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Faculty and Instructor FAQs
The Writing Lab offers support to faculty and classroom instruction through face-to-face writing consultations for students, classroom workshops by request, and individual faculty consultations about writing assignments and discipline-specific writing concerns. The FAQs below can help faculty effectively use the Writing Lab and encourage students to make the most of their visits. Please also see “Information for Students” for additional policies for the Writing Lab.
Should I require my students to visit the Writing Lab?
While we recognize the benefits of our writing consultations, we strongly discourage faculty from requiring students —either one student or an entire class—to visit the Writing Lab for any reason, including for extra credit. We cannot guarantee to accommodate every student’s request for an appointment, and students who manage to secure an appointment may not use the session effectively, as some of them may come only to fulfill the requirement to visit. Also, requiring students to visit can be seen as a punitive action, and students are less likely to view the Writing Lab as a helpful resource.
If I shouldn’t require a student to visit, how can I encourage visits?
You can add a statement in your syllabus encouraging students to visit the Writing Lab to get feedback during any stage of the writing process. You can request the Writing Lab to give an in-class workshop on any aspect of writing, which often encourages students to visit the Writing Lab for additional assistance. Additional information about syllabus statements and workshops can be found below.
Our Writing Lab consultants can provide a brief overview of the Writing Lab to your class at your request, and First-Year Composition instructors may schedule Lab Tours during the first two weeks of each semester. For more information or to schedule a tour or brief overview, please call 494-3723.
Do you have an example of information about the Writing Lab that I can add to my syllabus?
Feel free to copy or customize the following statement:
Many students believe the Writing Lab exists only for writers who need “extra” (or “remedial”) help; however, having another set of eyes can help all writers strengthen their ideas and focus. Even the most accomplished writers need feedback. The tutors in the Writing Lab can work with students at any stage of the writing process, from planning and drafting to editing and polishing strategies. Writing Lab consultants work with undergraduate and graduate students from every department on any piece of writing from class assignments to job search documents. For more information, please visit http://owl.english.purdue.edu or call 494-3723.
You may also feel free to include the following QR code for the Purdue Writing Lab in your syllabus, or to print it off and to display it on your office door:
You may also include the following QR code for a link to the Purdue Online Writing Lab (Purdue OWL):
Will the Writing Lab send proof of a student’s visit to faculty?
By students’ request only, the Writing Lab will send notification of consultations to faculty and instructors. We do this by sending a copy of our Post-Tutorial Notes, which describes what took place during the consultation, including information about what areas of writing were addressed. We can only send notification for consultations and cannot provide information related to other types of visits, such as conversation groups or in-Lab workshops. We regret that we cannot sign any other documents verifying a students’ visit to the Writing Lab for any reason.
How can I request a writing-related workshop for my class?
Instructors and faculty can request writing workshops for their classes online at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/writinglab/classroomworkshops. We offer several standard workshops but would be happy to customize any of our existing workshops, or create a new workshop, based on your needs. Please allow us at least two weeks’ notice to schedule any workshop. Faculty are required to be present during workshops because students benefit from their instructors' input and presence during these interactive sessions.
One of my students is a terrible writer and doesn’t understand the basics of grammar and punctuation! How can the Writing Lab help?
Although Writing Lab consultants won’t proofread or edit documents for students, they can address sentence-level concerns such as grammar and punctuation. You can encourage students to visit the Writing Lab for additional assistance, and you can also refer them by using the Writing Lab’s referral form. Students can bring the form to their first visit.
I’ve assigned a take-home exam. How can I let the Writing Lab know that my students are allowed to get feedback on this assignment?
In order to provide feedback on exams, we must have written documentation specifying that students can get help from the Writing Lab. This documentation can be included on the exam instructions, syllabus, or on a separate document written by the instructor or faculty member.
Where on your website can students submit papers for feedback from a tutor?
At this time, we do not offer online tutoring and will not accept entire documents for feedback. However, we offer a free service called OWL Mail that provides answers to short writing questions including those about grammar, mechanics, and citation styles. This service is available to anyone in the world, and our tutors generally respond within a few days. We are unable to respond during university holidays and breaks. For more information, a list of commonly asked questions and their answers, and question submission page, please visit http://owl.english.purdue.edu/contact/owlmailtutors.
What accommodations do you provide for students with documented disabilities?
Accommodations are provided to students with documented disabilities on a case-by-case basis and may include additional time during consultations, consultations in a quiet space, or use of specialized software, such as Kurzweil, a text-to-speech program. Students are encouraged to schedule an initial writing consultation and discuss helpful strategies and resources with tutors before any accommodations are arranged.
I’m not a writing teacher, but I’d like to incorporate more writing in my courses. What advice can you offer?
Pedagogical advice about general writing, discipline-specific writing, and writing across the curriculum, varies based on context. Faculty interested in learning more about incorporating, designing, or revising writing assignments in any field or discipline can contact Dr. Linda Bergmann for more information.
Do you only work with undergraduate students?
We gladly work with any graduate student, undergraduate student, faculty member, or staff affiliated with Purdue’s West Lafayette campus.
How can I help prepare my students to have a productive session in the Writing Lab?
To ensure that students make the most of their sessions and receive the best feedback possible, please remind students of the following:
Bring any assignment sheets, textbooks, notes, and relevant materials to the session. Often, students will have one impression of an assignment, and the syllabus or assignment sheet may request something else. Writing Lab consultants can help the student determine if a document follows the instructions for an assignment. During a session, tutors and students may need to refer to ancillary materials and textbooks for further information.
Don’t wait until the last minute to schedule an appointment, and give yourself time to revise after meeting with a consultant. Students unfamiliar with the Writing Lab or even the writing process mistakenly assume that they should wait to have a completed draft before visiting the Writing Lab—and that consultants will only fix sentence-level errors. Writing Lab tutors address many aspects of writing, often starting with global concerns. Students who meet with a tutor the day (or even the day before) an assignment is due may not have sufficient time to devote to necessary revisions.
Students are encouraged to visit the Writing Lab early in the writing process. Consultants can help students get started with an assignment by offering strategies for brainstorming and even research. And students are welcome to meet with a tutor more than once before a document is due. In fact, we encourage this, as our consultants can provide advice throughout multiple drafts.
Finally, since the Writing Lab can be busy, especially toward the end of the semester, students may not be able to schedule an appointment at a convenient time. The sooner that students call to schedule an appointment, the more likely that students can find days and times that fit their schedules.
Additional advice for students can be found at our Student FAQs page at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/writinglab/policies.
Must students schedule appointments in order to meet with consultants?
Students are not required to make appointments, but we highly encourage students to schedule in advance. Although same-day appointments are available, they begin filling quickly, starting at 8:30 am each day. Occasionally, a student might be able to walk in and be seen by a tutor, but drop-ins become less available during the semester. Students can call 494-3723 to schedule a session. They are limited to one scheduled appointment and one same-day appointment per week.
Students are also invited to use the Writing Lab’s evening satellite locations in the Hicks Undergraduate Library and in Meredith Hall. These locations are drop-in only, so students can simply visit without making an appointment.
What is the difference between the Writing Lab and the Online Writing Lab (OWL)?
The Writing Lab is the physical location that offers writing support to the Purdue University West Lafayette campus. The Writing Lab provides one-on-one consultations, workshops, ESL conversation groups, and other services. The OWL is a digital extension of the Writing Lab, but it is also a website that contains a repository of writing support materials. While Writing Lab services are available only to students, faculty, and staff at Purdue University, the OWL and its corresponding OWL Mail Service, is available to anyone in the world. To learn more about the mission of the Writing Lab and the OWL, please visit http://owl.english.purdue.edu/writinglab/mission.
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Published on February 24, 2013 at 4:56 AM
"Another person suffering from a SARS-like virus has died in Saudi Arabia, the World Health Organization said Thursday, bringing the worldwide number of fatalities from the mystery illness to seven," Agence France-Presse reports. "The Saudi health ministry had informed the U.N.'s health body that the patient had been hospitalized on January 29 and had died on February 10, WHO said in a statement," adding that "[a] laboratory had confirmed on February 18 that the person had died from the so-called novel coronavirus, or NCoV," AFP writes (2/21). "The virus ... was unknown in humans until it emerged in the Middle East last year," Reuters notes, adding, "There have now been 13 confirmed cases worldwide, including in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Britain." The news service writes, "The Geneva-based agency said it was monitoring the situation closely but it did not believe special screening at airports or other points of entry was necessary, nor did it recommend any travel or trade restrictions" (Hirschler, 2/21).
This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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The planet Uranus reaches opposition on Saturday (Sept. 29). This means that Uranus is directly opposite the sun in the sky.
Uranus rises will rise as the sun sets, and set as the sun rises. It will be highest in the sky at local midnight, roughly 1 a.m. if you are on Daylight Saving Time.
Uranus was discovered accidentally by William Herschel on the night of March 13, 1781. All the other planets had been known since prehistoric times, so this was a major discovery in its time, and made Herschel famous.
The reason Uranus had remained undiscovered for so long is that, although it is quite large, the third largest planet after Jupiter and Saturn, it is very far away from the sun, so is very dimly lit. If you know exactly where to look, it is just possible to see Uranus with the naked eye, but most of us need binoculars and a good chart to spot it among the thousands of stars of similar brightness.
When Herschel first observed it, he was unsure what he had seen: a nebula, a comet, or a planet. After a night or two, he saw that it had moved, so it couldn’t be a nebula. It didn’t change size or shape, so he knew it wasn’t a comet.
Once the object's orbit was determined, Herschel knew he had found the sun’s seventh planet: 31,763 miles (51,118 km.) in diameter, four times larger than the Earth. It orbits at 19 times the distance from Earth to the sun, twice as far from the sun as Saturn. [Amazing Photos of Uranus]
How to see Uranus
In binoculars, Uranus is indistinguishable from a star. Look for it currently in the constellation Pisces. [Uranus: Inside and Out (Infographic)]
Opposition night is not the best night to look for it, because the full moon will be nearby flooding the sky with light. Look for it instead tonight, or in a week’s time when the moon has moved on.
Don’t try to use Pisces to find it, because this is a dim constellation. Instead, start with the Great Square of Pegasus, a conspicuous large square of stars. This will be in the southern sky (of the Northern Hemisphere) about two thirds of the way from the horizon to directly overhead at local midnight, or in the eastern sky earlier in the evening.
Use the two stars on the left side of the Great Square, Alpheratz and Algenib, and project a line joining them down towards the horizon. At almost exactly the same distance below the bottom star you will see (in binoculars) what looks like a double star. These will be the two brightest “stars” in this part of the sky.
The star on the left (in the Northern Hemisphere) is 44 Piscium. The “star” on the right is not a star at all, but the planet Uranus. Pay close attention to the distance between these two objects, and check it again in a night or two. Uranus will have moved away to the right, the distance between star and planet increasing.
In binoculars, Uranus will look just like a star. In a small telescope with about 200x magnification, you will see a tiny blue-green disk. Uranus has 27 known moons, but these are all too tiny to be seen in a small telescope.
Strange Uranus facts
One of the most interesting things about Uranus is the tilt of its axis of rotation. Most planets rotate around a pole which points roughly at right angles to the plane of their orbit.
Uranus’ pole is tipped over so that its axis is almost in the same plane as its orbit. As a result, the sun shines almost continuously on the northern half the planet for part of its year, and continuously on the southern half for another part of its year. The result is the most extreme seasonal variation found on any planet in the solar system.
When Herschel discovered Uranus, he needed to find a name for it. This was as big a deal in the 18th century as naming a stadium is today. Knowing who his chief patron was, he decided to name it after his king, George III: Georgium Sidus (George’s Star). Now George III was not very popular outside England, so there was a lot of resistance to this name. Finally Johann Bode suggested that it be named Uranus after the Greek God of the sky, Ouranos, and this was agreed to by all astronomers.
Unfortunately, this name causes pronunciation difficulties for most speakers of the English language. If it’s pronounced "ew-RAY-nus" it provokes laughter from sixth-graders. The alternate pronunciation, "EWR-a-nus" is not much better. Perhaps we should go back to the original Greek pronunciation, "OOR-a-nus."
Editor's note: If you snap an amazing telescope view of Uranus, or any other night sky object, and would like to share it for a possible story or image gallery, contact SPACE..com managing editor Tariq Malik at email@example.com.
This article was provided to SPACE.com by Starry Night Education, the leader in space science curriculum solutions. Follow Starry Night on Twitter @StarryNightEdu.
- Amazing Night Sky Photos of Venus, Moon & More (Sept. 2012)
- Best Beginner Astrophotography Telescopes
- Deluge of Planets and Strange Star Highlight September Skywatching | Video
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May 26, 2011By Adam White Observer staff
It is a line muttered by many an exasperated parent toward a troubled adolescent: What were you thinking?
