all six video interviews with him here.
The Los Angeles River was an outlaw prone to showing its temper during winter rainstorms. It would flood the neighborhoods that depended on it, even changing its own course if the mood was right.
The Army was called in to harness it and now the river is incarcerated in concrete noir, a sentence for its bad behavior on a vulnerable floodplain.
"Hungry for the sweet love promised" are the words poet Wanda Coleman used to describe the city. The same can be said about those who wait for the river to be reprieved through revitalization.
Much of the prose shared here is directed at an Angeleno's hunger for a river with a mystery of existence.
At the same time, the river's reputation of a wild past may be the attraction to the outsider artist.
"Spray-painted outpourings on walls offer a chaos of color for the eyes," writes Luis J. Rodríguez in his poem "The Concrete River," speaking on the one-word or initials that mark the banks and hides under the bridges.
When street artists attempted to work within the rules, they shared the fate of the river's wilder days. They were welcomed, then with no negotiation, reduced to non-existence.
In 2007, Crewest Gallery and Friends of the Los Angeles River arranged for permits allowing international graffiti artists to paint at the confluence of the Los Angeles River and Arroyo Seco. "This is a historical event," said Man One at the time, who through his gallery organized the "Meeting of Styles."
Despite permission, the idea of graffiti as acceptable art was shot down and buffed out by County of Los Angeles. It left an uncompromising Man One and FOLAR reprimanded -- and later billed $10,000 for the whitewash.
The County was not prepared for visual dialogue of street art, and it is hard to tell if they expected the work to have playful whimsy of Leo Limon, or the grand social narrative of California's history in the river's masterpiece, the 2,754 foot long "Great Wall of Los Angeles" by Judith Baca and SPARC.
With no programming or plans, the river is left to the swagger of taggers determined to add granite walls and legs of bridges to their location portfolio. And while there is no doubt that the tagging, graffiti, mural, or however it is defined, can oversaturate the city like flood waters, art should be part of the city's artery.
Picture the wall on the upper banks of the Los Angeles River filled with words. This time, one word or the multi-initial identifier of an artist's ego replaced by poetry about the river in a range of styles. Some painted by a graffiti team, others by a team of graphic designers, all chosen by a jury of public art professionals, urban planners, architects, neighborhood stakeholders--and even a pool of artists.
National Poetry Month
"Spray-painted outpourings on walls offer a chaos of color for the eyes," as written by Rodríguez, could be designed by a team of graffiti artists and then read from a moving Metrolink.
"Music is the bridge. What's up rockers?" says Mike The Poet in his thinking out loud style recalling East L.A.'s music history. His quick phrase could be installed in the river so those rocking and rolling into Los Angeles via the 1927 Cesar E. Chavez Viaduct have a visual marker.
Or the line "drawfed by the desert of downtown concrete, going about the business of their lives" as written by Lewis MacAdams, can be designed by a graphic artist so it can be read from an opposite bank with the Downtown skyline in the background.
With so many poets and artists using the river once named Porciuncula as a muse, it can be channeled to be a bookmark for local poets and artists.
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By MARTHA SMITH
Special to the Standard
Exeter’s emergency preparedness Stefan Coutoulakis is crediting the lessons of Tropical Storm Irene with his community’s willingness to thoroughly prepare for Hurricane Sandy.
“There was heightened awareness,” he says. “Irene brought it to light. Nobody knew how to prepare or what to be aware of.” For this storm, as Coutoulakis constantly updated residents of Sandy’s approach and directed them to the availability of local services, residents seemed to follow his recommendations.
Southern Rhode Island Newspapers
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A walk on the compassionate side
Dr. Lawrence “Larry” Dorr ’63 realized he wanted to go into medicine when he was 5 years old.
Dorr, the son of a Methodist minister, vividly remembers his first foray into compassion. “We were living in Dayton, Iowa, and a medical missionary from India came to speak,” he said. “I went upstairs, brought out my piggy bank, and said, ‘Take it back to India and cure people.’ ”
Compassion, he said, “was something I saw daily from my parents.”
Having found his calling, Dorr took an unusual pathway to medical school: he majored in English. At Cornell, “I realized if I didn’t get an understanding of subjects outside of science, I was never going to get it any other way,” said Dorr. He played on the 1961 conference championship football team and studied creative writing with award-winning novelist and professor Winifred Van Etten ’25 before heading to the University of Iowa for M.S. and M.D. degrees.
A whole-person approach to his life infuses his work today as a world leader in hip and joint replacement surgeries. “The mental aspect of taking care of patients is almost more important than the physical part,” he said. “If you’re concerned about their well-being and let them know you are, it makes them get better almost more than from the treatment you give them.”
His role model: Sir William Osler (1849–1919), dubbed the most influential physician in history. “His fame is not only because of scientific contributions to medicine but to the art of medicine and how to be a good doctor,” Dorr said.
Like Osler, Dorr is known for both scientific and creative work. His research led to the design of widely used orthopedic implants, including a hip joint now used by a Cornell mentor, Biology Professor Francis Pray. In 1994, Dorr created a grown-up equivalent of sending his piggy bank to India with Operation Walk. This international program sends operating crews to developing countries to perform knee and hip replacements and trains local doctors how to do the surgeries. It also offers internships to Cornell students.
Dorr, who serves on the Cornell Board of Trustees, began funding Dimensions because of his devotion to the college and to patient care. “I’m not a committee person,” he said. “I’m not even in favor of democracy in a situation like this. I think it takes strong leaders to make things like this work, plus enthusiasm and the ability to make decisive decisions.”
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RI SHARK WEEK: It Begins
Monday, August 01, 2011
RI's Shark Specialist
To get Rhode Islanders even more excited about this week of grand proportions, GoLocalProv spoke with Dr. Brad Wetherbee, one of Rhode Island’s premier shark specialists. Wetherbee teaches in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Rhode Island, specializing in the ecology and distribution of marine fishes, most notably sharks. We talked with Dr. Wetherbee about sharks in Rhode Island and the conversation got us even more excited for this week… if that was even possible.
What's swimming off the Rhode Island coast?
Plenty, it turns out, according to Wetherbee. “Sand tiger sharks, sandbar sharks, smooth dogfish, spiny dogfish, and [great] white sharks," populate our waters, he says. "And a little farther offshore there are blue sharks, mako sharks, thresher sharks and basking sharks.” According to Wetherbee, these sharks also have fairly wide distributions all along the eastern seaboard and other countries around the world. The most common in our waters: spiny dogfish and
Big shark alert
Wetherbee says that the biggest shark in Rhode Island waters is the Basking Shark, which can reach lengths of 45 feet - which is bigger than a school bus. However, don't fret about these giant fish as they are harmless filter feeders and have no interest in humans.
Not surprisingly, Dr. Wetherbee says that “[great] white sharks are the most dangerous sharks in Rhode Island waters, but they are not very common.” In fact, in the past 340 years, there has only been one shark attack in Rhode Island waters. “You're going to drown or get hit by a car crossing the street to the beach before you get bitten by a shark in Rhode Island,” he says.
Fear and shark fishing
Yet, the fear of shark attacks has driven an industry where shark fishing is prevalent, and the negative effects on the shark population are showing. “Sharks have life history characteristics that make them vulnerable to overfishing and many shark populations around the world (and US) have been overfished, are in trouble and need to be conserved," he says. "Sharks kill 10-15 people around the world in a typical year, but people kill as many as 70 million sharks.”
So, during Shark Week 2011, let's appreciate the majestic beauty of these animals and the awesomeness of their marine life cycle. “The most rewarding thing about working with sharks for me is appreciating their design and seeing how remarkably suited they are to their life in the ocean," Wetherbee says. "There are a number of unique aspects of their biology, but from their sensory biology and biochemistry to their feeding, digestion, movements and behavior they continue to fascinate.”
You got that right. Happy Shark Week.
Tomorrow: Shark attacks in RI and nearby waters.
Psych up with this video on shark attacks, from the Discovery Channel:
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It depends a lot on the kind of traffic you expect and the condition of the ground. I'm going to write from my experience, outside Seattle, WA, USA, where the subsoil is glacial till.
For light foot traffic, pea gravel can be nice. Rocks are under 1", uniform in size, and have smooth surfaces. Every time you step on it, the rocks will shift, softening the footfall. This is also noisy and causes the gravel to spread out. You can contain it with edging, or just let it spread and refresh it periodically. It's not good for wheeled traffic, as the wheel will just sink in.
If you want to push a heavy wheelbarrow, ride a bicycle, or drive on gravel, you want to pick something with sharp edges. It also helps if the rocks are a mix of sizes. They will lock together over time, providing a sturdy surface.
If the ground is soft and collects water during your rainy season, smaller gravel will just get pushed in to the mud with traffic. An initial layer of larger rock (say, 3" minus) will stabilize things, and a top layer (say 3/4" minus) will give a smooth surface. Mud will still work its way to the surface, but the ground will remain stable. In very wet soft ground, I've heard that a layer of 3" - 5" crushed rock works well under the 3" minus, but I haven't tried it.
To keep mud from working its way up, put a layer of landscape fabric down first.
Look at the shape of the land and the history of draining. Avoid low, wet areas, or reshape them to drain elsewhere. Consider how your traffic will wear and shift the ground, and how that will affect draining in the future, too (e.g. tires leaving ruts).
It a good idea to remove topsoil and other organic matter first. Keep it, though, and use it elsewhere.
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Resources for Staff Trainers
Welcome to the Trainers' Resource website! These web pages will give us a chance to share articles and information relating to the daily challenge of building the skills needed to provide effective employment services to individuals with disabilities.
The rehabilitation agencies in our region (Alaska, Oregon, Idaho, and Washington) take a variety of approaches to training their new and experienced staff. Some have formal curricula that are presented according to a structured plan. Some rely on a combination of job shadowing and peer mentoring along with occasional training classes.
And some have good intentions but find that staff training - beyond what's legally required - keeps getting relegated to the back burner as other issues clamor for attention. Many of the students in our training classes report that they received no training at all as they started their jobs - the previous staff person introduced them to the participants and that was about it!
Here's a comment from Training magazine (January 2004): "The best training is and always will be on-the-job training with a peer or mentor practicing what your work actually entails. Experiential, action learning tied to your real job objectives has the best chance of providing the motivation, timeliness and ease required for successful learning." How can we best provide that to staff who already have more to do than they have time for? Let me know what you think!
Laurie Ford (firstname.lastname@example.org)
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Hannah Montana or Avatar might be on your child's mind. But it when it comes to the kind of backpack to purchase for this school year, safety should be top of mind for parents.
About 6,000 children are injured each year from wearing an inappropriate backpack. Before you head to the store for school supplies, be sure you know the four steps to backpack safety.
• Choose wisely. Backpacks come in many sizes and designs that allow children of all ages to express their own style. Select a lightweight pack that doesn't add more pounds to your child's load. Make sure it has two wide, padded shoulder straps, because narrow straps can dig into the shoulders. A padded back on the pack will provide increased comfort and protect kids from being poked by the sharp edges of pencils, pens, rulers and other objects stored inside.
Finally, choose a backpack that is the right size for your student. It should cover no more than 75 percent of the length of your child's back, which is approximately the space between the shoulder blades and waist.
• Pack it carefully. The maximum weight of the loaded backpack should not exceed 15 percent of your child's body weight, so pack only what is needed. Make use of a bag's compartments to help distribute the weight more evenly. A waist belt will also help distribute the weight across the body. Be sure to place the heaviest books closest to the back as they require the greatest body support. If the backpack forces the child to lean forward to carry it, then it's overloaded.
• Lift it correctly. Facing the backpack, have your child bend at the knees. Use both hands and check the weight of the pack. Then lift with the legs and apply one shoulder strap and then the other. Don't let your child just sling the backpack onto one shoulder and go. This will put too much strain on one side of the upper body.
• Wear it correctly. The backpack straps should be snug, but not too tight. Unnecessary tightness can also hurt the shoulders. Compared to shoulder bags, messenger bags or purses, backpacks are better because the strongest muscles in the body - the back and the abdominal muscles - support the weight of the packs. Therefore, stick with a standard backpack to decrease risk of injury. Make sure your child wears the waist strap if the backpack is equipped with one in order to better distribute the load.
As practical as backpacks are, they can strain muscles and joints and may cause back pain if they are too heavy or used incorrectly. So it is important to help your child choose an appropriate backpack and use it wisely.
(Linda Rhodes is an occupational therapist at MCGHealth Children's Medical Center.)
The Columbia County News-Times ©2013. All Rights Reserved.
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ARCHIVE OF COMMENTS AND DISCUSSIONS
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Our subjects cover: animals, religion (Christian, Jewish and others); diet and lifestyle (vegan and vegetarian); and other miscellaneous subjects.
I feel your pain! The response 'they were already dead' is trite and dismissive. It says 'see, its not my fault, this is happening anyway'. I got a similar response from a former co-worker at my former place of employment.
Another idea behind this faulty reasoning is that the death of animals for human consumption is happening anyway so what impact does one person/one family's food choice have on something that is happening anyway? The truth is one person can do a lot. I am the only vegetarian in my family and a curiosity (for lots of other reasons as well...!), but my family struggles to understand why I became a vegetarian. This is a perfect opportunity to explain the 'why'. I haven't 'converted' anyone yet, but at least I am engaging them in discussion and making them think a little. :)
I know I've said this here before, but I need to say it again. Unfortunately, people are not that interested in the welfare of animals, if it means that they have to give up their steak and ribs. I have found, even among Christians, that the best arguments for vegetarianism is about health. People are very interested in themselves and their health.
No offense (keep in mind I do understand how you feel about this...), but saying: 'Why did we get sent to the stupid people's planet?' is equally dismissive. I know it's frustrating but it's simply wrong to think lesser of someone who doesn't share our ethics and values. We are all on a journey and not one of us is perfect! Our best tool in discussions such as these is patience and compassion.
Go on to: Comments by Elaine - 16 Feb 2009
Return to: They Were Already Dead
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As far as eye problems go, cataracts in dogs are among the most common. Cataracts can affect any age or breed of dog and there are a wide range of types and causes of cataracts in dogs. Despite the relatively high prevalence of cataracts in dogs, there is still a lot to learn about the disease. Most cases of cataracts can be treated but only by surgery, which tends to be highly effective.
Cataracts occur when the arrangement of lens fibers and their capsules become disrupted resulting in poor vision. A dog’s lens is normally transparent but when cataracts appear they interfere with the passage of light through the eye leading to partial or total blindness. Cataracts in dogs look like opaque white spots on the lens of the eye, but can also resemble crushed ice.
Cataracts in dogs result from the malfunctioning of a particular eye system. Unlike most of a dog’s body, the lens of the eye is actually maintained in a dehydrated condition that is approximately two thirds water and one third proteins. Your dog’s eye contains a physiological system that attempts to keep this balance but when this system fails and excess water enters the lens along with excess insoluble protein. This biochemical imbalance ultimately results in the formation of cataracts.
Dogs can develop cataracts at any age and there are generally three types of cataracts. Congenital cataracts are present at birth; developmental cataracts arise early in life and are often associated with other illnesses like diabetes; and senile cataracts arise late in life. Furthermore, there are some breeds of dogs that can inherit cataracts. Afghan Hounds, Boston Terriers, Golden Retrievers, and Standard Poodles are just a few of the breeds that are predisposed to cataracts.
Treating cataracts in dogs is restricted to surgery. Your veterinarian will remove all or part of the affected lens to restore site. While this treatment is not always effective, it has shown a very good success rate for treating cataracts in dogs.
The first four weeks of a newborn kitten’s life are full of growth and development. Indeed, these initial weeks are fundamental with regards to your kitten’s personality and character as well as for other factors such as their health. Very young kittens are especially susceptible to health threats and they are also growing at an unbelievable rate. In most cases, two scenarios for kitten care may be played out. Your kittens may have a loving and attentive mother who feeds them and helps them to grow, or they may have been abandoned by their mother or be alone for some other reason. As a newborn kitten owner, it is your responsibility to ensure that the kitten gets all the care it needs to develop normally.
As newborns, kittens generally weigh about 3 ounces but will gain weight every day. Charting their growth is important to make sure that the kittens are getting enough food. Usually, kittens may mew but will not fuss or cry when eating. Moreover, they should gain a little weight every day. If you notice your kitten is a fussy eater or that it’s not gaining weight steadily, contact your veterinarian.
If you are left to feed the newborn kitten on your own, you have the choice to bottle feed to tube feed the kittens. Tube feeding can be difficult as kittens need a precise amount of food depending on their weight, so speak to your vet for his recommendations. In addition, there are other elements of newborn kitten care. In the beginning, kittens sleep the majority of the day and eat the rest. However, newborn kittens cannot defecate or urinate on their own and usually the mother will lick and clean her kittens. In absence of a mother, it is your responsibility to gently clean your newborn kitten and its genital area with a soft, moist cloth. This should be done every two hours as it helps to stimulate toileting. Change your newborn kitten’s blankets twice a day and wipe the kittens clean regularly.
In recent years, ferrets have become an increasingly popular pet. They have been domesticated animals for somewhere around 2000 years and were first brought to North America as pets around 1700. Still, some regions do not recognize ferrets as domestic animals with regards to the law and keeping animals in captivity. Moreover, not all ferrets have been domesticated and the black footed ferret is often confused with its domestic cousin. Because ferrets are related to badgers, wolverines, otters, and weasels, some people think they will not make good pets, but this is simply not true. They are highly adaptive animals with a playfulness that makes them an excellent pet.
Generally speaking, ferrets live between 6 and 8 years but can live up to 12 years. Males are slightly larger in length and weight than females but behaviorally there are few differences. In North America, most ferrets have been spayed or neutered but if you get a pet ferret that is not, it is highly recommended to have the procedure for health and behavioral reasons. As they are predators, ferrets sleep around 18 hours per day and they tend to be more active at dawn and dusk. However, ferrets are well known for changing their sleeping patterns to adapt to their owners. They are very playful animals with poor eyesight but excellent smell and hearing.
If you are interested in getting a pet ferret, you may have heard about their smelly reputation. Ferrets certainly have a distinct smell but this musky odor is not particularly strong so you should not find it offensive. Regardless of whether your ferret has been de-scented, their skin glands release this musky odor. Moreover, while bathing is important, it will not eliminate their smell. Finally, while ferrets make good pets for children, it is best not to expose them to very young children. Being relatively small, ferrets do not enjoy rough play and small children often do not understand their own strength.
Like all other pets, snakes require the three basic elements of life: food, water, and shelter. However, there are some other elements of snake and reptile care that cannot be overlooked. From the temperature of their terrarium to veterinary care, snakes are decidedly different from the standard house pet. If you’re a first time snake owner, you need to take some time to learn about the specific needs of your species of snake, but this article will give a general overview of basic snake care.
First, let’s talk about food and water. Snakes can be herbivorous, carnivorous, or omnivorous so you will need to have a good understanding of your snake’s species and preferred diet. Most carnivorous snakes from the pet store will eat pre-killed frozen mice which are actually a better alternative to live mice. Live mice carry disease and may even injure your snake. In addition to a consistent food source, snakes need fresh drinking water to be available at all times. Room temperature water served in a shallow bowl that your snake cannot knock over is best.
Next, we should talk about temperature. As reptiles, snakes cannot regulate their own body temperature. In the wild, they will warm themselves in the sun and cool themselves in the shade depending on their body temperature. Depending on the species, snakes will have different ideal temperatures but all pet snakes will require an infrared lamp to provide heat.
Finally, snakes are also susceptible to illness, usually as a result of parasites. New snakes should be checked by a veterinarian to ensure they are healthy and parasite, tick, and mite free. Symptoms of snake illness include weight loss, runny stools, a sudden refusal to eat, or a constant upward gaze. If you suspect your snake may be ill, you can closely check its skin for ticks but mites are nearly impossible to find. Should your snake become ill, it is important to visit the veterinarian immediately.
If you’ve never owned a snake before, there are some guidelines you should follow for choosing your pet snake. While snakes can be very interesting pets, they are not ideal for every family. A tame snake that has experienced regular handling will make an excellent pet but you should have a good idea of what it takes to own a snake. Moreover, you should do a bit of research about the different types of pet snakes before you rush into buying a serious snake like a boa constrictor or python.
When you are first choosing your pet snake understand that some species can live up to 20 years and as such, pet snakes are a long term commitment. In addition, snakes are predators and they generally eat rodents or insects. If you are squeamish about feeding prey animals to your snake, you should reconsider your decision to get a pet snake. Most snake food is pre-killed and stored frozen so you will also have to have storage space for your snake’s food. One of the most important things to consider about owning a pet snake is that they are very good at escaping and hiding so you need to invest in a good tank; even the smallest gap will tempt your snake to escape.
Finally, when choosing your first snake, it is not recommended that you get a constricting or venomous snake as these snakes can pose a significant risk to small children and adults alike. Your first snake should be reasonably sized and easy to care for. Some examples of more docile snakes include corn snakes, king snakes, milk snakes, and ball pythons. On the other hand larger constricting or venomous snakes with more difficult care needs such as boa constrictors, Burmese pythons, water snakes or green snakes don’t make very good pets for first time snake owners.
Just as with mammals, there are 3 main dietary types of fish: carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores. If you have recently purchased a fish but you are not sure of its dietary type, you need to speak to the pet store or a veterinarian immediately. Properly feeding your fish is a basic requirement of owning a pet fish. In fact, pet fish are extremely sensitive to proper diet and over feeding, under feeding, or feeding your pet fish the wrong type of food can have fatal results.
Carnivores are fish that eat meat, just as you would expect with mammals. Some fish prefer live prey and may only eat food that they can hunt and kills. Other fish and insects are the most common type of food for these fish. On the other hand, some carnivorous fish will eat dried shrimp or other meat-based products. Examples of carnivorous fish include:
Herbivores are essentially vegetarian fish. As such herbivorous fish will eat a diet made up exclusively or mostly of vegetable matter. Since herbivores tend to have a smaller stomach, they need to eat more often. Examples of herbivorous fish include:
The final dietary type of fish is the omnivore. Most aquarium fish are omnivores and they will eat both meat and vegetables. Veterinarians recommend a varied diet for omnivorous fish to ensure that they get all the nutrients they need. Omnivorous fish can survive on a vegetarian diet, although it is not recommended. Depending on the type of fish you have, you should do some research about their preferred diet. The following are examples of omnivorous fish:
Maintaining the health and well being of your pet fish requires that you choose the correct fish food and that you feed them on a consistent schedule. Over feeding, under feeding, and malnutrition can have a very serious impact on the health of your pet fish. In many circumstances, a new fish owner may not even know what kind of food to give their fish. Always speak to the pet store clerk or a veterinarian about the best way to feed your fish as there is no common rule for every species. Nevertheless, here are some basic guidelines for feeding fish.
Fish can be omnivores, herbivores, or carnivores so you need to identify which kind of food your fish will eat. Most small fish that are kept in bowls will survive happily on some kind of fish flake diet, but other fish can have very specific dietary needs. In addition, fry will need special foods until they develop so you need to do your research before settling on one type of food. Moreover, adult fish like to have a variable diet so including dry, froze, and fresh foods can help them maintain a balanced diet.
Fish will definitely have different feeding behaviors as well. Some fish feed from the top of their habitat while others like to feed at the bottom. Similarly, some fish are day time eaters while others prefer to feed at night. As a fish owner, you need to find out what time of day your fish prefers to eat as well as where as you’ll need food that sinks for fish that prefer feeding at the bottom of the water.
Finally, remember that fish foods are not good forever. While they don’t often carry an expiry date, many fish foods, especially fish flakes, can lose their nutritional value very quickly, sometimes in less than a month. Keep food fresh and make sure that your fish receive a variety of vitamins and nutrients.
While most veterinarians have experience with a wide range of animals, they are not always going to be confident with every pet they come across. If you have a pet rabbit, you are tasked with finding an experienced rabbit veterinarian that will provide the best possible care for your beloved pet. Finding a veterinarian for your rabbit is much the same as finding a vet for any pet, but because rabbits are less common than dogs or cats, for example, it is somewhat more difficult to find a vet with experience.
In your search to find a vet for your rabbit, you should start by speaking to local humane societies. They might be able to put you in touch with recommended rabbit veterinarians or other rabbit owners who have already established contact with a local rabbit vet. Once you have a list of recommended rabbit vets, you should take some time to meet each of them. You can even ask these vets who they would refer you to for rabbit care. Next, you should visit the top vets in your list. Check out their facilities, determine if you can have a good working relationship with the veterinarian and their staff, and then you can get a general evaluation of the staff and facilities.
Next, you should schedule appointments with your top 2 or 3 choices. There are a number of screening questions that will help you determine if this veterinarian has experience with rabbits and whether you think your rabbit will be comfortable with this particular vet.
- How many rabbits do they see in the clinic?
- How many rabbits do they spay or neuter in a given week?
- Ask for references from other rabbit owners.
- Ask for a tour of the facilities.
Although finding the right vet for your rabbit can take a bit of time, it is well worth the effort.
Many rabbit owners feel that the rabbit pellets that are available at the local pet store are a sufficient diet for their pet rabbit. In fact, this is not the case. Fiber is an essential nutrient for rabbits, without which they will not have a properly functioning digestive system. As such, fresh hay and vegetables are a necessary part of a healthy rabbit diet. While rabbit pellets are a normal part of your rabbit’s diet, feeding your pet rabbit these pellets exclusively may lead to obesity and other digestive problems. Moreover, high fiber diets for rabbits can help ameliorate problems experienced with hair balls while stimulating intestinal functioning.
Hay provides rabbits with the majority of the fiber they need to remain healthy. As such, rabbit owners should make hay available to their rabbits every day. Unfortunately, rabbits that have been fed a steady pellet diet may not take to hay immediately. Rabbit pellets are high in fat and are kind of like junk food to rabbits. However, if you gradually wean your rabbits off pellets by offering more hay every day your rabbit will eventually make the switch to hay because they are hungry. Young rabbits should be fed alfalfa hay but by around 6-7 months of age you should start introducing grass hay. By the age of 1 year, rabbits should be eating grass hay exclusively.
Vegetables are another important part of your rabbit’s diet and depending on the size of your rabbit most veterinarians recommend 2 to 4 cups of fresh vegetables every day. Carrots, lettuce, parsley, broccoli, turnips, collard greens, and dandelion greens are all great vegetables for your rabbit. On the other hand, beans, cauliflower, cabbage, and potatoes are not recommended for rabbits as these vegetables can cause digestive problems. Other human foods should never be fed to rabbits as their digestive systems have not evolved to accept anything other than hay and vegetables.
After spending enough time with your cat it is pretty easy to see them as miniature humans who prefer not to talk. Indeed, pet cats are our beloved friends, but unlike humans they have their own instincts and evolved behaviors. Felines have natural hunting instincts that make them considerably different from humans, dogs, and other mammals. Understanding cat behavior can help you to be a more patient and loving cat owner.
One of the first things to remember is that cats are active, curious, and highly athletic creatures that have evolved from a long line of hunters. Kittens require a lot of active play with people, other cats, and/or interactive toys as well as a safe area to climb and explore. It is always best to keep kittens (and even adult cats) indoors so they are not exposed to predators or other dangers.
Problem behaviors such as aggression, scratching, or inappropriate toileting can arise with pet cats but there are usually very good reasons for this. Aggressive behavior is often a sign of anxiety so you should try to understand what is causing your cat to feel stress. Alternatively, scratching is a very natural cat behavior that helps them to maintain their claws, so a professional clipping may help to deter this behavior. Otherwise, you should provide your cat with an appropriate place to scratch. Finally, cats are very clean creatures and they do not like a dirty litter box. In most cases of inappropriate toileting the cat has either not been properly trained or their litter box has not been properly cleaned.
Generally speaking, behavioral problems are rare in pet cats. If you observe sudden or unexplained behavioral problems in an adult cat, you should visit the veterinarian immediately to rule out a more serious medical problem.
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TTT: Bk 3, Ch 5
"We meet again. At the turn of the tide."While Merry and Pippin are talking with Quickbeam on the second day of the Entmoot, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli survey the battleground left by the Men of Rohan and the Orcs. It is daybreak and the three hunters continue to search for signs of their little friends. They are wary of their encounter the night before and keep an eye out for Saruman. Aragorn finds a Lorien leaf that once held some lembas bread. The trail has grown warm again. Using his tracking skills, Aragorn uses additional evidence - an Orc dagger, cut-up cord and small footprints - to guess the fate of the hobbits. Through some strange circumstance they were able to escape their captors, after which need drove them into Fangorn. Despite their trepidation, they follow the trail into the forest. Legolas senses that it is old and full of memory. As a Wood-Elf, he appreciates its dark beauty though Gimli feels no desire to tarry.
Eventually they find themselves at the very shelf where Merry and Pippin met Treebeard. In the distance they see an old man walking among the trees. His head was bowed and he is dressed in rags. They wait as the old man ascends the hill, anticipating some evil magic of Saruman. The old man speaks: "Well met indeed, my friends." Aragorn asks his name. The old man replies, "Have you not guessed it already? You have heard it before, I think." At that moment, he draws away his grey cloak. They see that underneath he is clothed all in white and it shines upon them. "Mithrandir!" cries Legolas, "Mithrandir!" It is Gandalf!
"They all gazed at him. His hair was white as snow in the sunshine; and gleaming white was his robe; the eyes under his deep brows were bright, piercing as the rays of the sun; power was in his hand. Between wonder, joy, and fear they stood and found no words to say."
They cannot believe their eyes. It is there old friend, lost in Moria but now returned. In casting aside the weapons of the three hunters, the wizard reveals a greater power than that which was wielded by the Grey Pilgrim.
Bewildered, Gimli asks him why he is now dressed in white. He says, "Indeed I am Saruman, one might almost say, Saruman as he should have been." The four of them spend some time bringing themselves up to speed on their adventure. Gimli asks if it was Gandalf that they had seen the night before. It was in fact Saruman that they had seen, venturing east to discover what had become of his Orcs and the hobbits. But he was too late, for the Orcs were destroyed and the hobbits had escaped into Fangorn. However, the fate of the Ring eluded Saruman. If fact, it was because of his fear that it might fall into the hands of Theoden, King of Rohan, that he unleashed his Orc army to assail the forces of that land. Gandalf knows that Merry and Pippin are with Treebeard and the Ents and he knows that they have been roused to anger against Saruman. And of course when the Ents arrive, Saruman will be left undefended. Their path does not lie toward Isengard. He tells them they must now journey to Edoras in Rohan to aid King Theoden. But first, Legolas wants to know what happened to Gandalf since his descent into the abyss in Moria.
Gandalf did reach the bottom of the chasm - "the uttermost foundations of stone" - with the Balrog. They continued to fight for many days under the mountain until they came to the endless stair, built by Durin's folk in the Second Age. It led all the way to the peak of the Silvertine, the mountain immediately to the south of Caradhras. There, exposed to the harsh snows of the mountain top, was Durin's tower.
Gandalf was finally able to destroy the Balrog, sending it crashing down into the side of the mountain. At that point, Gandalf's body was broken and his spirit journeyed, straying "out of thought and time" to the Undying Lands in a way that defied time and space. But he was sent back in a new body: "Naked I was sent back - for a brief time. Until my task is done." Gwaihir, the Lord of the Eagles had been sent by Galadriel to search for Gandalf. For she new his true nature and hoped that he would somehow survive. The eagle bore him back to Lothlorien where he was clad in his current raiments and crafted a new staff from the wood of the Mallorn tree. Interestingly enough, Gandalf managed to retain possession of his sword, Glamdring. Tolkien never comments on this remarkable feat in any of his writings. Again, Gwaihir carried him south to search for the Fellowship and was able to catch up with his friends at Fangorn.
At this point, I think it would be appropriate to shed some light on Gandalf's "true nature" as well as give some background on the wizards. Who were they? Where did they come from? And how was Gandalf able to return after death? Most of the answers can be found in Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-Earth.
Gandalf and the other wizards, also known as the Istari, were all Maiar spirits but of varying rank and status. They were sent by the Valar, possibly at the instruction Eru Iluvatar, to Middle-Earth to assist Men and Elves in their struggle with Sauron, whose power was growing again in the Third Age. The story, they way Tolkien conceived it, is that some of the Valar asked for volunteers among the Maiar to accept this task. The first was Curumo. He was chosen by Aule to make the journey. Curumo would become Saruman the White and was appointed the leader of the Istari. With him, he took Aiwendel - who would become Radagast the Brown - at the request of Aule's female counterpart, Yavanna. The Vala Orome chose Alatar, who took with him Pallando. These two were known as "the blue wizards". Lastly, Manwe chose Olorin. For though Olorin was not considered to be as wise and powerful as Curumo, Manwe recognized in him the qualities of humility and compassion.
There may have been more, but Tolkien only addresses these five Istari directly. These "emissaries" took the form of men "already old in years but hale in body, travelers and wanderers, gaining knowledge of Middle-Earth and all that dwelt herein, but revealing to none their powers and purposes." Though they were not subject to dying natural physical deaths, they experienced fear, pain and weariness as well as hunger and thirst as a mortal would. And their physical incarnations could be slain.
They went to Middle-Earth by ship to the Grey Havens at the Gulf of Lune, at approximately the year 1000 of the Third Age. Cirdan the Shipwright was one of the few who knew of their origins, having seen them all arrive. Gandalf was the last of the five to reach the Havens and Cirdan, who was the bearer of Narya the Elven ring of fire, felt that the grey wizard was actually the greatest of the Istari and gave to him that ring. He told Gandalf that it would aid him in the "great labours and perils" that lay before him. Eventually, Saruman would learn of this gift and it led to a secret animosity and ill-will in him towards Gandalf.
Gandalf, as it turned out, was the only one of the Istari who remained faithful to his mission. Radagast had become so enamored of the birds and beasts of Middle-Earth that he forsook Elves and Men. Saruman grew proud and desired power, and so became ensnared by Sauron. Not much is know of the fates of the blue wizards, Alatar and Pallando, for they traveled far into the eastern lands of Middle-Earth and never returned. Not only did Gandalf adhere to the "rules" given to him by the Valar, but he fully passed the tests on a moral plane as well. By his sacrifice at the bridge of Khazad-Dum, he had given up any hope of personal success in the conflict with Sauron and saved the remaining members of the Fellowship.