Michael Nerney, an expert on adolescent brain development and consultant in substance abuse prevention and education, will explore the answer to that question in a lecture entitled “Welcome to the Adolescent Brain” on Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Champlain Valley Union High School auditorium. The presentation will include an examination of diffusion spectrum imagery of teenagers’ brains, to illustrate the increased role that emotion plays in their decision-making processes.
“These images are fascinating – it’s like looking at billions of strands of colored thread,” Nerney said. “They help us to understand that kids’ brains do not process information the same way that adults’ do; they experience a lot more emotional intensity.”
Nerney said that emotional intensity becomes particularly important when adolescents face choices associated with risk.
“Research has found that adolescents receive a higher level of emotional reward from both considering and taking risks,” said Nerney, citing the example of kids raising their hands and cheering on a descending rollercoaster, while parents on the same ride maintain a “death grip” on the safety bar.
Margo Austin, a Peer Prevention Educator with Connecting Youth, first got the idea of bringing Nerney to CVU after listening to him speak at a Northeastern Family Institute conference last fall. Austin was most impressed with the way Nerney got his message across to the audience.
“Michael is incredibly knowledgeable, and his delivery is outstanding,” Austin said. “He is able to take some abstract concepts and combine them with real-life storytelling to make the material completely relatable.”
Nerney’s lecture is part of Connecting Youth’s continuing outreach effort aimed at educating and empowering parents to deal with critical issues in their children’s lives. Austin, a licensed drug and alcohol counselor, sees the event as an opportunity for parents to connect and form networks of support.
“My hope is always to get parents out and talking to one another, so they know that they’re not alone and they understand that there are resources available to them within the community,” Austin said.
Welcome to the Adolescent Brain was set up through a partnership between Friends of CVU, the Northeastern Family Institute and Connecting Youth, and is free and open to the public. More information can be obtained by contacting Austin at 482-7156 or [email protected]
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TOLEDO, OH (Toledo News Now) - If you're lucky to be under clear skies tonight, you'll see a spectacular December full moon. It's the last one of 2012.
The December full moon is also known as the "long-night's moon." That's because it's the closest full moon to the northern winter solstice. Tonight's full moon will also be visible for the longest amount of time.
Viewer Christian P. sent us this shot of last night's full moon. Tonight's should be just as spectacular.
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PSA (prostate specific antigen) is also used to monitor men who have been treated for prostate cancer to see if they remain cancer-free.
Elevated PSA levels in a man who has never been treated for prostate cancer may be a sign of any prostate problem. PSA rise may indicate prostatitis (infection). It may indicate benign growth or swelling of the prostate (BPH). Or it may indicate prostate cancer.
PSA is made in the prostate. It is measured in nanograms per milliliter of blood. Normally, PSA levels in the blood remain very low. Any hurt to or injury of the normal prostate, such as from inflammation caused by infection, may cause more PSA to leak into the bloodstream.
In the past, most doctors considered PSA values below 4.0 ng/ml as normal. However, recent research found prostate cancer in men with PSA levels below 4.0 ng/ml. Many doctors are now using the following ranges, with some variation:
- 0 to 2.5 ng/ml is low
- 2.6 to 10 ng/ml is slightly to moderately elevated
- 10 to 19.9 ng/ml is moderately elevated
- 20 ng/ml or more is significantly elevated
This new approach reflects the fact that relatively low PSA levels in the blood may mask some aggressive prostate cancers.
Rate of PSA over time is a key factor in diagnosing prostate cancer. This is sometimes called PSA velocity and sometimes calculated as "PSA doubling time." In men with prostate cancer, tumor doubling time ranges from a month or two to over 12 or 15 years. PSA doubling time is a pretty reliable indicator of cancer cell doubling although not a sufficient indicator without biopsy and imaging scans.
Do I need a PSA test to screen for prostate cancer?
Regular PSA test followed by rectal exam is the most effective method available for the early detection of prostate cancer.
Since the PSA test came into use in the United States, the death rate for prostate cancer has fallen from some 40,000 deaths per year to 27,000 deaths per year predicted for 2007.
PSA testing and the digital rectal examination (DRE) "are crucial in detecting prostate cancer in its early stages, when it usually produces no physical symptoms," researchers at University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute say.
A study from Dana-Farber and Brigham and Women's Hospital indicates that the rate at which PSA levels rise (called PSA velocity) may be more important for predicting the danger of prostate cancer than PSA levels as such.
Most US guidelines for prostate cancer screening recommend annual PSA and digital rectal exam (DRE) in these circumstances:
- By age 40 for African American men and men with family history of prostate cancer or mother with breast cancer.
- PSA by age 40 for is advised for all men as a baseline measure for tracking PSA velocity (rate of rise) over the next ten years.
- A recommended approach is to take a PSA test by age 40, with biopsy if PSA is 2.5 ng/mL or higher. If you have no special risk, retest every two years.
- After age 50 men are advised to take a PSA and rectal exam every year until age 70.
Is there an age for stopping PSA tests?
Men in their seventies and beyond may or may not wish to continue PSA and rectal exam testing.
The choice of what to do about prostate cancer is separate from finding out whether you have it. But these choices narrow if prostate cancer goes undiscovered until a later stage.
Treating prostate cancer in elderly men extends lives compared to Watchful Waiting, according to a 2006 study by Fox-Chase cancer center.
But Johns Hopkins' specialist Dr. H. Ballentine Carter noted in 2005 that benefits of prostate cancer screening decline with age.
This clash of opinions probably involves comparing apples and oranges -- with a little bit of "cherry-picking" thrown in.
If you are a man in your seventies or above, talk to your family doctor or internist about your overall health picture. And talk to your urologist about how prostate cancer fits into this picture as you age.
If you have any chronic conditions like heart disease or diabetes, discuss how these affect your longevity. Look for ways to protect yourself against late-age prostate cancer in case you outlive your other ailments.
Regular exercise and some simple, pleasant improvements in your diet that will fit in with your overall health needs might protect you against aggressive prostate cancer in your final years.
If you are diagnosed with an early stage, slow-growing prostate cancer in your seventies, say, would you prefer to meet it head on and deal with side effects of treating it? Or would you prefer a wait and watch approach?
How might you feel if ceasing PSA tests and rectal exams at age 70 led to late-detection of a prostate cancer at age 75? Hindsight is 20-20 but might you feel relieved that at least you had enjoyed a few extra years free of worry and possible treatment side effects? Or might you feel that you had passed up opportunities to cure the cancer at an early stage?
Questions to keep in mind at any age include:
Is this a threat to my life or health and well-being soon or in the mid to distant future? Which treatments, if any, offer a good chance of cure? or failing cure, which treatments are most likely to minimize any threat prostate cancer poses to my health? Which options have least least harmful impact on my erectile function, libido, urinary continence, bowel function and overall quality of life?
PSA tests for men who have been treated for prostate cancer
In men already treated for prostate cancer, the PSA test helps to monitor whether the treatment has worked and to watch for possible recurrence.
About one third of men who are treated for prostate cancer at any age experience recurrence. The first indication of recurrence is a rising PSA. This may be the only sign of recurrence for months or for many years. If so the man has what is called "biochemical recurrence."
PSA tests for monitoring purposes after primary treatment should be extra "sensitive." Measurements to several decimal points make a difference when deciding whether PSA is rising after surgery
After treatments radiation, whether external beam or seeding implants, some men experience a PSA "bounce," which is not a sign of recurrence.
Some treatments for advanced prostate cancer can halt or slow tumor doubling time as measured by PSA. But PSA alone is not a reliable measure of progression or control in advanced prostate cancer. Regular scans by MRI, CT, and nuclear bone scan are essential.
Thompson IM, Pauler DK, Goodman PJ, et al. Prevalence of prostate cancer among men with a prostate-specific antigen level [less than or equal to] 4.0 ng per milliliter. The New England Journal of Medicine 2004; 350(22):2239–2246.
Two ways of using the PSA test for diagnostic purposes are laid out in our CHECK UP FLOWCHART 1 and CHART #2 USING "free" PSA. Also see:
Find Life-Threatening Prostate Cancer by Measuring PSA Velocity During "Window of Curability" Nov 1, 2006.
PSA Bounce not a sign of recurrence 2004
This page made by J. Strax, last updated December 26, 2008.
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At last! A primer of cost-cutting wizardry, guaranteed to help governors who want to be misers without looking miserly! Prudent governors struggle to cut Medicaid, yet, at the same time, exude compassion. Too much cost-cutting, and governors are cruel. Too much compassion, and they are profligate. This primer gives step-by-step instructions.
The secret: stealth. Bury the cut deep in the minutiae of bureaucratic legalese, so that the victim won't know s/he is trapped until s/he is caught in a labyrinth of buck-passers.
Step one. Find the financial loophole in a costly mandate.
In 2000 Congress delivered states a costly mandate. Under the Breast and Cervical Cancer Prevention and Treatment Act, Congress required states to pay for treatment for uninsured women with breast or cervical cancer.
Previously, states had offered uninsured women free mammograms. But states did not have to open their coffers for treatment. Women who tested positive were left in limbo &endash; an early diagnosis, but no treatment. This law ended that limbo. States were supposed to use Medicaid money to pay for treatment.
Twenty-two states found the loophole. The law let states limit the "eligible" clinics and hospitals to those receiving money from a federal cancer detection program. Most clinics and hospitals do not receive money from that limited pot. Congress, though, allowed states to seize the exclusion.
Twenty-eight states -- from the vantage of this primer, the sap-states -- distributed the money to all clinics and hospitals that diagnosed the cancers. That "universal" policy certainly helped women, leaving them to grapple with the treatment, without grappling with the cost. That policy, though, upped states' Medicaid tab.
The savvy states separated the world of oncology into "pay" and "no-pay" zones. In the "pay" zone, an uninsured woman would get a mammogram, get the diagnosis, and receive treatment, at no charge. The state would pay. In the "no-pay" zone, an uninsured woman would get treatment, but also get a hundred-thousand dollar invoice.
Step Two: Mask the stratagem as a bureaucratic detail.
The point of restricting clinics is to save money. So don't advertise the distinction. Women know that they should look for an accredited hospital/clinic with a respected reputation, that they should seek out board-certified physicians. But uninsured women won't know that they should learn their facility's eligibility status. If they did, they would flock to the eligible ones.
Don't tell them. Indeed, make the distinction so obscure that most employees don't know the status of their facility. That way, compassionate employees won't notify uninsured women who come seeking a diagnostic test that they should take out the phone book and find an "eligible" provider.
Extend the veil of obscurity to the innards of state government, so that even if the patient starts phoning, the chances are that she won't reach anybody who can tell her definitively the eligibility status of a specific clinic or hospital. She could, of course, call the state's Department of Health, or its Medicaid office, or maybe its Office of Human Services. If she found the correct bureaucratic fiefdom, she could make more calls to identify the person who could answer her question. Maybe she'd get an answer. The odds favor the state.
Step Three: Trap the woman in the no-pay zone.
Rationally, if a woman discovered that the state wouldn't pay for her treatment at clinic x, she would switch to clinic y. Fortunately, the Medicaid fraud rules leave her no way out. Once a patient begins treatment with one clinic, she cannot switch to another, to get them to pick up the tab. When she first visits the "non-eligible" hospital whose staff might save her life, she is stepping into the "no-pay" zone. Retreat is almost impossible.
John Carryrou of the Wall Street Journal (Sept. 13) described this astoundingly effective act of governmental stealth. A Texas hairdresser went to the emergency room at a local "non-eligible" hospital, which diagnosed her with breast cancer, and referred her to an affiliated surgeon. Although a "Wellness Clinic," which would have paid for treatment, was half-mile away, she couldn't retrace her steps. A four-year saga through hospitals, nursing homes and state offices followed. Texas rescinded the "eligibility" restriction this year. For officials interested in the art of cutting Medicaid, this article is required.
Sometimes truisms are true: in the case of this loophole, the devil really is in the details.
Joan Retsinas is a sociologist who writes about health care in Providence, R.I. Email email@example.com.
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Today was the annual forum for Licensed Lay Ministers in the Diocese of Oxford of the Church of England. We were lucky enough to be attendees at the CMS course "The Bible's Big Story".
A one-day course for those who have a great love for the Bible but want to know more about how it fits together chronologically or theologically
I took pages and pages of notes (on my phone of course) throughout the day, it was truly breath-taking in its truth, grace and revelation. I have loads of ideas of how I'll share what I've experienced and learned; as well as now having a list of possible blog posts as long as my arm.
So what's the course all about?
We live in a world where biblical resources are increasing, yet the British Church is becoming really biblically illiterate.
We are all called to share Jesus, but we can't do that unless we know the Bible intimately. The Bible's Big Story is a tool to help us know the Bible and be able to share it.
Often we have pieces of a jigsaw but we don't have the whole picture, we have the cross stitch but not the tapestry, we have the verses but not the whole book. Does our church know the big story? Or do they know bits and pieces?
The aim of today is to get an idea of the big story, a sense of the narratives. We learn the Big Story by teaching it, it's ongoing, we're always learning. The best to get to know the story really is to share the story.