Because of this, Gandalf earned the blessing of Eru. In an uncharacteristic intervention, he sent Olorin back to Middle-Earth as Gandalf the White. Or seen in another way, Gandalf: Reloaded. He is given the mantle of leadership that Saruman had ceded. His task was not yet finished and he was given greater power, though he was still prohibited from using his power to take on Sauron directly. The overthrow of Sauron had to come as a result of the choices made and actions taken by Men. Rather, Gandalf's role was to rally and unite the free peoples to oppose the Dark Lord - all the while knowing that the true hope of the word rested on the shoulders of a hobbit, who even now was approaching Mordor through the Dead Marshes. Though exactly what fate lie ahead for Frodo and Sam, Gandalf could not be sure.
Now the task at hand was to journey at great speed to Edoras. Gandalf's steed, Shadowfax, that bore him first from Rohan to Rivendell now accompanied him. Shadowfax was one of the Mearas, Lords of Horses. The Mearas were descended from those brought to Middle-Earth by the Valar during the Elder Days. Shadowfax's presence was what called Hasufel and Arod away from their camp and they were now with him. The four friends then headed south and as they passed by the Gap of Rohan, they saw a great smoke rising from the direction of Isengard. Legolas asked what it may be. "Battle and war!", said Gandalf, "Ride on!"
[Chronology: March 1st - March 2nd 3019 T.A.]
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Via Huffington Post, a YouTube statement by Iranian Artists in Exile:
Here’s the group’s Facebook page, and here’s its profile pic — one that has popped up on many Iranian Facebooks users’ pages.
And here’s what those of us who aren’t Iranian but want to express solidarity are using:
I grabbed mine from Andrew Sullivan‘s blog, which has been a constantly churning clearinghouse of Tweets and other dispatches about the uprisings in Iran. Seeing it pop up on other Facebook users’ pages (here’s mine, by the way — friend me if you like) took me back to the days of the Silence = Death Project, six gay men who were present during the formation in 1987 of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power. They lent ACT UP a logo they had created in 1986. It became iconic and spread like wildfire, long before most people had heard of, let alone used, the Internet.
Silence = Death, 1986, Silence = Death Project. Poster, offset lithography, 29 x 24″
This site has that graphic, along with ones created by Gran Fury, an ACT UP ad-hoc art project committee that “regrouped nearly a year later resolving to dedicate themselves to exploring and exploiting the power of art to end the AIDS crisis.” Some of Gran Fury’s graphics became iconic, but none could touch the pink triangle for sheer indelibility.
As the Chronicle’s Corilyn Shropshire reports, although green has become an international symbol for solidarity with the Iranian protesters, people are by no means using the same logos.
All over Facebook and the Twittersphere users changed their avatars to green signs that read “Can’t Stop The Signal,” or “Free Iran Now.” Others kept it simple, with a solid block of green in place of their photo.
She ends with tips for people interested in joining the cyber-movement. In addition to checking Sullivan’s blog regularly, her other tips include:
•Check-out the latest tips on helping out the cause on Boing Boing’s “Cyberwar Guide for Iran Elections” http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/16/cyberwar-guide-for-i.html
•Follow the latest on Twitter with the hashtags #iranelection and #gr88.
•Check http://search.twitter.com frequently to make sure these have not changed. Security is always an issue.
•”Green” your Twitter or Facebook avatar. Here’s how to do it:
Go to http://www.picnik.com
Upload your photo.
Click “night vision”
Save and add to Twitter or Facebook.
With so many green alternatives to the Where Is
My Their Vote? logo available, that suggests it may not attain the iconic status of the pink triangle. But the way people are spontaneously using the color green en masse — part of a tradition that includes the symbolic use of ribbons of a particular color in expressions of solidarity or support for a cause — is a wonderful example of people engaging with art at the most basic level without necessarily being conscious of doing so, investing colors and symbols with incredible power simply because they decided to do so.
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Gov. Dave Heineman proclaimed November as Adoption Awareness Month for the state of Nebraska. Adoption Awareness Month spotlights children in foster care who are waiting to find permanent, loving families.
“Many Nebraskans look forward to spending the upcoming holidays renewing traditions with their family,” said Gov. Heineman. “Meanwhile, children across our state in foster care won’t share these special days with a permanent, stable, loving family. I’m asking Nebraskans to consider adopting foster children and I want to thank the parents who have opened their hearts and homes to the children who are in the child welfare system. Adoptive parents are making a positive impact every day in the lives of the most vulnerable children in our state.”
In 2012, more than 200 foster children have been adopted. Another 130 are expected to be adopted in ceremonies during the coming weeks.
“Not only are foster children positively changed through adoption, but so are the lives of the adopting parents,” said Thomas Pristow, director of Children and Family Services in the Department of Health and Human Services. “Statistics show that without a permanent family, children in foster care are at increased risk for homelessness, substance abuse and crime as young adults. On the other hand, adopted children are more likely to grow up as healthy, functioning and productive members of society. These children have experienced so much in their young lives. Many of them are over six years old and find it difficult to become adopted.”
Jack and Cathy Taff of Omaha joined the Governor for the news conference. They have adopted two young men, served as guardians of another and as foster parents for several others. Their two sons, Lukas, 18, and Paul, 15, joined them at the announcement of Adoption Awareness Month.
“My wife and I both like kids and we want to have an affect on young men’s lives,” Jack Taff said. “We have adopted older boys because they need somewhere to go and they need permanency and stability. We don’t stand on the sidelines and watch.”
Taff said they’ve found that positive reinforcement makes a difference to the young men. “We tell them they can be successful and they can accomplish something. We try to explain where they’re doing things right and wrong. Once one or two are headed in a positive direction, you add one more and they usually go in the right direction, too. It takes patience and you need to be able to sit with them and talk to them.
“I would encourage others to get consider adopting foster children,” Taff said. “Take the chance and it will help you as much as you help them.”
In a loving and caring environment, foster children develop networks of support through friends, relatives, neighbors and the organizations they join. More information about the foster children available for adoption can be found on the DHHS website at: http://dhhs.ne.gov/AdoptionKids.
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By Reyna Gobel
When you think about college, you may envision attending a small private college, a four-year state university, or a technical school. Each has something important to offer.
Don't choose colleges based on college-type preferences alone. There are many possible avenues when continuing education. Consider a variety of them by searching for schools based on career goals, your personality, and your interests.
discover or refine career goals
Do you have an idea of the career you want after college? Start researching your career possibilities with the help of your school counselor.
"The student needs to do career interest inventories and research careers of interest, which will help [him or her] to set goals for the future," says Brian Law, president-elect of the American School Counselor Association, Alexandria, Va.
School counselors also can help you pick an elective to refine goals. For instance, one of the students where Law works wanted to be a plastic surgeon. Law instructed the ninth-grade student to take a health-occupations elective. As it turned out, the student didn't like the sight of blood. He still wants to pursue a career in medicine, but one that's less invasive.
What if you're no longer in high school? Many school counselors will help alumni. You also can do internships, ask professionals in a field you'd like to pursue if you could shadow them for a day, or take career surveys online on websites such as CaliforniaColleges.edu.
find a school with career and major preferences
Once you have a general career direction, your school counselor can help you find colleges that have programs for your major field of study. Websites from many states also can help locate colleges that may be a good fit. From this list, you can narrow your search by researching factors such as campus size, admission standards, tuition, and average size of financial aid packages offered.
You can choose to include both two-year and four-year colleges in your search. You may find a career such as computer programming that you could train for in a two-year or four-year program.
You wouldn't buy a car or an outfit you've never seen, nor should you make one of the biggest decisions of your life without visiting the campus where you'll spend the next two to four years—maybe even six if you continue your education through a graduate-level degree. Schedule a campus visit to each of your top choices. If you can't visit the campus in person, virtual tours on campus websites are the next best thing.
How much difference can a campus visit make? Michael Barton, project manager for student-friendly services at the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities, Sacramento, Calif., encountered a student who fell in love with a school on a campus visit, but was also tempted by a big-name school to which she was accepted. After much deliberation, she chose the school with the campus she adores—and she's very happy there.
transfer from community college to four-year school
You want to go to a four-year university, but your grades aren't high enough, you'd like to stay closer to home a little longer, or you want to save money by going to a less-expensive community college for your first two years. Your solution may be a transfer agreement.
Research careers with the help of your school counselor.
Barton suggests asking for a transfer agreement with the grades and courses required for transferring to the four-year university at which you'd like to continue your education. It's important that the transfer agreement gives you guaranteed admission upon completion of your end of the bargain.
The courses you generally will need to take when preparing to transfer, in addition to core courses, are called major prep, says Barton. These are the early courses for the major you plan to pursue. For instance, if you plan on a business major, your four-year university choice may want you to take Business 101.
invest in your future
Go into career and college selection with an open mind, your school counselor's help, your family's input, and the attitude that you're willing to put the effort into making the best decision to make sure you choose a career you will enjoy.
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Israel's deputy defence minister has said Israel will have "no choice" but to invade Gaza if Palestinian militants step up rocket attacks.
Israel air strikes pounded targets in Gaza for a second night
Matan Vilnai said Palestinians risked a "shoah", the Hebrew word for a big disaster - and for the Nazi Holocaust.
Mr Vilnai made the comments after rockets hit the city of Ashkelon, 10km (six miles) from Gaza. His colleagues insisted he had not meant "genocide".
Hamas leader Ismail Haniya said it was ready for a large-scale Israeli attack.
Israeli air strikes have killed about 30 Palestinians in the past three days.
The string of attacks came a day after a rocket fired by Hamas killed an Israeli student on the outskirts of Sderot, about a mile from Gaza, the first such death in nine months.
The barrage continued on Friday with militants aiming several Grad rockets at Ashkelon, home to 120,000 people.
The Iranian-made rockets are said to have a range of about 22km (14 miles).
One rocket hit a block of flats in the city, breaking through the roof and slicing through three floors below, while another landed near a school, wounding a 17-year-old girl.
It is the first time Israeli officials have ordered Code Red sirens to be sounded in Ashkelon and reports say soldiers from the Israeli military's Home Front Command have been hanging posters around the city instructing residents on what to do when the warning sounds.
"It's a city with large facilities - a huge soccer stadium, and a basketball stadium, and a beach. No-one is ready for this," Ashkelon mayor Roni Mehatzri told Israel Radio.
Israel's leaders have been under pressure in some quarters to launch a ground invasion of Gaza to end the rocket fire and although they are reluctant, Mr Vilnai admitted on Friday that they will have "no other choice".
Speaking on Israel Army Radio, Mr Vilnai said if Palestinians increased rocket fire, they would bring upon themselves a "shoah".
The BBC's Katya Adler in Jerusalem says many of Mr Vilnai's colleagues have quickly distanced themselves from his comments and also tried to downplay, them saying he did not mean genocide.
"We're getting close to using our full strength. Until now, we've used a small percentage of the army's power because of the nature of the territory," he added.
Separately, the chairman of the Knesset's defence and foreign affairs committee, Tzachi Hanegbi, said Israel "must make a strategic decision to order the army to prepare quickly".
A recent opinion poll has indicated a majority of Israelis favour a truce with Hamas.
The Islamist movement, which seized control of Gaza in June, has said it will cease fire if Israel stops its military operations in Palestinian areas and ends the blockade of the territory which has cut essential supplies to its 1.5m inhabitants.
Israeli city Ashkelon activates warning system after Palestinian rocket hits
Israeli air raids continue, with four wounded in Jabaliya
Four children killed near Jabaliya refugee camp
Hamas militant killed near Shati refugee camp
Hamas militant killed near Beit Hanoun
Three Hamas militants and two from PRC killed in Gaza City
Six-month-old boy killed near interior ministry
Five Hamas militants near Khan Younis
Islamic Jihad militant near Bureij refugee camp
Israeli civilian killed in Sderot
Addressing a crowd of around 2,000 Hamas supporters at a rally held after Friday prayers in Gaza City, Mr Haniya, a former Palestinian prime minister, said Israel was deluded if it thought it could now remove his group.
"Gaza today faces a real war, a crazy war led by the enemy against our people," he said.
"What does a large-scale raid mean? You were in the Gaza Strip and you quit because of the resistance. What does assassination mean? If some leaders are assassinated, would the cause be assassinated?" he asked.
Mr Haniya, who was dismissed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas after Hamas ousted his Fatah movement in Gaza, said any Israeli attempt to invade would "end in terrible failure just like all the other rounds have failed".
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Presence Saint Joseph Medical Center is committed to providing expectant families with all the education needed to promote a healthy life for parents and their babies. During pregnancy, we offer a number of education classes designed to help expecting couples achieve a healthy pregnancy, prepare for labor and delivery, and develop confidence in caring for a newborn. Topics include prenatal exercise, baby care, Lamaze, cesarean birth, and a special sibling class. We also offer Prenatal Massage, which can help alleviate common areas of pain, reduce swelling in the feet and ankles, and decrease fatigue. For more information, call the Presence InfoLine at 877.737.INFO.
Education will continue while you're in the hospital, with staff specially trained in baby care teaching you on a one-to-one basis, and providing encouragement and confidence so you can continue the skills you learn at home. We also provide a number of educational programs on our patient education television channel, which you may view during your stay.
Our certified lactation consultants are available to provide education and support to new moms who choose to breastfeed. Breastfeeding moms can even contact our lactation consultants after they've left the hospital for additional support. Our Breastfeeding Support Group meets monthly at the Medical Center and is a great resource for breast feeding moms. For more information, email PSJMCLactation@PresenceHealth.org.
We understand the importance of sharing the birth of your child with the ones you love and encourage your support person to participate with you in educational classes and the miracle of birth. We also offer 24-hour visiting privileges for your support person and extended visiting hours for grandparents and siblings of the new baby.To make visits convenient for support persons and family members, we have a dedicated parking lot accessible from Glenwood Avenue, as well as complimentary valet parking from the Family Birthing Suites entrance.
We invite new moms to announce their baby's arrival on our Web Nursery. It's a free service, and if you choose to participate, you're baby's photo will be taken while you're in the hospital and shared with your family and friends on our website.
Visit the Family Birthing Suites
We invite you to tour the Family Birthing Suites and see for yourself how we provide expert, compassionate care in the comforts of home. To schedule a personal tour or request a video tour on DVD call 877.737.INFO.
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I refer to the news article 7-month-old killed in Dubai car crash (June 4). Once again we see the shocking news of a baby succumbing to the negligence of her now disconsolate parents. What could be worse than losing a child to a wholly avoidable accident ?
Why is it that this wealthy country can't just provide thousands and thousands of approved infant seats for families in the UAE? What exactly is the problem? The police and traffic authorities have tried for years now with a soft, ineffectual approach, citing cultural sensitivities and ingrained attitudes as barriers.
Every day we see children and babies allowed to clamber about unrestrained inside moving vehicles. Why is it that some parents just cannot see that such actions are irresponsible and dangerous? Parents are responsible for the safety of their children, so why as soon as vehicles are involved do the virtues of safety, courtesy, common-sense and manners fly out the window ?
There are many good things about living in the UAE, but driving on some of the world's most dangerous roads is definitely not one of them. Police, government, citizens - take responsibility and stop the attitude that you are living in an isolated bubble inside your vehicle. As road users, every action or lack of action that you take has a reaction, especially at high speed.
MA Ali, Abu Dhabi
I was both saddened and angered by yet another story of a young life tragically cut short. The driver was reportedly driving with excessive speed, lack of attention, and with the child being carried unrestrained on her mother's lap in the front seat - not only dangerous but illegal. Just imagine what that child could have become and done with her life - the dreams, hopes and joys now unrealisable.
Steve P, Abu Dhabi
Pet owners cause animal smuggling
I am writing with respect to the front page article Expert calls for curb on wild animal smugglers (June 3). I have never heard a more ridiculous position taken by a "conservationist". He seems happy for people to own wild cheetahs as pets as they are mostly well looked after and loved. His main problem is with the smugglers who treat them badly.
Unfortunately, he seems to have no understanding of supply and demand.
These "loving" pet owners are merely creating the market for the smugglers to supply. As the trade is illegal, and this is well known, does that not make the owners accessories to the crime?
I believe that if you buy drugs here, you are as guilty as the person who illegally imported them. Morally, what is the difference?
Neil Roberts, Abu Dhabi
Dr Mordecai Ogada comments that captive cheetahs in the UAE are "mostly loved and cared for" and that he is not interested in condemning or alienating the people who have them as pets. In fact, he seems to give the impression that what they are doing is OK. Dr Ogada condemns the smugglers who are struggling to survive and who will do anything to make money.
It doesn't take a lot of intelligence to understand that if the demand for these big cats was not there in the first place, the smugglers would not have a market.
The terrible impact on wild animal populations by people with too much money and not enough awareness, or who simply don't care about where wild animals belong, is terribly sad.
It's time to realise that trying to make a pet of a wild animal is not cool, it's simply wrong.
Stop the demand and the trade ends there.
Claire Wyness, Abu Dhabi
While I agree on the importance of channelling the love UAE people feel for big cats into awareness and support of wildlife, I totally disagree with the attempt to absolve "pet" owners from any responsibility in the trafficking of animals. This crime, according to what is reported in your article, is the sole responsibility of the smugglers. As if there would be still a supply without any demand.
When I read the statement from the African conservationist who has no interest in condemning pet owners, I could not help but recall the famous Latin saying "pecunia non olet", which can be translated into "money never stinks". This is a bitter, disillusioned remark 2,000 years old, which proves still valid and true every day, whenever we read the news.
Debates in Doha and Dubai
I refer to Dubai debates: the word is out there (June 2). This is nothing but along-the-same-lines as the BBC's Doha Debates held every week in Qatar's capital city.
The only twist here is the uploading of the debate on YouTube. That's all. A wiser move would have been for the initiator and organiser to link up with Al Jazeera, which would have been healthy competition to the Doha show.
Who knows, the debate show might even be a bigger hit, what with Dubai's multinational residents being able to chip in with their own bits.
Amit Bhattacharjie, Dubai
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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|
Vojkhanskaya & Mitrofanov (1980) found circular polarization up to 2 per cent, and supposed that MV Lyr could be a polar. However further study did not confirm this classification (Efimov & Shakhovskoi 1980, Robinson et al. 1981). Ultraviolet observations made by Chiappetti at al. (1982) are consistent with the existence of an accretion disk at different brightness states. Perhaps MV Lyr could be an intermediate polar (Warner 1983).
From spectroscopic observations in the low state Schneider et al. (1981) found the orbital period to be . In the high state Skillman et al. (1995) improved it to . They suggested that the binary consists of a main-sequence red dwarf of and a white dwarf of with a low binary inclination ().
The question of the photometric period is puzzling. All attempts to find a stable period were unsuccessful until Borisov (1992) and later Skillman et al. (1995) found periodic light variations during the high state. They interpreted them as superhumps with period 0.138 d, or 0.005 d longer the orbital period. MV Lyr was claimed to be a "permanent superhumper" during its high state, similar to the SU UMa-type dwarf novae (Warner 1985), which commonly show superhumps during their long outbursts (superoutbursts).
During the low state (outside of the brief outbursts) the light curve is sometimes very quiet, and Robinson et al. (1981) even suggested that the low state is caused by total cessation of mass transfer from the late-type companion. However, Andronov & Shugarov (1983), based on photographic observation during 5 nights, found "quasi-orbital" light variations with amplitude . In the next low state Pavlenko (1998a) confirmed the existence of such variations with typical timescale 0.13-0.14 d, but with amplitude less then , and also found low-amplitude light variations on a timescale d (Pavlenko 1998b), which might be connected with the precession period of the accretion disk.
Several photometric campaigns have been undertaken in the high state, but none so far in the low state, especially emphasizing the rapid variability occurring there. Here we present our photometric studies during an enormous outburst which occurred during the low state of 1997.
Observations were carried out in June-October 1997 at the 60-cm telescope (Zeiss-600) of the Crimean Laboratory of the Sternberg Astronomical Institute with an electrophotometer, and at the tv complex of the 50-cm telescope (MTM-500) of the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, equipped with a high sensitive tv tube (Abramenko et al. 1988, Castro-Tirado et al. 1993).
A total of brightness measurements were obtained on 11 nights of observation: during JD 615-625 at the Zeiss-600 and during JD 624-713 at the MTM-500. During JD 624-625 the observations at two telescopes were overlapped in order to check the difference in color systems. The total exposure was 26 hours. Several brightness estimates were also made before and after these dates, during JD 321-614 and after JD 850.
All observations were done in a system close to a standard B. The typical time resolution was 10-20 s at the 60-cm telescope and 40-50 s at 50-cm telescope, for an accuracy of 1-2 percent. Several comparison stars were used: the star N1 for observations at Zeiss-600 (the designation is given in Andronov & Shugarov 1982) and stars N8 and N5 (from Rosino at al. 1993) for observations at MTM-500. After reduction to the B system the zero-points of the data sets coincided within , so no later correction was used.
© European Southern Observatory (ESO) 1999
Online publication: March 1, 1999
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Set amid the sprawling suburbs and the wild canyons of Southern California, Hank & Chloe
is the story of a pair of seemingly mismatched lovers: he, a solitary scholar from a staid family; she, a former foster child eking out a marginal existence.
Chloe Morgan, full-time waitress and part-time horse trainer, is called to help a mare through a troubled labor. Despite Chloe's efforts and the ministrations of the vet she calls, the mare dies. The horse's owner takes Chloe to his community college office, where she borrows a shirt from another professor, Henry "Hank" Oliver. This encounter is the beginning of the unlikely relationship between rough, independent Chloe and reserved, settled Hank.
When Hank visits Chloe's home, a shack in a squatter's community, she takes him into her arms-and, more reluctantly, into her life. Shortly after Hank and Chloe begin their relationship, Chloe's home is raided. She is injured and arrested, and her beloved dog Hannah runs off. Hank hires a lawyer and brings Chloe to live with him while she recovers.
As the novel chronicles Hank and Chloe's relationship, it explores love in its myriad forms, including the pair', unresolved relationships from the past and a brooding passion for the besieged landscape.
Questions for Discussion
- On the first page of the novel, Chloe answers the door to her home, which is a shack in a squatter community populated with illegal aliens and owned by a landlord resisting pressure to sell his land to developers. What battles are waged in the book over this "last frontier"? How is the land an integral part of the novel?
- In the second chapter, Hank teaches his class the story of two lovers, Eurydice and Orpheus. From classical mythology we know that when Eurydice died, Orpheus followed her to the underworld to ask Hades for her return. Hades agreed, on the condition that Orpheus walk ahead of Eurydice and not look back at her until they reached the earth. At the last minute Orpheus looked back and Eurydice vanished. How is this story paralleled in Hank and Chloe? Do other elements of folklore in the book have echoes in the story?
- Ghosts, both literal and figurative, haunt the characters of this story. Hank mourns his dead sister, "the small pink ghost he got to see grow up." Chloe hears voices in the desert belonging to "people who had died long before, whose very lives had been erased by time and progress, but who weren't quite done speaking their piece." What do these and other specters from the past have to do with the present action of the story? What part do they play in all of our lives?
- Mothers are in short supply in this novel. As the story opens, Chloe helps to deliver a foal from a dying mare. Chloe and her young friend Kit were both abandoned by their mothers. Though Hank's mother is alive, she emotionally abandoned him when his sister died. How are the characters of this novel affected by the absence of their mothers? Do they come to any resolution with their loss?
- Chloe trains horses and teaches riding. How is she like the horses she knows so well?
About the Author:
Jo-Ann Mapson, a third generation Californian, grew up in Fullerton as a middle child with four siblings. She dropped out of college to marry, but later finished a creative writing degree at California State University, Long Beach. Following her son's birth in 1978, Mapson worked an assortment of odd jobs teaching horseback riding, cleaning houses, typing resumes, and working retail. After earning a graduate degree from Vermont College's low residency program, she taught at Orange Coast College for six years before turning to full-time writing in 1996. Mapson is the author of the acclaimed novels Shadow Ranch, Blue Rodeo, Hank Chloe
, and Loving Chloe
About Jo-Ann Mapson
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Wow, that is a LONG app name!
I’ll just say it once more and then we’ll shorten it.
Media Safe – KYMS – Keep Your Media Safe (and secret) by IdeaSolutions S.r.l is that secret door in your device that looks like a regular wall.
It comes in disguise as a common calculator app, but in reality it holds pictures and videos that you, for some reason, prefer to keep in secret.
Are you already thinking about uses for it? Good. ‘Cause it’s free for a limited time, and you should grab it. You never know.
Here is how it works:
You set a password (4 digits) and confirm it. You’re not going to use “8008″, are you?
After that, all you have to do is insert it and then tap the “=”. For example, if your password is – say, a random number – 8008, you’ll enter “8008=” and you’ll be given access to your hidden pics and videos, that can be inserted from various sources (image above).
You can even improve the security by adding a second password.
If someone approaches you, there is a quick and easy way to return to the calculator view. Just put your hand on the screen and it will be business as usual.
How’s that for a panic button?
I know what you are thinking. The answer is “yes, the calculator works just fine”.
Media Safe is free at the moment and is universal, but won’t be (free) for much longer. Get it!
Today we’re talking about security.
We are usually so flooded with social network sites, email, forums, net banking, games, IMs, job intranets… you name it. All of those need a password. Also, there are the “real life” ones. Bank cards, retail stores cards, phone password, PINs, security codes… and you need to have all of those memorized. It’s insane, and you may choose to set it all with the same password, which is even more insane, or you can have a little help.
Securely™ Password Vault by Dapper Gentlemen comes to the rescue with this fine app, that will store your passwords/numbers/secret information and sync it in the iCloud.
One app for iPhone, another for iPad, both free for a limited time.
The idea is simple. You insert all your information into the app, and lock it down with a single PIN code, so whenever you need to retrieve it, that’s the only PIN you’ll have to remember. I have been using another app to do this, but I’m switching to Securely, because (mainly) of the iCloud sync. Never lose your data, no matter what.
This kind of app is growing stronger by the minute, as our daily routine keeps piling up with authentication windows, and electronic devices that won’t let you in unless you say the magic combination of characters.
So you should grab the opportunity and install this one, while it’s free.
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Are you making safety your top priority?
Organizations must anticipate and rapidly respond to legislation, industry regulations and public interest groups on issues of health, safety, security, and the environment. In many organizations, demographics compound the potential for error as an aging work force retires with vital information and experience. Instead of isolated improvement initiatives or responsive reactions to specific events, organizations need an enduring safety culture.
Are you experiencing this?
- High variability in safety performance metrics
- Safety protocols are mostly reactive programs that have a high focus on short term activities
- Supervisors lack confidence to hold staff accountable for unsafe actions and behaviors
- Safety is an add-on to operational discussions and not part of innate operational behaviors
How are you doing against these measures?
- Accident frequency
- Incident frequency
- MA—Medical Aids
- LTFR—Lost Time Frequency
- Audit compliance
- PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) compliance
KT helps organizations work through barriers that exist in day to day operations in creating a positive and supportive safety culture. Working with you we identify factors in the work environment that need to be improved, installed, or removed. We provide managers and supervisors with a tool kit that will help them better understand why unsafe acts and behaviors occur and how to create positive change.
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States tackle backlog of untested rape kits
Congress considers plan to expand national database
A new program could help what some in law enforcement call a "broken system" when it comes to investigating rape cases.
Officials said there is a national backlog of nearly 400,000 rape kits that have never been processed.
As the critical evidence sits in storage, the people responsible for the crimes walk free.
News 5's Christopher Heath spoke with Tri-State officials about what's being done to solve the problem locally.
Ohio officials said they are dealing with a lack of time and money and since last December, they have been working overtime to hire more forensic investigators to process the kits.
Experts said it costs about $1,000 to process each kit. Those kits are collected as evidence at hospitals.
Nurse Christina Hinkle at University Hospital said in an average month, that facility will use about 30 of the kits.
The kits will include samples of everything from hair, blood, semen and underwear to be processed.
"The trauma that they go through, some of the first questions they ask is, 'Where is my kit going to go, where does it go from here?'' Hinkle said.
Currently, Congress is considering legislation to expand the nationwide database of rape kits. That would allow for better cooperation between law enforcement.
The bill would open up about $9 million in grants to pay for the testing of almost 500,000 untested kits.
Officials said the federal government will spend almost $117 million next year just to test old rape kits.
Copyright 2012 by WLWT.com All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Quality and interchangeability issues are being addressed in individual pipeline and LNG proceedings before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). In June 2006, FERC issued a Policy Statement on Natural Gas Quality and Interchangeability that largely followed industry recommendations for implementing a process of developing pipeline-specific gas quality and interchangeability specifications (PL04-3). The policy statement is being implemented in individual proceedings, with shippers and pipelines negotiating modifications to pipeline tariffs as necessary to address gas quality issues. In October 2007, FERC posted on its website a report by the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory regarding LNG Interchangeability and Gas Quality. This report makes several statements regarding the ability of appliances to handle a broad range of gas compositions without material impact that are of concern to AGA members. The AGA FERC Regulatory Committee and the Bulletin 36 Ad Hoc Committee are working together to raise these concerns with the appropriate staff at FERC.
Gas quality specifications should be designed to ensure that gas tendered to, and delivered by, the interstate pipelines is safe and reliable, and meets the requirements of end-use applications. Gas quality specifications should not unreasonably limit the development of new or expanded gas supplies, or limit the diversity of sources of gas supply. Changes to pipeline tariffs should be explored that would establish acceptable gas quality specifications for supplies delivered to the pipeline—specifications that will meet reasonable end-use requirements and ensure system safety and integrity. The industry consensus is to do this through the control of hydrocarbon dew point, various components in the gas and interchangeability indices. The existing flexibility used by interstate pipelines to meet operational safety and integrity and end-use gas quality needs must remain as part of the industry-wide infrastructure to supply merchantable natural gas to customers.
AGA has formed two ad hoc task groups with industry-wide participation to revise AGA Report No. 4A, Natural Gas Contract Measurement and Quality Clauses, and AGA Research Bulletin No. 36, Interchangeability of Other Fuel Gases with Natural Gases. The work of these two ad hoc task groups will include issues related to the effects of various components in the gas supply, hydrocarbon dew points, and the merits and limitations of the various interchangeability indices. The revised AGA 4A is expected to be issued sometime during the 3rd quarter of this year. Work on Bulletin 36 continues as the task group awaits receiving data from several appliance testing programs currently underway.
AGA Contacts: Andrew Soto, (202) 824-7215, firstname.lastname@example.org; Ali Quraishi, (202) 824-7337, email@example.com; Ted Williams, (202) 824-7313, firstname.lastname@example.org
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A ZENIT DAILY DISPATCH
Indulgences are not Invention of Medieval Age
|Vatican Publishes New Guidelines on Indulgences
VATICAN CITY, 17 SEP 1999 (ZENIT).
"When correctly understood and fully received, indulgences are a vital element of that continuous conversion, the constant process of sanctification that characterizes supernatural life on earth," Cardinal William Wakefield Baum said this morning, during the presentation of the new edition of the "Enchiridion Indulgentiarum," or guidelines on indulgences, at a press conference in Vatican City. The new edition of the document on indulgences was prepared by the Apostolic Penitentiary.
Addressing the much debated topic of indulgences, Cardinal Baum added that "an indulgence is intimately connected to the sacrament of Reconciliation, and offers an effective contribution to the global growth of the people of God, not only because it gives interior help to the salvation of each Christian, but also because it is united to ecclesial communion, the practice of public prayer, lived charity and voluntary asceticism."
Indulgences and Jubilee This is the fourth edition of the document published by the Vatican. The third Latin edition was published in 1986. During the press conference, Bishop Dario Rezza, a Vatican canonist, explained that "the Jubilee of 2000 is a wonderful reason to rediscover this treasure, which many of today's Catholics ignore. The indulgence is an integral part of the Jubilee event."
Silence on Indulgences Bishop Rezza admitted that a curtain of silence was drawn on this issue for two reasons: its rejection by the Reformed Churches, following the challenge to the indulgences themselves and their application during the Reformation; as well as some recent historical research on the Middle Ages, which has considered them to be 'abuses of devotion,' which arose together with the so-called 'Medieval invention' of Purgatory."
"Catholic doctrine on indulgences is based on very precise theological assumptions and on well-documented historical precedents of Tradition," Cardinal Baum explained. In the doctrinal section of the 1967 Apostolic Constitution, known by the Latin name "Indulgentiarum Doctrina," indulgences are given their theological foundation, reminding the faithful above all that the nature of sin confers a penalty that must be assumed; in the second place, there is a law of spiritual solidarity among all men, what Catholics call the "communion of saints," by which sin not only has a personal dimension, but also a communal one that must be repaired; and, finally, there is the Church's treasure, which includes Christ's merits, as well as those of the Virgin and saints, which can be put at the disposal of the faithful through the Church.
Bishop Rezza admitted that the meaning of indulgences has often been misinterpreted; it is not automatic reparation for sin. Rather, it inspires Christians to do works of penance and charity, especially those that contribute to the common good and growth in faith. "This is the reason why the Church offers indulgences and convokes jubilees."
Novelty The novelty of the new Vatican document on indulgences, the Cardinal explained, is precisely the emphasis on "the way its granting helps to increase the quest for supernatural charity, be it in each one of the faithful or in the ecclesial community itself." Specifically, among the new reasons that make the granting of an indulgence possible, the text that the Holy See has just published states the consolidation of the Christian basis of the family, participation in the days and weeks of prayer with specific religious ends, the Eucharistic devotion, the extension of the plenary indulgence through group prayer of the Rosary and the 'Akathistos' hymn."
Medieval Invention? Fr. Ivan Fucek, assistant theologian of the Apostolic Penitentiary, said that the Church's doctrine on indulgences and Purgatory, which is denied by some, is clearly expressed in St. Thomas. But, he was not the one who invented it; it was implicit in the Church's doctrine from the very beginning. The Councils that followed merely confirmed it.
Fr. Fucek admitted it is not easy to come to an agreement with Protestants, since "they do not recognize the sacraments and an indulgence is part of the sacrament of Confession." However, "many steps forward have been taken," he added.
Fr. Fucek concluded by addressing the issue of the sale of indulgences. "The Church has never sold indulgences; some persons did this, and others have accused the Church of doing so. In his 95 theses, Martin Luther accused the Church of faults she did not commit." ZE99091701
|This article has
been selected from the ZENIT Daily Dispatch
© Innovative Media, Inc.
ZENIT International News Agency
Provided Courtesy of:
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Geneva, Switzerland, 22 February 2005 - His Highness the Aga Khan today announced the expansion of a new generation of financial products and services to help some of the world’s most vulnerable populations. The Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance (AKAM), a new institution created specifically for this purpose, will deliver innovative services including micro-insurance, small housing loans, savings, education and health accounts, and support for small entrepreneurs seeking to develop businesses related to restored cultural assets. The Agency will be part of the Aga Khan Development Network. The Aga Khan was joined at a news conference announcing the launch of the Agency, by Jim Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank.
“Microcredit has helped millions of poor people in developing countries, but they remain at the mercy of a death or serious injury of a family member, the loss of a crop or livestock, or a natural disaster such as the recent tsunami,” said the Aga Khan, who is the 49th hereditary spiritual leader (Imam) of the Shia Ismaili Muslims and founder of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN). “The assets of borrowers, accumulated through great effort over many years, can be destroyed overnight. Families are then forced to make the same difficult climb out of poverty a second or even a third time.
“By creating a wider range of better targeted products such as micro-insurance, the poor will have the ability to protect their assets. Other products such as savings accounts, education and housing loans will help them improve their quality of life,” explained the Aga Khan.
He said the new Agency will have greater collective capacity to understand the needs of the poor and to develop new products, to provide greater training for employees and customers and to expand into new markets.
“For example, we have found that restoration and improvement of cultural assets in a community can have as powerful an impact on development as a new road or bridge,” he said. “But the poor living adjacent to these cultural assets need access to micro-finance, and to advice, to help them take full advantage of new opportunities that result, such things as greater neighbourhood tourist traffic.”
Mr. Wolfensohn said: “Microfinance has a demonstrated, powerful impact in improving the livelihood of the poor, and a crucial role in reducing poverty. Access to financial services for the poor is a critical condition for the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals.”
Recognising the central role of women, Mr. Wolfensohn stressed the need to support microfinance for poor women entrepreneurs. “We must do more to increase women’s access to credit,” he said. “A Bank study of successful micro-credit programmes for women in Bangladesh , for example, has shown that – with a loan as small as $100 to a poor woman to develop her own business – she helps to double family income and, indeed, can lift her family out of poverty after five years.”
The Aga Khan noted that small loans for education and for health services can help lower the barriers to access to these services for the poor in large parts of Africa and Asia where government subsidies are limited.
The programmes of the Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance, which currently operate in several countries including Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Egypt, India, Kenya, Kyrgyz Republic, Mozambique, Pakistan, Syria and Tajikistan, are designed to “graduate” the ultra-poor beyond subsistence while reducing their vulnerability to unforeseen events such as family crises or natural disasters. Next year the programmes will be expanded into India, Kazakhstan, Mali and Zanzibar.
The agencies of the Aga Khan Development Network have been involved in microfinance for over 60 years, starting initially with small-scale micro-credit schemes for the poor. The new Geneva-based non-profit agency, which brings together programmes formerly operated by the Aga Khan Foundation and other agencies, is already working with a number of partners, including: The World Bank Group, the European Commission, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) of Germany, the Norwegian and Netherlands Trust Funds, and the Japanese Social Development Fund.
The Agency’s programmes operate in both rural and urban settings, and in a variety of cultures. They have helped returning Afghan refugees start and expand businesses. Residents of one of the poorest districts in old Cairo, Darb al-Ahmar, have used housing credits to improve their homes and small loans to expand production of local goods, such as lamps, furniture and floor tiles. In South Asia indentured workers have been helped in breaking the grip of multigenerational debts and liberating themselves from perpetual servitude to abusive money-lenders.
Credits have also enabled Tajik farmers to increase yields of critical foodstuffs and entrepreneurs to open vegetable processing plants, hardware stores, pharmacies and bakeries. In Syria modest financial aid has helped farmers to acquire machinery, livestock and fertilizer, and created cottage industries, handicrafts and tourism-related facilities.
Summing up his aspirations for the new agency, the Aga Khan said, “it is my hope that through our microfinance programmes we will eventually create a virtuous circle of income generation in which the poor -- half of the world’s population -- will break out of their economic and social exclusion and achieve a level of self-reliance that allows them, in turn, to help those less fortunate.”
The launch of the new Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance and its extension of microcredit to include these broader services coincides this year with the United Nations International Year of Microcredit.
Note to journalists:
For interviews or additional information, please contact:
Sam Pickens, Information Officer
Aga Khan Development Network
1-3 Avenue de la Paix
1202 Geneva, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 909 7277
Mobile: 078 661 8714
Fax: +41 22 909 7291
The Aga Khan Development Network is a group of private development agencies working to empower communities and individuals, often in disadvantaged circumstances, to improve living conditions and opportunities, especially in Africa and Asia. The agencies’ mandates range from the fields of health and education to architecture, culture, rural development and the promotion of private-sector enterprise. They collaborate in working towards a common goal – building institutions and programmes that can respond to the challenges of social, economic and cultural change on an ongoing basis. Active in over 30 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America, the Network’s underlying impulse is the ethic of compassion for the vulnerable in society. Its agencies and institutions work for the common good of all citizens, regardless of origin, gender or religion.
© 2007 The Aga Khan Development Network. This is the only authorised Website of the Aga Khan Development Network.
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Competitive Enterprise Institute | 1899 L ST NW Floor 12, Washington, DC 20036 | Phone: 202-331-1010 | Fax: 202-331-0640
When it comes to protecting kids from porn on Internet Web sites, should "community standards" apply that would restrict materials regarded by the puritanical among us as obscene? Should Web site operators be forced to verify age before providing access? Or should government leave such matters up to parents?<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
The Supreme Court this week upheld part of a law called the Child Online Protection Act, passed to protect children from online porn by requiring that Web site operators verify the age of visitors
(such as by requiring a credit card). The court held that free speech is not necessarily violated by the imposition of community standards on a national scale.
However, the court did question the law, and returned it to a lower court to decide, on the issue of whether the law was too vague and that it might not have used the "least restrictive means" of blocking harm to kids.
Efforts to regulate content on the Internet can create only a false sense of security, not the real thing. Passing a law regulating Web sites does not make the Internet safer with respect
to determined children, particularly sexually curious teen-agers, getting access to porn.
That's because the Web isn't the Internet. Consider: the trading of MP3 music files was largely stopped long ago on Web sites by a determined music industry tired of piracy. But the trade in pirated music files has proceeded unhindered through other, non-Web avenues on the Internet that are just as user-friendly.
The same will be the case for porn, much of which is already traded through file sharing that bypasses altogether the Web sites that would be targeted by the law. Like music, those who don't want to pay a Web site for porn use e-mail to send and receive pictures and videos, or they use peer-to-peer tools for virtually unhindered downloads of porn.
The long-debated notion of "contemporary community standards" is at the core of the debate over pornography. While the Supreme Court does not reject such a notion, the Internet is worldwide.
The lower court did get it right when it noted that the community standard notion lets the most squeamish dictate what all others on the Internet see. In the name of protecting children, the law interferes with content that adults should have the right to see under the First Amendment. It becomes unclear what one can say online about sex, without being subject to regulations and penalties.
And besides, what about all those front-page newspaper stories about Monica Lewinsky or pedophile priests? Wouldn't they cross somebody's line? It isn't fair to single out the Internet for
onerous, unfair and difficult-to-interpret regulation. This is especially true on an Internet that is increasingly capable of direct peer-to-peer communication and broadcast, and where there simply are no such things as "community standards" anymore, only individual choices and behaviors.
And laws such as this one always have unintended consequences: barriers to those who seek porn voluntarily will likely increase the number of involuntary solicitations to view porn that everybody else gets in their e-mail in boxes, which the legislation wouldn't regulate. More spam, in other words.
As always, as with any behavioral issue, the best -- and "least restrictive"—defense is parental supervision. It cannot be overstated that parents have no choice but to supervise their kids on the Internet. Even if porn did not exist on the Net, parents have a duty to supervise what their children do online.
In addition to porn, dirty jokes and violent content exist, as well as totalitarian political ideas and hateful and racist sites, and all manner of seedy stuff. Sometimes, youngsters themselves misbehave on the Web and actively seek out porn, or even create viruses or hack other computers.
Parents must do their job. Filtering -- not just filtering software but filtered online services apart from the broader Internet that might be appropriate for the very young—is available. Filtered online services also can limit the receipt of unwanted salacious e-mail, for which the current law is no use.
Another tool at parents' disposal is tracking software that lets them monitor everything a child does or has done on the Internet—filtered or not.
Spying? Maybe. But it's up to the family. And it is less restrictive than regulating content on the entire Internet.
By the nature of the peer-to-peer Internet, which reduces the relevance of Web sites as a conduit for porn, parents—not government—can protect their children. The root of the Child Online Protection Act is not really the desire to protect kids because it's clear that parents must do that. The real root seems to be a desire by some to control the behavior of other adults, to decide which vices of others are to be considered crimes.
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September 14th, 2011 | Caixin China’s Bohai Sea Drowns in Discharged Waste
Oil from a recent spill blended with 30 years of waste dumped by cities and factories ringing the once-beautiful sea
A recent offshore oil spill has given China reason to pause for a close look at the filth floating in the Bohai Sea which, after eons of pristine beauty followed by three decades of intense pollution, is today seriously ill.
A map of polluted areas included in a 2008 Report on the Quality of the Marine Environment of the Bohai Sea, published by the State Oceanic Administration (SOA), still paints a depressing picture. It shows that the entire length of the Bohai shore, with the exception of a few sections near Hebei Province’s South Qinhuangdao and Beidaihe, as well as Liaoning Province’s Dalian, has been seriously polluted.
Moreover, the report described sea conditions long before last year’s oil tank explosion and spill in the Dalian area, and crude oil started leaking from ConnocoPhillips drilling rigs in June.
As of 2005, according to other SOA reports, about 14 percent of Bohai’s waters were polluted. The percentage had risen to 22 percent by 2010.
Tianjin, the biggest city on the sea, is both a contributor and victim of the contamination. SOA says more than 95 percent of the sea area off the city’s shore are rated Grade IV – a classification given by scientists for seawater described as “generally offensive in color, smell and taste.”
Recent efforts to clean up Bohai succeeded in reducing the total Grade IV section of the sea by half, after a peak of 6,120 square kilometers was reported in 2007. But the trend reversed in 2010, and the fouled area spread to 3,220 square kilometers.
The largest sections of polluted water in the Bohai Sea are in coastal areas that encompass fishing grounds, tourist areas and nature reserves, said Wang Shicheng, a former deputy director of the Shandong Province Ocean and Fisheries Department.
And 80 percent of the sea’s pollution comes from land sources, including factories and city sewage plants, said Xia Qing, a researcher at the China Environmental Science Research Institute and head of the organizational group that drafted a Bohai Sea Environmental Master Plan.
It’s a predicament that’s closely tied to China’s rapid, modern-day industrial development.
Scientists say the Bohai Sea has played the role of a “pollution sink” for a large swathe of modern China. About 45 rivers empty into the sea, and several major channels including the Haihe, Yellow and Liaohe rivers are major channels for manmade discharges including sewage.
Moreover, thousands of sewage outlets empty directly into the sea, including those for factories in industrial zones built in recent years in Shandong, Tianjin, Hebei and Liaoning. Many of these factories have been cited for high levels of pollution.
Overall, the amount of waste discharged into the sea greatly exceeds quotas set by environmental regulators. In 2008, for example, marine authorities who monitored 96 sewage outlets found 82 percent exceeded discharge standards. And in Shandong alone, they found 96 percent exceeded the standards.
Wang says environmental authorities have proposed forcing local companies to meet discharge standards. But questions about the standards themselves cloud this proposal. For example, separate discharge standards have been established for the steel, printing and papermaking industries.
“Environmental protection authorities think the pollution discharge situation is getting better and better,” said Wang. “But marine authorities have found it to be getting worse and worse.”
One proof of deteriorating conditions is the shrinkage of the heavily tapped Yellow River before it reaches the sea. The Yellow is the sea’s most important river, but so little water winds up reaching the sea that salinity levels in the Bohai have risen to the point of seriously inhibiting fish spawning.
Another harmful consequence of sea pollution is eutrophication, which can lead to red tides. One such “micro-micro-flagellate” red tide algae bloom lasted from late May to early July in Hebei’s Changli County.
This was the third consecutive year in which the county’s seacoast experienced red tides, which halt development of young scallops and kill others.
By staff reporter Gong Jing
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Zhang Awarded Sustained Knowledge Building Grant
Albany, NY (November 1, 2011) - Jianwei Zhang (PI), Educational Theory and Practice, and Mei-Hwa Chen (Co-PI), Computer Science, received $550,000 from the National Science Foundation for the project entitled Fostering Collective Progress in Online Discourse for Sustained Knowledge Building.
Inquiry-based learning requires a sustained, progressive trajectory to be productive. This three-year project will produce conceptual, pedagogical, and technological advances to make sustained, progressive inquiry more achievable among young students and further extend it to a network of classrooms that builds shared knowledge and resources for continual advancement of ideas. This project is funded by the Cyberlearning: Transforming Education program of the National Science Foundation which is dedicated to integrating advances in technology with advances in what is known about how people learn.
Classroom innovations to prepare students for creative careers in the 21st century need to engage students in sustained, progressive inquiry by which ideas are continually developed and refined, giving rise to higher-level goals. Students need to learn how to monitor, build on, and advance their collective knowledge in a community —the “state of the art” that has emerged from extended, collaborative discourse. Online learning environments support extended discourse but lack effective representation of collective knowledge progress; student online discourse is thus often disconnected and lacks deepening questions and ideas. To represent and visualize collective progress in online discourse, this project will create a software tool for Inquiry Threads Mapping (ITM) that interoperates with collaborative online learning platforms. A set of ITM-aided designs will be tested in elementary science classrooms to foster a sustained, progressive trajectory of inquiry. These designs will focus on (a) collaborative reflection on progress of understanding over time within a community, (b) cross-community build-on for sustained progress mediated through student-created inquiry threads and syntheses, and (c) inquiry threads of productive knowledge-building communities as a resource to support progressive inquiry in emerging communities.
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Skip to comments.Having Babies Seen As 'Patriotic Duty'
Posted on 05/12/2004 8:35:03 AM PDT by qam1
Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - The Australian government is risking the ire of population-control advocates by urging -- and offering incentives for -- citizens to have more children.
Announcing the conservative government's federal budget, Treasurer Peter Costello, the minister responsible for economic and fiscal policy, unveiled a "family-friendly" $13.3-billion package that for five years starting in June will pay couples $2,000 for each new baby born.
The budget also made provision for maternity payments, family tax credits and an increase in the number of subsidized after-school childcare places.
Costello, widely regarded as a prime ministerial hopeful when John Howard finally retires, told reporters that having two children per family simply wasn't enough "to fix the ageing demographic."
"If you can have children, it is a good thing to do," he said, adding that Australian couples should have at least three children each -- one for dad, one for mom and one for the country, he said.
Couples should go further, and have more than that to make up for others "who are not even replicating themselves," Costello said, ending the press conference by telling journalists: "Go home and do your patriotic duty tonight."
Although it is the world's sixth-largest country, Australia is populated by just 20 million people, most of whom are crowded along the southeast coastal fringes of the vast, arid interior.
Population density is seven people per square mile, compared to 79 in the U.S., 357 in China, and 641 in Britain.
Total fertility rates (the average number of children born to women during their reproductive years) in Australia is around 1.75, well below the 2.1 replacement rate.
The Business Council of Australia, whose members include CEOs of the country's leading corporations, argued in a position paper last month that the country needs a population of 30 million by 2050 to sustain a strong economy. Achieving that would require population growth of 1.25 percent, it said.
"The impact of ageing of the population means the 'dependency' ratio in Australia will double from six people of working age for every retiree in 1990 to just three working age people per retiree by 2028," the council argued.
"The consequences will have an enduring impact on the way we live and work and profound implications for spending on health and social welfare."
But a group called Sustainable Population Australia believes 20 million is enough, arguing that the country's resources cannot sustain more people.
The organization's vice-president, John Coulter, said Wednesday Australia was "already overpopulated" inasmuch as the present population was unable to live "sustainably."
He conceded that from a social welfare point of view there may be some justification in providing help to couples who want to have two children but cannot afford to do so.
"But our view is that it's not in the national interest to increase population."
Coulter said industries that benefited from population growth - such as the real estate and retail sectors - were big political donors, and accused the government of pandering to them by "whipping up hysteria" about a falling population.
An Australian author and broadcaster who is also a patron of Sustainable Population Australia, Dr. Paul Collins, said Wednesday that as a Catholic he has some sympathy for Costello's position, but was nonetheless concerned about Australia's ability to sustain a growing population.
Collins said the ideal would probably be for Australia to have "zero population growth or just above, and that should be maintained through our own fertility," rather than through migration.
Asked what he thought the population should be, he said he had no answer, but it was something that should be "scientifically ascertained" and debated much more widely than it was.
Leading demographer and author Bernard Salt said Wednesday there were simply not enough younger Australians coming through to eventually pay taxes as baby boomers move into retirement.
"We either produce more babies or we import more people," he said. "We need more people in the younger age group, that's the bottom line."
Salt told Australian radio that while couples were unlikely to decide to have a baby on the basis of the new cash incentive, it could make a difference by bringing forward a decision, or the ease the financial worry in a decision about whether to have two children or three.
"It can't hurt -- it might make a difference at the margins."
The real issue was not incentives, he said, but the fact that "having children is simply not as fashionable now as it was 30 years ago."
For the past 33 years the number of children born in Australia each year had dropped.
Until attitudes about having babies changes, Salt said, he doubted the numbers would begin to rise again.
Twenty-somethings felt they had other, more pressing, things to do these days than have children.
Salt also pointed to popular culture.
It was hard to find one television sitcom these days that featured children, he said, citing programs like Friends and Sex in the City compared to 1960s and 1970s programs like "My Three Sons," "Father Knows Best" and "The Brady Bunch."
"Children were at the center of society [back then]. They have moved to the edges in current society. Gay culture has gone from the edge to the center of society -- our values have shifted."
Tuesday night's budget also offered income tax cuts for higher earners and an increase in defense spending.
Costello allocated $1.6 billion to fund Australia's ongoing troop commitment in Iraq until at least the middle of next year, to finance armed marshals on flights, and to protect important national sites against terrorism.
He dismissed accusations that the government was trying to buy voter support ahead of a close-fought election expected as early as August.
All Australians were entitled to benefit from the strong economy, he said. Economic growth is predicted at 3.5 percent for the coming year.
Well, duh, most of it is a FREAKING DESERT!
Whenever I think that politicians have hit some wall of maximum possible stupidity, I am proven wrong.
Oh my, the ire of population control advocates. I'm shaking in fear.
When added to the rage of the islamic street, well, I just don't know what to do.
80 years of militant atheism has its effect on a people.
As does the "birth control" mentality that fear-mongers like the GOP Task Force on "Earth Resources and Population" did back in 1970 when first it began to dedicate millions to the effort of "educating" the American people to make the right choice such that government would never be in the position of forcing them to limit their births and off Undesirable children.
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social aspects that directly effects Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1982) including all the spending previous generations (i.e. The Baby Boomers) are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details.
I don't see how it's that much different from the child tax credit parents get in the United States.
Deaths and Births are fairly easily tracked ... if D > B, for a given population, that population will shortly cease to exist.
That being said,Australia has one of the strongest economies in the west,and whether getting to 30 million will be a benefit or a problem is another question.Population control advocates believe Australia's 'balance' is at 18 million people.Business ofcourse believes otherwise.
I'm all in favor of abortion. I just think it should be banned until after the fetus hits puberty. By that time, you'll know whether the person's a jerk or not; plus, he or she will be able to put up a much better fight.
I recommend marriage first ... then "patriotic duties".
I'm already married. You can't have me. Even if you wanted to. Which is highly unlikely. Mrs. Bustard should be a candidate for sainthood, the very moment she shuffles off this mortal coil. Her first miracle is simply that she has managed to put up with me all these years.
But I digress ... ;'}
I mean, a women's uterus isn't like some car engine that you can just fiddle with and not expect to have any lasting affects.
Why don't they just invite some of those large families in England to move down to Australia? Is race/nationality a problem with the population drop?
We've been hearing of the "browning of America" (from the left) meaning that white people are reproducing/immigrating in smaller percentages but it would be considered racist and divisive to encourage white people in America to have more babies out of "patriotism".
If Australia wasn't going socialist I might have opted to move down there myself.
No argument there. The Australians, I read, have had waves of Indonesian "boat people." Certain radical Muslims in Indonesia have sworn to make Northern Australia "a Muslim state." They're probably pretty sick of it by now.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
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Celebrating Giving at Exeter's Harris Family Children's Center
December 19, 2012
Exeter's Harris Family Children's Center (HFCC) ushered in the holiday season with a non sibi gift-giving project perfect for their young learners.
The children were asked to donate a gently used toy and an item of clothing. The gifts were then wrapped in newsprint at the center and delivered to the local Women, Infants and Children (WIC) office.
"It's difficult for children of this age to understand what philanthropy is, or to comprehend that there are families out there that have less than they do," says Amy Farnham, enrollment and finance manager at HFCC. "Naturally egocentric, giving up their own toys is one of the most difficult things to do, so it really impacts them more than if they were to accompany mom or dad to the store to purchase a toy."
The children's enthusiasm resulted in 20 large garbage bags of clothing and approximately 100 toys, which are being distributed to families in the Seabrook, Manchester and Nashua areas, where WIC sees the greatest need.
For these youngsters, the personal experience of non sibi can be eye-opening and fun. One 4-year-old, Abby, had such a great time wrapping donated items that she announced her intention to talk with her 6-month-old baby brother about what toys he was willing to give up.
The 8,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art HFCC has the capacity to offer full- and part-time care for 58 children of Phillips Exeter Academy families and the surrounding community. It features an infant room, a toddler room, a preschool program, a 3/4-day kindergarten, an after-school program and summer camp for children aged 5-9. The center's child-centered curriculum educates through individual and group exploration, hands-on experimentation and discovery through observation. Contact the center via email at email@example.com or phone 603-777-3150.
Interested in learning more?
Learn more about HFCC's programs…
Read about the center's visit to Lamont Gallery, where HFCC students learned to make artist's books…
Read how children at the center learned about composting firsthand…
— Nicole Pellaton
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Tucson artist Jim Waid, whose abstract work reflects the magnificence of Arizona's plants and animals and is represented in more than 40 major collections from Arizona to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, received the Artist Award at the 2013 Governor's Arts Awards on March 6 at The Herberger Theater Center.
Waid was among six honorees recognized at the 32nd annual event presented by Arizona Citizens Action for the Arts in collaboration with the Arizona Commission on the Arts and the Office of the Governor. The Governor's Arts Awards were sponsored by Resolution Copper Mining, SRP, the Arizona Lottery and The Herberger Theater Center.
Longtime arts executive Dick Bowers, who served as Scottsdale City Manager for 23 years and currently is President of the Herberger Theater Center and Executive Director of the Phoenix Boys Choir, received the Individual Award.
Honorees also included:
• Business Award: Southwest Ambulance, Mesa, Arizona's largest ambulance transportation provider and a consistent and active contributor to the arts. In 2012 alone, the company donated more than $400,000 to Mesa arts and civic causes.
• Arts in Education - Community: Marshall Magnet Elementary School, Flagstaff, is a Title 1 Art and Science Magnet School of 585 primarily middle to low-income students in kindergarten to 5th grade. The students benefit from unique art programs from six Reggio Emilia inspired classrooms to year-round Suzuki Violin, Dance and Artist-in- Residency programs and a faculty that integrates arts and science into the classroom daily.
• Arts in Education - Individual: Marion Kirk Jones, Tempe, Professor Emeritus of Dance at Arizona State University, has taught at Cornell University, Purdue University and the University of Rochester. She joined the ASU faculty in 1970 and served as Artistic Director of Desert Dance Theatre from 1988 to 2006.
• Community: Alwun House, Phoenix, was created in 1971 by Kim Moody as a single venue for artists of all media. Located in the historic Sedler House, Alwun House was the first nonprofit alternative/contemporary art gallery in downtown Phoenix that has offered diverse art and cultural opportunities from theater to cultural productions that included the first "Caribbean Carnival," now a city co-sponsored event.
In addition to the Governor's Arts Awards recipients, the 500-plus arts advocates, educators, business leaders and elected officials in attendance honored Phoenix Art Museum's Sybil Harrington Director Jim Ballinger who received the 8th annual Shelley Award.
Ballinger, a nationally respected arts advocate and visionary, is among the nation's longest-serving museum directors, taking over the position in 1982 after serving as Curator of Collections beginning in 1974. During his tenure, he has organized more than 40 exhibitions for the museum. He administered two capital campaigns that expanded the museum from 86,000 square feet to its current 285,000 square feet and he currently manages a staff of over 115 and a budget that tops $8 million a year.
The award, named in honor of former Arizona Commission on the Arts Executive Director Shelley Cohn, is presented to an individual who has advanced the arts through strategic and innovative work in creating or supporting public policy beneficial to the arts in Arizona.
For more information and to register visit www.governorsartsawards.org.
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With the prevalence of social media, health care providers can no longer avoid being in the digital world.
In years past, if someone needed a referral, he/she would ask his/her primary doctor for one. He/She might have also asked friends and family for a “good doctor” and used those recommendations to find the appropriate provider.
However, times have changed. According to MSNBC, 93 million Americans have searched online for health care providers or for health information. That’s up 62% from last year!
What can medical practices and health providers do to make sure that they can be found? Here are some tips:
Have a Facebook brand page and make sure to send out relevant information on a daily basis. Try to engage your audience to ask questions and build your community so that you have a nice following. There are more than a billion people on Facebook. (You can promote the page in your office, via emails and through signage.)
- Don’t forget to Tweet. With more than 140 million users, Twitter is a great place for a medical practitioner to share his/her knowledge. Twitter is also used by the media to find sources, which could help you increase your reach.
- Blogs are important to establish because it sets you up as an expert and also enables you to get a better search engine optimization results. Google, Yahoo and Bing use blogs first when they rank their search results.
- Blogtalk Radio is a great outlet for physicians and other medical practitioners to get involved with and offer their expertise to these popular radio shows. Blogtalk Radio has several million listeners and can give you great exposure. (One day, cars will have Internet radio too!)
- A Wikipedia page is another way to get great exposure and visibility on the web especially if you have published papers, interviews and such.
- YouTube video podcasts should not be overlooked. If you have a good media presence, these types of videos can take you to the top of the charts and give you great exposure.
There are so many other social networking sites along with free and paid for sites that are important to include in your marketing plan including: yelp.com, healthgrades.com, among others.
One last thing, make sure you put up a Google alert on your name and/or perform Google searches on your name. You may be surprised what past or present patients are saying about you.
I recently went to a gastroenterologist who had tons of negative comments. Although very reluctant and skeptical, I went to him anyway because he was highly recommended by my gynecologist. To my dismay, the comments were true and since he never looked at them, he can’t even change his practice to accommodate complaints that were held against his office.
I had another incident with a medical practice that I had been going to for my knee. I called them during the summer to schedule an appointment. Since they had to order medication, they told me they would call to schedule an appointment when it came in. I never heard back from them. Months went by and I called them again. They never ordered the shots. Then a couple of months later, I got an email from them that they were on Facebook and to “like” the page. I sent an email back saying that they should be careful because if they don’t have customer service right, then they may want to consider other forms of digital marketing and not Facebook. I’m still waiting for a call back!
My suggestion to you is, if you are going to get involved in social media, start with good customer service and remember to listen to your community so that you continue to maintain a happy, mutually beneficial patient/doctor relationship.
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Chapter 14 Personality explores the possible cause--gene or environment, structure, measurement of personality by the overview of a lot of controversial theory like stages of psychosexual development, determinism, self-actualization and so on.
I am most interested in Rogers's self-actualization that we could all achieve our full potential for emotional fulfillment if only society allowed it. Because I am a Buddhist and I found that point is related to the Buddhism especially the realization of emotional fulfillment plays an incredible essential role in the fulfillment of our full potential. To me the emotional fulfillment means a peaceful mind, for it needs people to accept all the things in the world, which includes beauty and ugliness, success and failure, thoughtful and superficial and most importantly himself/herself. When we can treat good things and bad things equally, we will no longer bother by all the change and worries, our heart will reach the state of peace. According to scientific research, when we are angry, anxious or nervous, there is no ALPHA wave in our brain; the wave will only appear or increase when we are peaceful or happy. (ALPHA wave is what makes people be concentrated, happy and have a good memory to help them work more efficiently.) I think that might account for how we can fulfill all our potential.
I agree that maybe there are already some bad things inherited in us when we are born but I strongly believe everyone can be like their innate potentially. There are definitely a lot of factors in the society today which will hinder us to back to our innate but we are just like the antelope in the forest, without the attack of wolf, we will also lack will to fight. We should also be positive and grateful.
The part that struck me is I don't understand what Carl Roger meant by his explanation of the decreasing difference over the course of psychotherapy - the lessening of condition of worth. 潜意识音乐疗法-滴落的星子.flv
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Mitigation is designed to limit the effects of development, by enabling wild plants and animals to survive during the building phase and to live in harmony with the new development. Our mitigation services include building artificial homes such as swift boxes and invertebrate log-piles and also include management details, such as retention of areas of relaxed mowing, to provide foraging for bats and butterflies. Bat-mitigation is specialised work which may involve the re-creation of bat-roosts.
Case-study Leamouth Peninsular
Translocation is what we do when we cannot accommodate species on the development site. Prior to capture, we use GIS mapping and field surveys to identify suitable natural habitat nearby. We then carefully capture animals such as reptiles or newts and release them into the new site. This process can take many months to ensure that almost all individuals are saved from harm.
Habitat creation (or often re-creation), is used to enhance a site, providing new habitats for plant, insect and animal species. We have considerable expertise in establishing meadow areas, ponds, reed-beds and woodland. We have many examples of creating new habitats with developers and architects, often for eco-housing schemes, as well as recreation of lost habitat.
Case-study Crowhurst Corner
We are responsive to our clients needs and continually develop our business to maintain a high quality, cost-effective, service. Our ecologists are members of the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management and are committed to the Institute's Code of Professional Conduct.
The Ecology Consultancy made a number of recommendations, to Hastoe Housing Association, aimed at enhancing natural habitats on areas destined for housing, all of which were adopted by their contractors.Read more
The Ecology Consultancy carried out the initial habitat survey and protected species assessment on this site and identified the presence of common lizards during further surveys for reptiles. To enable the development of the new Academy it was agreed to translocate the population of common lizards to a receptor site.Read more
Considered the largest green roof in the City of London, measuring 1,500m2, at 1 Wood Street, and owned by Eversheds LLP, was in need of biodiversity improvements in 2008.Read more
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As featured in last Friday’s New York Times (free registration required), there is a new retrospective of Diane Arbus’ spooky photography currently on display at the Metropolitan Museum after touring several other US cities. Baby-rearing blog DaddyTypes points out a centerpiece of that collection is a portrait of Gloria Vanderbilt’s infant son, Anderson Cooper. Yes, CNN’s own Anderson Cooper.
The portrait, shot for Harper’s Bazaar, is described in Patricia Bosworth’s Arbus biography:
“To dispel the growing myth that [Arbus] only took pictures of freaks, she made up a list of elegant people she wanted to photograph…As if to prove her point, she took a remarkable portrait of Gloria Vanderbilt’s sleeping baby son, Anderson Hays Cooper, for a Harper’s Bazaar Valentine issue. In this truly astonishing picture, the infant resembles a flat white death’s head — eyes sealed shut, moth pursed and moist with saliva. When Gloria Vanderbilt saw the photograph, she forbade Bazaar to publish it, but eventually she changed her mind and this stunning image opened Diane’s retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in 1972.”
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Name commemorating the Puritans of New Engldan.
(SP2222: t. 1,762; l. 259; b. 406; s. 15.6 k.)
The third Puritan, a transport built by Craig Shipbuilding Company, Toledo, Ohio, was launched in 1901, purchased April 1918 and commissioned 20 November 1918.
After the Armistice, many American vessels were pressed into service to bring the troops home. After such duty, Puritan decommissioned at New York 30 September 1919, and was sold.
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Date: Wed, 16 Apr 97 11:32:13 CDT
From: Arm The Spirit <email@example.com>
Subject: Nazis Mobilize For May Day In Leipzig
Authorities in the East German city of Leipzig have banned a planned
May Day demonstration by neo-nazis organized by the youth wing of the
far-right NPD, the ‘Junge Nationaldemokraten’ (JN).
According to our information, allowing the march to proceed would
result in violent clashes, security official Wasserman told the
left-wing Germany daily Junge Welt.
We will attempt to maintain
this ban at all levels of judicial appeal. But the NPD is
proceeding with its plans to mobilize fascists to Leipzig on May 1st
under the motto
There Will Be A Rally In Leipzig On May Day!,
and the group is already appealing the city's ban. The NPD, hoping
to build on its successful demo March 1st in Munich [when some 5,000
skinheads and former nazi soldiers marched against a photo exhibit
detailing war crimes by Germany's regular 'Wehrmacht' army
during World War II—ATS], is distributing propaganda literature
predicting 10,000 participants in Leipzig.
Plans are already underway for a nationwide antifascist mobilization
to Leipzig. One spokesman for a coalition of groups organizing to stop
the nazi march in Leipzig told the German daily Junge Welt:
We're afraid that antifas outside of Leipzig may just figure
the fascist march will be banned, or that very few nazis will actually
take part. But we are basing our mobilization on the assumption that
the nazis will be able to mobilize just as many people as they did in
Munich, which was a ‘victory’ for them, and that now they
are planning for May Day.