I completely recommend the course, if you lead groups in your church, if you are wanting to go deeper in your exploration of the Bible or if you're just looking for a spiritual pick me up. But be warned, you'll want to share it with others.
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Ghost of ‘crisis capital’ haunts UAE Banks
"If you look at how much banks are paying on the bonds compared to where their senior debt is trading, it is a significant difference," said Timucin Engin, associate director for financial services ratings at Standard & Poor's.
February 6, 2013 12:23 by Reuters
Banks in the United Arab Emirates will this year aim to repay capital placed with them at the height of the global financial crisis, with some turning to the bond market to avoid servicing expensive debt and risking a sudden ‘capital cliff’ later on.
The country’s Ministry of Finance placed 70 billion dirhams ($19.1 billion) with banks to shore up their balance sheets after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 triggered a seizure of the world’s financial system.
But this support, which was converted into seven-year capital-boosting bonds in late 2009, was priced at a higher interest rate than the banks would pay if they borrowed money in today’s market.
For example, National Bank of Abu Dhabi, the UAE’s largest lender by market value, has a $750 million bond maturing in March 2017 that was trading on Tuesday at a yield of 2.36 percent – less than half the price it will pay this year on the 3 billion dirhams of government bonds it still has outstanding.
“If you look at how much banks are paying on the bonds compared to where their senior debt is trading, it is a significant difference,” said Timucin Engin, associate director for financial services ratings at Standard & Poor’s.
And the price for banks will continue to rise; they are due to pay 5 percent on the bonds this year and 5.25 percent in the final three years to maturity, having paid 4.5 percent in 2012 and 4.0 percent for the first two years of the bonds.
This price differential between the government bonds, which contribute to a bank’s Tier 2 or supplementary capital, and market prices for new debt is leading many in the market to conclude that banks will aim to use the current low interest rate environment to replace the more expensive obligations.
“Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank may kick off the bond sale round, but most banks in Abu Dhabi that converted the government deposits will follow,” a senior UAE banker said.
ADCB, the UAE’s fourth-largest lender by market value, which received 6.6 billion dirhams in government cash, is expected to launch a bond offering shortly, having picked banks to arrange the deal, two sources told Reuters last week. An ADCB official declined to comment.
Banks going to the bond market could either raise ordinary debt and use the cash to repay the government instruments, or sell a new subordinated offering.
The latter option would help retain the boost to a bank’s capital ratio, but the cost would be more expensive; three traders estimated NBAD would have to pay between 0.5 and 0.7 percent extra to issue five-year subordinated debt.
Also, UAE banks already have strong capital ratios, especially compared to their Western counterparts, so the need to replace the capital isn’t as great.
POSITIVE FOR PROFITS
Regardless of how banks replace the bonds, the desire among UAE bankers to do it now is heightened by the fact that the capital worth of the instruments has already begun to diminish.
Under the terms of the government bonds, the weight attached to the capital decreases over time. This year, instead of receiving 100 percent of the benefit as before, banks can only count an 80 percent boost to their capital.
This will fall further, by 20 percentage points each year, until the bonds reach maturity at the end of 2016, when they will be worth just 20 percent.
“We will have to do something about it at some point, because no bank wants to fall off a capital cliff down the line,” Surya Subramanian, chief financial officer at Emirates NBD, which has 12.6 billion dirhams outstanding, told a Jan. 31 conference call for the media.
Some banks have already begun addressing the bonds using their own cash resources. NBADoriginally converted 5.6 billion dirhams of support into bonds but repaid 2.6 billion dirhams last year, while National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah, the UAE’s ninth-largest bank by market value, repaid all its 684.5 million dirhams of support during 2012.
And with loan growth in the UAE economy modest, banks can use their liquidity to retire the expensive bonds instead of parking it in short-term investments or with the central bank, Engin said.
According to central bank data, loan growth across the UAE banking sector was 3.4 percent in the first 11 months of 2012, while certificates of deposit increased 12.8 percent.
Using such liquidity to repay the bonds, or just replacing them with new debt raised at current market rates, should have a marginally positive impact on profitability in 2013, said Sebastien Henin, portfolio manager at The National Investor.
“It will be positive as they will be able to raise cash at cheaper levels but, in terms of net profit, I don’t think it will be huge – a few percentage points maybe,” Henin said.
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If cynical hispters with long hair
And cocaine problems, like my music
Following the line before, Mack wishes he wasn’t so cynical about his generation’s behavior in his music. Because of this, he has drawn a very hipster fanbase.
Traditionally, hipsters have been thought of as independent thinkers who are usually cynical of mainstream aspects of society.
Somewhere along the line, cocaine use has become a stereotype given to “hipsters”, despite it’s seamingly mainstream appeal.
Of course if you consider yourself an independent thinker and against the grain but also use such a standard drug like cocaine, you are somewhat hypocritical.
Mack relates this hypocrisy back to his own music, which may come off as “preachy” even though he was heavy into alcohol and drugs, among other things, himself.
To help improve the meaning of these lyrics, visit "A Wake" by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis (Ft. Evan Roman & Macklemore) Lyrics and leave a comment on the lyrics box
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Male students getting rare as hen’s teeth at Ontario Veterinary College
Explore This Story
At this time of year, as Elizabeth Lowenger scouts out new students for the venerable Ontario Veterinary College, she eyes candidates with good marks — usually the mid-80s.
Among those high achievers she’s particularly interested are those who for generations were the mainstay of veterinary medicine and now are rare as white horses — men.
She makes sure there are images of men on recruitment pamphlets and videos. When choosing students to speak on behalf of the college at high school career days, she ensures that men are included. “Everything I do has to have a male on it, but not exclusively,” says Lowenger, diversity and careers coordinator for the oldest veterinary college in Canada and the United States. “We have to make sure that they can say, ‘I can see myself there.’ ”
That might be a problem these days. Of the 114 students who entered the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine program at the Guelph campus this fall, 87 per cent are women. The dean is also a woman, while the faculty is about 60 per cent male.
The feminization of veterinary medicine, as researchers call it, is not lost on practitioners. “It’s gotten so it’s like the last of the Mohicans out there,” says one woman veterinarian. “You occasionally work with a male.”
The gender disparity has evolved over decades.
Dr. John Reeve-Newson still remembers how an assistant dean targeted the handful of women students in a discouraging “welcome” address at the college in 1960.
It went something like: “Ladies, I don’t think you should be here and I will do everything in my power to see that you don’t stay.”
How did he intend to achieve that, one might wonder.
“Ride their ass,” recalls Reeve-Newson, a Toronto veterinarian with a Mutual Street practice.
By 1971, when Dr. Jiggs Gough of Mount Brydges, Ont., graduated from the college, she was one of eight women. “They were aghast,” she says of the administration. “They thought the place was going to the rats.”
Things at veterinary schools have shifted dramatically in 40 years, and those changes reflect shifts in society at large. Lowenger says statistics show fewer men are going to university — more than 60 per cent of university graduates are women. Men still want to go to vet school, she contends, but fewer of them are studying science, and women are outperforming them.
More women than men are graduating in other professions. Sixty per cent of the youngest lawyers in Ontario are women, and nearly 60 per cent of the 2010 graduates from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine are women.
Men tend to avoid professions that are dominated by women, argues Anne Lincoln, a professor of sociology at Southern Methodist University, adding that veterinary medicine was once the most male-dominated profession in the U.S. Until 1972, she reports, Cornell University capped women’s enrolment in veterinary medicine at two per year.
“There’s something about the presence of women (in the classroom) that serves as a deterrent,” she says in a phone interview. Her research, reported in the July issue of the journal Social Forces, notes that for every one per cent increase in women in veterinary college, about 1.7 fewer men apply the following year.
Bucking that trend is Andrew Wiskin, 37, in his first year of study at the Ontario Veterinary College. He came late to university, after years working in a factory and as a truck driver earning about $50,000 a year. He’s not concerned that he and his 14 male classmates are in a minority. “We’re all focused on the same thing. I honestly don’t notice it that much.” He enjoys the collegial, inclusive environment at the college.
Some argue that lower salaries for graduating vets — compared to those of doctors or MBA graduates — make the profession less attractive to men, especially after eight or more years of study.
The argument goes that men like to follow the money and are more likely to pursue careers in business. At the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario, for example, enrolment has been 75 per cent male.
On the other hand, at least some female vets say they have a sense of mission. “It’s about our love and compassion for animals,” says Dr. Dalia Gough, 34, a partner in the Grimsby Animal Hospital and Dr. Jiggs Gough’s daughter. “It’s not about making money and the prestige. We’re fine with that, but I’m not sure if men are.”
Some men surely are, Wiskin would argue. When he decided to become a veterinarian, “money was not an issue,” he says.
First-year practitioners in Ontario earn about $67,000 a year, according to the Ontario Veterinary Medical Association. And school debt can be high. Some students leave the college owing $65,000.
However, there are benefits to veterinary medicine that make the practice appealing to women, such as the possibility of flexible work hours. “One of the things that drew me to the profession is that working part-time is an option for me down the road,” says Dr. Jamie Peng, who graduated in the spring from the Ontario Veterinary College.
It used to be argued that women couldn’t be veterinarians because they lacked the strength to care for heavy farm animals. But Dr. Murray Jelinksi, author of a report on the demographics and career paths of veterinary graduates, says that students with farm backgrounds are more likely to want to start rural practices and work with farm animals.
He adds that veterinary practices mirror trends in agriculture. “We’ve hollowed out agriculture — there are fewer producers, producing more food. It’s not surprising to see this trend in veterinary medicine.” About 60 per cent of veterinary practices in Canada now specialize in small animals, usually domestic pets.
It’s a commonplace that women are interested in the health professions because they are nurturing by nature. (But not more than men, says Wiskin. “We express it differently.”) That’s one of the reasons Peng, 28, went into the field.
Her childhood pet, a Lhasa Apso named Georgie, required regular medication, and the family veterinarian taught her to manage Georgie’s care. “My veterinarian was very compassionate and knowledgeable; I felt empowered knowing that I had the tools and ability to improve my Georgie’s quality of life at home.”
Joanna McPherson, a third-year student at the veterinary college, will have had 10 years of post-secondary education when she graduates in 2012. She, too, chose veterinary medicine because of her childhood care of pets — a budgie and a dog — and her interest in life sciences. “I’ve always been curious,” says McPherson. “I loved learning about how things work and why animals do what they do. Some people might wonder how an engine works, but I was curious about life and animals and nature.”
She says that animal medicine has its own complexities, different from human medicine. “Animals can’t tell you why they are sick or how they are feeling — you have to put the clues together from blood work and physical exams. It’s very stimulating — you’re always thinking of new things.”
Male vet Reeve-Newson says that he and colleagues of his generation are concerned about the gender imbalance in veterinary school. He believes that men are held back because their grades are not high enough. “I do have a problem with it. You can be the brightest person in the room — does that mean you’re going to be a good veterinarian?”
They’re also worried about “succession” — who will take over their practices when they retire? “Some (women) don’t want to make the commitment to a large practice,” Reeve-Newson says. “I have succession in place, but a lot of my colleagues don’t.”
His clinic, meanwhile, reflects the new reality. Of his staff of 19, 14 are women. He welcomes female practitioners — Peng joined his staff in the spring. “They are excellent,” he says.
- Mayor Rob Ford breaks his silence, says he does not use crack cocaine
- Canadian trucker hit Washington bridge that collapsed
- Hazel's last stand: Mississauga mayor's legacy hangs in the balance
- NEW Blue Jays' call-up Nolin knocked around by Orioles in big-league debut
- Canada ranked third-worst among affluent nations for paid vacation
- ‘America’s toughest sheriff’ still believes in pink underwear and harsh justice
- Beer price hike at Rogers Centre a tipping point for concession workers
- Brampton suffers identity crisis as newcomers swell city’s population
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Oct. 19, 2006 A new analysis of iPods and other portable, digital music players by researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder and Children's Hospital in Boston has produced the first-ever detailed guidelines for safe listening levels using earphones.
The study indicates a typical person can safely listen to an iPod for 4.6 hours per day at 70 percent volume using stock earphones, according to Cory Portnuff, a doctoral researcher in CU-Boulder's speech language and hearing sciences department. Portnuff, who undertook the study with Brian Fligor, director of audiology at Children's Hospital -- the teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School -- said the study quantifies both safe and hazardous music listening levels for the typical person.
The researchers found, for example, that listening to music at full volume through an iPod for more than five minutes a day using stock earphones can increase the risk of hearing loss in a typical person. But they also concluded that individuals can safely listen to iPods for 90 minutes a day with the supplied earphones if the volume is at 80 percent of maximum levels without greatly increasing the risk of hearing loss.
"Damage to hearing occurs when a person is exposed to loud sounds over time," said Portnuff. "The risk of hearing loss increases as sound is played louder and louder for long durations, so knowing the levels one is listening to music at, and for how long, is extremely important."
The findings were presented at a national conference, "Noise-Induced Hearing Loss in Children at Work and Play," held Oct. 18 and Oct. 19 in Covington, Ky.
The researchers found no significant difference in sound levels between five of the most popular genres of popular music they tested, including rock, rhythm and blues, dance, Top 40 and country. Portnuff and Fligor measured specific sound levels from five portable music players, including the Apple iPod, the Apple iPod Nano, the Apple iPod Mini, the Creative Zen Micro and the SanDisk Sansa. The guidelines developed by the researchers apply to all of the music players analyzed in the study, all of which produced similar volumes.
The data was collected at Children's Hospital in Boston and analyzed at the Hearing Research Laboratory at CU-Boulder. The research was funded primarily by the Department of Otolaryngology at Boston's Children's Hospital.
Typical individuals can tolerate about two hours a day of a decibel unit known as 91-dBA before risking hearing loss, Portnuff said. The term dBA stands for "A-weighted decibels, a scale that takes into account that the human ear has different sensitivities to different frequency levels," he said.
Loud sounds can stress and potentially damage delicate hair cells in the inner ear that convert mechanical vibrations, or sound, to electrical signals that the brain interprets as sound. "Over time, the hair cells can become permanently damaged and no longer work, producing hearing loss," he said.
But not everyone shares the same risk of hearing loss, Portnuff said. Some people have "tougher ears," allowing them to listen to music relatively safely for longer periods, while those with "tender ears" may suffer ear damage even if they follow the new study recommendations. "There is really no way of knowing which people are more prone to damage from listening to music," he said.
The type of earphones used affect the potential damage to ears, Portnuff said. So-called "isolator" earphones -- which block out background noise -- are capable of producing higher sound-levels than earphones with so-called "earbuds." Conversely, "supra-aural" earphones that are placed over the ears rather than inside them can be used for longer periods and still be considered safe for typical people, he said.
"No one set of earphones is more dangerous than another," he said. "While isolator style earphones are capable of producing higher levels of sound than earbuds, most people use them at a lower volume than earbuds because they block out background noise. It's important to monitor the level of volume control settings."
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
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Shale gas drilling is off to a disappointing start for investors in Poland, the country thought to have the biggest unconventional gas reserves in Europe, according to Bloomberg News. Explorers in Poland are confronting rising costs, a lack of rigs, tighter environmental rules and shale layers that are harder to drill than expected.
China’s biggest coal company is scouring the world for hydrocarbon asset buys and is in talks to invest in coal mines in North America, Africa, Australia, Indonesia and Mongolia, Reuters reported.
Beijing officials plan to curb the water usе in the city’s many golf courses, ski resorts and public bathhouses, AFP reported. Read Circle of Blue’s report about what the Chinese capital is doing to get its water crisis under control and why it’s not enough.
Weather extremes have increased globally in the last decade and were “very likely” caused by human-induced climate change, according to a study in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Iran, Tajikistan and Afghanistan plan to improve the energy and water supply links in the region, Reuters reported, citing the office of the Tajik president. The projects include an “energy line” across the three states to supply Iranian oil products and gas, as well as to link the electricity grids in the area and to supply drinking water from Tajikistan to Iran.
Nadya Ivanova, a Bulgaria native, is a Chicago-based reporter for Circle of Blue. She co-writes The Stream, a daily digest of international water news trends.
Interests: Europe, China, Environmental Policy, International Security.
Email: Nadya Ivanova :: Follow on Google+ :: Follow on Twitter :: More Articles
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Is your child overwhelmed by school? Stressed out? Having trouble adjusting to high school? Not executing their work? Not motivated and procrastinating? Not testing well? Or just having a really hard time in school or in a particular class?
Your child may have all of these challenges, or just one. You're probably doing everything you can, and offering your child all of the help that you can. But maybe you're still not sure where exactly they're losing it, and maybe you know what they need to do, but they don't seem to be accepting your advice or listening to it. It's probably a frustrating and worrying time for you.
If you're like the parents of the students I tutor, you know that this about more than grades. You care about your child's whole development. You want your child to learn the skills that will help them succeed on their own in high school, in college, and in life. In fact, if you don't feel this way, then we probably aren't the best fit, and I'd recommend you look at other tutors. I take on a limited number of students, and it's important to me that we share the same deep values.
I'm an on-site tutor at Drew School in Pacific Heights, and I tutor students from other San Francisco high schools including St. Ignatius, Sacred Heart Cathedral, Lowell, and Urban. I've spent hundreds of hours tutoring dozens of students to figure out how students succeed, and what helps parents to support their kids academically. My students routinely increase their grades by a letter or more. If we're a good fit, I have the experience and the skills to help you and your child. So shoot me a message and let's make it happen!
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Im currently doing the Language task in the Celta form, i.e. the form that asks you assess how to correct "students mistakes", "written work", "students understanding in difference in meaning" aswell as to write 300 words on a learning experience.
I am nearly completed this part, however, I have been cheating a bit by using the internet aswell as figuring it out myself. Can somebody tell me if you should use the internet? I mean, will it help me when it comes to the interview process? or even when im doing the course? Im starting to wonder if this course is for me if I have to rely on the internet. I mean my spelling and grammer is good but not excellent, this maybe due to my dyslexia. My ability to demonstrate a spelling and grammer issues to students deffinetly needs to be improved on.
That said, I thaught these are the kind of things I will learn about during the course anyway. I thaught I could improve on these problems during the course anyway, especially since I want to do an extended version of the course. So I dont know if I have anything to worry about. I will however try and improve on these issues prior to the course anyway.
Can somebody tell me, what kind of person do you need to be to do this course? and on the basis of what i have told you, do you think I am capable of doing this course? im just worried about it, thats all.
anyhelp or advice would be great. Yours Sincerely. Tommy.
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Today, of course, we recognize how this early Bible printing device ultimately gave birth to modern publishing. Gutenberg’s contribution was the spark that made possible the vast proliferation of knowledge and information that the rest of us have benefited from over the last 571 years.
In our generation, many inventors and technologies have dramatically shaped the landscape of our everyday lives, reaching into every corner of society and every industry. Arguably, the greatest innovator and creative genius of this generation has been Steve Jobs. His ideas, leadership, and life’s work influenced the direction of entire industries: broadcast media, motion pictures, music, publishing, communications, and of course, computing.
Jobs was actually able to achieve the financial success that eluded Gutenberg, leading Apple to become the highest-valued company in the world shortly before his passing. And although he was fortunate to actually get to witness the massive growth and adoption of his inventions, Steve Jobs was likely unaware of just how his creations would be used to further the vision of Johannes Gutenberg.
Using the Bible App on their iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches—to say nothing of the countless other devices influenced by Steve Jobs’ ideas—30 million people now have free access to the very book that Gutenberg started printing.
Many people now know the Bible as the Bible App, primarily because Jobs envisioned a new kind of communication device. Just as research was indicating a rapid decline in Bible reading and engagement, millions of people all over the world are now spending billions of minutes reading, listening to, and sharing the Bible—using mobile devices that Jobs either created or influenced.
Once again, history repeats itself. When Gutenberg set out to print the Bible, he unknowingly sparked a revolution that changed the world. Jobs turned publishing, media, entertainment, and communications upside down through his iNventions. And in so doing, he unknowingly sparked a revolution in Bible engagement that we believe will change the world.
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On Wednesday, McDonnell's parents were among several families of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims who attended Obama's announcement of a slate of measures he said would stem the tide of gun violence.
The appearance of the Newtown families was a potent symbol of support for Obama's initiatives, the most sweeping of which need the approval of a Congress with many members who are lukewarm to those reforms or in outright opposition to them.
But others in the Sandy Hook community who have been swept up in the shooting tragedy were more measured in their response.
"We can't legislate sanity. We can't do that," said George Hochsprung, husband of Sandy Hook Principal Dawn Hochsprung, who tried to stop Adam Lanza when he burst into the school on Dec. 14. Dawn Hochsprung was one of the six adults and 20 first-graders who were killed that day.
"I think we're struggling," Hochsprung said. "I think we have to revisit our culture. What are doing for people who are mentally sick? How do we identify them? We're including everyone in the classroom now. We've opened the door to them, not closed the door. Should we close the door now?
"These are very hard questions, and anyone who stands up with very strong views on how to solve them, I would question their views."
Sandy Hook Promise, the advocacy group launched this week that represents many of the victims' families, issued a statement offering support for the breadth of Obama's proposals while stopping short of a full-throated endorsement.
"Sandy Hook Promise welcomes the broad focus of the president's proposals," the group said in a news release. "We appreciate his decisive action to help address through executive order immediate opportunities for reform, and we applaud his broader commitment to finding meaningful common sense solutions to help prevent similar acts of violence in other communities in America.
"As an organization, our purpose is to ensure that we have that dialogue and take action, not just in Washington but in our communities and our homes."
Sandy Hook Promise has indicated it believes that other reforms, such as improvements in mental health care and diagnosis -- and not just changes in the nation's gun laws -- are needed to curb gun violence.
Newtown First Selectman Pat Llodra attended Obama's news conference and the ceremony at which he signed 23 executive orders. She said she supported his initiatives and endorsed whatever could be done to "prevent another horrific event."
"This is the time to take action," said Llodra, a Republican. "I'm hopeful the community recognizes we have been harmed greatly, and the community understands we need to be asking hard questions. Are there changes we can promote to reduce the ease with which weapons of violence that we were a target of are taken out of the hands of those with flawed judgment? Can we reduce the likelihood in the future of a horrific event by taking action? I know there are no guarantees ... but if we can mitigate them in the future we have an obligation to do so."
Only a night earlier, Robinson presented her proposed $73 million school budget for the 2013-14 school year that would earmark money for security guards. Hundreds of Newtown parents are pushing for a stronger police presence in the schools.
Many Sandy Hook family members have said they are wary of being used for partisan political purpose by any group in the national debate over gun violence. One family, the parents and relatives of 6-year-old victim Noah Pozner, has offered its own proposals, including beefed-up school security and changes in legal liability laws.
Hochsprung advised against overreaching.
"I'm very sad that Dawn died, but I don't think we can stop someone who straps their body with explosives or someone who shoots their way into a building," Hochsprung said. "Rudimentary precautions are one thing, but we can't live in an armed camp."
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During a visit to mainland China in 1995, Charles Zhang was struck by the enormous potential of information technology. At that time, the country had practically no Internet connections and phone lines were in such short supply that people had to wait several months to have them installed at home. "It was a virtual void," he recalls. So Zhang, who had lived for more than nine years in the U. S., left his comfortable career as a consultant to the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to go home and start an Internet business. Three years and lots of market research and venture capital requests later, he is chief executive officer of Sohu.com, one of the most popular Chinese-language Internet search engines on the mainland. "We're a typical Silicon Valley story except that it happened in China," Zhang says.
Sohu is a user-friendly search engine designed specifically to locate and catalogue Chinese-language information on the World Wide Web. In Chinese, "Sohu means 'search fox,' " Zhang explains, because "a fox is a smart, cunning animal and that's what a search engine should be." These same qualities of intelligence and cunning helped Zhang get his business off the ground. In 1997, he persuaded the director of M.I.T.'s Media Laboratory, Nicholas Negroponte, and a group of colleagues to put together $225,000 in seed money to set up Internet Technologies China, the precursor to Sohu. A year later, big names like Intel, Dow Jones, the Hang Lung Group and International Data Group were impressed enough to invest $2.2 million to launch the Sohu search engine. Since going live in February of 1998, Sohu--which now employs over 100 people--has averaged nearly 120,000 hits and 600,000 page views a day. The service has attracted advertising from multinationals like Microsoft, Ericsson and Nokia as well as domestic Chinese computer firms, travel agencies and consumer products makers. Zhang expects to bring in over $1 million in revenues this year.
While Beijing technocrats view the rise of the Internet--and the popularity of services like Sohu--as an essential tool for economic growth, the country's authoritarian government sees it as a threat. Zhang is working patiently with the Chinese authorities to ensure that he gets the commercial and editorial freedom he needs to make his fledgling business a success. "The transition to a market-driven system takes time," he says. Despite official opprobrium, Zhang has become a celebrity, lionized as a role model for young people. Such a high public profile has helped him generate business confidence and capital in a country where the potential market is huge. At the end of last year, mainland China had 2.1 million Internet users, up from 670,000 a year earlier and almost zero in 1995. Zhang predicts the total will rise to over 4 million by the end of this year.
Zhang hopes Sohu's breakthrough will inspire more start-up ventures. "A few success stories can inspire college graduates," he says. "For the industry to snowball, you need a core." To make sure Sohu remains part of that core, Zhang plans to add more servers and expand bandwidth to accommodate ever-increasing traffic. "With better infrastructure," Zhang says, "Sohu will be able to offer more content and provide the best platform for multinationals seeking to reach a very select Chinese market." To achieve that goal, Zhang will need to be as smart and cunning as a fox.