A march by neo-nazis on May Day could be the starting part for a new
wave of fascist attacks on refugees and leftists. But it's not yet
clear if Leipzig will in fact be the marching point for the nazis. The
far-right National Info-Telephone Middle Germany has been saying
Whether Leipzig, Dresden, or Berlin, the mobilization has
progressed far enough that we can count on 5,000 to 10,000
participants. Fascists from the JN proved how flexible they can be
last year, when a planned May Day rally by the far-right was banned in
Nurnberg, so about 200 nazis marched in East Berlin instead.
Berlin's right-wing Interior Minister, Jorg Schonbohm, has stated
he will not ban a planned JN march. Based on this official tolerance,
nazis from the so-called
national-socialist wing of the
neo-nazi scene, groups like ‘Die Nationalen’ and fascists
from the outlawed FAP party such as Detlef Nolde, are planning their
own May Day march in Berlin, under the motto of
Christian Wendt!, the publisher of the fascist propaganda organ
Berlin-Brandenburger Zeitung, who was sentenced to a year in
prison in January 1997 for inciting racial hatred.
Smash The Fascists—Wherever They March!
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This fabulous 17th century armour is composed of 5,840 plates and weighs 118kg, some plates are missing and originally the total number would be 8,439 and weigh 159kg! The tusk swords that accompany this armour (not on display) weigh in at 10kg.
It is the only animal armour of this scale on public display and recently entered the Guinness Book of Records as the largest animal armour in the world.
Acquired in India by Lady Clive, wife of Edward, 2nd Lord Clive (Governor of Madras), between 1798 and 1800, and brought back to England in 1801; displayed in the Elephant Room at Powis Castle. Placed on loan to the Armouries in 1949 for conservation.
Presented to the nation in lieu of death duty by the Earl of Powis in 1962 and placed in the care of the Armouries.
There is a copy of this armour, made in England, in a private collection in America.
- Until the widespread introduction of firearms war elephants were a dominant force in Indian warfare.
- Many were provided with complete armours, yet this is the only near-complete surviving example in the world.
- Arms and armour from India form the largest part of the Royal Armouries Asian collection, and include the largest armour in the whole collection, the only elephant armour in captivity.
- Probably made in one of the arsenals of the Mughal Empire in northern India in the late 16th or early 17th century, in its present state, with two of its mail and plate panels missing, it weighs 142 kg.
- It is made of some 8450 iron plates joined by rows of riveted mail.
- The armour also has a pair of tusk swords, with heavy sockets to fit the elephant’s sworn-off tusks and fierce wavy blades with strong armour piercing points.
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VINELAND — The small, round cheese-topped item on their plate looked and smelled like a mini-pizza. And the 19 students sitting at cafeteria tables at Gloria M. Sabater Elementary School ate it up, just like it was pizza.
But it wasn’t pizza, it was actually eggplant parmesan. When told what it was, students said they’d still like to have it for lunch.
“Mmmmm. This is good,” said Robert Phillips, 9, as he circled the “happy face” on his rating sheet and added “Great Food!” in the comments section.
“I want more!” wrote Abigail Tollinchi, also 9.
Diane Holtaway, associate director of client services at the Rutgers Food Innovation Center in Bridgeton, was not all that surprised by the enthusiastic response to the eggplant.
“We kind of wondered about it,” she said. “But kids are more adventurous than you’d think. They are willing to try things if you present it in small quantities.”
The center has been working on a “Farm to School” project with area farmers and food processors to develop healthy school lunch items using Jersey Fresh products including eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, greens, blueberries and cranberries.
The center talked with school food service directors and developed several recipes that meet federal nutrition guidelines. It has been taste-testing them with students from local schools including Bridgeton High School and the Gloucester County Institute of Technology. On Thursday, they brought five items to students in the after-school program at the Sabater School. Vineland also is part of a state and federal program to reduce childhood obesity through the New Jersey Partnership for Healthy Kids.
Each child got a rating sheet to rank each item on how it looked, smelled, felt in their mouth and tasted. To rate them, students circled either a “happy,” “okay” or “sad” face. Parents received copies of the recipes to review and had to approve their child’s participation.
“We need your help,” Holtaway told the 19 students, explaining that the center was developing recipes that use fruits and vegetables from Vineland to serve for breakfast and lunch in schools. Flaim Farms in Vineland is one of the participating businesses.
“We want your opinion so we can make any changes,” she said. The center hopes to put two items into rotation in Vineland schools later in the spring to see how they fare when served on a larger scale.
The first item was a berry parfait using low-fat yogurt with granola and a fruit topping of blueberries, cranberries and the secret healthy ingredient — beets. Students liked it overall, although some said they don’t like granola in their yogurt, and a couple said it could have been sweeter. Abigail thought it was perfect.
As staff cleaned up, students sipped water and awaited the second course, pasta wheels with vegetable sauce. A few didn’t like the smell, but most liked the pasta.
The third course was the eggplant, with each child getting one small round that looked like mini-pizza. That was intentional, Holtaway said, to making it look familiar to students and easy to eat. Jeremy Bello, 10, liked it but said he thought it was chicken parmesan.
When told it was eggplant, he said it was still great.
The fourth course was eggplant rollatini — slices of eggplant stuffed with a ricotta-cheese-and-greens filling that included collard greens, kale and spinach. It was topped with a fresh vegetable sauce that the center’s associate director of food technology, Julie Elmer said was similar to the pasta sauce, but chunky rather than pureed. The sauce included zucchini, peppers and fennel.
The rollatini was less popular than the eggplant parmesan and seemed to get more “okay” faces than “happy” faces, but many students still ate the parts they liked. The rollatini also required use of a plastic knife, and Holtaway said it likely would be served at a middle or high school rather than an elementary school.
The final dish was chicken fajita filling. The actual fajita wrapper was not on the list of foods sent home to parents, so it was not provided. Instead students got the filling loose on a plate. Several students asked what it was, but seemed satisfied when told it was the inside of a fajita. It was the spiciest of the items offered but still popular, although a number of students picked out the chicken and left the peppers or onions.
“That’s why it’s good to have it in a wrap,” Elmer said. “They’re more likely to just eat the whole thing.”
The center has a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to develop the recipes, but as a business incubator it is looking for more farmers and outside food processors to make the food once they develop the recipes and show there is a market for them. The center is in discussions with Compass Charter School in Vineland to include items on its menu next year.
“The point is not to have us do it,” Holtaway said. “We want to find businesses that will produce the items. They could do just one or multiple parts of the menu.”
Thursday’s tasting seemed to indicate the student market was strong.
“Are we going to have this again?” Abigail asked.
Contact Diane D’Amico:
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Harmony St. Mark's United Church
The St. Joseph Island Pastoral Charge had its beginning over 100 years ago when several committed persons of the Methodist and Presbyterian faiths began the work of the church on the Island.
One of these dedicated persons was Mr. E.O. Vanhorn who established seven or eight classes in different parts of the Island with leaders for each. The classes met in the homes of the settlers and were the start of Methodism on the Island.
A Rev. Robert McKee came in 1880 to be the first resident minister. He was followed in 1883 by Rev. W.P. Leak. The various class leaders continued to help.
The Presbyterian Church work was started in Algoma in 1867 of which St. Joseph Island was a part. In 1892 Algoma Presbytery comprised the large area of northern sections of Bruce County, Sudbury, Manitoulin, Cockburn and LaCloche Islands, St. Joseph Island and the adjacent mainland. Later the boundaries were defined to a smaller area off the Algoma Presbytery of today.
As with the Methodists, the Presbyterians held their services in the homes of the settlers. A Mr. James Meldrum, student, a man of great ability, got Presbyterianism firmly established on the Island. The first church was built in 1887, followed in a few years by churches at Richards Landing, Harmony and on the Mountain. At the same time, the Methodists were building their places of worship, often within a short distance from a Presbyterian church.
The ministers of both denominations had their headquarters in Richards Landing and Hilton Beach, travelling out to their several appointments by walking at first, then by horse and buggy or cutter, depending on the season. It is interesting to note that in the early 1900’s there was a population of 1,400 on the Island and 14 churches. However, with the redistribution of the Island’s population and changes in transportation, some churches were closed.
In Hilton Beach, where the congregations of the two faiths had dwindled, they anticipated Union by some seven years and joined as one congregation in 1917. The Methodist church was sold and the Presbyterian church was used for worship. In 1927 it was destroyed by fire. A new church was built. In 1956 this church was named Grace United Church after Miss Grace Steinburg, a faithful member for many years.
In 1920 the Methodists and Presbyterians joined as one congregation at Richards Landing. The two former churches were sold and a new one built in 1927, called St. Mark’s. After 1925 there were two pastoral charges on the Island – Richards Landing and Hilton Beach – with several appointments each.
In 1945 the two charges were constituted as one under the leadership of The Rev. Harold Kennedy, with many preaching points. In the summer, student ministers gave their services, while mid-week meetings were held in the winter at various outlying points. Years passed and more changes occurred, so that first one and then another place of worship was closed, the members joining with other congregations.
The last church to close its doors was Harmony. Its congregation, with Presbytery’s permission, amalgamated with Richards Landing on April 16, 1970. The new congregation became known as Harmony-St. Mark’s.
The business of the St. Joseph Island Pastoral Charge is conducted by a body of representatives from each church, called the St. Joseph Island Church Council. Each church has its own treasurer, who is responsible to the one treasurer for the whole charge. The minister of the charge is the chairman, and a vice=chairman is elected from the congregation.
Over the years women of the churches have worked diligently to augment the treasuries in many ways. At first they were known as Ladies’ Aid and the Women’s Missionary Society. Later the two combined to become the United Church Women, there being four Units in the Pastorate – St. Mark’s, Hilton Beach, Harmony and Esther Steele.
An interesting commentary on the times is that the records form 1904 showed that the members of three churches were hard pressed to raise $550. To be able to call a minster, whereas in 1978 the St. Joseph Island Pastoral Charge met its budget of $20,110. With a nice surplus besides the sum of $4,575. for the Mission and Service Fund. This surely attests to the fact that the dedication of today’s members is as firm as that of the early settlers who built the foundation.
In 1979 a “Morning Break” group as started on St. Joseph Island to help the many new residents of the area to become acquainted with each other. Its aim was also to provide information about what the various churches had to offer and to discuss numerous current topics. Now, after eight years of meeting together in the homes, we have a closely knit group of concerned people. We have become aware of, and have donated to, World Development, Christmas Cheer, Women In Crisis, and Cara House.
In 1983 one of our devoted church members, Lois Crowder, was made the recipient of a Fellowship from Huntington University in Sudbury. When she succumbed to cancer, a Scholarship Fund was set up in her memory. Since its inception two students have benefitted from the Fund.
In 1984 the sanctuary at Harmony-St. Mark’s was redecorated with new rugs and dossal curtains. A wooden cross was made by Albert Crowder and donated in memory of his mother, Lois. In 1986 two beautiful oak pedestals were purchased to match the Communion table.
In 1985-86 the basement of Harmony-St. Mark’s was renovated to provide new linings for the walls and ceiling. Spacious cupboards were built and “firedoors” installed all through the building. Chimes were placed in the tower to broadcast Christmas and Easter music. A charge directory was started.
Over the years Grace Church has had several beautiful stained glass windows installed as memorials to people who had given faithful service during their lifetime. In 1981 special interior storm windows were installed to help to cut down on fuel bills. A beautiful cross was carved by Mansel Greene from an old oak plank, discovered when the village blacksmith shop was dismantled several years ago. The wood was very well preserved, and the lighted cross adds a distinctive historic quality to the church. A second pulpit chair, for visiting ministers, was provided by one family as a memorial.
In 1985-86 Grace Church built a beautiful addition to the back of the sanctuary and named it “Grace Memorial Hall’. It will be used for Sunday School, midweek groups, and other activities. It has washroom, kitchen, and library facilities.
A P.A. system was installed in 1983. Now the large doors between the sanctuary and the church hall can be opened to provide more seating when a large attendance is experienced. Two attractive oak pedestals were purchased for flower stands, to match the Communion table and cross. Dossal curtains and new aisle carpets were purchased, as well as carpeting for The Memorial Hall.
Ministers who have served this Pastoral Charge in recent years: Rev. Dennis Posno (1972-75), Rev. Camillia LaRouche (1975-77), Rev. Norman c. Middaugh (1977-80), Miss Phyllis Dietrich, student (1980-81), Rev. William McAuslan (1981-85), Rev. Ken Taylor (1985-87)
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Gamewell-FCI's vice president of engineering, Mario Casamassima, contends an increased emphasis is also being put on designing more intelligent analog addressable system interfaces.
"There's a greater demand for the system interface to provide more information about a particular emergency event, allowing for a more prepared and faster response. The additional information provided by these intelligent systems enable them to do more preventative maintenance too," says Casamassima.
When considering the large mass of equipment, plus installation and maintenance time that goes into protecting a large facility or multi-building complex, one has to wonder about the integration possibilities with other building controls. The resources necessary today to monitor just security, lighting and fire systems for example, can be astronomical.
In the 2005 North American Fire Alarm Equipment Market report by Frost & Sullivan, researchers stated that, "Integration of fire alarm panels with other building safety systems is a growing trend. Besides integration of fire and security systems, the market is also witnessing integration of fire with building management systems as concerns of ensuring priority and integrity of fire alarm systems have been addressed."
And while integration makes sense, many electrical codes do not yet support the integration of these various systems. And with manufactures of these varying products working independently, the technology to integrate is often not available. Nonetheless, the need for enhanced integration has been discussed for years and many believe it's only around the corner. Gamewell's Casamassima thinks that the future of integration could even extend to using wildly different devices to detect fire situations.
"Because of the advanced technology of today's security offerings, it's inevitable that cameras will soon be used as part of a fire system for detection," said Casamassima. "This opens the door to convergence of other systems for control and monitoring purposes."
In summary, as the market heats up for more intelligent, integrated fire solutions, manufacturers are racing to squeeze additional software-driven features into each panel while attempting to reduce parts. Von Richthofen explains that the market is requiring conventional technology that does more.
"What's driving technology is the race to build a better mousetrap," aid Von Richthofen. "We all want to satisfy the standards, at a lower cost to consumers, while building a much more robust, reliable product."
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So imagine you have this tall, slender vertical structure. Except unlike most tall, slender vertical structures, this one can move. Towards the base of the vertical structure, where structural integrity is critical, you’ve got four cables holding a moving joint together, enabling that moving joint to articulate in one direction but not others. Each cable is carefully bolted into place.
Now imagine you have a somewhat more short, squat vertical structure than the “normal” example I just described. Except in this structure one of those four cables that is carefully bolted into place has been detached, frayed about halfway up, and then reattached with duct tape instead of a bolt.
The first example is a normal person’s knee. The second example is my knee. And that frayed cable is my posterior cruciate ligament. Allow my to illustrate:
This is a way dumbed-down rear diagram of a knee*. The white parts are the bones above and below the knee joint. The green parts on the sides are the medial collateral (MCL) and lateral collateral (LCL) ligaments. The light blue part is the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), the one that gets all the press because it’s kind of important but relatively easy to damage. But it can also be fixed. The red part, behind the ACL but in front for us since this is a rear view, is the posterior cruciate ligament (PCL).
*If the intelligent design crowd is correct, I’m going to have lots of questions for the all-knowing designer about why he or she designed human knees like this.
In the space between the white parts is meniscus and cartilage and what not, but you can’t see that because this is the dumbed-down version, and I only have so much patience for making really lame graphics.
Like the ACL, the PCL is also kind of important, as it stabilizes the knee, keeping it from hyperextending. It’s a larger ligament and relatively hard to damage. Unfortunately, situated as it is behind the ACL, pretty much smack in the middle of the knee joint, most surgeons think it’s not worth repairing if injured because so much damage would need to be done just to get to it.
A few years ago while playing soccer, I stepped in a hole while trying to slow down from a full sprint. My knee hyperextended, tearing the PCL from it’s attachment point and splitting it down the middle for about half its length and tearing some of my meniscus in the process. My orthopaedist told me it was quite a split, as that stuff usually isn’t visible on a MRI, but mine was. (In fact, he asked if he could reuse the images for educational purposes because he’d never seen a visible split in a PCL like that. Lucky me.)
The PCL tear and hyperextension allowed the synovial tissue that surrounds the knee to get pinched in the joint. The pinched tissue began to scar and inflame in a vicious cycle of increased scarring, inflammation, and sensitivity. The torn meniscus also had a loose flap that would sometimes get folded back on itself and was also quite painful. I tried to live with it for a while, treating it with ice and cortizone shots, but after it flared up about 40 miles into my first Lotoja back in 2007, I had had enough.
In October 2007 I had surgery wherein the scarred synovial tissue was removed and the torn meniscus was trimmed back so it was smooth. Nothing was done for the PCL for aforementioned reasons.
Since then skiing and riding bikes has been no problem. Hiking uphill is no problem since the risk of hyperextension is negligible. I’m always a bit nervous going down, though. But if I ski down, keeping my knees bent, there’s almost nothing to worry about.
So why am I bringing this up now? Well I had plans to race tonight and tomorrow. And to Ride Around the White Rim in One Day on Saturday. But last night UtRider and I took one of our clients hiking in Corner Canyon after work, and while stepping downhill onto one of the footbridges, I hyperextended my knee. It didn’t hurt much when it happened, but by the time I went to bed it was swollen to the point that it looked like someone had sliced a lemon in half and shoved it under the skin on the outside of my knee.
We’ll see how soon the holy trinity of ice, Aleve, and compression can get me back on the bike.
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WASHINGTON, March 7, 2012 - Negatively categorizing others is something humans regularly do. None of us can point a finger at others for labeling people unfairly without pointing also at ourselves. So, at what point does a label become stigma? Those who stigmatize and those who feel stigmatized are not very different, except in one respect. Those stigmatized experience a loss of status within their society, or social circles, because of the label.
Anytime we slap a negative label on someone we have accomplished three things. First, we have discerned a difference between that person and ourself. Second, we have decided the difference puts the other in a derogatory light. Third, we create an “us” versus “them” situation. Here is where a groundswell of stigma might arise.
If enough people hold the same negative label about someone, or a group of someones, and have enough economic, cultural, social, or political power to give the label discriminatory consequences, what we call stigma is created or sustained.
Some stigma has a primarily emotional consequence. For example, someone diagnosed with COPD may not experience economic or political fallout because of this diagnosis. However, he or she may experience an ongoing emotional consequence of having a chronic, possibly activity limiting, disease.
There are many people whose daily lives are affected by stigma in multitudinous ways. The NIMBY (not in my backyard) phenomenon can lead to treatment or housing facilities for the mentally ill being set up in less desirable areas of a city. This changes the residents’ job opportunities, self-image, and perpetuates ungrounded fears.
Public name calling that does not actually diminish a person’s status in the world doesn’t seem as important in comparison, although it certainly gets more press. Yet, the source of nasty but non-diminishing name calling is no different than that of labeling and stigmatizing.
Trapped by Experience
Edward R. Murrow wrote, “Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices - just recognize them.” None of us understands what a particular experience is like unless we have lived it. A psychotherapist recently revealed, “I would not have empathy for depressed people if I didn’t experience depression myself. I would never have a believed someone could not get out of a chair and take a shower.”
The same is true for divorces, illnesses, childbirth, disabilities, job loss, mental, and emotional problems. No matter what the experience, if you haven’t lived it you will never have the emotional memory of going through it. Luckily for the human race, we can empathize without having lived through identical situations. All of us know what pain, grief, and fear are.
One More Thing In Common
Name calling and stigmatizing are a human problem and very few people discipline themselves not to participate in it. There is a part of every person that takes pleasure in putting others down, and a part that relishes being put down; each of us has his or her own ways of managing fear. This doesn’t excuse name calling, but we all participate. (Apologies to any fictional, or rather, exceptional people who are prejudice-free.)
Feeling fear or anger about something does not determine whether it’s something to fear or be angry about. However, as long as people fear the loss of personal perspectives, or require their triumph, there will be name calling.
Link, G. Bruce & Phelan, Jo C. (2001). Conceptualizing Stigma. Annual Review of Sociology, 363.
This article is the copyrighted property of the writer and Communities @ WashingtonTimes.com. Written permission must be obtained before reprint in online or print media. REPRINTING TWTC CONTENT WITHOUT PERMISSION AND/OR PAYMENT IS THEFT AND PUNISHABLE BY LAW.
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Johannesburg — The introduction of a citizen-based initiative by Ashoka, which promotes nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) and encourages them to find innovative ways of self sustainability other than relying on government or donor handouts, could be a way of resolving NGO funding problems.
NGOs are continuously faced with problems funding their activities which are aimed at uplifting communities. Their contribution to the sustainable development of the country is usually underestimated, says Anusanthee Pillay, Ashoka southern Africa's regional director .
Ashoka is an international nonprofit organisation that promotes creative and innovative ways for the NGO sector to become self sustaining.
With the upcoming World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, the crucial role played by civil society including NGOs, nonprofit organisations and community based organisations in alleviating poverty and promoting education and training will have to be acknowledged.
During the summit a civil society conference will run concurrently at the Expo Centre in Nasrec, south of Johannesburg. Many international civil society organisations are expected to attend.
The latest statistics on the state of the NGO sector in SA, compiled by the Graduate School of Public and Development Management at Wits University and co-ordinated by the Centre for Civil Society Studies at Johns Hopkins University, shows that the NGO sector is represented by 98920 NGOs across all sectors of the economy.
The sector contributes 1,2% to the country's Gross Domestic Product. It employs 645317 fulltime staff, 10,2% of the formal non agricultural workforce, which is 1% higher than the mining industry.
It also employs a higher number of workers than public servants in national departments.
Pillay says NGOs play an important role in the growth and development of SA.
She says while the private sector has many sources of capital (including investment banks, debt-equity sales, credit unions, and venture capital firms), NGOs have a limited capital market to sustain their work.
International aid agencies, governments, and foundations are typically the only sources of capital, she says.
Sean Jacobs of Idasa, an organisation which promotes democracy, says in its newsletter, EpoliticsSA, that NGOs now compete directly with private and commercial firms to secure government contracts.
"Sometimes NGOs do not have the technical know-how to compete with the more experienced private firms or consultants," he says.
Pillay says SA's NGO sector, rich in funding during the antiapartheid days, has had mixed fortunes since. After the elections in 1994, many agencies redirected their funding to the government and to other countries still in turmoil and conflict.
"The SA government still maintains a high level of funding but many NGOs are unable to access it via the National Development Agency in the Department of Social Development."
Pillay says NGOs have to be able to sustain their projects and their organisations.
"They must do this while remaining accountable to their constituencies," she says.
Pillay says Ashoka develops social entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurs are people who originate innovative and creative ideas of how an NGO can be self sustainable, without relying heavily on government and donor funds.
The only difference between social entrepreneurs and business entrepreneurs is that the social entrepreneur applies the ability on creativity and innovative thinking for social change, while the creativity of the business entrepreneur is aimed at profit.
Non-Profit Partnership director Eugene Saldanha says with alternative means of self sustainability, the funding problems of NGOs is at times exaggerated.
Saldanha says while funding is important for NGOs, the problems do not end there.
"The lack of skilled, or insufficient, management capacity to oversee and ensure the successful implementation of projects and delivery of services is another contributing factor to the problems faced by NGOs," he says.
Saldanha says for sustainable development to occur in the country, the NGO sector will need the support of both the private and public sectors and this means providing NGOs with nonfinancial services to help them deliver their services more effectively and timeously.
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Is America the Best Country in the World? — Survey of the Day
According to a survey from the Pew Research Center of 2003 American adults, the idea of American exceptionalism is alive and well among the 48 percent of the country who say the US stands alone as the best country in the world.
Fourty-two percent of the poll’s respondents classified America as “one of the greatest countries in the world,” and eight percent replied that America isn’t a great country at all.
Views on American exceptionalism varied starkly depending on the age of those polled. Sixty-four percent of those over 65 said the USA tops all other nations when it comes to greatness, whereas only 32 percent of those in the 18-to-30 age group were willing to make that claim.
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I have been eyeing up the Nokia n810 tablet recently, thinking about how useful it might be in a field setting. The n810 is essentially a small, slimmed down computer running on an ARM processor (versus your typical Intel chip in most computers). ARM chips are used in most low-power devices such as mobile phones, where battery life is an important consideration. Likewise, out in the field we don’t always have easy access to electricity, although we have started to experiment with solar panels and battery packs. There are similar (and likely more computationally powerful) devices that use Intel chips, but at this point their price is a fair bit higher, and from what I could see the power draw is greater as well. The thing about the n810 is that it can be charged from a USB port, versus the much higher power requirements of something like a laptop. While the n810 comes with a Linux distribution called Maemo, people have recently managed to port Ubuntu to the device (as well, Ubuntu has been working up an ARM distribution). By using something like Ubuntu on the n810, we have a full suite of applications that we can use, from word processing (although I think OpenOffice on it would be a little unwieldy) to GIS.
While ths seems like a neat idea, the question becomes also, why? While some of the things like GIS might be nice, so that we could be updating our databases in the field, they’re probably not necessary. I have thought about whether it would be useable for reading pdfs or books, to cut down on weight, but how much weight would we really cut out if we need portable power solutions? I still would like to try it out for writing things like manuscripts, but the small keyboard size may make this a problem too.
Nonetheless, I think that it could be a worthwhile thing to try, as the costs to try it out are always coming down.
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Students Deliver A Vision For D.C.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
If students ran the D.C. government, the city's tax on cigarettes would jump to $2.50 a pack.
That was one of the bills passed at this year's YMCA D.C. Youth and Government legislative session, held last weekend at American University. More than 100 high school students from D.C. public and charter schools gathered to debate 57 bills of their own creation and to elect a youth mayor for the next year.
Although the bills that pass through this legislative body are not entered into the D.C. Code, some may make their way into real law in the future. D.C. Council member Kwame R. Brown (D-At Large) offered to review the bills and possibly draft some for legislative action by the D.C. Council when he spoke at the group's youth summit last fall. YMCA spokespeople said they will send the bills not only to Brown but to the entire council, Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) and the mayoral candidates.
Multiple bills called for improvements in Anacostia River cleanliness, school lunch quality, gang prevention programs and availability of sex education programs in schools. One measure called for banning all tobacco sales in the city.
Some of the more radical bills called for the use of chemical castration for sex offenders and capital punishment. They were not approved.
The D.C. Youth and Government program, now in its fourth year, is one of 44 established across the country by the YMCA to emulate state -- or, in the case of the District, city -- governments. City officials were absent from the conference last Friday but only because organizers had to turn down three council members who wanted to speak, according to founder and advisory board chairman Jason Reimer.
"We wanted to make sure the students made their voices heard," he said.
D.C. Youth Mayor Janeese Lewis, speaking like a seasoned politician at the podium, implored her fellow delegates to continue to be active in their community by pressing elected officials to listen and to work on issues that matter to youth.
"When you see city council members, don't let them just shake your hand. Ask them what they will do if you or your parents vote for them. Ask your parents who they are going to vote for or if they are even going to vote," she said.
Lewis, a 17-year-old senior at School Without Walls, feels particularly strongly about public housing, gentrification and school funding. It bothers her that long-term residents may not be able to afford rising property taxes and rents. She wonders whether she'll be able to afford to live here when she graduates from college.
During her opening remarks, Lewis railed against the city's commitment to baseball, at the expense, she said, of residents. "They are fixing up the area around the stadium and kicking out the people who live there," she said. "We want our grandparents to be able to live in the city they built."
Not surprisingly, the D.C. Gentrification Grandfather Clause was the bill Lewis supported with the most vigor. The measure would offer fixed property tax rates to D.C. citizens who have owned their homes for 10 years. The bill was one of six that passed.
The others were:
· Broadening the Horizons Act: Each school would have four career fairs each school year for students in grades 9 through 12.
· No "Draftation" without Representation Act: D.C. residents would be exempt from any military draft until they have a vote in Congress.
· Internship Opportunity Act: Three high school students would intern in a D.C. Council member's office each spring semester.
· Price of Pain Act: The tax on cigarettes would increase from $1 to $2.50 a pack.
· Special Request for Special Ed: At least five certified special education teachers would be employed at each school to teach academic subjects to students with special needs.
Rochelle Mincey-Thompson of Cardozo Senior High School was elected youth mayor for the coming school year.
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Lesson Plans and Worksheets
Browse by Subject
Federal Government Teacher Resources
Find teacher approved Federal Government educational resource ideas and activities
Young scholars analyze the decisions by the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. Using data and announcements, they develop reasons why the rate would be lowered and how it would affect spending and employment in the United States. Using monetary policy, they gain insight into the concept of macroeconomics.
Students examine the Federal Open Market Committee's decision to keep the federal funds rate unchanged. Using the data, they identify the factors in their decision and how it affects the economy. They analyze the issues surrounding data announcements and historical trends in the economy.
Students explore the federal budget-making process. For this federal government lesson, students discover how the federal budget is established as they refer to the law-making process and conduct additional research. Students create flow charts represent the stages of the process.
Help your students undertand the critical problems around healthcare. By focusing on the political and private process of healthcare, students will watch a video, analyze issues, and write an essay on their findings. Additionally, they will develop solutions to the problems of under or uninsured members while they examine the role of the government in its proposal for a national healthcare plan. Adaptation: This instructional activity could easily adapt into a longer unit.
Examine the Federal Reserve System and how monetary policy effects various aspects of the US economics system. Here you'll find all the necessary data and background information to lead a lecture on the Federal Reserve. You'll also find web links and two activity ideas intended to help upper graders understand how financial policies are made.
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Posted by L.J. Sellers, author of the Detective Jackson mysteries and thrillers
After spending months writing about a bleak future, I found myself feeling depressed and negative. I even considered giving up writing gritty crime novels—if that’s what it took to stay positive. Then while working on a nonfiction book, I came across my notes for a talk I gave at the library called Why I Read and Write Crime Fiction. It reminded me of the genre’s value and why I should continue to write it and why it’s good for readers too, including the president. Here’s a shortened version of my talk.
Crime fiction can be surprisingly poignant and analytical about problems such as illegal immigration, human trafficking, and drug use. These novels highlight deep-rooted cultural ills such as racism, sexism, bigotry, and the dangers of stereotypes. Sometimes a mystery will show a stereotype in all its glory, reminding us of why stereotypes exist and how we all fit into one … at least a little bit. The crime genre often forces us to see the world from perspectives that make us think outside our comfort zone.
As crime writers and readers, we get to make sense of things that would otherwise haunt us. We learn why the family next door disappeared one day or what’s really going on in the creepy warehouse across the street. Sometimes that knowledge helps us sleep better and sometimes it doesn’t, but at least we learn one version of the truth.
Police procedurals and thrillers give us a medium through which we can experience the triumph of good over evil. For short while with each story, we get to be the good guy, the hero who rescues the kidnapped child or saves the president’s life. We get to drag the bad guys off to jail or shoot them dead if “they need killing”— fantasies we can’t act out in our everyday lives. The real-world events around us can be unjust and inexplicable. It’s important to our collective mental health to experience justice, order, and revelation through fiction.
Novels with well-written protagonists and antagonists bring us to terms with the duality within ourselves. Humans are all deeply flawed, with the capacity for great goodness as well as for deceit, jealousy, schadenfreude, addiction, selfishness, and often worse. When crime fiction heroes—detectives, FBI agents, and prosecutors—possess such flaws, we not only relate to those characters, we forgive ourselves for the same shortcomings. When a killer calls his mother or pets a stray dog, we hate him a little less and remember to look for good qualities in everyone.
Crime novels explore relationships in a way that few other genres can. What better mechanism to test a bond between husband and wife, parent and child, or lifelong friends than to embroil the relationship in a crime, either as victims, suspects, or perpetrators. Similar to natural disasters, the aftermath of a crime can bring out the best—or worst—in humans.
The genre is also rich with possibilities for exploring the complexity of the human condition. Victims become predators; predators become victims. A person is guilty, but not in the way we’ve been led to believe. Most of all, crime fiction is full of surprises, and we readers love the unexpected. When was the last time a reviewer used the word twist when discussing a literary novel?
Why do you read and/or write crime fiction? Does it ever get you down?
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Spend a little time at the Googleplex and you begin to believe that business is all fun-and-games and that The Life Google serves a better world.
Paul Allen’s personal spaceship hangs from the ceiling of Building 43. An organic garden supplies produce for healthy cafes across the Mountain View, Ca. campus. There are foosball tables, ping-pong tables and volleyball courts for creative play. There are massage chairs for relaxing; gyms for yoga, dancing and workouts. There are bikes and scooters for people-powered travel between buildings, and a winding path through a whimsical sculpture garden for dog-walking and contemplative jogs. The cubes, yurts and huddle rooms are filled with whiteboards, laptops, lava lamps and large, inflatable balls. Even the men’s rooms are Googlized; messages about groups working on complex problems hang above urinals as if to divert attention from the mundane business below to more Google-worthy issues at eye-level … and the organ between the ears.
I like the environment, but The Atlantic’s James Fallows so loves the the place that he believes Googlers can solve the problem that’s on so many minds these days. He writes that he’s spent a lot of time at the Googleplex over the past year talking with Google strategists and engineers about saving newspapers.
No doubt he passed the garden where
a bronze casting of a T Rex fossil,
a gift from founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, forages among the plants. Fallows has so thoroughly bought
into the cult of Google he reports the company is devising ways to save newspapers from becoming the next dinosaur in the garden.
“Most Internet and tech businesses have been either uninterested in or actively condescending toward the struggles of what they view as the pathetic-loser dinosaurs of the traditional media,” he writes.
Which is entirely wrong.
“Everyone knows that Google is killing the news business. Few people know how hard Google is trying to bring it back to life, or why the company now considers journalism’s survival crucial to its own prospects.”
Which is incredibly naive.
Fallows loses his balance assuming that Google can actually save newspapers. Or wants to. He bought what Google CEO Eric Schmidt sold to newspaper editors at their convention last month: the survival of high-quality journalism is “essential to the functioning of modern democracy.” Like newspaper editors didn’t already believe that?