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Every few weeks or so, I take the time to read articles produced by The Pew Research Center, a non-partisan fact tank. Pew does not take sides in policy disputes, but they do provide a valuable information resource for political leaders, journalists, scholars and citizens. I believe that I come under that last category, citizen. The only requirement that Pew has relative to their findings is that their sources are cited accurately and in context.
Recently, they provided some fun statistics:
For example, among the public, one-in-four (25%) believe in astrology (including 23% of Christians); 24% believe in reincarnation, nearly three-in-ten (29%) say they have been in touch with the dead; almost one-in-five (18%) say they have seen or been in the presence of ghosts. If none of those statistics surprise you, then you clearly are not me.
Here was another great poll finding: 87% of scientists say that humans and other living things have evolved over time and that evolution is the result of natural processes such as natural selection, but only 32% of the public accepts this as true. (From the work of Jodie T. Allen and Richard Auxier, Pew Research Center)
Well, this next poll was even more interesting to me. As both a business person and a humanist, it has been difficult for me to hear large numbers of my friends and acquaintances literally “going off” about how ridiculous global warming is. They say things like, “Global warming and global cooling happen all the time; it’s just a natural course of events.” Others say, “Al Gore filled us with lies about global warming for his own financial gain.” Finally, I have heard over and over, “Well, we can’t do anything about it anyway, so why worry.”
Then there’s the opposite side where experts say things like, “If we stopped using all fossil fuels right now, the earth will continue to heat for another 60 years, and all of the devastating floods and fires that we’ve seen this year were the result of only a 1 degree increase in the world’s temperatures, and in 60 years we will heat up by 5 degrees.”
What did Pew find about the current global attitudes about climate change?
Their international polling shows that publics around the world are concerned about climate change. In the recent spring 2010 Pew Global Attitudes survey, majorities in all 22 nations polled rate global climate change a serious problem, and majorities in ten countries say it is a very serious problem. There are some interesting differences among the countries included in the survey. Brazilians are the most concerned about this issue: 85% consider it a very serious problem. Worries are less intense, however, in the two countries that emit the most carbon dioxide — only 41% of Chinese and 37% of American respondents characterize climate change as a very serious challenge.
Even though majorities around the globe express at least some concern about this issue, publics are divided on the question of whether individuals should pay more to address climate change. In 11 nations, a majority or plurality agree that people should pay higher prices to cope with this problem, while in 11 other nations a majority or plurality say people should not be asked to pay more.
These findings remind me of numerous other examples of confusion created by the short term winners and losers in what are serious economic discussions. There are 1.5 B Chinese, and over the next several years, many of them are going to want a car. Regardless of your own personal stand on this issue, that’s some serious potential pollution.
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Turning Iraq into Vietnam
Desperate to shore up support for continuing his unpopular war on Iraq, George W. Bush drew an analogy with Vietnam when he addressed the Veterans of Foreign Wars. "The price of America’s withdrawal [from Vietnam] was paid by millions of innocent citizens," Bush declared. But he overlooked the four million Indochinese and 58,000 American soldiers who paid the ultimate price for that imperial war. And the myriad Vietnamese and Americans who continue to suffer the devastating effects of the defoliant Agent Orange the U.S. forces dropped on Vietnam. The 10 years it took to end our war there claimed untold numbers of lives.
Bush cited the "killing fields," referring to the more than one million Cambodians who died after we pulled out of Vietnam. He failed to mention that if Richard Nixon had ended the war by 1969, as the antiwar movement was demanding, the war wouldn’t have extended into Cambodia. Secret U.S. carpet bombing of Cambodia destroyed that country, enabling Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge to come to power. Nixon, too, had warned of a bloodbath in Vietnam to justify continuing his war.
Contrary to the picture Bush painted, Vietnam is a unified, stable country that doesn’t threaten the region; it has become a trading partner of the United States.
In his desperation to rationalize the death and destruction he is wreaking in Iraq, Bush credited the United States with the great progress South Korea and Japan have made. He didn’t say that the people of North and South Korea seek to reunify their country but the United States stands in the way. And Bush neglected to add that his government is pressuring Japan to repeal Article 9 of its Peace Constitution which now forbids the aggressive use of military force.
George Bush also reiterated that Iraq is "the central front" of the war on terror. But for his invasion, war and occupation of Iraq, however, al Qaeda wouldn’t be there.
Bush claimed "our troops are seeing this progress that is being made on the ground." Perhaps the President didn’t read the elegant op-ed that seven infantrymen and noncommissioned officers penned in the New York Times last week. "The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefield in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework," they wrote. The soldiers noted the two million Iraqis in refugee camps and close to two million more who are internally displaced. "Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence."
The only reason we stayed in Vietnam as long as we did was to avoid the U.S. superpower from being perceived as the "loser." American involvement in Vietnam finally ended because our soldiers refused to fight, our people took to the streets in record numbers, Nixon was weakened by his impending impeachment, and the North Vietnamese–unlike the government in the South–won the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people.
Congress has no more will to end the Iraq War than it did the Vietnam War. It was one year after our troops came home that Congress finally cut the funding for all support of the South Vietnamese government; Nixon didn’t veto the bill because he needed insurance against impeachment. There is no substantial support in Congress or among the leading presidential candidates to bring all the troops home and disband the mega-bases Bush has built in Iraq.
Resistance to the Iraq War will continue to grow within the military. Like the Vietnamese, the Iraqis will be instrumental in ending Bush’s war. The soldiers pegged it in their op-ed: Iraqis "will soon realize that the best way to regain their dignity is to call us what we are–an army of occupation–and force our withdrawal."
MARJORIE COHN is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and president of the National Lawyers Guild. She is the author of Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law
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Comparative Usage of a Web-based Personally Controlled Health Management System and Normal Support: a Case Study in IVF
Background: Research into the impact of personal health record-enabled consumer systems is still in its infancy. Little is known about effective designs of web-based personally controlled health management system (PCHMS), how people use these systems in their real-life settings, nor how usage relates to concurrent support from other sources.
Objective: To inform PCHMS design and feature development by assessing how patients undergoing in-vitro fertilization (IVF) use a web-based PCHMS in their real-life setting, and how their usage compares to concurrent support from other sources.
Methods: An in-depth formative evaluation study was conducted with 17 women undergoing IVF, who were invited to use a web-based PCHMS called Healthy.me, providing targeted IVF program information over an eight-week treatment. Online interactions were recorded on computer logs. Participants were interviewed weekly by telephone throughout their cycle, and were specifically questioned about their feedback of PCHMS and concurrent sources of support beyond that provided by the system. Interview data was coded and analysed using two-way repeated ANOVA.
Results: 62 interviews were collected from 14 participants who completed the study. Twelve of 14 participants accessed all features in Healthy.me, which included i) accessing information about the next steps of their treatment (i.e. journey), and ii) viewing or updating details in their pillbox, schedule, test results and team members during their IVF treatment. Healthy.me alerted 21% (3/14) participants to seek advice from clinic staff on issues that could affect treatment outcome of which they were previously unaware (e.g. sexual practices, frequency and order of ultrasound screenings after a sequence of blood tests). Patients additionally sought support from people, information and organisational tools outside Healthy.me to help decide IVF and manage different stages of their treatment. There was a significant interaction between IVF stage and sources of support (F(10,50)=2.54, p=.015, ηp2=.34). Suggestions are presented on ways to tailor support at different stages of the IVF cycle using a PCHMS.
Conclusions: IVF patients seek support from the web-based PCHMS, and concurrently do so with other sources of support. More research is needed to inform PCHMS design that effectively tailors support for patients at different stages of their health journey.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
--- eJHI - electronic Journal of Health Informatics - ISSN 1446-4381 ---
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KUSHAL P S YADAV blows the lid off dirty tactics adopted to give clean chit to endosulfan
At Down To Earth (DTE) we believe that truth withheld is truth denied. Fresh evidence suggests a web of lies and deceit was weaved to declare that the pesticide endosulfan is not responsible for the horrendous mutations and ailments that many in the villages of Kerala's Kasaragod district are suffering from. These villagers, living in the shadow of cashew plantations, have been exposed to the toxin which was sprayed aerially for more than two decades. But industry maintains that the health problems are not related to the pesticide. It claims the culprit is anything but endosulfan. With the controversy embroiling the organochlorine pesticide raging, in 2002, the Union government set up an expert group -- the O P Dubey Committee -- to determine if it had indeed caused the health problems prevalent in the area. The panel was also meant to recommend whether the application of the pesticide should be allowed in the country. Its report, finalised and submitted in early 2003, concluded: "There is no link between the use of endosulfan in PCK (Plantation Corporation of Kerala) plantations and health problems reported from Padre (the worst affected village)." The pesticide industry was vindicated and the matter was closed.
Centre for Science and Environment’s Sustainable Buildings Programme is organizing 5 day training on Green buildings. The programme aims to enable participants to adopt a common sense approach to green buildings, one that blends traditional wisdom with modern science.
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The difficult part? Men make a thousand sperm a second! To be an effective contraceptive, sperm count has to go down to zero!
Michael Lehmann has been involved in five testosterone based clinical trials. He's taken daily pills, monthly injections, a cream he rubbed on his shoulder, and even had an implant.
But testosterone could increase the risk of heart disease and prostate cancer. That's why Doctor John Amory is blocking vitamin A in the testes, which in turn blocks the development of sperm.
He says tests in mice show it works 100% of the time. But still, some doctors are skeptical.
While it may take time for men to get used to it, choosing when to have or not have a baby could be in their hands.
Researchers are also testing a drug that interferes with a protein, critical for sperm production and they say it's reversible. When mice were taken off the treatment, they became fertile again.
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Thirteen Ways of Looking at Alice in Wonderland in Film
A Curious List Created by Jan Susina,
author of The Place of Lewis Carroll in Children’s Literature.
Filmmakers have been intrigued by Alice in Wonderland almost since the beginning of motion pictures. The first Alice film was produced in England in 1903. Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is the latest of film adaptations base on the Alice books, but how will it compare to previous versions of films inspired by Lewis Carroll’s classic books.
Jan Susina, author of The Place of Lewis Carroll in Children’s Literature (Routledge, 2009), has created a list of the top thirteen films that are either adaptations of Lewis Carroll’s Alice books, focus on the life of Carroll, or use Alice Adventures in Wonderland as a significant plot element.
The Alice books feature amazing spectacle, amusing dialogue, distinctive characters that have long appealed to many directors and actors. Carroll was strongly influenced by Victorian theatrical traditions, particularly the pantomime and wanted to adapt the books into a play. Carroll allows Henry Savile Clarke to adapt the two Alice books into Alice in Wonderland, a Dream Play of Children which was first performed in 1886. Carroll even contributed some of the lines.
The fantastical characters and landscapes of the Alice books encouraged film directors to use cutting-edge technology to transport viewers into the magical world. Just as Carroll was fascinated by the new medium of photography, directors of Alice films often use new and innovative techniques in their films adaptations. An Alice film was made as early as 1903.
Just as the Alice books appeal to children and adults, so do films inspired by Alice in Wonderland. However, some films on this list are intended for adults, or older teens. Those films inappropriate for young children are noted.
For moviegoers anticipating Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, the films in this list show how Carroll’s Alice books have inspired filmmakers around the world. One of the great strengths of the Alice books is how various directors have been able to create distinctive and original films based on the same text. Check out these films to see which one you think is the best adaptation. Unlike Carroll’s Alice books, which have never been out of print is their initial publications, some of these films are currently unavailable for sale. A few have just been recently released on DVD. Determined viewers should be able to find all of these films either on the secondhand market or on internet.
The films are listed in chronological order, rather than rank order. Some of are better than others, but each film is well worth watching. Enjoy.
1. Walt Disney’s Alice’s Wonderland (1923). This is the first of Walt Disney’s “Alice Comedies” series in which a young actress (Virginia Davis) enters into a wonderland of cartoons. When Disney moved to Hollywood he produced a series of short films from 1924-1927 which mixed live action with animation. This film and several of the other “Alice Comedies” are available on the Disney Rarities DVD, Disc 1. Although it is not part of these comedies, Disney did produce another short cartoon based on Through the Looking-Glass called Thru the Mirror (1936). In this cartoon short , Mickey Mouse falls asleep after reading Alice Through the Looking Glass and enters into alternative world through a mirror very much like Wonderland.
2. Dave Fleischer’s Betty in Blunderland (1933). Disney wasn’t the only animator who adapted Alice in Wonderland into cartoons. This short cartoon features Max and Dave Fleischer’s, famous curvy protagonist, Betty Boop, who enters an alternative world, borrowed from Wonderland and Looking-Glass, via a subway station. Betty Boop is no Alice, but it is entertaining.
3. Norman Z. McLeod’s Alice in Wonderland (1933). With a screenplay by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, this is a one of those star-filled films that Paramount produced in the 1930s and 1940s. The film features Charlotte Henry as Alice, with Gary Cooper at the White Knight, W.C. Fields as Humpty Dumpty, Edward Everett Horton as the Mad Hatter and Sterling Holloway as the Frog. The release of this film discouraged Disney from making Alice in Wonderland as his first feature length cartoon. Instead, Disney chose to produce Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937) and the changed cinematic history.