Fallows acknowledges Schmidt is a family friend and an Atlantic reader. You don’t need a weatherman to know which way that wind blows. He spends many pages arguing that Google is trying to save newspapers rather than killing them.
Okay, Google is working with some newspapers planning to put their content behind paywalls. Those Google engineers are such good friends of journalism and democracy. And their “permanent beta” culture is so innovative ….
But there are a few other reasons, too.
Google knows newspapers are good for Google because they generate information people want to search for. Google gets all the revenue from all those little ads, formerly known as classifieds, that run next to search returns. You know, those ads that paid for the Googleplex just as publishers were shedding reporters. The paywall is another way to get a piece, one story at a time.
Google would like nothing better than for newspapers to stop printing and start selling online ads for as much money as print ads. That has never happened, nor is it likely to happen. Google wants the money anyway, no matter how much or how little. It covets display ads that count for most of newspapers’ remaining revenue. Google would gets its piece through its its ad-serving platform, DoubleClick, which it acquired three years ago and has now integrated in Google systems.
Fallows is right to suggest that craigslist, more than Google, undermined the classifieds money-machine. Craig Newmark’s crime was to make classifieds free and interactive, a wry play that made obsolete a highly-profitable marketplace in the back pages of the daily paper. Google is responsible for ruining the rest of it. Its algorithms blew up the newspaper bundle, exploding content into atoms. Context was vaporized. Newspapers have been unable to reassemble the pieces in a meaningful way or find a price low enough to charge for them. The Humpty Dumpty problem.
Now Google says it is willing to help. What it is unwilling to do is admit that it is culpable. Rather, its execs maintain that Google actually serves newspapers by driving traffic to their web sites from searches. Google has maintained that newspapers ought to charge a lot for the advertising on those pages, but a viable market has yet to materialize for most. So it goes like this:
First, Google unbundles content from the newspaper package and sells it off a piece at a time.
Next, it hastens the dismantling of physical operations — paper, ink, delivery trucks, production and the jobs that support them — as unnecessary, recurring costs of distribution. You get to find your news on Google without getting your hands dirty.
Then, it grabs display ads by serving them through DoubleClick and forcing online newspapers to create more expensive ads since newspapers would have to share ad revenue with Google.
Take that, Apple. Just like the iPad or iTunes, Google could try to impose controls on content-distribution platforms that yield revenue. Let’s take the big slice from those desperate publishers. Who’s your boy: Eric or Steve?
The survival of high-quality journalism? The functioning of modern democracy?
Let’s not leave those questions to the likes of Eric Schmidt, Steve Jobs or James Fallows. They confuse important questions with current cliches.
We don’t need lava lamps or inflatable balls to cool-out a business that no longer works.
Journalism and democracy will survive and flourish in new forms and formats that are emerging. That’s an idea worth the investment.
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Common Ground is increasingly housing older adults. In the last five years, the senior population (62 and older) within Common Ground’s permanent supportive residences has grown by 28%, and now represents nearly 20% of our total resident population. This is in part due to the addition of new buildings to our portfolio, including The Domenech, a residence in Brownsville, Brooklyn, exclusively serving homeless and low-income seniors. But the most significant contributing factor is the “aging in place” of existing tenants. By 2015, Common Ground conservatively estimates that this cohort will grow by another 67%.
In order to both anticipate and meet the needs of our older tenants, Common Ground is implementing a roster of programs within our buildings aimed at improving the health outcomes of our older residents. These programs are designed to enable seniors to maintain their independence as long as possible through links to home-based services, and thereby reduce systemic costs of caring for these individuals in institutional settings.
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Re: Wolfgang Exterior Trim Sealant Petroleum & Silicate free? Water Based?
What you mean is silicones not silicates. Silicates are the minerals that form rocks like quartz. Silicones contain silica, oxygen, and carbon, and are a polymer. WG ETS is a polymer based product, yet, I don't know exactly how they derive the polymer in it/from what elements. Either way I don't believe it is the oily type of silicone like found in Armorall since it dries and doesn't leave a sticky/oily film that collects dirt. As far as it containing a petroleum product as its carrier and/or catalyst, I am ignorant to what other types of chemicals/liquids, not derived from petroleum, can be used for that purpose to say one way or the other. To know for sure we would have to hear from the chemist that mixed the formula for WG ETS. From my experience with using WGETS on black plastic and rubber I have not seen any ill effects that come from the products you are trying to avoid. I know that on the cap of my WGETS the residue dries to an opaque green, gummy substance, which IMO is not how a plasticizer leaching product would dry, if it would "dry" at all. Silicones are used in cosmetic/health care products and are a low-toxicity, so that means that they can be made to be safe for plastics as well.
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Holy Trinity Romanian Orthodox Church
Designed by famous Philadelphia neoclassical architect William Strickland, this building was originally constructed in 1815 for St. John's Episcopal Church. In the early 20th century, significant numbers of Romanian immigrants began settling in Northern Liberties alongside other Eastern European groups. The Romanians established an Orthodox parish in 1913, holding services in people's homes until they arranged to share St. John's building with the Episcopal congregation in 1917. The two congregations continued to share the building until the Romanian congregation took full possession in 1972. One of only two Strickland-designed churches in Philadelphia, Holy Trinity was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. After some years of declining membership, Holy Trinity's congregation was reinvigorated by an infusion of young congregants in the late 1990s. The church's membership now comes from Bucks and Montgomery counties and New Jersey as well as Philadelphia.
Holy Trinity does not look like a traditional Orthodox church. The interior and exterior of the church embodies and unique combination of early American architectural history and the religious and immigration history of the neighborhood. The Romanian congregation added the wooden steeple above the entrance and the tower with a cross and three bells. They also painted the interior in a vivid decorative style, and added an iconostasis (icon screen) to the altar, consecrating and imparting an Orthodox character to the neoclassical building. Two of the stained glass windows and some of the lighting fixtures are from the 1850s. An intricately carved wooden cross recently imported from Romania stands in front of the church.
This revived congregation is dedicated to preserving the history and architecture of Holy Trinity and engaging with the wider Northern Liberties residential and artistic community by sharing its sacred spaces and social halls with other congregations, community groups, artists, and performers. Having already restored the stained glass windows and repaired the roof, the church started a non-profit dedicated to preservation fundraising. In 2006, it received a grant from Partners for Sacred Spaces to make more essential structural repairs.
- Dankanis, Mary L., et al. Guide to Northern Liberties. Philadelphia: The Northern Liberties Neighbors Association, 1982.
- Holy Trinity Romanian Orthodox Church. "About the Church." Holy Trinity Romanian Orthodox Church. Available at: http://www.holytrinityphiladelphia.ro/en/index.html
- Partners for Sacred Places. "Another Regional Fund Success Story: Holy Trinity Romanian Orthodox Church." Sacred Places (Fall 2007): 8-9. Available at: http://www.sacredplaces.org/documents/PSPmagazine_Fall2007_000.pdf
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The MK Rose is being created to fulfil the need for a central gathering place in Milton Keynes for celebration, contemplation and commemoration.
Designed by internationally renowned artist Gordon Young, MK Rose will be a vast and impressive Civic space to be located in Campbell Park. The circular design is inspired by the original city centre design principles and the mathematical properties of a flower.
MK Rose includes a calendar of days represented by over 100 granite pillars which will be inscribed with dates and events that are important to you and to Milton Keynes. There is an opportunity for you to have your say about the dates that should be part of MK Rose and engage people for many years in individual and group celebration, contemplation and commemoration.
You are invited to join in at three workshops, each focussing on dates connected with a different theme - heritage, faith and international:
Friday 28 September – Heritage – MK Museum, 10am – 12 noon
Thursday 4 October – Faith – Campbell Park Pavilion, 1pm – 3.30pm
Friday 5 October – International – City Discovery Centre, 1pm – 3.30pm
MK Rose is a partnership project between the Cenotaph Trust and The Parks Trust with support from Milton Keynes Council.
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The Dull Sword Tally
Michael Hoffman of the Military Times newspapers has learned that the Air Force recorded at least 237 "safety deficiencies" involving nuclear weapons since 2001. The information was contained in safety records obtained by the Federation of American Scientists' Nuclear Information Project, under a Freedom of Information Act request.
The organization originally requested a list of safety deficiencies in the service's Air Combat Command (ACC) dating back to 1991, when ACC inherited much of the Air Force's nuclear mission from Strategic Air Command, which was disbanded. However, the information received by the FAS--and provided to the Times--covered only a six-year period, ending in 2007.
An ACC spokesman said the command's safety database no longer has any records of nuclear safety incidents--known as "Dull Swords"--during the earlier period. Air Force officials could not explain why the earlier incidents had been deleted from the database.
According to available data, the 509th Bomb Wing at Whiteman AFB, Missouri, accounted for most of the Dull Sword reports. Between 2001-2007, there were a total of 111 safety deficiencies at the B-2 base, more than twice the number at other bomber units.
By comparison, the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot AFB, North Dakota reported 45 Dull Sword incidents during the same period, while the 2nd Bomb Wing (stationed at Barksdale AFB, Louisiana) had 50 safety deficiencies. The Minot and Barksdale units were involved in last year's unauthorized transfer of six-nuclear tipped cruise missiles on a B-52 bomber, a mishap that led to the dismissal of four senior officers, and suspension of the 5th Bomb Wing's nuclear mission.
"Dull Sword" is a Defense Department term used to describe incidents involving nuclear weapons. Under that heading, individual accidents may be classified as a "Nucflash," "Broken Arrow" or "Bent Spear." A "Nucflash" is defined as a nuclear accident that is expected to lead to war; a "Broken Arrow" is not expected to cause a conflict, and a Bent Spear is defined as a "significant incident" involving nuclear weapons.
Judging from the material released by the Air Force, virtually all of the nuclear mishaps in recent years fell under that latter category. As Mr. Hoffman reports:
The list of Dull Sword records provided by the Air Force includes a short description of what failed each time, ranging from failures in the Personal Reliability Program — which is used to determine the airmen who can handle nuclear weapons — to broken towing vehicles used to transport the warheads from the storage units to the bombers, to unexplained problems with the equipment designed to carry the nuclear weapons on the aircraft.
No Bent Spear events — or “significant incidents” involving a nuclear weapon — could be found in the database, even though last August’s accident when a B-52 Stratofortress bomber mistakenly flew six nuclear warheads from Minot to Barksdale [has been] called a Bent Spear by service officials.
Still, there has been a significant rise in Dull Sword events in recent years. ACC reported only one incident of that type in 2001, and just five in 2002. Four years later, the number of Dull Sword reports from ACC nuclear units had reached 63.
No explanation was given for the increase, but in our recent series on the Minot incident, nuclear weapons experts voiced concerns about training problems and declining experience levels among personnel who maintain those weapons. They report that many experienced officers and senior NCOs have left the nuclear weapons career field in recent years, due to poor assignment choices, and limited prospects for promotion. Only one nuclear weapons technician was elevated to Chief Master Sergeant--the service's highest enlisted rank--during the most recent promotion cycle.
In fairness, we should note that most of the "Dull Swords" reported in recent years have been relatively minor events, often relating to equipment failures, or individual discrepancies under the PRP regulations. Additionally, reporting requirements for Dull Sword events changes from time-to-time. The recent increase in recorded incidents may reflect revisions in the reporting process.
The Air Force's nuclear security program will face scrutiny on Capitol Hill today, during a Senate Armed Service Committee hearing. We outlined the hearing agenda last week. Most of today's testimony will be provided behind closed doors.
While the Military Times article may prompt additional questions from the Senate panel, it's worth noting that the FAS request covered only a single Air Force command. Other Air Force commands have nuclear missions as well, as do units in the Army, Navy and Marine Corps.
At this juncture, the Senators should ask if "Dull Sword" reporting in the other services is following the ACC trend. If the answer to that query is yes, it would only reaffirm the larger training and experience issues that are affecting our nuclear forces. And fixing those problems will require more than issuing an updated regulation, or mandating greater commander involvement in base-level nuclear issues.
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One of my favourite social media/bookmarking sites is digg.com and I have been asked many times over the past couple of years “what is the benefit of using digg”. Here I will endeavor to answer that very question.
What Is Digg?
Digg is an extremely popular social media bookmarking/news site where all of the content is submitted by the very people that make digg as huge as it is today…it’s users.
According to Alexa, Digg is one of the most popular websites on the internet and is viewed by almost 1% of all internet users worldwide on a daily basis.
Members of Digg are able to submit articles, videos and images from almost any website they choose (subject to the digg terms and conditions). Once a story has been submitted to digg, it will be shown in the “upcoming” section and is then able to be either “dugg” or “buried” by other digg users. Members can also comment on digg articles and some of these comments make for very entertaining reading indeed!
How Can Digg Benefit You?
If you are lucky enough for one of your articles to get enough diggs, there is a chance that your story will then make it onto the Digg Front Page where it will be seen by literally millions of viewers.
If the article in question happens to be one of your own blog/website articles, get ready for some action and be prepared for the possibility that your server may crash due to high volumes of traffic! This is where the benefit of digg can be huge to bloggers and website owners as online traffic is one of the main aims of any successful site.
The other benefit of gaining a lot of diggs on an article is the fact that each digg is actually a link back to your site.
An Example Of The Power Of A Digg Front Page
I have been a member of Digg for well over 2 years now and at the time of writing I am proud to say that I have achieved 50 front page articles on the social media giant (which takes a lot of time and effort by the way!)
Recently I submitted a very basic video to digg that I found to be quite entertaining and thought it may stand a good chance of achieving the front page….I was right, the video went on to become the most viewed article on the entire site for that particular day. You can view the video that was submitted to digg by clicking on the image below.
The article I am referring to is titled “Ladies First…And Don’t You Forget It”. Here is the front page of Digg on the day of this particular article. You will notice the article in the right sidebar under “top in all topics”.
And an exploded view of “Top In All Topics” on the Digg Front Page:
It is now 6 days after submitting that particular article and it has received approximately 1000 more diggs (backlinks) since the above screenshot, which you can see below:
How Much Traffic Can A Digg Front Page Deliver?
Traffic generated by a Digg Front Page can vary, but you could expect somewhere in the vicinity of 2000 – 60000+ unique visitors from a single front page story.
If we work on the video that I mention in this post, I have just checked the traffic that shows on the diggbar, which states that the video has received 45,160 views (this is diggbar traffic only). From experience, I know that diggbar traffic stats shows around 25% of total traffic, which means that this particular video has possibly been visited by up to 180,000 unique viewers…pretty impressive stuff to say the least!
Hopefully you will now understand why social media sites like digg can be highly beneficial to anyone who is trying to build a following to their sites. I will also mention that digg is a great way to keep up with the latest news from around the world. Have fun, happy digging and I wish you all the best in achieving your very own digg front page.
You can find me on digg as: Bullhunter
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Methamphetamine cases have flooded Ventura County police departments and courts in the past year, and some authorities say it is poised to become the county's most-used drug.
"Our agents are saying right now that if this trend continues, methamphetamine could pass cocaine as the drug of choice in Ventura County," said Ralph Lochridge, spokesman for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.
Sheriff's deputies seized 10 times more methamphetamine during the first six months of this year--$5.1 million worth--than they did in the previous five years combined.
At the district attorney's office, where methamphetamine charges were once rare, prosecutors filed 142 of them in 1992 and, as of Friday, had already charged suspects with 141 such counts this year.
At that rate, the number of charges filed will increase by 19% over last year.
Most authorities agree that the county's methamphetamine explosion has two main causes:
First, manufacturers like the drug because it is easy to make and extremely profitable. Second, users like methamphetamine because it is affordable and delivers long-lasting effects.
But authorities warn that the drug--a powerful stimulant also known as\o7 crank, speed, tweak \f7 and \o7 go fast\f7 --has its dangers.
For example, some chemicals used in the manufacturing process are combustible and have caused explosions in places where it is processed.
The chemicals are often toxic and endanger the environment when they are stored illegally, which is nearly always the case, authorities say.
A third problem is that methamphetamine users are known to be violent.
"The drug itself creates paranoia," the DEA's Lochridge explained. "Most of the methamphetamine users seem to be heavily armed. And they seem to have this bunker mentality, and they will hunker in and shoot up speed for days on end with a sort of survivalist mentality.
"Lots of guns and lots of paranoia," he said.
In years past, narcotics investigators say, only a handful of methamphetamine labs operated in Ventura County. Most were small and operated by known culprits, especially the Hells Angels motorcycle gang.
That has changed.
Many drug-dealing bikers have been imprisoned in recent years, leaving a void in Ventura County's crank community that has been filled primarily by a wave of Mexican nationals, authorities said.
The new crank dealers are more sophisticated and ambitious, cooking up larger batches of the product than local investigators have ever seen, said Sgt. Arnold A. Aviles, head of the sheriff's 16-member narcotics unit.
"In the mid- to late '80s, we'd have one lab a year that we'd investigate," Aviles said. "Now, we are finding them fairly often."
In the first quarter of this year, for example, investigators raided four major methamphetamine labs in Ventura County.
One bust occurred at a lab in a remote canyon outside Camarillo.
Described as the largest methamphetamine lab ever raided in county history, the setup had an elaborate underground generator that supplied electricity to the drug-making operation.
Aviles and other agents on the raid seized six flasks with more than 90 pounds of nearly finished methamphetamine and numerous gallons of chemicals used to complete the manufacturing process.
Most of the drugs, which had an estimated street value of $4 million, were believed to be destined for Los Angeles, although authorities say some would have remained in Ventura County.
"I suspect the reason you are seeing a dramatic increase is, methamphetamine is a made-in-America drug," said Sgt. Bill Bogner, supervisor of the Ventura police narcotics unit. "You can make it in your back yard or in your garage, and you don't have to worry about smuggling it across the border."
Still, officials say most of the ingredients used to concoct the drug are brought into the United States from Mexico.
The reason: The U.S. government has prohibited the over-the-counter sale of red phosphorus and many other methamphetamine-creating chemicals.
Those who do manage to assemble the needed ingredients typically are small groups of people who invest about $4,000 in chemicals and equipment. After six hours of mixing a batch of methamphetamine, they can potentially earn $50,000 to $100,000, Lochridge said.
As the DEA's Lochridge said, there has been "a proliferation of ma-and-pa type laboratories" in the county.
Most of the manufacturers try to locate their factories in the countryside. Some even bribe or threaten ranchers to get access to their property.
"Because of the chemical odors that are put off by most of the labs, areas concentrated with residences are not the best places to have them," Bogner said. "That's why they are found out in the country a lot."
Authorities say methamphetamine labs thrive because the demand for the drug has taken off.
The drug, which comes in rock or powder forms, offers an intense high that can leave the user seriously impaired and even incoherent, narcotics officers say.
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An ‘amphimbious’ house designed by Baca Architects has been granted planning permission on an island site in the Thames in Marlow, Buckinghamshire. It will replace an existing bungalow on the site which lies in a designated Flood Zone 3b and in a Conservation Area.
Planning restrictions limited any increase in the building’s height, and flood risk policy did not allow for significant extension to the existing footprint.
The proposed house is set back from the river to create an 8m ecological buffer zone required by planning. A riverside terraced garden is designed to flood incrementally and acts as a flood-warning system. The lower level terraces will be planted with reeds, a higher level with flood-resistant shrubs and plants, and above will be the lawn. This layering of the garden is designed to manage run-off from the house as water subsides after flooding and reduce siltation of the dock.
The design of the house incorporates guideposts from marina design to create a free-floating pontoon. Techniker structural engineer Matthew Wells explains the floating design: ‘A lightweight timber superstructure is supported on a concrete base with sufficient ballast to ensure stability and adequate freeboard. The floating house is secured by four dolphins (permanent vertical posts) arranged close up to the sidewalls. The assembly is sited within a wet dock comprising retaining walls and base slab. When flooding occurs the dock fills with water and the house rises accordingly.’
Other features of the design include:
- high performance insulation
- external blinds
- heat recovery ventilation system
- solar panels.
The house is estimated to cost 20% to 25% more than a similarly sized conventional house.
Baca has supplied the following examples of ‘amphibious’ houses from around the world:
- Maasbommel in the Netherlands in 2005 by the DuraVermeer Group - 32 amphibious dwellings (and 14 floating homes) built on the side of a dyke using floating bases anchored to mooring posts. Designed to accommodate a water level difference of up to 5.5m.
- Competition win by DuraVeermer Group in collaboration with Baca Architects in 2008 in Dordrecht. 160 homes including larger buildings which could be designed to use an inhabited hull.
- Lower 9th District of New Orleans, part of Brad Pitt’s ‘Make it Right’ initiative.
- A prototype amphibious house for slum dwellers in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Filed under: Eco-projects
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This is the new life. This is the new way of living. Today urban forests are encouraged to promote vegetation within the city. This is important in a way that it caters ecology filter the air, water and shelter for animals. This also conserves energy. This is highly beneficial. But the protection from degradation is essential. Tree service Dallas could be another way to help maintain this urban feature. Not only has that it made it very environmental it also reduces stress. Economically it has increase in business profits and higher value for properties. This helps reduce the heat absorption and humidity. This is a situation where it has more advantages rather than disadvantages. Air pollution will be reduced for health benefits and for less ozone implications that will lead to global warming.
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Future-Proofing Your Home – Is it Possible?
By Wayne Caswell
This article was first published in March 2000 at HomeToys.com.
OK, you’re building a new home or remodeling an older one and worry that your pride and joy might become obsolete before your 30 year mortgage is paid for. So, you ask how to prepare it for the future. That’s an especially good question considering how slowly home designs have changed and how quickly technology and digital convergence have advanced. To get an idea of the pace of these advancements, look at the personal computer industry over its 20 years.
A Quick PC History
Technology advancement since IBM announced its PC in 1981 has been impressive enough on its own, but the pace is accelerating, and the technology is finding its way into everyday objects. This trend will continue and will have a profound effect on future home networking requirements.
A Quick Wiring History
Occasionally, older homes have had to adapt to new and disruptive technologies, and that often required fishing wires through walls, ceilings, attics and basements.
Electricity -- At the turn of the century, homes were retrofitted with wiring so electric lights could replace gas and oil burning lamps, and central heating could replace coal-fired furnaces. That wiring was a physical extension of a service provider’s power lines and was terminated with an electric meter at the point closest to the power lines.
Telephone -- The physical wiring for phone service was also an extension of a service provider’s infrastructure. The phone company fed copper wires through a window or wall into the kitchen or living room where the phone was.
Television -- Early TV sets used an external antenna mounted on the roof or on the TV itself. Then to deliver better signal quality and more channels, cable companies fed coaxial cable into the living room where the TV was, initially focusing on geographic markets poorly served by broadcast networks and eventually serving more than 65% of US homes. Today, new homes are pre-wired with coaxial cable in several rooms. This cable can carry 50-100 TV channels, but then along came satellite TV with the ability to broadcast over 200 channels. Since the coax installed for cable TV lacks the capacity to support so many channels, consumers had to run newer and better quality cabling.
A Structured Wiring Experience
It’s not clear that any of today’s advanced wiring systems will outlast a 30-year mortgage, but even if flawed, they can help and are probably justified in new homes.
I thought ahead when my family moved from Dallas to Austin six years ago and built a new home. I tried to follow the wiring recommendations of the CEBus Industry Council and specified the type of wire to be used and the wiring topology, but the builder resisted at first. He didn’t understand the technology, was afraid to let me bring in my own contractors, and worried about home warranty issues and what might happen if the house failed to close.
Today, at least six of the top Austin homebuilders offer advanced wiring systems either as a standard feature or an option. The home systems industry has come a long way since I built my home, and many lessons were learned the hard way.
I look at my experience and the inadequacies of my home’s wiring as an incentive to learn about new technologies that can solve the problems cheaper than digging into walls. No matter how well you plan or what expert advise you get, you “will” make wiring mistakes and your needs will change over time, especially 30 years time. Count on it.
Lifestyles Will Change
Lifestyles change as kids grow older or go off to college, and you may want to move your home office. I moved mine, for example, from one room with more than enough electrical outlets on separate circuits, to another room where I installed new outlets but didn’t install new circuit breakers.
New Device Types Will Emerge
Some new devices have changed the thinking of home networking experts. Six years ago they said to put bedroom phone outlets by the bed and TV outlets across the room. But they didn’t anticipate interactive program guides or NetTV devices that require both a phone and TV outlet. So today they put a phone outlet by every TV outlet. Still, no one can fully anticipate future wiring needs, and that’s the message of this article.
Sensors -- Since the costs of digital signal processors and advanced image sensors are falling so quickly, you may soon want to disperse surveillance cameras, far-field microphones, and other sensors throughout your home. With these devices, intelligent agents could keep tabs on the environment, learn your habits, and act on your behalf. Within 10 years, homes will be able to visually recognize people and respond to their voice commands or gestures. But how will the sensor devices be networked since few people will have run wires to the ceiling corners? They will likely be battery operated and use wireless networks.
Ordinary Devices Will Get Smart and Networked
White Goods -- It’s already happening with the smart refrigerator (by both Whirlpool and Frigidair) and microwave oven (by Panasonic). But just as it doesn’t make sense to run new wires to the washing machine or dishwasher, it won’t make sense to put radio transceivers in appliances with metal bodies that trap the signals inside. And it won’t make sense to put a 2.4GHz radio inside of a microwave oven that would itself cause interference. So, most appliances will probably be networked using electrical power lines that don’t require any special wiring. They will stay plugged in for power anyway.
Smart Toilet -- In Japan, Panasonic sells a very popular smart toilet that learns who you are by estimating your weight and percent body fat and then chemically analyzes your output and reports it to a health monitoring service. If these toilets come to America, they hopefully won’t need A/C power or we might redefine the term “killer app.”
Flat Panel TV -- Even TV screens, which have become larger and are now built into entertainment centers, are changing. They’re getting flat to take up less space or to hang on the wall. You might need to add a coax and power outlet in the middle of the wall for the flat TV. And if we think out 10 years or so, we can expect to see video walls where such outlets would get in the way. So, consider running the wire and leaving it unterminated behind the wall, just in case.
New Wire Types are Expected
Coax – Today’s experts recommended using RG-6 coaxial cable to carry hundreds of TV channels from satellite receivers to each TV, instead of the RG-59 cable once used for cable TV. But since TVs can’t display (and people can’t watch) more than a few channels simultaneously, why do we need the extra bandwidth? We’re moving towards true video-on-demand where you’ll have access to thousands or even millions of video sources and will be able to watch any of them at any time. In that scenario, we’ll need less bandwidth and may not need advanced cabling.
Phone & Data Networking – Most structured wiring systems use category-5 twisted pair phone wiring instead of the older Cat-3. Cat-5 can support Ethernet 100baseT at speeds of 100Mbps. But since a newer Cat-5e and Cat-6 wire can support 1Gbps, I recommend installing this slightly more expensive wire.
Fiber Optic Cabling – It’s recommended by some experts, but not by me because the standards groups haven’t decided on glass or plastic fiber or on which connector to use. And anyway, Cat-5e phone wiring offers plenty of bandwidth for even aggressive 10-year scenarios. To prepare for the longer term, however, I recommend installing empty conduit to make it easily to run new wires later if needed.
Gateways Will Facilitate Convergence
Computer technology is making it easy for service providers to upgrade analog networks to digital, thus improving efficiencies and their ability to carry different types of signals – phone, music, TV and data. But most devices are still analog, so at least until both home wiring and devices catch up and all become digital, residential gateways will be needed to separate the digital services and route them to analog devices over existing home wiring. Gateways can be installed in new homes near the structured wiring hub or where all of the services terminate, but that’s not so easy in older homes. There, phone, TV and electric wiring come in from different places.
Technology Will Come to the Rescue
There are some 100 million old or existing homes in the U.S., compared with just a few hundred thousand new homes with structured wiring added each year. That’s a huge retrofit opportunity for home networking without special wiring. Since service providers don’t want to limit their opportunity to only those new homes, they’re pushing development of home networks based on installed phone wiring, electrical power lines and wireless radio technologies. These new technologies can replace the need for advanced wiring in older homes and can enhance a structured wiring system in newer ones.
Phone Line Networking – The first of these new technologies, HomePNA, inserts Ethernet data networking signals onto the same pair of wires already used for your phone. HomePNA uses a set of frequencies that does not interfere with phone calls or ADSL signals. Today's HomePNA products support speeds up to 32Mbps and are backward compatible with older HomePNA products. The group expects to eventually support 100Mbps over existing phone wires. The downfall of home phone line networking, however, is the relatively limited availability of phone outlets.
Power Line Networking – A/C power line networking holds promise because of the ubiquitous availability of wall outlets and the new HomePlug standard, which supports speeds up to 14Mbps today and includes a future vision of up to 100Mbps.
Wireless Networking – The popularity of wireless networks will increase as prices fall and devices get smaller and more portable. Networks based on Wi-Fi (the IEEE's 802.11b specification) already support wireless data networking at up to 11Mbps. Emerging wireless standards will go even faster, with 802.11a-based products coming to market with speeds up to 108Mbps and future products based on Ultra Wideband going even faster.
Ethernet Networking – Even with the alternative no-new-wires technologies, the fastest, cheapest and most reliable way to network devices is with advanced wiring. Ethernet cards cost less than $20, and it’s easy to run cat-5e wiring around a home office or into adjacent rooms. With structured wiring systems, the entire house can be networked.
It’s really not possible to future proof your home, due to rapid advancements in computing and communications technologies. But there are things that will help you accommodate change, including structured wiring systems and no-new-wires technologies.
Send mail toiinfo (AT) cazitech (DOT) commwith questions or comments about this web site. Last modified: 11/17/10
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|Published:||Dec 06, 2012 5:40 PM EST|
|Updated:||Dec 06, 2012 6:14 PM EST|
FORT MYERS, Fla. (Consumer Reports) - If you're shopping for kids this Christmas, electronics and gadgets are always a good bet. And they don't have to break the bank.
Consumer Reports found a handful of tech-related toys, good for most children and age ranges. For example, enjoy a game of Monopoly, while keeping track of all your cash on an iPad. Or break out of jail by playing the game on a tablet computer.
"One of the the big trends this year is toys that interact with apps on your smart phone or tablet," says Consumer Reports' Carol Mangis. "We thought the Monopoly game was a lot more fun with the app."
Monopoly's "Zapped" edition costs about $30, but you download the associated app for free.
Another favorite for kids ages seven and up are "Sifteo Cubes" for $130.
"Sifteo Cubes are pricey," Mangis admits, "but there is no other toy like them. Kids will play with them for hours."
Sifteo Cubes require you to download software that adds games to the interactive squares. Then kids can shake, flip, tilt, or press the blocks to play a variety of brain teasers, like puzzles and math challenges.
If you want to get everybody off the couch, try Mattel's "Loopz Shifter" game for about $45. Players ages seven and up are challenged to repeat electronic patterns with their hands.
There are also tech toys for creative children, like Crayola's "Digital Light Desiner" for $60. Budding artists, starting at age six, can move the included wand to draw pictures with LED lights. Consumer Reports' testers found it's especially fun in the dark.
"This toy is magical," Mangis says. "But there is one drawback. Its motor is really loud."
It's not any quieter, but Smartlab's $20 DJ Rock Dock lets kids ages eight and up build a speaker system that really works. Don't expect high quality sound, but kids will love being able to say, "I made it myself."
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September 03, 2009
Findings Reveal an Achilles Heel on the Virus for AIDS Vaccine Researchers to Exploit
NEW YORK, NY, LA JOLLA and SAN FRANCISCO, CA, SEATTLE, WA, September 3, 2009—Researchers at and associated with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), at The Scripps Research Institute, and at the biotechnology companies Theraclone Sciences and Monogram Biosciences have discovered two powerful new antibodies to HIV that reveal what may be an Achilles heel on the virus. They published their work in Science this week.
Researchers will now try to exploit the newfound vulnerability on the virus to craft novel approaches to designing an AIDS vaccine. Moreover, the global collaboration and process that led to the discovery of the two new broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) are likely to produce more such antibodies, which may in turn reveal additional vulnerabilities of HIV, adding still more vitality to the effort to develop a vaccine against AIDS.
“The findings themselves are an exciting advance toward the goal of an effective AIDS vaccine because now we’ve got a new, potentially better target on HIV to focus our efforts for vaccine design,” said Wayne Koff, senior vice president of research and development at IAVI. “And having identified this one, we’re set up to find more, which should further accelerate global efforts in AIDS vaccine development.”
Broadly neutralizing antibodies to HIV are produced by a minority of HIV-infected individuals and are distinct from other antibodies to HIV in that they neutralize a high percentage of the many types of HIV in circulation worldwide. It is widely believed that to prevent HIV infection an AIDS vaccine would need to teach the body to produce these powerful antibodies before exposure to the virus. Animal experiments suggest that conceptually such a vaccine would work. Before this finding only four antibodies to HIV had been discovered that were widely agreed to be broadly neutralizing.
The two newly discovered bNAbs, called PG9 and PG16, are the first to have been identified in more than a decade and are the first to have been isolated from donors in developing countries, where the majority of new HIV infections occur. Moreover, previously identified bNAbs against HIV have functioned by binding to places on HIV that have proven difficult to exploit by means of vaccine design.
“These new antibodies, which are more potent than other antibodies described to date while maintaining great breadth, attach to a novel, and potentially more accessible site on HIV to facilitate vaccine design,” said Dennis Burton, professor of immunology and microbial science and scientific director of the IAVI Neutralizing Antibody Center at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. Professor Burton is also a member of the newly established Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard. “So now we may have a better chance of designing a vaccine that will elicit such broadly neutralizing antibodies, which we think are key to successful vaccine development.”
Breadth of neutralization is important because any effective AIDS vaccine must provide protection from a diverse range of the most prevalent types of HIV circulating worldwide. High potency suggests that such antibodies will not have to be produced by the body in very large quantities to confer protection.
The two new antibodies target a region of the viral spike used by HIV to infect cells. The viral spike glycoproteins, termed gp120 and gp41, are highly variable and have evolved to thwart immune attack. But biochemical studies suggest that PG9 and PG16 target regions of gp120 that do not change, which probably accounts for their breadth of neutralization. Now researchers at the IAVI-organized Neutralizing Antibody Consortium (NAC), a scientific network focused on designing vaccines capable of eliciting broadly neutralizing antibodies, will turn their attention to studying the molecular structure of PG9 and PG16 and that of the region they target on the HIV spike. They will use this information to try to devise immunogens—the active ingredients of vaccines—that elicit similar antibodies.
How they were discovered
The methods by which PG9 and PG16 were isolated are themselves proving instructive. Their identification represents the first success of an ongoing global hunt launched by IAVI in 2006 to find new bNAbs to support the rational design of novel AIDS vaccine candidates. The effort, named Protocol G, is unprecedented in scale and distinguished by its emphasis on identifying antibodies that neutralize subtypes of HIV circulating primarily in developing countries. IAVI’s clinical research partners have collected blood specimens from upward of 1,800 HIV-infected volunteers from IAVI-supported clinical research centers in seven sub-Saharan countries as well as from centers in Thailand, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
All samples were sent to Monogram Biosciences, which, working with researchers at IAVI’s AIDS Vaccine Design and Development Laboratory in New York City and the IAVI Neutralizing Antibody Center at The Scripps Research Institute, screened the sera for broadly neutralizing activity. Researchers historically have sought bNAbs in serum by testing whether antibodies from such samples bind to soluble versions of gp120 and gp41. It turns out that PG9 and PG16, however, bind to soluble forms of the proteins very weakly, if at all. The antibodies were detected only because a micro-neutralization assay developed by Monogram in partnership with IAVI measuring their ability to block HIV infection of target cells was run in parallel with the standard binding assays used for screening. This has significant implications for the future screening of bNAbs.
“If you think of it as a fishing expedition,” said Christos Petropoulos, chief scientific officer and vice president of virology research and development at Monogram Biosciences, “we and the rest of the field were previously using the wrong bait in the search for HIV-specific broadly neutralizing antibodies. Together with colleagues at IAVI, we reasoned that the best approach to identifying antibodies with the most potent and broad neutralizing activity was to screen directly for their ability to block HIV infection. To do this we developed a new, specialized test known as the micro-neutralization assay, which has opened up new avenues for exploration of additional donors for similar antibodies.”
Once the researchers had ranked the top 10% of serum samples in terms of breadth of neutralization, they needed to isolate the actual bNAbs. This can be painstaking work. But Theraclone Sciences, a company that had been working outside the HIV field, had a relevant and unique high-throughput process that it adapted to HIV work with financing from IAVI’s Innovation Fund, which is co-funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Theraclone team used a system designed to expose the entire repertoire of antibodies from a blood sample obtained from an HIV-infected individual. Antibodies with broadly neutralizing potential were identified from this pool and traced to their corresponding antibody-forming cells. Using recombinant DNA technology, bNAb genes were then isolated from these cells to enable the production of unlimited quantities of the antibody clones for research.
“It is exciting that we were able to use our technology to identify and isolate these new bNAbs, which may offer important clues that could help create an effective AIDS vaccine. Through this strong scientific partnership, we have rapidly delivered promising results,” said Matthew Moyle, chief scientific officer and senior vice president of Theraclone Sciences. “This project has been a useful demonstration of Theraclone’s antibody discovery platform in infectious disease, and we highly value IAVI’s collaborative approach to solving the AIDS vaccine challenge,” said David Fanning, president and CEO of Theraclone Sciences.
With a large pool of HIV-positive donors from Protocol G now identified whose serum contains HIV-specific broadly neutralizing antibodies, it is likely that this global collaboration will generate more bNAbs that will benefit the vital enterprise of accelerating AIDS vaccine development.
“The story of the discovery of these two new antibodies demonstrates the challenges of AIDS vaccine research but also the power of the collaboration that formed to produce this advance. This is what can happen when you have researchers from the global North and South, from academia and industry, from within and outside the HIV field, working together in a framework to speed innovation,” said Seth Berkley, president and CEO of IAVI. “By working in this manner, I am confident we will continue to move toward solving the AIDS vaccine challenge, one of the greatest scientific and public health challenges of our time.”
The published study on the two new bNAbs is available online at www.sciencemag.org.
The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) is a global not-for-profit organization whose mission is to ensure the development of safe, effective, accessible, preventive HIV vaccines for use throughout the world. Founded in 1996 and operational in 24 countries, IAVI and its network of collaborators research and develop vaccine candidates. IAVI was founded with the generous support of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Starr Foundation and Until There's A Cure Foundation. Other major supporters include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, The John D. Evans Foundation, The New York Community Trust, the James B. Pendleton Charitable Trust; the Governments of Canada, Denmark, India, Ireland,
The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States, the Basque Autonomous Government and the European Union, as well as The City of New York, Economic Development Corporation; multilateral organizations such as The World Bank; corporate donors including BD (Becton, Dickinson & Co.), Bristol-Myers Squibb, Continental Airlines, Google Inc., Henry Schein, Inc., Pfizer Inc, and Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.; leading AIDS charities such as Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS; other private donors such as The Haas Trusts; and many generous individuals from around the world. For more information, see www.iavi.org.
ABOUT THE SCRIPPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE
The Scripps Research Institute is one of the world's largest independent, non-profit biomedical research organizations, at the forefront of basic biomedical science that seeks to comprehend the most fundamental processes of life. Scripps Research is internationally recognized for its discoveries in immunology, molecular and cellular biology, chemistry, neurosciences, autoimmune, cardiovascular, and infectious diseases, and synthetic vaccine development. Established in its current configuration in 1961, it employs approximately 3,000 scientists, postdoctoral fellows, scientific and other technicians, doctoral degree graduate students, and administrative and technical support personnel. Scripps Research is headquartered in La Jolla, California. It also includes Scripps Florida, whose researchers focus on basic biomedical science, drug discovery, and technology development. Scripps Florida is located in Jupiter, Florida. For more information, see www.scripps.edu.
ABOUT THERACLONE SCIENCES
Theraclone Sciences is a Seattle-based discovery-stage biotech focused on the development of novel therapeutic antibodies for the treatment of infectious disease and inflammation. The company’s technology harnesses the power of the human immune system to identify naturally evolved monoclonal antibodies from the blood cells of immunologically relevant human subjects. Recombinant human monoclonal antibodies can be rapidly obtained using our discovery platform and scaled for large-scale industrial production. Such antibody drug candidates may be uniquely important in combating disease and may have potential as therapeutic products that can be administered to a broad patient population. Theraclone is a privately held company with venture investment from ARCH Venture Partners, Canaan Partners, Healthcare Ventures, Amgen Ventures, MPM Capital, and Alexandria Real Estate Investment. For additional information, please visit www.theraclone-sciences.com.
ABOUT MONOGRAM BIOSCIENCES
Monogram Biosciences, Inc. is advancing individualized medicine by discovering, developing and marketing innovative products to guide and improve treatment of serious infectious diseases and cancer. Monogram Biosciences, Inc.'s products are designed to help doctors optimize treatment regimens for their patients that lead to better outcomes and reduced costs. Monogram Biosciences, Inc.'s technology is also being used by numerous biopharmaceutical companies to develop new and improved anti-viral therapeutics and vaccines as well as targeted cancer therapeutics. More information about Monogram Biosciences, Inc. and its technology can be found on its web site at www.monogrambio.com.
Protocol G collaborating institutions include: MRC/UVRI Uganda Research Unit on AIDS, Uganda Virus Research Institute, Entebbe, Uganda; St. Stephen's AIDS Trust, Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust, London UK; NRL, St. Vincent's Institute, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; Zambia Emory HIV Research Project, Lusaka, Zambia, and the Rwanda-Zambia HIV Research Group, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA; Projet San Francisco, Kigali, Rwanda and the Rwanda-Zambia HIV Research Group, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA; CeDReS/CHU Treichville, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire; Kenya AIDS Vaccine Initiative, College of Health Sciences, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya; SUNY Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY, USA; Desmond Tutu HIV Centre, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa; Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand; Department of Retrovirology, Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences, Bangkok, Thailand; Rwanda-Zambia HIV Research Group, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA; Institute of Human Virology, Plateau State Human Virology Research Centre, Jos, Nigeria.
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CHECK OUT MY MATH POSTERS SET ON TPT, THIS IS INCLUDED IN THE BUNDLE! =)
Do you teach coins to your students? Use these posters in your classroom as a cute, visual of the coins and their values.
penny 1 cent and $0.01
nickel 5 cents and $0.05
dime 10 cents and $0.10
quarter 25 cents and $0.25
half dollar 50 cents and $.50
Ask Vanessa Escobar a question. They will receive an automated email and will return to answer you as soon as possible.
Please Login to ask your question.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS:
is there anyway that you could add the decimal for each coin poster? So for the penny- have $.01, and $.05 etc? Would you be able to add those to your insanely cute posters??
could you email me at email@example.com
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FLUTE REPAIR & MAINTENANCE DAY
Course overview | Learn about your flute; how it works, how to identify problems, see what can go wrong and how to fix it.
Offering an opportunity to learn how your flute works and how to clean, care and fix problems. With expert guidance you will observe and practice repair skills and learn how check if your instrument is performing at its best.
Using the dedicated teaching workshop at Bury Farm in Stapleford near Cambridge, you will have access to the guidance, tools and materials you might require. We have a range of instrument for you to practice on. You are also invited to bring your own, a students, or an instrument from school to work on.
These courses are aimed at professional players, music teachers, college students as well interested players and craftspeople. As a player, knowing that your instrument is functioning at its best will give you greater confidence and improve your playing experience.
The aim is to equip you with the skills needed to identify problems, undertake successful emergency repairs and maintain your woodwind instrument in good playing condition.
Abilities | This course caters for skill-levels starting from beginner to advanced. Players, teachers, partners of players or anyone interested are all welcome. Age 16 + only.
Course length | 1 day.
Dates | See calendar to the right or below.
Don't see dates that suit you? Further courses can be arranged throughout the year; email email@example.com.
Time | 10am - 4pm.
Cost | £65 per person. CWM Friend: £45 per person.
Location | All our courses are held at The Champion Workshop at Bury Farm, Bury Road, Stapleford, Cambridge, CB22 5BP (England). Details of transport and location can be found in the Visitors Centre section.
Booking | To book use the links below.
Further information | For enquiries email Daniel Bangham @ firstname.lastname@example.org.
Remember to bring at least one flute of either your own, a student, or a school. You will also need to bring an apron or workshop clothing. Don't forget glasses if you need them, the work involves looking at small details. If you have any tools of your own, then please bring them and make sure they are marked or labelled. Please bring a packed lunch or you can visit the village store or pub both within walking distance of the workshop.
We provide instruments for you to practice on, tools, equipment and tuition. Tea, coffee and biscuits. Repair materials will be available and excess charged on an "as used" basis.
Future related courses
For more experienced participants we will be developing extended courses over weekend or holiday periods. Subject to interest we also intend to hold specialist courses on mouthpiece design, advanced repair techniques, recorder making and many other woodwind related topics.
Upcoming Course Dates
Sunday 21st of July 2013
|Flute Repair & Maintenance 21/7/13||1 day||£65.00|
*Deposits are non-refundable unless CWM has to cancel the course, in which case all amounts paid will be refundable or transferable to another course.
We have found that using Paypal is the cheapest way for us to collect card payments. You do not have to have a Paypal account to use this method. If you do not have a Paypal account, then use the "do not have an account" option on the paypal page.
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tiger, large carnivore of the cat family, Panthera tigris, found in the forests of Asia. There are six subspecies of P. tigris: Amur or Siberian, Sumatran, Malayan, North Indochinese, Bengal, and South China or Amoy. The differences in subspecies are defined for the most part by their ranges. Amur tigers, commonly called Siberian, are native to the area of the Amur River in China, North Korea, and Russia. The Sumatran tiger is found only in Sumatra, the Malayan on the Malay Peninsula, the North Indochinese in parts of Indochina and S China; the South China tiger in central and E China, and the Bengal tiger in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Myanmar. Their habitats range from mountain forests to equatorial rain forests.
Tigers are the largest species of the cat family. Male tigers are generally about 8 to 10 ft (2.4–3 m) long, including the 3-ft (1.8-m) tail. The Siberian tiger may be 13 ft (4 m) long, including the tail, and weigh 650 lb (290 kg), much larger than any lion. The coat of the tiger is orange-yellow with numerous prominent black stripes; black and albino specimens are sometimes found. The Siberian tiger tends to be the lightest in coloring. The male tiger has no mane comparable to that of a lion, although it may have a ruff around the sides of the head. Tigers and lions are quite similar anatomically and can be interbred.
Tigers are solitary animals and usually hunt at night. A male tiger will have a large range that will overlap with the ranges of several females. Females give birth to two or three cubs, which they raise and train for about two years. Tigers kill a variety of animals, including deer, antelope, wild pigs, and cattle. Tigers try to remain out of sight and hearing of their enemies, especially humans; they prefer fleeing to fighting. They can be killed by wild dogs, elephants, and water buffalos. Man-eating tigers are usually individuals who are too old or sick to capture wild animals. Tigers are good swimmers and enjoy bathing, especially in hot weather, which appears to make them quite uncomfortable. They are poor climbers, taking to trees only in emergencies.
The tiger is an endangered species. Trophy hunting of tigers was a common "sport" in the past, especially during the time of the Raj in India, when tens of thousands of Bengal tigers were shot. The greatest threats to the tiger now, however, are loss of natural habitat, loss of prey species such as deer and wild cattle to hunting by humans, and poaching. Tiger bone is used in traditional Chinese medicines to treat a variety of ailments, including rheumatism and impotence, and its sale and use continue despite a ban imposed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in 1976.
Three tiger subspecies, the Caspian, Javan, and Balinese tigers, are extinct; the South China tiger is very near extinction. According to 1995 population estimates, the Bengal tiger is believed to be the most numerous, with a population of 4,000. It is followed by the Indochinese tiger (1,100), the Sumatran tiger (400), and the Siberian tiger (250). Some population rebounds have been noted since then, however, in eastern Siberia, Nepal, and some parts of India owing to increased conservation efforts, but more recently the Bengal tiger population in India has suffered from serious poaching for the Chinese medicinal and animal skin markets, and some experts believe its population to number less than half the 1995 estimate. Captive breeding programs for tigers have met with considerable success but are plagued by a lack of space and the problem of maintaining genetic purity between subspecies that are defined more by range than by biological differences.
Tigers are classified in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, class Mammalia, order Carnivora, family Felidae.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
More on tiger from Fact Monster:
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Vertebrate Zoology
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This photo was taken in the final months of my grandfather’s life and while it might not be the most flattering photograph, it is an image of faithfulness for me. As you can see my grandfather looks ill and weary, but at the same time, as usual you also see my grandmother right by his side.
My grandparents for me have always been the image for me of what it means to be faithful. Going back to when they met—uncharacteristic of my grandfather, on the dance floor at a New Year’s party in the 1930’s, he spontaneously kissed my grandmother who he had just met. That kiss eventually led to a marriage that lasted fifty-five years. At the start of the Depression, and through various challenging times, my grandparents never wavered from their love and commitment to one another. Whenever you were with them, you saw very clearly how committed they were to one another. They were faithful to the very end.
So with this, faithfulness is the fruit of the Spirit that describes one’s trustworthiness and determination. Constant and devoted might be two other words we would use to describe a faithful person. The person with this quality keeps their word, their promises, and their vows no matter what the cost. As a model of being true to those she served tirelessly, Mother Teresa was quoted as saying, “I don’t pray for success, I ask for faithfulness.” In life, in difficult times, it can be so easy to give up, and yet the fruit of faithfulness asks us to hold on just a little longer.
Of course our greatest example for faithfulness is God. The Scriptures declare over and over that he will never forsake us, never give up on us. Let’s listen to a few passages:
God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? (Numbers 23:19)
I will declare that your love stands firm forever, that you established your faithfulness in heaven itself… O LORD God Almighty, who is like you? You are mighty, O LORD, and your faithfulness surrounds you. (Psalm 89:2,8)
He remembers his covenant forever, the word he commanded, for a thousand generations. (Psalm 105:8)
Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you. (Isaiah 54:10)
These are just a handful of verses and these are just from the Old Testament. We could go on and on discovering that there are countless passages throughout the Scriptures that declare that God is always faithful—that he is trustworthy, determined, constant and devoted. Again and again, the Scriptures declare that his love for us is unfailing and not shaken—he is a God who is faithful to the end even to the point of sacrificing himself.
Obviously, when it applies to faithfulness we often think of marriage. As the French author Paul Carvel penned in a witty manner, “One thousand one night stands are no match to a single one life stand.” As attested by a divorce rate that at least half of all marriages fail, faithfulness can seemingly be impossible. This is precisely why God gives very little room for the pursuit of divorce within marriage—he wants us to experience what it looks like to be faithful just as he is to us. To one person, He wants us to live out a commitment over the course of fifty years that even in those moments when it looks like there is little hope, we stay committed no matter what. Even though we want to be happy and fulfilled, we hold on. If we can be faithful like that, perhaps in a little way, we can experience a determination and devotion like He has for us.
To look at this from another angle, I have a story—some years ago, I worked with a man who had multiple affairs; he was often unfaithful. Time after time, he found himself in the arms of another woman falsely believing that she could make him happy. After his constant unfaithfulness, his wife left him and disappointingly, so did his church. Because of the unending lies and deceptions, I can understand why his wife did so; in ending her marriage, she was guarding her own heart (Proverbs 4:23) and attempting to heal from the many betrayals he had put her through. The sad thing was that all of his friends and community gave up on him as well, and that’s how he ended up on my doorstep in counseling. No matter what a person has done, we should never give up on them. While we may need to take a break from the relationship, to give up on someone for good is not what faithfulness is all about. Faithfulness, like love, always protects, hopes, and perseveres (I Corinthians 13:7). Just as Jesus never gives up on us, we should follow his example. This is the epitome of what it means to become a faithful person—even when there doesn’t seem like a chance that someone can change, we hang on in some way or another, because we know that Jesus has done the same for us at some point in our lives.
Questions you can ask yourself: how faithful a person are you: to your friends when they request you to make some sort of sacrifice, to commitments you make (do you too often find ways to get out of things?), to your commitment to God? How dependable or reliable are you? If you are married, how faithful are you to your spouse, especially in times of difficulty—do you run and hide or do you stay the course? Even if you have been married for thirty years, is your marriage thriving and are you there for your spouse in all ways: e.g., emotionally, spiritually, affectionately? In relationships other than marriage, how do you need to become more faithful in these—how do you need to become more trustworthy, determined, constant and devoted? What do you need to change in your life to become a faithful person?
In: Spiritual Formation
Tags: faithfulness, fruit of the Spirit, God, Jesus, Paul Carvel, the fruit of the Spirit
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The goal of the Science Canada website is to highlight science policy issues in Canada's political arena and media.
Canadian scientific community suffers from lack of active engagement in decision making processes, dynamic network of science advocacy and lobbying. That is due to various factors but mainly lack of strong professional associations, and as result frail networks, and absence of science policy discourse in the mainstream of Canadian society. However the involvement of scientists at decision making levels differs in different provinces depending on the degree of cosy relationship and personal friendship between the scientists and policy makers rather than strong professional and systematic engagement.
It is time for Canadian scientific community to start bringing science into mainstream of Canadian society and get engage in policy making processes. The necessity of dynamic scientific community being involved at policy making levels, in collaboration with social scientists, technology experts, engineers, government officials, policy makers and private sector, has not ever been more urgent. It is up to Canadian scientists to recognize the need and starts preparing essentials for this goal.
Copyright © 2008 Science Canada
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Poker, an American invention of around 1830, was the game by which the West was won--and lost. During the nineteenth century, poker helped shape our vocabulary as well as our character. In poker we learned to Bluff, making use of an innocent word from 1666, to ante up (1845), and to stand pat (1882). And we learned the pleasures and perils of going for the jackpot.
A jackpot is the betting pool in a version of draw poker that requires a pair of jacks or better to "open the pot" and start the betting. "The money up is called the pot," explained a gambler to an Indiana court in 1879, "and the man who holds jacks can require the others to bet him or to drop out." With a progressive jackpot the standards get higher: if a pot is not opened with jacks or better, then next time a pair of queens or better is required, and so on up.
Playing jackpot poker thus "jacks up" the quality of the competition and the value of the pot. If you "hit the jackpot" (1944), you have gained yourself a rich pot indeed. The jackpot increases the risk of staying in and bluffing with a poor hand because at least one player has at least minimally good cards. But it may also increase the boldness of the bluffing, and thus the size of the pot, because it takes a higher bet to persuade a player with a decent hand to drop out of the betting.
So jackpot has acquired two meanings beyond the realm of poker. One kind of jackpot is serious trouble. "You're probably already in the jackpot for taking a duty car out of Dade County," says a character in a mystery novel by Carl Hiaasen. But the other kind is the more familiar jackpot we hope to win, or rather to hit--in a competition, a lottery, or a lifetime.
The top prize in a game of chance. Jackpot prizes can be anything from cash to cars and houses.
When winnings are high, as in the case of most jackpots, you may have to pay the estimated tax liability at source. As your employer does with employment earnings, the awarder will withhold the taxes and send them to the IRS on your behalf.
These dreams are likely to burst - and may blow away your financial future in the process. 4 Fatal Financial Fantasies
Don't assume all prizes are free. Many come with enough costs to render them worthless. Winning The Jackpot: Dream Or Financial Nightmare?
Sin stocks may seen outright undesirable to some, but these "naughty" industries bring stable returns - even in hard times. Sinful Investing: Is It For You?
Not concerned about being an ethical investor? Maybe "sinful stocks" have a place in your portfolio. Socially (Ir)responsible Mutual Funds
|This article does not cite any references or sources. (June 2009)|
Issue one came with a free mystery joke, there were different kinds, one included a joke chocolate biscuit. Issue two contained a 'squirt ring'. Issue three contained a double gift of Magic Numbers card game + Why Be Bored book covers, the contents of these continued in issue 4
Comic strips from the first issue
This comic strip continued in Buster, drawn by Crocker.
Drawn by Mike Lacey, he was on the cover of issue 1 and continued until issue 140. His best friend was a black cat Lucky and had some parody's with Dick Whittington. His character was from the country and had no where to live. The Jackpot Special 1982, features 2 brand new Richie Wraggs strips that were never printed in the issues.
Note this is NOT the film. Instead it was about little creatures that caused havoc in the home of Gilbert as well as his mum and dad. The artists Steve Bell, went on to great fame and fortune, becoming the Guardian newspaper's satirical political cartoonist.
Also featuring the serpent from the bible. If they chose to eat an apple, new wisdom dawned on them. Drawn by Paul Ailey.
This comic strip continued in Buster, though changed it's name to 'Top of the Class'.
This comic strip, drawn by Reg Parlett, continued in Buster, the main characters were neighbours called Stan and Olly.
This comic strip, drawn by Robert Nixon continued in Buster. A boy becomes King of England.
This comic strip, drawn by Rob Lee continued in Buster. A boy Ernie finds an alien pen that can zap / teleport objects to Splod and his crew on the aliens ship. In later issues Robert Nixon drew some stories.
Drawn by Norman Mansbridge.
This comic strip, drawn by Sid Burgon merged with 'Ivor Lott and Tony Broke' (from Cor!!) and continued in Buster, with Sid Burgon as artist. The girls stayed until Jan 1987, when the strip reverted back to the two main characters 'Ivor Lott and Tony Broke' .
An action comic strip, about toys that come to life.
Later issues included:
First issue was No.75, Drawn by Mike Lacey, later by Jimmy Hansen and Anthony. This comic strip continued in Buster.
Reprinted from Monster Fun, though with several episodes missing.
This strip continued in Buster.
This strip, drawn by Tom Paterson continued in Buster.
An action strip about a girl at boarding school.
One of the first Afro-caribbean characters. This strip continued in Buster. Interesting there was a similar character, also called 'Sporty' in Karzy comic (as part of the Krazy gang), this strip joined with 'Whizzer and Chips' and ran at the same time as 'Sporty' until 1986. Both characters wore a track suit and were good at sport.
Jackpot ran for 141 Issues.
|This UK comics–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.|
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here.
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Soft Touch Parts
During the design process, nothing helps you appreciate what a product will really be like more than a 3D model that looks and feels like the end product. PolyJet technology’s wide range of rigid materials and elastic rubber-like materials offer smooth finishes, high level of detail and ability to jet a variety of materials on a single build tray. Incorporate buttons, knobs and soft components to create a realistic look and feel to your prototype.
3D printing soft touch parts
Many industries use soft touch coating during their product design to validate future products. For example, the automotive industry uses soft touch in the design and development of interior products such as knobs, pulls and handles. Consumer electronics use soft touch coating for features such as rubberized buttons and coatings, typically to improve the product's ergonomic comfort. In the world of consumer goods, a vast array of products incorporate soft touch coating, including tooth brushes, shaving handles and glasses.
Why Connex 3D printing?
Connex printing systems can produce prototypes with possess properties that mimic traditional elastomeric materials including EPDM and NBR. This means you can evaluate a design that incorporates soft touch areas. In the example illustrated above, several rubber–like materials with different shore values were printed at the same time and evaluated on the design model. The model was then tested on a focus group as well as on potential customers to gain input regarding the product's comfort and ease of use. Issues such as a product's impact resistance can also be evaluated.
Tips for soft touch 3D printed parts
Save the design in separate STL files for each part of your assembly. This is recommended for the soft touch areas along with other rigid parts. Later the parts can be printed in different color tones to visually separate each area of the model.
Label each part that you evaluate with its relevant shore value. Labeling will help you later quickly determine which shore value represents the best score in your evaluation criteria tests. Also, create a mechanism that enables you to mount the soft touch part on your full assembly of rigid and soft parts. You can then use the Connex system's ability to print up to nine different materials in one build process and assemble each part on the model for evaluation.
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Remember the plant lust of the mid-1980s through mid-1990s? When you would drive hours out of your way to a plant sale in another county or an out-of-the-way nursery to find something you’d never grown before? And head back home with a smile on your face because your vehicle was crammed full of things your gardening cronies would never even have heard of and couldn’t help but envy? And wasn’t it glorious?
Gary Hammer, plant hunter and propagator extraordinaire, had a huge influence on the Southern California horticultural scene before his untimely death in 2011 when he was accidentally struck and killed by a car in Tempe, Arizona. We miss him still. This is a tribute.
In Southern California, Gary Hammer created that fever almost single-handedly. The nurseryman prowled the globe—Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, South America, and, especially, Mexico—looking for interesting landscaping additions suited to our semi-arid climate. Then he’d come home, propagate like a madman, and tote his discoveries to a half-dozen farmer’s markets, the Pasadena and Rose Bowl swap meets, all the major botanical garden shows, and the monthly meetings of the Southern California Horticultural Society.
There his fans were waiting to swarm. “He’d drive up in his dirty, beat-up Dodge van and pull out the most amazing plants,” says grass guru John Greenlee. And if you saw something you liked, you knew from experience to snatch it there and then, says Joan Citron, author of Selected Plants for Southern California. “You might never see it again,” she says. “Gary was always rushing on to the next thing.” Best not dally either, says plant broker Matt-Dell Tufenkian (Dominus Plantarum). “Gary was so well-known half of his stuff would be pre-sold,” he says. “By noon, he’d be out of stock.”
Meanwhile, Hammer was also keeping two retail nurseries—Desert to Jungle in Montebello and Worldwide Exotics in Lake View Terrace—stocked exclusively with his plants, personally propagating most of it himself.
Ferocious energy kept it all churning. “Gary was the hardest-working person I ever met,” says Greenlee. “He was like a farmer on speed—up at dawn and going full tilt until dark,” says Tufenkian, who accompanied Hammer on a plant collecting trek to Mexico in the late ‘90s. “He was exhausting,” he says (and Matt was several decades younger), “but exciting.”
What were we buying from Gary during that heady period? Orchid collectors got into bidding wars over orchids; fern collectors bought more ferns; succulent lovers fell for his Mexican agaves—this was before agaves became landscapers’ darlings. And avid home gardeners? Well, this being the height of the perennial craze, that’s what we were scooping up by the trunkload.
We tried the tropicals Hammer so loved: Heliconia, Jatropha, Alocasia, Plectranthus, Cestrum, Clerodendrum, Hedychium, Crinum, and especially Canna. Gary introduced many of the variegated-leafed varieties that now dominate the market, including, many believe, the one now patented as Tropicanna®.
Not everything Gary loved was thirsty. He had a huge selection of Mexican salvias and Ruellia and helped popularize my own favorite plant group, Euphorbia. ‘Sticks on Fire’, his name for a Euphorbia tirucalli variety brought back from a South African trip in the late ‘80s was Hammer’s most successful discovery. Everyone wanted it. “At one time we had something like 470 people on the list waiting for it at Hortus,” says Steve Gerischer (Larkspur Garden Design), who then worked at that much-beloved Pasadena nursery.
But not everything Gary propagated was new. He was also trying to make sure old garden classics didn’t disappear. Laguna Beach landscape architect Jana Ruzicka, who emigrated from Czechoslovakia shortly after the Communist invasion, remembers expecting to find a wealth of plants waiting for her in Southern California nurseries. “But all they were carrying then was silly stuff like lobelia and impatiens,” she says. Gary, she was relieved to find, grew her old European favorites such as Buddleia, Phlomis, Hypericum, Helleborus, Ligularia, and Iris. “He was a lifesaver.”
Meanwhile, wholesale growers were also tracking Gary’s finds. They prowled his nurseries and checked out his stands at botanical garden sales. And what they decided to buy, trial, and introduce into the trade will, long-term, be Gary’s most important legacy.
Take variegated Phormium, for instance, which is now such a common sight in Southern California gardens, it’s hard to remember that hybrid New Zealand flax weren’t always around. “The first hybrid I ever saw was `Maori Sunrise’,” says Randy Baldwin, general manager of San Marcos Growers in Santa Barbara. “I bought it from Gary at an LA Arboretum sale.” San Marcos went on to become well-known for its full line of variegated flax.
Westringia, a gray-leafed Australian shrub that thrives in Southern California, is another plant Gary popularized. “Westringia ‘Wynyabbie Gem’ (still the most widely-grown variety) was his discovery, for sure,” says Baldwin. Lomandra, a grasslike Australian plant that is becoming more popular with landscapers every year for its bullet-proof nature as well as its pretty habit, is another Hammer first, he says. Baldwin has found shorter, more versatile varieties to propagate since, “But it was Gary who introduced me to the plant.”
Speaking of ornamental grasses—well, in the early ‘80s, you really couldn’t. “Pampas, blue fescue, and turf,” says Greenlee, “that was it.” Once again, he says, Gary was well ahead of the curve, bringing in brown Australian carex, South American rushes (Juncus spp.), and muhly grasses (Muhlenbergia) from Mexico. “He got the ball rolling,” says Greenlee. “Grasses were probably never Gary’s main thing, but he had such a great eye; around him no plant was safe.”
“You don’t associate humble groundcovers with the man who got us all to try the ultra-glamorous Heliconia either,” says Steve Brigham, former owner of Buena Creek Nursery in north San Diego County. Yet he says it was Gary who introduced Dymondia margaretae, which went on to become the choice for planting between paving blocks and stepping stones in Southern California. Nearly ever-blooming brass buttons (Cotula lineariloba) was another Gary find, he says. Brigham propagated C. lineariloba at Buena Creek and is delighted it thrives just as well in his current Mendocino County location.
To our regret, Gary is no longer out there prowling the world for us, seeking the next great plant. But we may not have seen the last of his introductions. Shelly Jennings, once Gary’s next-door neighbor and employee, and now owner of Worldwide Exotics, inherited Gary’s stock. “We found so many new things on our last Australian collecting trip,” she says, “I still haven’t had a chance to propagate them all.”
Isn’t that a lovely thought? And, on that optimistic note, I think I’ll close.
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Frank Ruggieri was 96 years “young” when he died. A more active, interesting, talented man could hardly be found nor could he be matched for his lifetime of activities and achievements. Most people are missed by their relatives and close friends because of their absence. Frank Ruggieri is especially missed for all the things that he did every day and every week for the many friends who knew him, for those who worked at the Music Pier and in the Orchestra, and for all the extras in our lives that he brought to us.
Frank Ruggieri was born on November 17, 1906 near 6th and Christian Streets in South Philadelphia. The oldest of four, he, his brothers Jerry and John, and his sister Mary, were orphaned at an early age. His mother died in 1918 and his father in 1920. His brothers and sister went to live with his father’s brother at Broad and Morris Street. Frank went to New York to live with his mother’s brother Robert Sensale, a contrabassoonist for the New York Philharmonic for 37 years. Frank studied music with his uncle and attended public school in New York. He returned in Philadelphia in 1921 and played as bassoonist under Erno Rapee at the Fox Theater for silent movies.
He graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music. During his years of study at Curtis, Frank free-lanced in Atlantic City, N.J. He played for Victor Herbert, Jerome Kern, and Sigmund Romberg as their shows did pre-Broadway runs before grand-openings on Broadway. Frank also began performing at the Ocean City Music Pier. In 1932, he was hired as principal bassoonist in the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington D.C., directed by Hans Kindler. Frank performed in the inaugural concert for Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. In the thirties, Ruggieri played and traveled all over the U.S., Canada, and Cuba with the Ballet de Monte Carlo. In 1937, he was solo bassoonist with the Cleveland Symphony, directed by Arthur Rodzinski.
During World War II, Frank and others from the Cleveland Orchestra volunteered for the U.S. Air Force Band. Frank enlisted to serve in the new band. During that season, 1941-42, Rodzinski had programmed the Shostakovich “Seventh Symphony” which had a long bassoon solo. Rodzinski, reluctant to let Frank go, wrote the War Department requesting a two-week delay for Frank’s induction. The request was granted. Frank performed on Saturday and on Sunday boarded the train from Cleveland to Florida. After 30 months Frank returned to the Cleveland Orchestra for one season. He also taught in the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he met his wife, Anne Buzzelli, the school’s registrar. They married in 1941. Their daughter, Geraldine, is married to Carmen DePersia and they live in Sewell, N.J.