4. Victor Fleming’s The Wizard of Oz (1939). Some people might question why this famous film adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s book is on an Alice film list. But, Baum was deeply influenced by Carroll’s Wonderland. He was trying to create an American Alice in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900). In this film, when Dorothy (Judy Garland) wakes up after her dream visit to Oz, she realizes the people in Kansas are versions of the folks he met in Oz. This is the same framing device Carroll used for Alice in Wonderland where Alice wakes from a dream that has been influenced by her surroundings.
5. Lou Bunin’s Alice in Wonderland (1948, France). An amazing adaptation that uses marionette animation. All the Wonderland characters are puppets except Alice, who is played by an adult. Before the tale begins, the film features Carroll interacting with Alice and even Queen Victoria. Disney was so threatened by this film that he tried, unsuccessfully, to stop its distribution of his film. Some of the sets were produced by Irving Block, famous for his Forbidden Planet (1956).
6. Walt Disney’s Alice in Wonderland (1951). Disney’s famous full-length animated cartoon combines the two Alice books. Classic Disney animation which memorable songs including “The Unbirthday Song.” While Kathryn Beaumont is good as the voice of Alice, Ed Wynn as the Mad Hatter, and Sterling Holloway as the Chershire Cat steal the show.
7. Jonathan Miller’s Alice in Wonderland (1967, BBC television). This film version is perhaps the most accurate of the Victorian context for Alice. It features Peter Cook as the Mad Hatter, Michael Redgrave as the Caterpillar, and John Gielgud as the Mock Turtle, and Peter Sellers as the King. Miller’s adaption of Alice in Wonderland is on par with David Lean’s 1948 adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist.
8. Terry Gilliam’s Jabberwocky (1977). A Monty Python-esque film loosely based on the poem “Jabberwocky” from Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass. The film features Michael Palin. Jabberwocky is medieval mayhem similar to Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
9. Jan Svankmajer’s Alice (1988, Czech). This is an astonishing, but terrifying stop-action adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. There is a fine line between spooky and creepy. I think Svankmajer crosses that line in this film. This edgy film is not for everyone, but it well worth watching for Alice enthusiasts who are teens and adults.
10. Gavin Millar’s Dreamchild (1992). This film is not an adaption of Alice, but it is a creative imagining of the relationship between Charles Dodgson and Alice Liddell, the young girl who inspired him to write the book. The film begins with 80-year-old Liddell visiting New York City for celebrations of the 100th anniversary of Carroll’s birth. Alice reflects on her childhood friendship with Dodgson/Carroll. The film features a sympathetic Ian Holm as Carroll and Jim Henson’s Muppets as the creatures in Wonderland.
11. Nick Willing’s Alice in Wonderland (1999, U.S. television). This is a star-studded, three-hour adaptation combines both Alice books. It features Tina Majorino as Alice, Whoopi Goldberg as the Cheshire Cat, Ben Kingsley as the Caterpillar, and Martin Short as the Mad Hatter. The stand out actors are Gene Wilder as the Mock Turtle and Peter Ustinov as the Walrus. The Victorian toy theater version of the Walrus and the Carpenter from Through the Looking-Glass is the highpoint of this film. It effectively frames the Alice books within a Victorian context. Characters that Alice meets in the real world reappear as altered characters in Wonderland, similar to The Wizard of Oz.
12. Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean’s MirrorMask (2005). Neil Gaiman is a great mimic and is able to update and revise classic texts. MirrorMask is goth-girl adaptation of the Alice books. This is a contemporary fantasy in which a teen-age girl, played by Stephanie Leonidas has her own adventures that eerily echo those of Carroll’s Alice.
13. Bob Shaye’s The Last Mimzy (2007). Based on Lewis Padgett’s “Mimsy were the Borogoves,” two children save the world from ecological destruction with the help of their stuffed white rabbit. The toy named Mimzy turns out to be a new form of artificial life using nanotechnology which has come back to warn the people of Earth of the forthcoming disaster. A complicated science fiction film that combines elements of E.T. and Alice.
For readers who would like a more comprehensive list of Alice film adaptations, they can read David Schaefer’s “Alice on the Screen” in Martin Gardner’s marvelous The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition (Norton, 2000).
If this list isn’t already quirky enough, on the horizon are two even more unusual film adaptations. Marilyn Manson, the creepy metal rocker, has an Alice film coming out called Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll. Sarah Michelle Geller, of Buffy the Vampire fame, is the featured actor in the upcoming American McGee’s Alice, based on the popular, but violent, video game.
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Earlier today, the Associated Press reported that a record number of Americans have fallen into poverty or are barely scraping by. 1 in 2 people are poor or low-income, the AP found, and safety net programs have kept poverty from rising even higher. It is facts like these that prompted Washington Area Women’s Foundation to focus its work on economic security for women and girls and to make strategic investments in programs that have an impact.
At its quarterly meeting this week Washington Area Women’s Foundation’s board of directors approved $240,000 in grants to eight area nonprofits whose work is transforming the lives of women and girls.
“Our grants to these outstanding organizations represent an investment in the potential of every woman and girl in our community,” said Nicky Goren, president of Washington Area Women’s Foundation. “When women and girls prosper, our entire region benefits.”
Five of the nonprofits received funding from the Foundation’s Early Care and Education Funders Collaborative (ECEFC), a partnership between national and local private foundations, corporate funders and family foundations to increase access to quality early care and education in the Washington, DC metropolitan area.
“It is especially important for young children from low- and moderate-income families to have the social, emotional and intellectual foundation they need to be successful in school and beyond,” said Stacey Collins, manager of Client & Community Relations at The PNC Financial Services Group and member of the ECEFC steering committee. “These five grant recipients are doing innovative and effective work that is transforming the lives of children and their families.”
The ECEFC Grantee Partners are:
- CentroNía ($50,000)
- Empower DC ($50,000)
- Fairfax Futures ($50,000)
- Hopkins House ($25,000)
- Voices for Virginia’s Children ($50,000)
Three nonprofits received funding from the African American Women’s Giving Circle. The giving circle supports African American women-led organizations that improve the lives of African American women and girls in the Washington region.
The African American Women’s Giving Circle Grantee Partners are:
- New Community for Children ($6,070)
- Our Place DC ($6,070)
- Petals of Primrose ($2,000)
A poverty fact sheet released earlier this year by The Women’s Foundation and The Urban Institute showed that the number of women and girls living in poverty in the region rose to more than 200,000. For more trends and statistics on the rising local poverty rate, please click here.
And for more information on Washington Area Women’s Foundation, the ECEFC, the African American Women’s Giving Circle or the nonprofits receiving grants, please go to www.TheWomensFoundation.org or contact Mariah Craven at firstname.lastname@example.org or (202)347-7737 x207.
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Survivor Stories: Seven lessons from the sex abuse crisis
For more than a decade, stories in the media have highlighted the problem of clergy sexual abuse of minors.
Much of the recent focus has been on Europe, though there have also been some particularly horrific new stories in this country, such as the one of Father Lawrence Murphy and his abuse of as many as 200 deaf boys in the residential school he ran in Wisconsin.
Most of these stories focus on the acts of offending priests and the fact that they were moved from parish to parish, ministry to ministry, continuing to allow them access to vulnerable children and youth.
Few focus on the individuals who were so gravely harmed. Yet it is they who are the heart of this unfolding, tragic story. As Archbishop Jerome Listecki of Milwaukee pointed out earlier this year, it is the courage of victims and survivors to come forward and publicly tell their stories that has made us a different church today than we were before.
As a social worker and as a member and now chair of the National Review Board, I have been privileged to listen to many stories of victims and survivors of clergy sexual abuse. I view this privilege as a sacred trust, to be received with great care and pastoral concern.
I have experienced the hearing of these individual stories as sacramental moments. They have been moments of great grace both for the survivor in the telling of the story and for me as the receiver of the story—in the connection that is made as we relate to one another.
The following are seven lessons that I and others have learned from these courageous brothers and sisters.
1. It takes great courage for a victim or survivor to come forward with his or her story after years, sometimes decades, of silence and feelings of shame. And it is crucial to them simply to be believed.
As a young adolescent, Jeanne was abused for several months by an associate pastor of her parish. She confused this priest’s attention—and her reaction to it—with being in a romantic relationship. As time went on, however, she began to have doubts about what was going on and confided in a trusted adult.
This person arranged for her to meet with the pastor, who then accused her of being responsible for having led the priest into this relationship. When her parents learned of it, they also blamed her, giving no credence to the priest’s role in initiating and maintaining the relationship. She literally had nowhere to turn.
Jeanne lived with the guilt and shame she felt, and she kept this secret about her life for nearly 30 years. She finally revealed the story to a therapist. Her relief at both telling the story and being believed after all of those years was utterly freeing, even though she still had much work to do in therapy to move toward real healing.
The feelings of guilt and shame took on an added dimension for many males who were abused by priests. As they matured emotionally and psychosexually, they experienced a struggle that centered on the question of whether what had happened to them meant that they were gay. Many eventually came to understand that they are heterosexual, and they are in successful long-term marriages today.
Even in that situation, however, the vast majority of those men personally took decades before they were able to share with their wives what had happened to them. The feelings of shame and guilt were that strong and that enduring.
On at least three occasions the individual coming forward to tell his or her story expected not to be believed. Though they had come expressly to tell their story, they expected to have to fight to be believed. Two men in their 50s to 60s broke down and cried when, after they had told their stories, I accepted it and apologized on behalf of the church for what never should have happened to them. Both expressed that it was such a relief just to be believed after all of these years.
2. Because of the violation of trust involved in abuse, some survivors trust absolutely no one to this day. Others have been able to work through this pain with the help and support of loved ones.
The issue of trust is so foundational to the emotional development of the human person that when it is seriously violated, that violation has consequences that can last a lifetime. More than one victim has told me, with no small amount of bitterness and anger, “I trust no one.”
Other survivors have had to struggle to be able to trust again, particularly when they began to develop an intimate relationship. Some were fortunate to marry spouses with the capacity to listen, to accept, and to accompany such a wounded person. Even then it often took years for real trust to flourish in their relationships.
Most poignant of all are the “before and after” pictures that a few adult survivors have shared with me. The “before the abuse” pictures are of happy, smiling children, bright-eyed, carefree, and trusting. The contrast in the “after the abuse” pictures is startling.
Gone are the bright, trusting eyes. Gone is the carefree smile of a child who anticipates that what he or she will experience in the world will be good. It is a heartbreaking experience to see such photos. Words are not necessary to describe the damage that has taken place. It is painfully obvious.
3. Many survivors have lived for years with the belief that they were “the only one” to have been abused by a particular priest.
Joe’s family had been friends with a number of their parish priests over several years. Invitations to the family home started with dinners and other family celebrations. For the most part these were healthy relationships. Until Father X.
Father X eventually became such a regular part of the family that he was included in their family vacations. By this time he had so gained the trust of this family that they thought nothing of it when he started going to Joe’s room to “tuck him in” for the night. Joe, meanwhile, was being told by Father X how “special” he was and how important it was that Joe never tell anyone about their “special friendship.”
Years later Father X’s name appeared in news stories about his sexual abuse of many boys over the years he had served as a parish priest. While he had begun to deal with his abuse in therapy, seeing the news stories was the first time Joe became aware that he was not the only boy who had been “so special” to Father X.
It was a surprise to him, of course, but it was also affirming of what he had begun to learn in therapy, namely that what had happened to him was not his fault but the fault of his abuser.
4. In spite of their own suffering, many survivors are just as concerned that the church prevents this abuse from happening to more children as they are about themselves and their own needs for healing.
This has been a real inspiration to me. It is certainly not true in every situation, but I have heard it frequently enough that it has left an impression.
After telling his story, including sharing something of the struggle to work through his issues in therapy, Mark looked me in the eye and said very directly, “In part I have come forward to share my story because I don’t want another child to have to go through all that I have gone through.”
When I have heard these or similar words, they were said with some forcefulness of voice and with some anger, stopping short of saying in so many words that “you in the church had better make sure that it doesn’t keep happening.” Those particular words may not have been there, but the message is clear, as well it should be.
5. Today there are methods of therapy that work particularly well for survivors of childhood sexual abuse, and individuals can be helped even after many years of unsuccessfully trying to simply forget about it.
Just as much has been learned over the past 20 to 30 years about the dynamics of sexual offending, much has also been learned about what it takes for individuals to begin to heal from this deep, deep wound.
For any survivor, simply telling the story is the beginning of healing. For some that first telling occurred in therapy. For others it occurred in the depth of sharing between spouses/partners. But as long as there was no telling of the story, sometimes even to oneself, healing could not begin to take place.