Frank moved back to New York to free-lance. In the forties he played at Radio City Music Hall. In 1949, he began playing second bassoon position with the New York Philharmonic under Leopold Stokowski and Dimitri Mitropoulous. Eventually he played under Leonard Bernstein. With the orchestra he traveled all over Europe, Japan and the Far East. He spent 23 years with the New York Philharmonic and retired at age 65 in 1972. But he had been active over all the years in the O.C. Pops during the summers, and also with Curtis Institute. He remained active in the O.C. Pops until this past spring. He had been manager, bassoonist, and librarian in his early years and on the occasion of John Warrington’s untimely death, filled the position of conductor and musical director from 1978 until 1986. During his time as conductor, he brought a new format to the style of programming and also encouraged the introducing of younger performers onto the Music Pier Stage. After he became Conductor Emeritus, he still continued to conduct two shows per summer. But it was his generosity with his time and talents that made him outstanding. He attended every show, took pictures of all sponsors, performers, and special events. He actually gave copies to many who were in these pictures. His little notes that accompanied these gifts were always refreshing to receive.
Frank was always generous sharing techniques and fingerings with others who were interested. He was always encouraging. He often did favors, lent a helping hand, and gave each task 99.9%. He valued friends and friendship more than money, success, and power. He often stated “Friendship is one of a human being’s greatest assets” as reported by James D, Hough (“Frank Ruggieri – An Exemplary Gentleman Among Bassoonists.”) The following quote is from the “South Philadelphia Lifestyles” article by Mary Jane Thompson. “You have to keep active to enjoy old age. Music keeps you young.” — Frank Ruggieri, Conductor Emeritus of the Ocean City Pops Orchestra
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Visiting the Indigenous Dayaks and their disappearing forests
17 Oct 2012 | Blog | Long-term Development | Indonesia
|Terry Russell is Caritas Australia’s Indonesia Partnerships Coordinator, based in the capital city of Jakarta. He is a fluent speaker of the local language, Bahasa Indonesia, and has lived and worked in Indonesia and East Timor for over a decade. He recently visited some Indigenous ‘Dayak’ communities supported by Caritas Australia’s projects in West Kalimantan, on the large island of Borneo. |
The vast Kapuas river slides gently past my hotel window in Pontianak. It speaks of harmony - children bathing playfully and boatmen sweating in the morning sun. But over the next week I will travel south to Ketapang district and east to Sintang district, where a very different picture lies just below the surface.
In Menyumbung village in Ketapang District, the village chief speaks of the many times palm oil companies have tried to buy the village’s land. They identify the community leaders, starting with the village chief, and they invite them to ‘information sessions’ in fancy hotels. “Sometimes they even fly them to Jakarta or Bali”. The community leaders see a world of wealth and are offered a share of this wealth if they can pursuade their people to sell land.
It is difficult for communities to get the other side of the story. Sure, selling their land will allow them to buy a motorbike and maybe repair their house. But for these temporary gains, they will lose much forever. Usually they will keep around two hectares for themselves but the rest of the land will be lost forever. One of the key sources of identity for the Indigenous people is hunting, but soon the large animals will be gone forever.
In Menyumbung village, the people haven’t sold out yet. They are happy with their income from tapping rubber trees scattered throughout the forested hills around the village. They declare with pride that within an hour’s walk they can still find wild pigs, deer, snakes, turtles, musang (a kind of civet cat), and various kinds of monkeys. Deeper into the forest, they have even occasionally seen sun bears and orangutans. Other villages, they explain, are now just surrounded by palm oil plantations, and no animal larger than a tupai (tiny squirrel) will live in these plantations.
And then there’s the effect of palm oil plantations on groundwater. When palm oil plantations are established in forested areas like these along the new trans-Kalimantan Highway, the land and rivers downstream generally receive less water. And when palm oil plantations are established in peatland or forests, these lands of course first need to be cleared. This clearing releases large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and the drying process also poses a high risk of fires, which release even larger amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. The loss of forestland for animals and villagers in West Kalimantan suddenly becomes a climate change problem that affects people far beyond West Kalimantan.
From Menyumbung village I head back to Pontianak and fly east to Sintang. While Menyumbung village is surrounded by forested hills, Sintang town just has oil palm plantations on all sides, and wild animals are rare indeed. My hosts from Sintang Diocese’s Commission for Justice and Peace take me to the edge of one palm oil plantation. After a 25-year cycle of oil palm, they explain, the ground will be dry and compact. Only small shrubs will grow, unless it is given a heavy dose of fertiliser. It will be expensive to re-seed this land, and the people most likely to pay this expense are oil palm producers preparing another crop.
And in Sintang, I hear more stories of disharmony. The Indigenous Dayaks are not used to making agreements in writing, so rarely do they request a written record of their agreement with a company. Sometimes after signing away part of their land, Indigenous Dayaks have not realised they must meet ongoing costs for road construction and maintenance because the road to their remaining land is a private one. On other occasions, the oil palm companies encroach far beyond the land they have actually purchased, but the Indigenous Dayaks have no written contract and no capital to prosecute the company in court. Some Indigenous Dayaks have even signed blank pieces of paper, which have later been turned into ‘contracts’ by deceitful local leaders. My hosts in Sintang take me to a palm plantation near Lebak Ubah village, where 39 Indigenous Dayaks were recently arrested after they had vandalised company equipment. It was the simplest way they knew to protest against being sidelined from a land purchase deal that they felt should have involved them.
Most of the problems above have been known for at least a decade. Civil society groups have repeatedly asked the Indonesian Government for fairer law enforcement and increased accountability by palm oil companies. But illegal practices remain rampant. Environmental NGOs TELAPAK and EIA documented a Malaysian palm oil company clearing one Kalimantan forest in May 2011 while it awaited a permit to clear. These NGOs also noted a 2011 study into forest loss in Kalimantan and Sumatra from 2000 to 2008, which found that 20.1 % of forest clearance took place in areas where clearing was either prohibited or restricted.. Unfortunately, some government officials are doing very nicely from the status quo. For one thing, many palm oil companies pay police to provide security. Moreover, next door to Kalimantan, a Regent in Sulawesi was recently arrested on charges that he received bribes to issue palm oil plantation permits in his regency, and the two offending companies were reportedly both owned by a businesswoman who is a board member of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Democrat Party. A report on land acquisition by palm oil companies in Papua observed, "Highly one-sided negotiations were characterized by persuasion and pressure from company staff backed by local government officials and, at times, intimidation from military and police" . Progress is being made with awareness-raising about the need to protect Kalimantan’s biodiversity , but even faster progress is being made clearing Kalimantan’s forests.
Caritas Australia is not arguing that palm oil is bad in all circumstances . But we are supporting the right of Indigenous Peoples to hear both sides of the story, and to be better prepared to participate in policy discussions with the government. In 2011, Caritas Australia assisted local NGO Pancur Kasih to repair a community radio station broadcasting to Menyumbung and surrounding villages, enabling local people to hear information about palm oil and ecology in general, as well as other topics like sanitation and household economic management. We also assisted local NGO Pancur Kasih to provide training in rubber tree cultivation and making organic fertiliser to reduce the financial pressures that influence Dayaks to sell their land. In 2012, Caritas Australia is supporting the Diocese of Sintang to bring local Dayak leaders together to discuss the challenges they face and later bring these to a forum in Jakarta. In short, we are helping Indigenous Dayaks to find their own way forward regarding palm oil companies.
Do you have any questions or comments? Post them here, and Terry will be available to reply to them.
Sign our Walk As One petition for increased commitment to addressing issues of injustice for Indigenous Peoples around the world »
Learn more about Indonesia »
- http://www.illegal-logging.info/uploads/news6441.pdf
- http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0709-indonewswrap.html
- http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0523-hance-eia-exploitation.html
Back to blog
15 Mar 2013
24 Oct 2012
24 Oct 2012
Caritas Australia Team
24 Oct 2012
23 Oct 2012
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In his search for an alternative to catholic Christianity, Augustine of Hippo (AD 354–430) turned to a religious sect known as Manichaeism, which promised to synthesize Christ’s “true” teachings with classical wisdom. The Manichees1 followed the teaching of Mani (AD 216–277), a Persian religious leader who was crucified for claiming to be the Paraclete and restorer of the true teaching of Christ. An odd blend of materialism and dualism, Manichaeism taught that the world was dominated by two co-eternal and opposed principles, one benevolent (Ormuzd: “light”), and one malevolent (Ahriman: “darkness”). These two “realities” were responsible for bringing eternal strife and conflict to the world. Like the Gnostics, the Manichees believed that Christ was solely spiritual, had no material body, and did not actually die on the cross. The Manichees strongly opposed catholic Christianity.
As a faithful Manichee, Augustine had three basic problems with Christianity. First, his materialism prevented him from conceiving of God as an immaterial (or incorporeal), transcendent reality, imperceptible to the senses. Second, Augustine had questions about the problem of evil, especially evil’s relationship to God. He asked: “Where then is evil? What is its origin? How did it steal into the world?…Where then does evil come from, if God made all things and, because he is good, made them good too?”2 In his mind, Manicheans provided a better explanation to the problem of evil through its dualism.
Third, Augustine believed that while Christianity is based on faith, Manichaeism was based on reason and, thus, provided the truth. Finding the truth was, after all, Augustine’s main objective. Furthermore, Manichaeism’s view concerning cosmic evil and strife in the world (a type of fatalism) allowed Augustine to justify his own sinful tendencies (especially sexual) as actions beyond his personal control.
A Closer Look at Manichaeism
While Augustine remained a Manichee for nine years, ultimately his keen analytical mind began to question the coherence of Manichaeism’s dualism. He questioned whether his chosen religious system could provide the adequate explanation of ultimate truth and reality he sought.
Manichaeism’s hold on Augustine finally broke when he met with the highly regarded Manichee bishop, Faustus. Though charming and articulate, Faustus could not answer Augustine’s metaphysical and epistemological objections to Manichaeism. Augustine came to view this religious system as having deep philosophical flaws and, therefore, unworthy of his deepest commitment. However, while he was no longer officially within the Manichee fold, some of its ideas continued to shape his philosophical and religious thinking—thus, he still retained his three stated objections to Christianity.
Continued in two weeks
1. Allan D. Fitzgerald, ed., Augustine through the Ages (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), s.v. “Mani, Manichaeism”; and Ed L. Miller, Questions That Matter, 4th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996), 374–75.
2. Augustine, Confessions, trans. R. S. Pine-Coffin (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1992), Book VII, 5.
Subjects: Historical Theology
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PRESS RELEASE: 'Digital Generation' risks future without memories
Photos and phone numbers lost as almost one in five lose portable devices without backup
18 December, 2007 - Britons are risking losing valuable images and data forever with almost one in five who own a portable device losing phone numbers and contact details on mislaid items and 40% admitting to not backing up photos on portable devices, according to research commissioned by Network Appliance (NetApp), a leading provider of storage and data management solutions.
The YouGov survey of 2,035 online adults, reveals that whilst 58% of those that own a portable device store up to 500 photos, only 6% are very worried about losing them. It also indicates that 60% who had lost a device with phone numbers on had to source the contact details from scratch.
Surprisingly, only 44% said this had made them think twice about backing up information in future. Not surprisingly, however, 25 to 34 year olds (33%) have mislaid more portable devices with phone numbers and contact details than any other age group, with over 55s (8%) losing the least.
Mark Stevens, UK Area Director at NetApp said: "Data backup and protection is not just a concern for businesses. Today's 'Digital Generation' load an increasing amount of information onto phones, iPods and laptops everyday, and with this comes risk.
"People need to be aware that saving images and numbers without backing them up means they could be lost forever."
The research findings also highlight a gender gap in attitudes towards data loss among those storing photos on portable devices, with three times as many women saying they were very worried about losing images than men. Men who have lost devices with contact details are less likely to change their behaviour than women with 54% saying they would not backup or change the way they store information, compared to 43% of women.
Mark Stevens, UK Area Director at NetApp said: "Clearly there is a level of education needed to help consumers protect their information.
"Protecting your data doesn't have to be complex. The right solution will speed and optimise backup and recovery processes, heighten data availability and you can keep in contact with friends and family, as well as retrieve lost images."
Other findings from the study include different attitudes towards data protection across Britain:
- People from the South of England are least likely to have photos backedup on their portable devices than in any other region (32%)
- Those from Scotland are the most careful with 48% having images backedup.
- Londoners are most likely to lose a portable device containing contact details (26%), compared to 15% of people in the South and 15% in the Midlands and Wales
- 47% of Northerners would change the way they store information following the loss of a device with Southerners least likely to change their attitudes (35%).
Notes to editors:
About Network Appliance
Network Appliance is a world leader in unified storage solutions for today's data-intensive enterprise. Since its inception in 1992, Network Appliance has delivered technology, product and partner firsts that simplify data management. Information about Network Appliance solutions and services is available at www.netapp.com.
NetApp is a registered trademark and Network Appliance is a trademark of Network Appliance, Inc., in the U.S. and other countries.
About the survey
All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 2,035 online adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 17th - 19th October 2007. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB adults (aged 18+).
(First posted on Tuesday, December 18, 2007 at 13:02 EST)
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Catholic father and Jewish mother battle over toddler's religion
An American divorce spat poses some fundamental questions about parental influence over a child's religion.
Ela Reyes-Shapiro was born to Jewish parents, but at the age of three, she was baptized in a Catholic church without the knowledge or consent of her mother, Rebecca. Her religious identity became the subject of long and painful legal wrangling.
At this point, some readers might guess that Ela is now in her seventies, and was one of the thousands of children who survived the Holocaust hidden in a convent, where the nuns tried to wipe out her Jewish provenance and recreate her as a child of the blessed virgin. After the war, surviving relatives and Jewish organizations often had to wage protracted battles against the Church, which in many cases, allegedly on direct orders from Pope Pius XII, refused to relinquish custody of Jewish orphans who had been baptized.
But if you have been following recent reports in the American media, you will already know that Ela is still three, was born and lives in Chicago, and is the subject of a bizarre divorce dispute.
The basic facts are these: Rebecca Shapiro married Joseph Reyes in 2004. He converted to Judaism, and they agreed that their future children would be brought up as Jews. In 2008, they split up. Rebecca won primary custody of Ela, but Joseph had regular visitation rights. Joseph then rediscovered his Catholic roots, and Rebecca was shocked to discover last November that he had Ela baptized.
Next stop was court, where Rebecca obtained a restraining order forbidding Joseph from exposing Ela to any religion save Judaism. But Joseph decided he was on to a good thing, and he invited television crews to see him take Ela to Mass. Now Rebecca's lawyers are trying to get him sent to prison for contempt of court, while Joseph's legal team has managed to get the judge who originally issued the restraining order replaced, because he is Jewish himself. As is Joseph's lawyer, of course.
Rebecca claims that shuttling their daughter from synagogue to church will cause her emotional distress, while Joseph takes the enlightened view that Ela "should be exposed to the religions of both my wife and myself and appreciate them for what they are." Not that either estranged spouse seems to be particularly devout.
Rebecca's partisans contend that Joseph can hardly claim to be a good Catholic if he found it so easy to convert to Judaism. He is simply trying to spite his wife, they say: He even emailed her photographs of the baptism. Joseph counters that he only converted to curry favor with his in-laws, but he wasn't serious about being Jewish - and neither, he adds, is Rebecca: According to him, she never kept kosher or observed Shabbat. Thus her objection has nothing to do with religion, she is simply trying to minimize his contact with their daughter.
Much of the American media's coverage of the case has focused on the question of whether the original judge was right to order that Ela be exposed only to Judaism. In a nation that still nominally believes in separation of religion and state, can courts tell people that they may or may not attend church or temple? For obvious reasons, American Jewish leaders have refrained from making any statements on this case, but I am sure the Orthodox are saying to themselves that all this goes to prove that nothing good can ever come from mixed marriages, and that allowing all and sundry to convert to Judaism will only cause trouble.
The crux of the case ought to be the question of what is best for the child. But how can anyone even begin to argue their position with any degree of objectivity? As it is, poor Ela will probably need years of therapy to make some sense of the depth of her parents' enmity toward each other, and of how she was transformed into their religious football.
But for me, the interesting question is what influence this will have on Ela's religious decisions. As she progresses from childhood through the teenage years and into adulthood, will her mother's predominant influence cause her to see herself as one of the children of Israel, and even to take some interest in her roots? Alternatively, will the fact that Rebecca seemed intimidated by the specter of the cross - so much that she sought the court's protection against it - intrigue Ela and attract her to the forbidden church once she is old enough to make her own choices? Or will she just turn against both religions and reach the conclusion that the only real alternative is atheism?
The real issue here transcends the powers of the divorce courts, or even the debate over which parent should be allowed to determine a child's religious affiliation. The fundamental question is, what right do we have as parents to determine our children's beliefs?
Desiring one's child to walk in the footsteps of his or her ancestors is a basic parental instinct, but at no time in history has such adherence been less guaranteed. Children are swamped today with such a bewildering array of role models, lifestyle options and conflicting information that the influence wielded by parents, through the example they set at home and their choice of schooling, is greatly diminished. And this is not only a problem for children of divorced parents: The entire Jewish community worldwide is struggling with the question of how to keep another generation connected to its roots.
Last week, I wrote in this column about the ultra-Orthodox community's failure to keep its young from the influence of the Internet. Even the most closed and controlled societies are losing their power to determine the future of their younger members.
Parents have not only a legal right, but a moral obligation to point their children toward what they believe is the correct path. But they must also be pragmatists and equip their offspring with the tools to make their own choices - because in the end, they will anyway. Rebecca and Joseph have certainly failed their daughter in this.
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As little children we know how to live in the moment and be completely authentic. But then something damaging happens to us, according to author Don Miguel Ruiz: we are given "knowledge" about how to live in the world. Parents tell us how to behave in order to be a "good" boy or girl. Teachers tell us what it takes to be a "winner" or a "successful" adult. This collective "voice of knowledge" is not only false--it is often poisonous, explains Ruiz, bestselling author of The Four Agreements
. It makes us believe that "I am not the way I should be; it is not okay to be me." Drawing upon the story of Adam and Eve, Ruiz refers to the forbidden tree of knowledge and likens the abandonment of the true self to the fall from heaven. What Ruiz calls "the voice of knowledge" others spiritual teachers might call ego--the hidden and carefully defended belief system that prevents us from living and expressing who we really are. "The structure of our knowledge makes us feel safe
When we discover that we are not what we believe we are, the foundation of our entire reality begins to collapse." In the Toltec tradition, Ruiz says every human is an artist, "and the supreme art is the expression of the beauty of our spirit". He explains that there are two kinds of artists: "the ones who create their story without awareness, and the ones who recover awareness and create their story with truth and love." The recovering of awareness is what this fourth book in the Toltec Wisdom
series is all about. This makes for a good bedside spiritual growth book. Each chapter closes with "Points to Ponder"--summary thoughts to sleep upon as you create the more authentic story of your life. --Gail Hudson, Amazon.com
Don Miguel tells us that we are born in truth, but we grow up believing in lies mainly about ourselves. As children we listen to the voice of our integrity, which is rooted in truth. Once we learn to speak, we mainly hear the louder voice of knowledge, which is rooted in lies, and causes endless suffering. By following the guiding principles presented in this book, we can reclaim our integrity and recover inner peace. Then our life becomes an expression of our authentic self, just as it was before we learned to speak.
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One of the questions everyone is asking about the approval of a provisional rite for same-sex blessings is how it changes our understanding of marriage. It's a complex question, and I'll start with defining "Marriage" and "Matrimony. " These are often used interchangeably in both the culture and the church, but I'm going to define these just for use within this post.
"Marriage" is a civil affair binding two individuals together legally. This is the ancient definition of marriage which predates Christianity.
"Matrimony" is a sacrament, or sacramental rite, or has no religious status at all, depending on your time period and which strain of Christianity you belong to. It's important to note that matrimony can be seen as kind of a "Junior Sacrament" due to its relative newness.
Jesus spoke of the of the permanence of marriage, but not the moral goods. Paul saw marriage as a poor second to celibacy, as did most early Christians. Gregory of Nyssa (d. 385 or so) was one of the first to see a possibility of divine work within marriage equal to that of celibacy, in that it trained people in impermanence.
The role of the church in marriage only began to pick up when it became the established religion of the Roman Empire. As ministers became civil officials, they took on civil roles, including solemnizing marriages. The church slowly began to develop a sacramental theology of matrimony. By the early Middle Ages, marriages begin to be celebrated in churches. By the late Middle Ages, marriage and matrimony combined as the church took over many of the civil functions of the defunct empire and became the sole purveyor of marriages.
This is the confused understanding of marriage and matrimony that we inherit - one born of a confusion of religion and civil government. Clergy in the United States that perform marriages function simultaneously as religious and civil officials. It's important to note that the center group of one of our most cherished American myths, the puritans fleeing religious persecution, believed that marriage was a purely civil affair and rejected any sacramentality around it.
In the modern situation, we face our old confusion. While Europe has separated civil marriage from religious matrimony, The United States continues to conflate the two. This gets especially difficult as the civil authorities redefine (or one could say refuse to define in specific gender terms) what marriage is. In many states, same-sex marriage is legal, while in others same-gender unions are legal, while in others constitutional amendments make such civil recognition impossible.
It is into this morass that the Episcopal Church wades. There is a cultural expectation that when you celebrate the sacramental rite of matrimony in church, you are married in the eyes of the state. Our canons state that matrimony is between one man and one woman. So what exactly is happening in a same-sex blessing? Is it matrimony or not? Is it marriage or not?
The response of the church with a proposed rite allows us to address the varied situation in the United States. It seems to me that the rites are clearly NOT matrimony. For them to be so, we would have had to alter the canons. There are those that say, "if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck." This line of reasoning points out that since there are vows and an exchange of rings, it looks too much like matrimony to be anything else. But this completely disregards a regular part of our religious life in the Episcopal Church, namely that of monastic vows. Those rites within the various religious orders of the Episcopal Church also have vows and sometimes include a ring but almost always include some token of the vows. While matrimonial language is sometimes employed metaphorically (I.e. "Bride of Christ") no one would claim that such vows are the sacramental rite of matrimony. Saying that liturgical similarity implies sacramental correspondence ignores this important part of our tradition. Saying that monastic rites are not sacramental just because they are not matrimony would be a rather startling assertion. The same could be said of same-sex blessing rites. Just because they don't fit the category of one of the sacramental rites does not mean they are not sacramental in nature.
What the rites definitely are is a recognition of a covenanted relationship between two people, of which there are many precedents in history. How they interact with marriage and matrimony will vary from place to place. In places where same-sex marriage is legal, it will mean that a clergy person will not be celebrating matrimony, but MAY be solemnizing a civil marriage. In places when same-sex marriage is not legal, a Clergy person will neither be celebrating matrimony, nor solemnizing a civil marriage, but simply blessing a covenanted relationship. In many places, the rites will not be used at all because the diocesan bishop will not authorize their use. This flexibility is necessary at this time, not only due to theological diversity, but due to legal issues with civil marriage in many states.
There may be those, both for and opposed, that will insist that this really IS matrimony. There could be truth in that, since matrimony is a sacramental rite in which the couple itself are the ministers. The priest only adds the Church's blessing to their sacramental action in the vows. Thus, it could be matrimony whether the church believes it or not. (Though technically, if the church does not recognize it, it may be sacramental, but it is not a sacramental rite.)
What the church will do in the future is unclear. We may move towards accepting same-sex rites as being matrimony by adapting the Prayer Book rite and changing the canons. Or the GLBT community may decide that what they are doing is something other than matrimony (A position I have heard articulated by several GLBT individuals.) In any case, the current rites provide something for a time in which we need to address various needs in multiple contexts.
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The Difference Between a Cell Phone, Smartphone and PDA
Last Updated: 08-31-2010 , Posted: 05-02-2008
|Falling under the category of mobile devices, today's consumer electronics serve multiple purposes. Years ago, cellular phones, also called cellphone or mobile phone, served one purpose only: They let you send and receive voice communications. Today, mobile phones and similar devices are equipped with customized software, Internet access, digital cameras, portable music players, GPS functions and many more options.
Once again technological advancements make common terminology such as mobile phone, smartphone, PDA and PDA phone difficult to decipher as each type of device changes constantly and features traditionally belonging to one type of device are now found on others. Here we will explore the popular category of mobile communication devices, the similarities and differences between some of the popular products.
What Is a Mobile Phone?
A mobile phone is more frequently called a cellular phone or cellphone. These communication devices connect to a wireless communications network through radio waves or satellite transmissions. Most mobile phones provide voice communications, Short Message Service (SMS), Multimedia Message Service (MMS), and newer phones may also provide Internet services such as Web browsing, instant messaging capabilities and e-mail.
What Is a PDA?
Short for personal digital assistant, this is the name given to small handheld devices that combine computing, telephone/fax, Internet and networking features. A typical PDA can function as a cellular phone, fax sender, Web browser and personal organizer. These devices are usually pen-based, which requires the use of a stylus rather than a keyboard for input. PDAs today are available in either a stylus or keyboard version. Traditionally, PDAs have not had phone or fax services.
What Is a Smartphone?
A smartphone is considered to be the combination of the traditional PDA and cellular phone, with a bigger focus on the cellular phone part. These handheld devices integrates mobile phone capabilities with the more common features of a handheld computer or PDA. Smartphones allow users to store information, e-mail, install programs, along with using a mobile phone in one device. A smartphone's features is usually more oriented towards mobile phone options than the PDA-like features. There is no industry standard for what defines a smartphone, so any mobile device that has more than basic cellphone capabilities can actually be filed under the smartphone category of devices.
What Is a PDA Phone?
It's definitely a lack of standardization that makes the category of mobile devices so confusing to the consumer. As technology changes, so do the functions that these different devices perform. Years ago, many people differentiated PDA and smartphone simply by looking for touch-screen capabilities. If it had a touch screen it was a PDA, if it didn't, it was a smartphone. The Sony Ericsson Smartphone, for example, offers users both a touch screen and a full QWERTY keyboard. Despite the fact that the manufacturer calls this product a smartphone, the generic term for a PDA oriented device with cellular phone capabilities is called a PDA phone.
Fuzzy Lines Between Smart Devices
Even if you can now decide for yourself if a mobile device is simply a cellular phone, a smartphone, a PDA or PDA phone, the fine lines between these types of mobile devices are about to get blurred again as we add in new terms to the mix like Pocket PC, and Smartphone (with a capital letter).
So starting with the difference between smartphone, as we've discussed above: When capitalized, it refers to Microsoft's Smartphone platform, which is used for a variety of mobile devices. The latest version, Windows Mobile 6 actually removes the word Smartphone from its title, and over time this should help lessen the confusion between smartphone and Smartphone. Interestingly, , one of the three versions of Windows Mobile 6 is called Windows Mobile 6 Standard for Smartphones. Here the "For Smartphones" means "phones without touch screens".
The Pocket PC itself is not a specific category of mobile devices, but rather the name given to PDAs that use the Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system. Much like the category of PDA devices, Pocket PCs features are focused on computing and data tasks with other features, like cellular phone capabilities being secondary to the PDA functions. The Pocket PC is one device that is standardized. In order to carry the Pocket PC label the device must meet specific criteria such as use Microsoft's Windows Mobile for Pocket PCs, include a touch screen, include a touchpad, and other specifications.
Some Popular Examples
The popular Apple iPhone is a combination smartphone and iPod
The HP iPAQ Mobile Messenger is a Pocket PC
The LG Prada is a cellular phone with a touch screen — but its not a smartphone
The RIM BlackBerry 8800 is considered a smartphone — but its borderline on being a handheld PC device due to its size and features
The Palm Treo 700p is a PDA phone
The Motorola Q is also considered to be a PDA phone
What's The Differences, Again?
In summing up the differences between these common mobile communications devices you could say that a PDA phone is more PDA than phone and a smartphone is more phone than PDA. And, of course, a cellular phone is more phone than anything else.
DID YOU KNOW...
The first cellular call was placed on April 3, 1973 by Martin Cooper who was the general manager of Motorola's Communications Systems Division. He made the call to his rival, Joel Engel, Bell Labs head of research. (Source: Selling The Cell Phone)
|Key Terms To Understanding mobile devices
Related "What's The Diff?" Articles on Webopedia:
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"Jan Groover, Postmodern Photographer, Dies at 68"
January 11th, 2012
The New York Times
January 11th, 2012
The New York Times
Jan Groover, whose relentlessly formal still lifes of mundane objects brought a sense of Renaissance stateliness to postmodern photography, died on Jan. 1 in Montpon-Ménestérol, France, where she had lived since 1991. She was 68.
Her death was announced by Janet Borden, her dealer, who said Ms. Groover had been ill for some time but did not specify a cause.
Ms. Groover began as a painter, and though she quickly moved on to photography, many of her preoccupations were the same as those of the painters she studied and admired: Giorgio Morandi, Cézanne, and Fra Angelico along with many other European masters of the 14th and 15th centuries.
Instead of feast tables or objects in the rooms of the wealthy, the still-life tableaus that first brought Ms. Groover to prominence in the late 1970s focused on the everyday implements of the kitchen, arranged in the sink: fork tines, spatulas, butter-knife blades, whorled and scalloped cake pans, shot in such a way as to confound perspective and to transform light into a kind of object itself in the reflective surfaces.
The pictures resonated not only as subtle documents of feminism but also as unusually beautiful investigations of the fictions that are inseparable from facts in the conventions of photography — inquiries being similarly undertaken by other artists of the time, like Tina Barney, Laurie Simmons, Cindy Sherman and Richard Prince.
“I had some wild concept that you could change space — which you can,” Ms. Groover said in a 1994 documentary about her work, “Jan Groover: Tilting at Space,” produced by Ms. Barney and directed by Mark Trottenberg.
Some of the first pictures she exhibited took heavy cues from Conceptualism: triptychs showing, for example, three cars passing the same light pole on a prosaic stretch of street, or three similar suburban houses, echoing Dan Graham’s seminal “Homes for America” tract-house pictures from the mid-1960s.
But even in these pictures her painstaking attention to color and line announced that she was pursuing her own kind of concerns. “Even though it sounds stupid and it sounds cold, ‘Formalism is everything’ is not a bad thing to say,” she said in the documentary.
John Szarkowski, the longtime director of the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art, who gave Ms. Groover a midcareer retrospective in 1987, wrote that “her pictures were good to think about because they were first good to look at.” In this, he said, he considered her a late-20th-century heir to Edward Weston.
Her carefully orchestrated large-format photographs — which came to include a wide variety of objects and, later, people — anticipated in some ways the now-prominent practice of more elaborately staged photography by artists like Jeff Wall and Thomas Demand and by Gregory Crewdson, who studied under Ms. Groover at the State University of New York, Purchase, where she taught for more than a decade.
The critic Andy Grundberg, writing about the 1987 retrospective for The New York Times, credited Ms. Groover with helping to elevate photography from its second-class status in the fine-art world. When one of her kitchen still lifes appeared on the cover of Artforum magazine in the late 1970s, he wrote, “it was a signal that photography had arrived in the art world — complete with a marketplace to support it.”
Ms. Groover was born on April 24, 1943, and grew up in Plainfield, N.J. She met her husband, the painter and critic Bruce Boice, who survives her, in high school art class, where he was impressed by her seriousness and ferocious intellect. “Generally people were afraid of her, I think, then,” he said in the documentary, “and they tend to be afraid of her now.”
She briefly returned to Plainfield to work as a junior high school art teacher after graduating from Pratt Institute in New York in 1965, but then received a fellowship to study at Ohio State University in Columbus. In 1978 she won a grant of several thousand dollars from the National Endowment for the Arts and, after cashing the check, immediately bought her first large-format camera, which she used to photograph the kitchen still lifes.
In 1991, demoralized by what they saw as a deeply conservative turn in American politics, Ms. Groover and Mr. Boice moved from the Lower East Side to Montpon-Ménestérol, a market town in southwest France.
Ms. Groover chose that occasion to buy an even bigger camera and initially used it to focus on the churches, graveyards and landscapes of her new surroundings, pressing even further in her exploration of photographic space and illusion. It was “like playing by myself,” she said, “and it’s fun.”
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ExportSpreadsheets is a class that can be used to create an Excel spreadsheet from data in a MySQL table. It performs a query to a given MySQL table and creates an Excel spreadsheet file using the PEAR Spreadsheet_Excel_Writer package. The class can export multiple worksheets to a single Excel file. Several parameters may be used to configure details like which table fields map to which spreadsheet columns, field sorting, etc.
OrientDB is a NoSQL DBMS which can store 150,000 documents per second on common hardware. Even with a document-based database, the relationships are managed as in graph databases, with direct connections among records. You can traverse entire or parts of trees and graphs of records in a few milliseconds. It supports schema-less, schema-full, and schema-mixed modes, has a strong security profiling system based on users and roles, and supports SQL between the query languages. Thanks to the SQL layer, it's straightforward to use for people skilled in the relational world.
Orient Key/Value Server is based on the Document Database technology and is accessible as an embedded repository via Java APIs or via HTTP using a RESTful API. It uses a new algorithm called RB+Tree, derived from the Red-Black Tree to maintain tree balance, and from the B+Tree storing the links to records in pages to optimize memory consumption and loading time. Orient Key/Value Server scales out very well in a cluster with thousands of running machines: Orient will divide the load among all the nodes. Clustering, by default, works in auto-discovery mode: when a node starts, it attaches itself to the cluster if one is available. When a node goes down, the cluster automatically rebalances itself.
The goal of Funani is to solve the management of large image and other media collections in a practical way. To help you find the data you want in big data collections, this software allows you to sort it in many different ways. Advanced queries on dates, locations, events, or people, or more generically categories and tags, allow you to narrow the search quickly. Funani can be thought of primarily as a safe. Every file put into the system remains in the system. It is an additive system, which makes unintended deletion impossible. A maintenance mode can still remove unwanted files, but standard users cannot perform this operation. Funani is also a framework designed for extensibility. When new features are requested, they can be implemented by adding new functionality and leaving the existing system alone. Each feature is completely isolated from others as long as it does not depend on them.