An entire article could be written on this topic alone. The healing journey is a long one. It does not take place in a straight line. It includes numerous ups and downs along the way. The important thing for learning this particular lesson is simply to know that help is there and that the first step is to bring into the light what has been hidden in the dark.
6. The abuse has robbed some victims of their faith. For some this has meant the loss of their Catholic faith; for others, it has meant the loss of any faith in God at all.
Ann’s was one of the most difficult stories to hear. She had been abused between the ages of 5 and 10 by an associate pastor in her parish. As a little girl she prayed daily that the abuse would stop, but it didn’t. To this day she is unable to believe in a God who loves her.
Other survivors are able to believe in God and to practice their faith, but it is no longer the Catholic faith. Still others believe in God but cannot bring themselves to practice their faith in any church.
But there are also those whose faith was able to withstand the horrors of the abuse at the time. They were able and had the desire to grow in their faith. Some of these individuals, in fact, work for the Catholic Church today as priests, deacons, and lay ministers.
7. While some victims have been unable to succeed in areas of their lives as a consequence of the great emotional harm, others have gone on to lead very healthy and productive lives.
Some survivors have struggled with addictions or with chronic, severe mental illness and have been treated, then relapsed time and time again. They have been unable to succeed in any major area of life—marriage, employment, education, parenting, and so on.
Others have done very well. They have become lawyers, judges, human-service professionals, nurses, and educators. They have benefited from treatment and are in lasting relationships. They are husbands or wives, fathers or mothers.
Between those two ends of a continuum there is as much variation as there are numbers of victims.
We still have much to learn. The individuals who have been the victims of sexual abuse by clergy and are now survivors have much to teach us: about deep and lasting pain, justified anger, the capacity to heal, courage, and the resiliency of the human spirit.
The crisis of sexual abuse of minors by clergy in the Catholic Church has affected every Catholic and devastated many lives. At the same time it holds many lessons; some of the most important come to us from the survivors themselves.
This article appeared in the January 2011 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 76, No. 1, pages 34-36).
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Keeping kids safe online is tough to do when we, as parents, don't really understand what's out there. On Wednesday, Jan. 30 at 6 p.m. the Ukiah Police Department (UPD) and Ukiah High School (UHS) are teaming up to present, "Digital Safety," a program to educate parents about how to keep their teens and pre-teens safe online. The program is open to the public and will be presented at the UHS Cafeteria.
In the meantime, here are some tips to keep children safe. Let your teens and pre-teens know:
1. Privacy is a myth: Only share information electronically that would be okay if re-posted on all your friends (and enemies ) facebook pages.
2. Be a good person: Just because you feel anonymous, doesn't give you the right to be mean or spiteful. If you wouldn't say something to someone's face, you shouldn't say it online.
3. Connect in person: Time with friends is great. Get together. Do something fun. Practice talking face-to-face; it's becoming a lost art.
4. People who seem nice online may not be: Don't share private information. Don't agree to meet in person.
5. Cyber bullying is real: Don't do it. Don't encourage it. If you're a victim, seek help.
6. You are what you post: Want to get a job or go to college? Employers and admissions officers often surf social networking sites to learn more about applicants. Think about how you want to represent yourself.
7. No take backs: Once information is shared digitally, it belongs to the world. Ask your
Lots of excellent resources exist online. I shared some in my last column, but thought a few more might be helpful.
Netsmartz, a program of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: www.onguardonline.gov/topics/protect-kids-online
Safe Kids: www.SafeKids.com
Google Family Safety Center:
www.google.com/intl/en/goodtoknow/familysafety/ As always, our mission at the Ukiah Police Department is simple: to make Ukiah as safe as possible. If you have any suggestions or comments about how we can improve, please feel free to call me, complete our online survey, or leave a crime tip on our website: www.ukiahpolice.com.
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Features We'd Really Like to See in All Cars
The technological innovations just keep on coming: Electronic stability control, a life-saving innovation, is now making its way into cheaper and cheaper cars. You can now save your relationship thanks to dual climate controls. Of course, not every innovation is a winner. Anybody for a fake convertible top?
What would we like to see in every car, if we could have our way? Here's our list!
1. Stability Control
Studies show that vehicle stability control (often referred to by myriad confusing acronyms such as VDC, DSC, ESP, MSPCA, etc.) clearly helps people avoid accidents. Stability control uses sensors to detect early signs of a skid, then limits acceleration and applies the brakes as needed to regain control of the car. Stability control can even help keep you (to a point) from losing control of your car when you take a corner too fast or swerve to avoid, say, that rare Ming vase you spotted on the roadway.
2. Safe-Distance Technologies
A number of different manufacturers offer some sort of "safe-distance technology." The systems are different, but the fundamental goal is the same: to keep you from crashing into something in front of you, even if you're checking on your dry cleaning when someone in front of you slams on the brakes.
Some manufacturers use this technology as part of what is called adaptive cruise control. Others alert you with an audible warning that you're about to kiss the trunk in front of you. Finally, some late-model vehicles will even take over the braking. They all use sonar to measure the distance between your car and the objects in front of it.
3. Blind Spot Monitoring
This is a truly great feature. We love it. Simply put, it tells you when an object, such as a car, motorcycle or moose, is coming up beside you and might not be visible. Note: It also works if the object is visible to you, and you're just being a dope and not paying attention. Blind spot monitoring uses sonar to keep tabs on the blind spots on both sides of the car. It detects motion, not stationary objects, so false alarms are avoided. Versions of this technology are available on Mercedes-Benz, Mazda, Volvo and some Ford models.
A related safety feature, called lane departure warning, alerts a driver when he's drifting out of his lane, as can sometimes happen when the driver is drowsy or distracted. These systems use cameras to look for the lane markers and check whether the turn signal has been activated. If the vehicle is moving into another lane and the turn signal is not on, the system will sound an alert. Versions of this lane departure warning system are available on GM, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and even Kia vehicles, among others.
4. Audible Oil Pressure and Engine Temperature Alert
Here's the problem: If you wait until the oil light comes on, it's almost too late for your engine. At that point, you need to pull over immediately if you're going to have something more than a hunk of melted metal under your hood.
We'd like to have an audible alarm that comes through your car's radio — whether it's on or not — much like the Emergency Alert System. If your car could reach out from the dashboard and slap you a few times, we'd be in favor of that, too. An early audible alert would be the next best thing. It's also much better than current warnings, such as a flashing light or scrolling message, which are easily ignored — much to the detriment of your bank account.
5. Adjustable Pedals
How many of us are exactly 5-foot-9? Adjustable pedals allow you to fit the car's pedals to your body while maintaining a minimum distance of 12 inches between you and the airbag in your steering wheel. In addition, it can help those of us who come in "non-standard" sizes avoid leg and back fatigue. For the real vertically challenged among us, there would no longer be any need to retrofit your car with expensive pedal extenders.
6. Bird's-Eye-View Camera
Of the many backup and parking assist cameras that are available now, the bird's-eye camera system, called the Around View Monitor, from Infiniti is our favorite.
It's great for parking. How's it work? The dashboard screen turns on when you shift into Reverse and stays on in 1st gear until about 5 mph, so it stays on while you're going back and forth, working your way into a parking space. Four little cameras are built into the front, back and both sides of the vehicle, and a computer stitches the views together. What you see on your monitor is a bird's-eye view — a view that looks like you're looking down on the car from above the roof. You see everything around the car at once. It's magnificent.
7. Sleepy and Distracted Driver Alerts
Fighter planes have technology that monitors eye movement. Why can't cars? We'd love to see a system that monitors our eye movements and sound an alarm when the driver appears to be sleepy or distracted. Drowsy and distracted drivers are huge killers on the roads. We're sure a system like this would save a lot of lives.
8. Easy-to-Replace Headlight Lens
Almost all current vehicle headlights have plastic lenses. That's great if your goal is to save weight. But after a few years of use, we've noticed the lenses invariably turn yellow and become pitted, dramatically reducing the headlights' effectiveness. Once worn, the lenses can be buffed, but the results are often only a marginal improvement. We'd like to see an easy-to-replace lens or a peel-off cover that would allow you to rejuvenate the lens without replacing the entire headlight unit, which can often cost hundreds of dollars.
9. Auto-Shutoff Headlights
Believe it or not, some manufacturers, such as VW, still have not designed an automatic shut-off feature for their headlights. We think that's unconscionable. Why not have the headlights go off when you turn off the ignition? Or when you open the driver's door? If you can make a chime ding incessantly, you can use the same technology to just shut off the damn headlights and guarantee that morons like us won't leave the lights on and run down the battery. Although we don't have any hard evidence, we wouldn't be surprised if AAA were behind this conspiracy because it is a boon to tow truck drivers everywhere.
10. 'Sorry!' Button
Is there anything that we need more on the roads today than a "Sorry!" button? We often do bad or dumb things when we drive, and we have no way to communicate remorse. It might just lead to a little more civility.
As it stands now, when you tick off another driver, he or she has little choice but to remind you that you're a moron. Then you have to retaliate with a clever retort like, "Oh, yeah? Well, you're a moron, too!" Say you're sorry, though, and you break the cycle. A "Sorry!" button could defuse a lot of otherwise explosive situations — not to mention, it would generate a good deal of karma.
While we're at it, we'd like to have two buttons, "Sorry!" and "You jerk!" Except when you press the "Jerk" button ... your car still says, "I'm sorry!" Nice, huh? We thought so.
11. Smart Key
Ford recently introduced a "smart" ignition key that allows a parent to program the key for a child. Mom or Dad can set the maximum vehicle speed, activate a persistent seat belt reminder, set the volume level for the radio and manage other features.
We think smart keys are a great idea, but we'd like to take it one step further. We'd like to see a smart key with an optional Breathalyzer, so the car wouldn't start if the child had been drinking. While we're adding features, our smart key would disable the child's cell phone when he was driving — and drive him straight to the library if his grades drop below a B-minus.
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A recent McKinsey Global Institute study, “The social economy: Unlocking value and productivity through social technologies,” concludes that social technologies could contribute $900 billion to $1.3 trillion in annual value to business.
"Two-thirds of this potential value lies in improving collaboration and communication within and across enterprises," with improved consumer focus and better-functioning teams as additional benefits.
The current crop of social media acquisitions, including Microsoft's acquisition of Yammer and Salesforce.com's purchase of Radian6, underscore large companies’ increasingly expensive quest for internalized productivity tools to better help them manage customers.
The most effective social technologies include wikis, instant messaging, content searches and user forums, and apply to several levels of employees from managers to sales representatives to engineers. The largest impediment to overcome, both organizationally and individually, is the embrace of a nonhierarchical ethos where acumen and information are shared rather than hoarded.
“The industries with the highest percentage of interactions workers have the highest spread of profits per employee,” said Michael Chui, an author of the report. “It’s low in mining, but can vary by nine times more in banking. If you can make these people more effective, you can make the biggest difference. These technologies are successful when influential people are role models, using them and explaining them.”
The McKinsey report focused on consumer packaged goods, consumer financial services, professional services, and advanced manufacturing to arrive at the estimated total annual value creation potential of $900 billion to $1.3 trillion, which breaks down to $345 billion from product development and operations; $500 billion from marketing, sales and after-sales support activities; and $230 billion from improvements in business support activities.
Companies with an abundance of knowledge workers, digital distribution platforms for products and services, and experiential or inspirational products or services can benefit the most; but merely reallocating advertising and consumer research budgets to social media is not adequate to leverage the inherent value of social technologies.
That will require "transformational changes in organisational structures, processes, and practices, as well as a culture compatible with sharing and openness… As with earlier waves of IT innovation, it could take years for the benefits to be fully realised, because these management innovations must accompany technological innovations. The greatest benefits will be realised by organizations that have or can develop open, non-hierarchical, knowledge-sharing cultures."
There are currently more than 1.5 billion social networking global users, with 70% of companies using social technologies and 90% of those reporting business benefits. The best news is the potential for jobs-creation well-suited to a millennial workforce for whom social technologies are second-hand nature.
As perceptions of social technology have evolved from a new media platform to an acknowledged and increasingly valued business tool, the overarching challenge is a new lexicon about and strategy for its widespread embrace to attain the trillion dollar pot of gold at the end of this social economy.
Julie LeMoine, CEO of 3D ICC, speaks of the “psychology of engagement” necessary for seeding a new social environment in an existing culture. “We need to think about 'smart harnessing' – ways to bootstrap interaction by creating social and collaborative scaffolding for others to more easily participate in discussions and activities that you’ve partially constructed.”
“When people enjoy their culture and work experience, learning is not viewed as something separate, as a chore that takes them away from getting their job done." Immersive collaborative experiences can help make people “blissfully productive,” LeMoine concludes.
The report underscores that social is a feature, not a product. At the end of the day, a company’s greatest assets and agents for change still ride down the elevator.