The stx::CBTreeDB is a collection of C++ classes with which read-only key-value database files can be created and read. A database efficiently maps a large number of integral fixed-length keys to opaque binary value blobs. Variable-length or duplicate keys are currently not supported. Keys are organized into a highly compact index structure, which is very similar to a B-tree and allows very fast key lookups. Both keys and values are stored in order and thus queries in a local proximity can benefit from caching effects. All applications mapping a large number of constant, integral keys to string or data blobs can benefit from this library.
AGENCY is software that allows non-profit organizations to track data and manage operations. It is a fork and continuation of CHASERS. AGENCY aims to become a collectively-maintained and developed project that puts organizations in charge of their data systems. There are currently two “flavors” of AGENCY: one for managing clients and services, case management, and such (think “social service”); and one for managing donations and volunteers (think “fundraising”). Features include a report generator, permissions and access control, the ability to merge reports to OpenOffice documents, a log system, and real-time alerts with email notification. In the client version, many tables and data structures are already set up for organizations doing human service, homeless services, or HMIS. The donor version is set up to track donors, addresses, gifts (cash and inkind), flags, volunteers, volunteer activities, and more.
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"Introduction to dental medications
There are several types of medications that are used to manage a variety of diseases involving the oral cavity (mouth) that are part of good dental care. The medications discussed in this article h"...
IMPORTANT: HOW TO USE THIS INFORMATION: This is a summary and does NOT have all possible information about this product. This information does not assure that this product is safe, effective, or appropriate for you. This information is not individual medical advice and does not substitute for the advice of your health care professional. Always ask your health care professional for complete information about this product and your specific health needs.
ERYTHROMYCIN/BENZOYL PEROXIDE - TOPICAL
COMMON BRAND NAME(S): Benzamycin
USES: This product is used to treat moderate acne. It helps to reduce the number of pimples. This medication is a combination of 2 drugs. Erythromycin works by stopping the growth of acne-causing bacteria. It belongs to a class of drugs known as macrolide antibiotics. Benzoyl peroxide also kills acne-causing bacteria and causes the top layer of skin to dry and peel off so that new skin can form. This product also contains alcohol which helps to dry extra oils from the skin.
HOW TO USE: Read the instructions for use that come with this product. This medication is for use only on the skin.
Before applying, wash the affected areas thoroughly, rinse with warm water, then gently pat dry. Apply a thin layer of this medication as directed by your doctor, usually twice daily (in the morning and in the evening).
If you are using the individual pouches, you must first mix the 2 medications from the separate compartments of each pouch. Mix the contents thoroughly in the palm of your hand. Apply the product immediately after mixing.
Wash your hands after using medication. Avoid getting this medication in your eyes or inside your nose, mouth, or other mucous membranes. If this occurs, rinse thoroughly with water. Do not mix or apply medication near an open flame.
Benzoyl peroxide may bleach hair or colored fabrics (such as clothing, bedding, towels). Use caution when applying this medication near the hairline.
Use this medication regularly to get the most benefit from it. To help you remember, use it at the same times each day. Do not apply large amounts of this medication, use it more often, or use it for longer than prescribed. Your condition will not improve any faster, and your risk of side effects may increase.
Acne usually improves after a few weeks of treatment. However, it may take 2 to 3 months of continued use to notice the full benefit of this product. Tell your doctor if your condition does not improve or if it worsens.
Additional Benzamycin Information
Benzamycin - User Reviews
Benzamycin User Reviews
Now you can gain knowledge and insight about a drug treatment with Patient Discussions.
Report Problems to the Food and Drug Administration
You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit the FDA MedWatch website or call 1-800-FDA-1088.
Find out what women really need.
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a type of door in the entrance of a large building, which goes around and around as people go through it
used to say that the people involved in a situation, organization etc change often:
The park director position has been a revolving door for seven appointees.
used to say that people return to a situation, position etc often, but usually for a different reason:
This could mean that we end up with a revolving door Congress, in which former members return as lobbyists.
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Google Reader gets a good mention in my RSS article, Using RSS Tools to Feed your Information Needs
, but deserves an even deeper dive. This is a follow-up to that article, along with my recent posts on Integrating content with websites
, and Managing Content with Pipes
. We've established that an RSS Reader helps you manage internet information far more efficiently than a web browser can; and we've talked in the last few posts about publishing feeds to your web site. This post focuses on using tools like Google Reader
to share research .
Out of the box, GReader (as it's affectionately known) is a powerful, web-based reader that lets you subscribe, mark and share items in two significant ways. Shared Items are items that get published to a public page that you can point your friends and co-workers to. Further, this page can be subscribed to via RSS as well, so it can be republished to your web site, or integrated into a Facebook feed. Using (fake) bill 221b as an example, if you monitor for and selectively share articles related to the bill, you can easily point co-wokers and constituents to your shared page, and or republish those items in places where your audience will see them.
Shared Items are also made available to other GReader users who choose to share with you. This offers a greater level of convenience for teams working with shared research; it can also afford a level of confidentiality if you don't want to publicize a public page. Not only can you share the items you find; you can also tag them, much like you would with Delicious or Flickr, and add a note, if you have thoughts or context-setting notes to share. A function recently added GReader takes this even further - shared items can be commented on, much as a blog post can.
The last bit to add to this arsenal is a very powerful, but not terribly obvious GReader feature. The Note in GReader bookmarklet (which you can drag to your web browser's quick links or bookmarks toolbar from the GReader "Notes" page) lets you share, with comments and tags, pages that you find on the web as GReader shared items. So if you run across something that isn't in your feeds (and there's plenty of web content that can't be subscribed to), this lets you add it to your shared items.
What I've found is that, as much as I admire social bookmarking sites like Delicious
, they become a lot less useful when I can store all of the pages that I find via RSS or browsing, with tags and an option to share them, in the same convenient place.
It's important to note that, as powerful as all of this is, it still lacks some functionality that similar tools have. One great advantage of using Delicious as a link-sharing tool is that you can share links specific to any tag (or set of tags). Google Reader doesn't offer multiple shared pages based on filtering criteria. And while you can add notes to your feed (without adding links), it's not as flexible a repository as a tool like Evernote
, which lets you save web pages, ODFs and all sorts of documents to a single web-based folder.
Also, Google Reader isn't the only game in town. The Newsgator
family of RSS readers offer similar sharing functions; some of which overcome the limitations above, as do other readers out there (please share your favorite in the comments).
What it boils down to, though, is that we now have powerful, integrated options for online research, as individuals, as teams, and as information agents for our constituents. The convenience of publishing as you discover is a significant advancement over earlier schemes, which usually involved either sending a lot of easily-lost links by email, or submitting your finds to a webmaster, who would then add them to a page on your site. This is a publish as you find approach that incorporates sharing and communication into the research process.
Next week, I'll finish up the "More RSS Tools" series with a post about OPML, the way that you make your collection of feeds portable.
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Is the Titanic Linked to Hillsborough?
PBS television show explores heirloom that belongs to the family of a Hillsborough resident.
Does Hillsborough have a link to the Titanic? The PBS television show "History Detectives" takes a look at the possibility that an heirloom in the family of Hillsborough resident and business owner Robert Martorana is actually from the legendary ocean liner.
If you ask Martorana, the double picture frame his grandmother had is indeed from the Titanic. His cousin Cathy McIsaac, however, believes it was from the Lusitania.
According to the show's website, both were told their great-grandfather had worked on the Lusitania. They were also reportedly told when it was torpedoed, he grabbed a floating piece of wood and afterward turned it into a frame.
The show and host Elyse Luray will check out if the piece is truly from one of the legendary boats, or neither.
The show will be televised locally on PBS channel 13 at 8 p.m.
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Not All Millennials Dream Of Big City Life
- May 14th, 2012
- 2 Comments
As Millennials come of age and graduate from college, they’re making decisions about where they want to live and put down roots. Watching shows like “Girls,” “I Just Want My Pants Back," “Men At Work,” “2 Broke Girls,” and even “Glee,” one would think that all Millennials are clamoring for their chance to make it in New York City. Putting aside the idea that “making it” is really more about simply surviving in the current economy, we had to wonder if most Millennials really are thinking that life in the big city is for them, so we asked nearly 1500 Millennials about where they see themselves living. The breakdown:
- 41% want to live in a city, the bigger the better;
- 40% say smaller cities are more their style;
- 19% prefer small town life.
While slightly more Millennials want to live in a big city, nearly as many think smaller cities are for them. Small cities have been putting in a lot of work to attract young people. There are burgeoning art scenes, green initiatives (including steps to make small cities more walkable and bikeable), revitalizations of downtown areas… In many ways, smaller cities have many of the same attractions as big cities, without the high cost. But also without the name recognition.
There’s still something about telling high school and college friends that you’re living and working in a big city, but slowly, small cities are owning certain niches of cool — music, bike culture, fashion, and more. From Portland to Minneapolis to Detroit (yes, Detroit), creative and innovative young residents are upping their cities’ cool cache, drawing even more hip 20-somethings to move there and even brag about it. What’s more, Millennials have a better chance to get noticed and make their mark in small cities — both in their jobs and in their social sphere — because the competition isn’t quiet as fierce.
Another edge that small cities have over big cities is that there’s less risk involved. In big cities there’s stiffer competition for jobs; it’s difficult to find a good apartment in a good neighborhood at a good price; and crime rates are higher. On the whole, Millennials are a risk-averse generation, taking only calculated risks. For some, the allure of making their mark on a big stage outweighs their concerns about big city life, but for others, a smaller city affords them all they need without chancing too much.
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By eight months your baby is likely to be happy taking solids from a spoon. If you haven’t started already, now’s a good time for introducing soft lumps and more interesting textures to their food. This will help to encourage jaw development and help them learn to accept new things.
As they become more familiar with soft lumps and they’re keen to start feeding themselves you can also introduce finger foods.
The low down on soft lumps:
- Soft lumps – try for small and soft lumps in a thick purée. Harder lumps, like whole peas in a sauce will be too much for them, they’ll struggle to separate them while eating and they’ll risk choking.
- Mash it – try fork mashing a banana into small pieces – that’s about the texture you should be aiming for
- Jaw development - these soft lumps and mashes are important as they learn to chew, it encourages tongue flexibility and movement.
- Gumming it - most babies are more than able to chew soft lumps with just their gums. Don’t worry if their teeth haven’t come in yet.
- Getting to know food - experience with new textures now might make them less likely to reject lumpy food later on.
Lumpy options: a few fun foods to try
Moving on to a more textured diet means a whole new world has opened up. Here are some foods that your baby might be enjoying already and hopefully some more ideas to try:
- Mashed banana
- Mashed ripe avocado
- Rice pudding
- Lentil dhal or lentil casserole, but make sure there are no hard solid lumps like whole peas in there
- Finely flaked fish in sauce - be careful you’ve removed any bones
- Cooked minced chicken or beef mixed with mashed veges
- Small pasta pieces in cheese sauce
- Cooked mashed egg
- Cottage cheese
- Heinz Stage 3 baby foods with the green label.
Finger foods: pick up a few of these
Eating finger foods can give your baby more independence at meal times. It’ll also help them to develop hand eye coordination skills. Cut the pieces of food into finger sizes to make it easier for your baby to pick up and hold. It also reduces the risk of choking.
- Sliced cooked egg – the white and yolk should both be firm and well cooked
- Soft cooked pieces of veges. Try sweet potato, green beans, cauliflower or broccoli
- Thin slices of nectarine, apple or pear (without skins or seeds)
- Small, well cooked pieces of meat – you can cut slices off the family roast
- Cooked pasta and noodles
- Small slices of cheese
- Crackers, rusks or plain biscuits
- Toast or bread fingers in thin slices or ‘soldiers’
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Thu November 15, 2012
Medicaid Expansion Under The Microscope
The Department of Health and Human Services released a report Thursday looking at Medicaid expansion in New Hampshire.
It will be the job of lawmakers this spring to make the final decision.And to do that in an informed manner,
DHHS Commissioner Nick Toumpas thought some numbers would help.
“It’s not a straight black or white decision. So, all the more reason why we needed to do the data.”
Toumpas hired consulting firm The Lewin Group to weigh the options. The report found that not expanding Medicaid will reduce state spending by up to $114 million through 2020. But it would leave 22,000 low-income adults without coverage.
Expanding eligibility will add nearly 60,000 people to the Medicaid rolls. The cost would be about $85 million. Expansion would also bring in $2.5 billion in Federal funding.
That money could have a significant impact on New Hampshire’s health care sector.
Just how big of an impact will be the subject of a second report, due out later this year.
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- Safety. Do each of the
- Explain to your counselor the most likely hazards you may encounter while working with robots and what you should do to anticipate, mitigate and prevent, and respond to these hazards. Describe the appropriate safety gear and clothing that should be used when working with robotics.
- Discuss first aid and prevention for the types of injuries that could occur while participating in robotics activities and competitions, including cuts, eye injuries, and burns (chemical or heat).
- Robotics industry. Discuss the following with your counselor:
- The kinds of things robots can do and how robots are best used today.
- The similarities and differences between remote-control vehicles, telerobots, and autonomous robots.
- Three different methods robots can use to move themselves other than wheels or tracks. Describe when it would be appropriate to use each method.
- General knowledge. Discuss with your counselor three of the five major fields of robotics (human-robot interface, mobility, manipulation, programming, sensors) and their importance to robotics development. Discuss either the three fields as they relate to a single robot system OR talk about each field in general. Find pictures or at least one video to aid in your discussion.
- Design, build, program, test. Do each of the following:
- With your counselor's approval, choose a task for the robot or robotic subsystem that you plan to build. Include sensor feedback and programming in the task. Document this information in your robot engineering notebook.
- Design your robot. The robot design should use sensors and programming and have at least 2 degrees of freedom. Document the design in your robot engineering notebook using drawings and a written description.
- Build a robot or robotic subsystem of your original design to accomplish the task you chose for requirement 4a.
- Discuss with your counselor the programming options available for
your robot. Then do either option 1 OR option 2.
- Option 1. Program your robot to perform the task you chose for your robot in 4a. Include a sample of your program's source code in your robot engineering notebook.
- Option 2. Prepare a flowchart of the desired steps to program your robot for accomplishing the task in 4a. Include procedures that show activities based on sensor inputs. Place this in your robot engineering notebook.
- Test your robot and record the results in your robot engineering notebook. Include suggestions on how you could improve your robot, as well as pictures or sketches of your finished robot.
- Demonstrate. Do the following:
- Demonstrate for your counselor the robot you built in requirement 4.
- Share your robot engineering notebook with your counselor. Talk about how well your robot accomplished the task, the improvements you would make in your next design, and what you learned about the design process.
- Competitions. Do ONE of the following.
- Attend a robotics competition and report to your counselor what you saw and learned about the competition and how teams are organized and managed.
- Learn about three youth robotics competitions. Tell your counselor about these, including the type of competition, time commitment, age of the participants, and how many teams are involved.
- Careers. Name three career opportunities in robotics. Pick one and find out the education, training, and experience required for this profession. Discuss this with your counselor, and explain why this profession might interest you.
For official BSA online resources for this merit badge, check out the site at
BSA also has a worksheet, similar to the one we have prepared, which can be downloaded by Clicking here.
BSA Advancement ID#:
Requirements last updated in: 2011
Pamphlet Publication Number: 35972
Pamphlet Stock (SKU) Number: 612017
Pamphlet Revision Date: 2011
Page updated on: May 16, 2013
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I am both proud and impressed with the level of budo being practiced at our dojo. Senior students are making significant progress in developing Aiki/internal power skills and incorporating it into the execution of waza and kata. Senior students are really displaying good teaching skills in helping beginning students to focus on these aspects of our practice. That being said, there are real areas of concern that I have that need to be openly discussed. The areas of concern related directly to your role and nage and uke. I want you to read/reread the following blogs:
1) Blog 003. http://aasbk.com/blog/the-role-of-na...tember-8-2008/
2) Blog 004. http://aasbk.com/blog/week-of-septem...le-of-the-uke/
Now that the overall level of training has improved, the risk of injury has risen as well. It is my job as a teacher to protect the dojo. In order to fulfill this obligation, I need to address this increased risk of injury directly. People are developing better integrated bodies. That means that as uke, you are better able to ground out the actions of the nage. That means that as nage, you are better able to deliver a greater degree of force to the uke. These two factors alone, increase the risk of injury. If you add to this mix any issues related to your sense of self and accomplishment, this risk can increase to what I consider to be unacceptable levels.
The uke is the teacher. Regardless of the rank of your uke, at that moment, the uke is YOUR teacher. That means that as an uke, you have a great responsibility to be a good teacher. That means that you attack sensibly and totally in control. Your attack needs to be accurately gauged to the level of the nage. Overwhelming the nage with an attack that is beyond the nage’s ability is a useless act as an educator. On the other side of the coin, providing an attack that a slight breeze of air could halt is also a useless act as an educator. The role of the uke does not stop when the attack ends. The uke has a responsibility to guide the nage to the point where a technique can be performed (hopefully at a high level for that nage) to a successful completion. If you simply ground the nage’s actions out, what exactly have you accomplished as the teacher? You are still responsible for your own learning, which can be accomplished by working on your ukemi skills. That does not mean acting like a circus acrobat. That means that you can learn how to keep your structure intact while allowing the nage to create kazushi. That means that you can learn how to change levels, while keeping an intact structure, while maintaining a connection to the nage. It may look and feel like a seamless, silent roll to the nage, while you are creating the conditions that enable you to remain safe, and if need be, attack in another manner, from another level. This is too much to ask for a beginning student. The beginning student is simply learning how to attack effectively and receive the technique in a manner that allows the student receive the technique safely. That might mean, improving your rolls and it can also mean learning how not to get your joints hurt when a joint lock is being applied.
The nage is the student, regardless of the rank. The nage’s role is to be in a safe state of readiness. The nage’s role is to safely address the attack in a manner that allows the student to work on executing a technique in response to the attack. The nage’s responsibility is to execute a technique in a controlled and safe manner. If you are having trouble executing a technique, greater speed and force is not an acceptable answer. You can ask the uke what is being experienced. You can ask yourself what are you experiencing. You can relax and slow down to the point to which can you be cognizant of what is going on. You need to maintain an integrated structure. You need to be connected to the uke. You need to keep the uke from connecting to your center. You need to move in a manner that maintains all of these points mentioned. You need to be aware of what you are doing to the uke so that the execution of the technique is done as safely as possible.
I am asking a lot of the uke and nage. In order for you to continue your training as both uke and nage, you need to be fully aware of what “space” you are in when you walk through the dojo door. If you have had a bad day, you are the one who is responsible for not taking that bad day and introducing that “bad space” into your training with your partner. Taking out your frustrations and anger of the day onto the mat, simply places people (including yourself) at risk of being injured. Executing a technique roughly is just as bad as grounding out the nage so that the nage is left frustrated and upset. None of us are perfect and all of us have a shared responsibility to see to it that our egos are checked in at the door when we enter the dojo. We need to be able to effectively communicate with one another about our experiences in this dojo so they do not get acted out in our practice. It is okay to tell the other person that you are getting frustrated and upset. It is okay to say that you are having trouble working with a particular person in that class. This type of communication needs to be conveyed to the teacher as well. It is our shared responsibility to walk the fine line of increasing the level of our training, while maintaining a safe training atmosphere. I cannot do this alone and need everybody’s active participation in this endeavor.
I take my responsibilities as head of this dojo very, very seriously. I expect you to take your training seriously as well. I expect you to be responsible for your actions in this dojo. That means that you must be fully cognizant of the mental “space” that you bring with you into the dojo, so that you can learn to manage this “space” to sustain a successful training experience for you and your partner. This is an important part of your training. When bad things happen, your training in managing your psychological space can help to determine a successful outcome to the bad situation. We can all benefit from this area of training being openly discussed and worked on within our training paradigms.
I am fully engaged in the process of having every student raise their martial arts ability to the highest level possible. That will mean that you will become better communicators. That will mean that you will become more humble in practice. That will mean that you will be open to experience the most positive potential for personal transformation that this nature of practice opens up to you. I will continue to address issues that arise both personally and as a group, when they threaten the well-being of this dojo. Martial arts practice is inherently dangerous and injuries and accidents can occur. The important thing is that we are all involved in creating the highest level of practice in the safest manner possible.
Train Hard, Train Safe!
Marc Abrams Sensei
(Original blog post may be found here
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OCCUPYING 10 choice acres in the Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt, the Albert Kahn Museum and its stunning grounds keep such a low profile that cabdrivers at stands three miles away scratch their heads on hearing the name. Equally mysterious, the street address generally given in guidebooks offers no means of entry -- unless you're prepared to pole-vault over a 10-foot wall, or shinny up a rusting picket on a padlocked iron gate.
After three unsuccessful attempts, my husband, Bill, and I finally found the place in April 1994 and have returned five times since. There is, of course, an entrance. No longer through the old gate on residential Rue des Abondances, but on the short, abutting side street, Rue du Port. Before entering the grounds, however, you must pass through a one-story building, with a moat in front and mansard roof, that looks more like an upscale suburban community center than the repository for about 72,000 photographs and 600,000 feet of movie film.
The humanitarian Albert Kahn, who died in 1940, hired photographers and cameramen to travel the globe between 1909 and 1931 to record for posterity the differing customs of the human race. The Alsatian-born financier, who dubbed the project ''The Archives of the Planet,'' was committed to internationalism and believed that leaders in finance and the arts and sciences could break down the world's cultural barriers.
The turn-of-the-century gardens that mirror his philosophy contain species from all over the world. Thriving today near the Seine, just beyond the Quai du 4 Septembre, are several distinctive ''mini'' forests, outlying sections of prairieland and rocky terrain, a rose garden, a formal French garden and a grassy English garden. The centerpiece is the asymmetrical Japanese stroll garden formed by two contrasting settings: a seasonally colorful, sloping ''wet'' garden and a more subdued dry tract where visitors may witness a tea ceremony in a traditional Japanese house.
Here luminaries of the arts and sciences would gather at Kahn's invitation. The group, known as Autour du Monde, was an organization created by Kahn to promote international cooperation; participants included, among others, Anatole France, Rudyard Kipling, Colette, Albert Einstein, Andre Gide and Rodin.
Little (if any) description of the complex is to be found in guidebooks on Paris's environs. On our maiden visit our taxi driver made two unsuccessful passes around the garden wall before letting us off at the proper entrance. Ignoring an exhibit of autochromes under fluorescent lighting, we paid a modest admission fee and made a beeline through the electronically operated doors to the natural sanctuary outside.
A gravel path to the west of the building led us to that part of the Japanese garden in which hills and a pond suggest the presence of mountains and sea so reflective of Japan. Trimmed ornamentals -- mounds of carmine and fuchsia azaleas about to lose their April blush -- complemented the rippling contours of mountains and clouds and preserved the architectural scale. Around these fading hillocks, we saw graceful irises beneath the Japanese maples, magnolias and cherry trees. On the brook below, green lily pads swayed in a chill breeze redolent of early jasmine, while a handful of ducklings played follow the leader.
JACQUELINE McGRATH, who has traveled often to France, lives in Kingston, R.I.
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Yemen's fight with rebels a regional concern
Saturday, November 14, 2009
MAZRAQ, YEMEN -- Along the jagged, oatmeal-colored mountains of northern Yemen, civil war has transformed the windswept landscape into a canvas of human misery, bolstering al-Qaeda's efforts to create a haven in the Middle East's poorest nation.
It is a war largely hidden from the rest of the world the past five years, and it pits the Hawthi rebels, who are Shiites, against Yemen's government. In recent days, however, it has also drawn in Saudi Arabia. Yemen and Saudi Arabia, both ruled by Sunnis, accuse Shiite Iran of backing the rebels, raising the specter of a proxy war that could elevate sectarian tensions in this oil-rich region.
The fighting could have serious implications for the U.S. anti-terrorism effort in a failing nation where al-Qaeda is gaining strength, Western diplomats and Yemeni analysts say. The war is drawing attention and scarce resources away from efforts to combat poverty, a secessionist movement in the south and piracy along the nation's shores. A prolonged conflict, they say, could further weaken Yemen's government and deepen societal fissures, allowing al-Qaeda militants to thrive.
"The longer the war in the north continues and the longer the problems in the south continue without resolution, the more we pave the road for al-Qaeda," said Yahya Abu Asbu, a Foreign Ministry official and deputy secretary general of the Yemeni Socialist Party. "Yemen will become more dangerous than Somalia."
Ruling party officials concede that the war is siphoning resources from other pressing problems, but they say their priority is to crush the rebellion.
"You cannot say the Hawthis are less dangerous than al-Qaeda," said Yasser Ahmed Bin Salim al-Awadi, who heads the government's ruling bloc in parliament. "Al-Qaeda is not doing something like what the Hawthis are doing now."
The war has forced more than 175,000 Yemenis to flee their homes; many more remain trapped in areas gripped by violence.
Ali Abdu and his family are among the war's newest victims.
They escaped to Saudi Arabia two months ago. But last week, the Hawthi rebels crossed into Saudi Arabia and attacked a Saudi patrol. The kingdom retaliated by bombing rebel positions in Yemen, but also forced Abdu and hundreds of other desperate refugees back across the border.
Evading bombs and bullets, the family reached Mazraq, a crowded refugee camp less than five miles from the front lines.
"It is our destiny," said Abdu, 45, with no hint of emotion. He paused, then added: "Only Allah knows why they are fighting."
The Hawthis, who believe in the Zaydi branch of Shiite Islam, ruled northern Yemen as a religious imamate for nearly a millennium before being overthrown in a 1962 coup. Ever since, Yemen's rulers have been wary of them and other Zaydi clans. The Zaydis make up more than a quarter of Yemen's population and constitute a majority in the north.
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A collection of news and information related to Minority Groups published by this site and its partners.
Displaying items 1-12 of 13643 » View burbankleader.com items only1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11-1137 Next >
The Boy Scouts of America has sent its members a survey as part of its ongoing debate over whether to repeal or continue its ban on gay members. Instead of asking for a simple yes or no, the questionnaire goes into depth on several topics, for example...
WASHINGTON — Four years ago, many gay rights advocates shook their heads when super-lawyers Theodore B. Olson and David Boies announced they would challenge California's ban on gay marriages in federal court and take the case all the way to the U.S....
The cost incurred by the city as it continues to defend itself against a slew of lawsuits filed by former and current police officers has hit $7.1 million and counting, officials announced recently. And most of the cases — which center on claims...
Tags: Crime, Law and Justice, Trials, Theft, Google Inc., Laws
As voters in three more states cast ballots to allow gay marriage in last week's election, some California gay marriage activists have grown impatient at seeing gains elsewhere while the question remains in legal limbo here. But as soon as this month...
After a jury in May rejected a Burbank police officer’s claims that she was harassed and discriminated against because of her gender, ethnicity and pregnancy, the officer plans to take her case to a state appellate court. A Los Angeles County...
This post has been updated, see below for details. A lawsuit filed by the city against a former police lieutenant accused of stealing department records appears headed for trial, even though he returned the documents. Former police lieutenant Omar...
Tags: Justice System, Crime, Law and Justice, Trials, Theft, Laws
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) called a federal appellate court's decision on Tuesday to deny an appeal against Proposition 8 -- paving the way for aU.S. Supreme Court decision on gay marriage -- "another step towards marriage equality." The decision by...
As another discrimination lawsuit against the Burbank Police Department heads to trial — this time for a female officer alleging she was subjected to verbal harassment because of her gender, ethnicity, marital status and pregnancy — recent...
Tags: Feminism, Bullying, Social Issues, 2010 Census
Burbank Police Officer Cindy Guillen finds herself in court as a last resort, after complaints of gender and ethnic harassment were not investigated, prompting her lawsuit, her attorney said Monday. In his opening statements to jurors in Los Angeles...
Burbank Police Officer Cindy Guillen didn't want to file a lawsuit, her lawyer told jurors Monday, but was forced to do so after complaints of gender and ethnic harassment within the department were ignored. In his opening statements in Los Angeles...
In response to the letter, “No Native Americans, no need to bother,” really, Lee Brandt, why bother with “their” problems? Have you ever been to a Southern California pow-wow? If you have, you would know that there are many...
A jury today awarded an Armenian American police detective $150,000 for claims that he faced on-the-job discrimination and harassment because of his ethnicity, his attorney said. The detective who filed the lawsuit, Steve Karagiosian, testified in Los...
Tags: Justice System, Crime, Law and Justice, Trials, Bullying, Laws
Apr 2, 2013 |Story| Burbank Leader
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Original site for Minority Groups topic gallery.
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|Image copyright European Parliament/Pietro Naj-Oleari
via Creative Commons.
This morning the news reports are focused on the death of Kim Jong-Il. I wish I were hearing more about Vaclav Havel, who also died this past weekend. Both led countries, but while one was an oppressive dictator, the other was a truly great statesman, humanitarian, writer, and truly courageous leader. One practiced totalitarianism; the other spoke out against it and served five prison sentences in defiance of Soviet oppression before becoming Czechoslovakia’s president. That the life and death of a dictator is eclipsing the life and death of one of the 20th century’s greatest people in terms of air time is unfortunate. So today, I’d like to honor and express my gratitude to Vaclav Havel.
When I feel despairing about the state of the world and fear that nothing I do will amount to much in the face of the grave problems we face, the cruelties we perpetuate, I think of Havel, who said this:
“I feel a responsibility to work toward the things I consider good and right. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to change certain things for the better, or not at all. Both outcomes are possible. There is only one thing I will not concede: that it might be meaningless to strive in a good cause.”
If ever I doubt the value of working toward a more humane, peaceful, and healthy world, I remember Havel. I cannot control the outcomes of my efforts, but it will always be meaningful that I do my best and embrace my responsibility to work towards what I believe is good and right.
My his words be of value and inspiration to you, too.
In gratitude to Vaclav Havel.
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Ricoh has announced the development and release of the GXR interchangeable unit camera system featuring the world's smallest and lightest digital camera with the ability to change lenses. The products announced consist of the GXR body, weighing only 160 grams, and two lenses, the A12 50mm f/2.5 macro lens and the S10 24-72mm f/2.5-4.4 zoom lens.
During 2009 we have seen the release of small, high quality cameras with interchangeable lenses from Olympus and Panasonic. These cameras use the "Micro Four Thirds" system, jointly developed by Olympus and Panasonic, which contains a sensor that's smaller than that of a typical DSLR but much larger than that of a point and shoot camera. These cameras lack the mirror box of a DSLR and, as a result, are much smaller and lighter in weight than a DSLR even though image quality is comparable.
The GXR takes this one step further. Not only does the GXR body lack a mirror box, but it also is without a sensor. Instead the sensor, a processor and even a shutter are built into the camera's lenses. The A12 macro lens contains a APS-C CMOS sensor, similar to that used in DSLR cameras, and the S10 zoom lens uses a 1/1.7 inch CCD sensor.
One major advantage of this system is that, when changing lenses, the sensor is not exposed to the elements, greatly reducing the possibility of dust on the sensor, which is a common problem with DSLRs and the Micro Four Thirds cameras. Another advantage is that the lenses can be designed for specialist applications, with certain functions available in particular lenses (for instance, a larger sensor in the A12 macro lens).
The GXR body has a very sharp 3.0 inch, 920,000 dot LCD, a built-in flash and a hot shoe. However, most of the important camera functions are built into the lenses.
The GXR body, A12 macro lens and S10 zoom lens are scheduled to be released in early December. Prices are expected to be about $550 for the body, $1,000 for the macro lens and $550 for the zoom lens.
For additional information about the GXR system, see Ricoh's website.
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(NAPSA) Between 25 and 50 percent of energy used in a home goes right out the window. That's because, in most homes, windows provide the biggest openings between ambient indoor air and the elements outside and the biggest opportunity for valuable energy to escape.
Heat always moves toward cooler air and windows are often a home's only protection against unwanted heat gain in the summer and heat loss in the winter. As many homeowners are seeking ways to save on energy bills and reduce their impact on the environment, windows have become a primary focal point.
With nearly 40 percent of home remodeling incorporating sustainable, green materials, the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Fenestration Rating Council have established a new, stricter set of criteria for windows carrying the Energy Star label, which took effect in 2010.
"These changes to Energy Star will help homeowners distinguish between the quality of different window systems," said Tracy Rogers, window expert and technical director for Ohio-based Edgetech I.G. "Only windows with the best materials, such as all-foam, dual-seal spacers, will qualify for the Energy Star label.
The green movement and Energy Star enhancements have resulted in a climate change among window manufacturers who are now designing and building what some call "superefficient" windows-triple-pane rather than double-pane.
Triple-pane windows are most effective when constructed with high-performance materials, such as nonconductive dual-seal foam spacer systems, low-emissivity (low-e) coatings and argon or krypton gas filling. According to Rogers, the spacer system is a key element to promoting sustainability in window systems because it provides the seal between the indoor and outdoor air.
"Properly constructed 'super efficient' windows will stand the test of time," Rogers concluded. "Regardless of the climate, these windows are sure to cut energy costs and reduce carbon emissions from the home for many years to come.
For more information on where to buy superefficient windows with sustainable components, visit www.sustainaview.com.
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Religious arguments over alternative technologies can be fun...for a few days. Then they become wasteful. Instead of taking sides, we decided that it is important to encompass the largest possible community of developers.
The Mobicents team now offers implementations of both JSLEE and SIP Servlets. Jean Deruelle, Ranga M, Vladimir Ralev, Bartosz Baranowski and other members of the core Mobicents team built the SIP Servlets (JSR 289) implementation from scratch in less than 3 months. As can be expected it shares many of the underlying components with the existing JSLEE SIP Resource Adaptor, most notably the JSIP open source stack from NIST.
Web developers who are still shy to open the doors of the VoIP realm will find it easiest to prototype using SIP Servlets. As their needs grow with the sophistication of their converged applications, they will reach to JSLEE, which has an advanced programming model optimized for solving communications problems and a rich palette or Resource Adaptors covering a variety of telco protocols.
What is next? As we're acquiring experience with Java EE, JSLEE and SIP Servlets, we are thinking about a unified programming model. It should be intuitive to add voice and video features to an application based on EJB3 and Web Beans. Some early work shows that this is possible and we are confident it won't take long before the open source community rallies around a unified model. Join the discussions.
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