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The strategic planning process is reaching the late innings. While there is still much to be determined, what is clear are major themes the campus has embraced in thinking through the next five years, which will culminate with North Central College's 150th Anniversary in 2011-2012. The College's mission, to prepare students to be informed, involved, principled and productive citizens and leaders over a lifetime, is reflected in a desire to better articulate, document, and reinforce the distinctive elements of North Central's identity and approach to education. Among the words and phrases that keep coming up are leadership, ethics, values and service, global awareness, and engagement.
Let me turn to engagement, a word that has taken on great significance in the academy in recent years. When addressing prospective students making a choice about what school to attend, I refer to North Central College as a "full service institution." What I mean by this--in contrast to Internet degrees and storefront academic programs--is that education at this college is not just about courses and tests. It encompasses one-on-one instruction with faculty members in and out of the classroom, athletic and extracurricular activities, service projects and experiences off-campus and around the world. We believe, I add, that many of the most important learning experiences of your college years will result from these interactions and experiences, as generations of alumni who went on Model UN trips, took advantage of Richter grants for undergraduate study, or were actively involved in WONC, theatre, or athletic teams would attest.
The Strategic Plan study group working on engagement and service has identified three kinds of active learning experience at the College:
- intellectual engagement or the active involvement that takes place when students are challenged to become critical thinkers, take intellectual risks, apply analytic understanding to practical problems or new situations;
- institutional engagement or the active involvement with faculty and staff outside of the classroom and participation in a variety of extra-curricular, co-curricular or informal social groups on campus; and
- community engagement or the active involvement in internships, community service projects, or volunteer opportunities that confront the human condition beyond the confines of the College.
The study group suggests that, utilizing the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), the College should benchmark its success with sister institutions such as Drake University and Valparaiso University in the Associated New American Colleges (ANAC), and the entire group of colleges and universities in our Carnegie class (i.e., comprehensive institutions). THe good news is that in 2006, for "level of academic challenge," "active and collaborative learning," "student-faculty interaction" and "enriching educational experiences," North Central College ranked above our ANAC and Carnegie peers for both freshmen and seniors. The less good news is that when we compare ourselves to the top 10 percent of peer institutions, particularly for seniors, we fall far short. Couple this with data from on-campus surveys we administer every year, and it is evident that we still have significant work to do to realize our potential as a full-service institution in which students are actively engaged in their learning in and out of the classroom.
This is what strategic planning is all about. Setting goals--like being in the top 10 percent among peer institutions in student engagement as measured by NSSE surveys--and then implementing strategies to achieve them.
Harold R. Wilde
North Central Now, March 2007
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Tweed Heads and Coolangatta are twin towns located on the border between north-eastern New South Wales and south-eastern Queensland. Coolangatta is in Queensland and part of the Gold Coast City. Tweed Heads and neighboring suburbs are part of the Gold Coast urban area, but are located in Tweed Shire, headquatered in Murwillumbah.
When you cross the wide Tweed River from the south, you remain in New South Wales for around 5km before passing into Queensland. The border is in the built up retail area near the mouth of the river.
Where is the border?
The border between New South Wales and Queensland winds its way through the towns of Tweed Heads and Coolangatta. With buildings, roads, and other structures spanning the border it is often not obvious which state you are in. This can be important in summer months, when New South Wales operates on daylight savings time, and Queensland does not. If you land at Coolangatta airport from the south, you will touch down in New South Wales, and taxi to the terminal in Queensland. The border is actually the 19th Century survey line of the watershed. When surveyor Evans followed the MacPherson range eastwards he was directed to mark the border and terminate it at Point Danger, however the watershed hit the coast at Currumbin headland some distance north. He drew a direct line from the hill behind Currumbin to what was thought to be Point Danger, thus the border runs parallel to the beach for some kms before terminating at the headland north of the Tweed River mouth.
Coolangatta is pronounced with the emphasis on the last syllable, like regatta, and unlike Talangatta.
Tweed Heads Visitor Information Centre (Tweed Tourism Inc), 7/1 Wharf Street, Tweed Heads, ☎ +61 7 5536 6737, . Providing tourism information for the Tweed region. Maps, posters and souvenirs. Accommodation, tour and cruise booking service. Open 7 days. or Ph: 1800 674 414 (within Australia only)
The Gold Coast airport is in Coolangatta, about 5 kms distant, and has domestic flights and international flights from New Zealand, Malaysia, and Japan
Buses run from Brisbane and points south. The train service from Brisbane to Robina, central Gold Coast, has bus connections through to Coolangatta and Tweed Heads.
It is a comfortable 65 minutes drive from Brisbane on the Pacific Motorway. One can exit just after the Brisbane airport to hit the coast near Kirra for the short coastal drive through Coolangatta to Tweed Heads.
Surfside buses, run from Tweed Heads frequently northwards towards Coolangatta and Surfers Paradise. Frequent busses (routes 601 to 608) also operate to Kingscliff, West Tweed and Banora Point. The bus to Murwillumbah (route 605) operates hourly on weekdays (every 2 hours on weekends), it is a particularly scenic local bus route. Route 603 runs to Bogangar and Pottsville hourly every day and provides access to less developed and uncrowded beaches to the south.
Coolangatta and Tweed Heads are easily accessible from the Pacific Hwy. The highway now bypasses the whole area making the local roads much less congested. Some back streets between Coolangatta and Tweed Heads and in Currumbin are quite steep.
See the Gold Coast article for a list of car rental companies.
Point Danger, Boundary Street (Eastern end). Most prominent headland of the Gold Coast and the point where the New South Wales / Queensland border meets the sea. It features a lighthouse, parklands and a barbeque areas. Excellent views in all directions, including far out to sea where whales and dolphins are often spotted. The whale migration occurs in the winter months, and as the numbers increase they become increasingly visible from the shore. Surfers can also be seen riding the waves off Duranbah Beach and Snapper Rocks. Many Australian and world champion surfriders grew up in these waves. This isn't the point that Cook named Point Danger", that is the point to the south near the small island, now called Fingal Head. The error was made long ago, and the names are now too established to change.(25.335448,135.745076)
Tropical Fruit World. An educational park where tropical fruit is grown for experiments, viewing and tasting. Home of the Big Avocado.
Scuba Diving There are several scuba dive companies using Cook Island as their dive location. Cook island is the small island first mentioned by James Cook when he named Point Danger and Mt. Warning in 1770, about 2km offshore. The volcanic rookery island is in unprotected water and intending divers should be aware that this is no barrier reef experience, but the reefs offer interesting diving and the waters are prolific with turtles.
Bush Walking The Tweed Shire encompasses the catchment of the Tweed River, which drains the southern slopes of the MacPherson Range, known as the Border Ranges in NSW. There are many inspiring hikes in these ranges, but most require navigation experience in rain forest, and the correct equipment for the time of year. However there are several opportunities for the visitor to taste the bushwalking opportunities. Mt Warning has been dealt with in the "Get Out" section below, and is highly recommended for the hiker who likes the surety of National Park signs and maintained paths. Mt Cougal is the twin peaked feature evident from the coast, standing in front of the larger mountainous area behind, the Springbrook Plateau. The walk to Mt Cougal is unmarked, but the following simple instructions will get you there from the Tweed Shire. Drive to Tumblegum on the Tweed River, crossing the river to the north side at the bridge over the Tweed just south of the township. Follow the signs to Murwillumbah along Dulguigan Rd until Tomewin Rd, turn right to the north. This road climbs to the border crossing at the watershed at Tomewin, but near the top of the climb take the turn left on Garden of Eden Road. Follow this to the end and the border fence, and park your car. Now on foot, follow the border fence, a combination stock and rabbit exclusion fence, west, leading to the base of the cliffs on East Cougal. There is a rough scramble to the summit of East Cougal, from where views can be had. The scramble across to the top of West Cougal is an option, but remember you are in steep country. Pay attention to where you go, because you have to come back this way to get back to the fence for the return journey. From Tomewin you can drive into the Currumbin valley and then west for a swim at the Currumbin rock pool, a large deep stream fed popular pool. Further up this valley, 1km from the end of the road is the Currumbin Rock Slide for the brave. Wagawn is a mountain accessed by taking Queensland Road out of Murwillumbah, and turning left into Numinbah Rd, should be well sign posted. Follow on to the Queensland border, and on the other side of the border gate turn hard left on a dirt road and park. The border fence is a sturdy fence on the top of the ridge and so you follow this in a large arc toward to the obvious mountain to the west; this is Wagawn. The fence terminates at the cliffs so then you follow the well worn path to the right which enters the section called the Bushrangers Cave, a large eroded overhang with sometimes a trickle of water dropping from above. To ascend the mountain above, continue on until a cliff break and it is possible to climb up through the trees and rocks. This is slippery and steep. Pay heed to the way you come, because many parties become uncertain of the track on descent, and end up in steeper circumstances than they wish. There may be some tape on the trees that will help. The track contours to the left high above the cave below, ascending all the time until the border ridge is again attained. Continue up this ridge until it flattens out and you are pretty much at the top and on the National Park track system linking Binna Burra Lodge with O'Reilleys Lodge. Nice place for lunch before the return for a total time 3-4 hours plus stops. Now it occurs that backpackers could arrange to be dropped off at the border gate with their gear and continue on to either of the two mentioned lodges, about 11 km further, where camping and accommodation is available, and transport back to the Gold Coast. This would be an interesting way to get a feel for the Lamington National Park.
The best activity is the beach. Coolangatta and Rainbow Bay face north. To get the same wave break you have to go to either Byron Bay or Noosa Heads.
Centro Tweed Heads (Tweed Mall), Cnr. Wharf & Bay Streets, Tweed Heads, NSW, 2485, . Contains small speciality shops together with larger well-known retailers like Target, Coles and Woolworths.
Tweed Heads has a vibrant club scene based on service and sporting clubs, much larger than the shire would normally sustain. The background to these establishments is that for many years poker machines were prohibited in Queensland, but allowable in clubs in New South Wales. Thus clubs proliferated just over the border in Tweed Heads, thriving on holiday traffic from the Gold Coast and on day trippers from Brisbane. Visitors to the shire may be signed in by the doorman, otherwise entry is restricted to members. The clubs all have much the same offer, larges lounges, bars, dining areas and poker machine areas (foreign visitors please note that poker machines are called "pokies") and entertainment. Some quite big stars often turn out at these venues. The big ones are the Tweed Heads Services Club, 100 metres from Queensland, the Tweed Heads Bowls Club, a bit further on, Seagulls Leagues Club on the Terranora Road and Tweed Heads Golf Club in South Tweed Heads. But this information is placed here in the eat category, because these clubs offer exceptional value for money restaurants.
Coolangatta / Kirra Beach YHA Adjacent to some of the best beaches in Australia, great hostel with pool, BBQ area, games room.
Fingal Head Fingal is actually just across the Tweed River from Tweed Heads, but you must travel south on the Pacific Highway past Sextons Hill and after the motorway crosses the river take the left exit and follow the signs. There are many kms of isolated and beatuful beaches to enjoy. It features as it's centrepoint Fingal Head, a volcanic rock headland originally named Point Danger by James Cook in 1770. Subsequently the headland north of the tweed River Mouth was incorrectly named Point Danger, so if you have a fetish for Cook's place names on the East Coast of Australia, this is the Point Danger you must visit. The name Fingal was chosen because of the hexagonal columns of volcanic rock. These were originally a lava finger from the shield volcano, the plug of which is Mount Warning, also named by Cook. Similar rock formations exist in Northern Ireland at Fingal, thus the name. A prominent rock formation off the point is accessed by a small surf affected causeway, and this is named Giants Causway, also with Northern Irish connections. The surf beach on the northern side is patrolled in summer holidays and weekends. Foreign visitors should remember that inexperience in the surf can lead to trouble, so even if there are others body surfing, it is not a sign that the conditions are benign. In other words, stick to the patrolled beaches. There is a very loyal board surfer fraternity usually finding a wave on the south side of the headland. The camping ground at the main beach offers demountables, van and tent sites. The nearest pub is the Chinderah, on the river on the western side of the highway, once the ferry crossing point for all coastal road traffic. The island off the coast is Cook Island, as it was first mentioned, but not named, by Cook. Dive boats use this for charter dives from Tweed Heads, although you might also make an arranged pick up from the small river marina you pass as you enter Fingal. Camping, or overnight staying is not permitted in the Tweed Shire and this is actively enforced. Also nude bathing is prohibited, and police cars do patrol the beaches, so watch out. There is community concern about undesirable types hanging about, rather than concerns about nudity.
Letitia Spit Letitia Rd continues on past Fingal camping ground on its way to the southern head of the Tweed River. The 4 or 5 km road passes a collection of new and old houses which is what remains of the settlement of Fijians who were settled here after working as indentured labourers in the cane fields. There are many descendants in the area. The then rough road continues to the river mouth for a walk to the end of the river training walls (see the late article) and sand pumping system. At different times there is a good board break here and wide beaches. Also a favorite spot for fishermen is on the rock walls.
Tweed River This river, named by John Oxley, is the northernmost of the Northern Rivers of NSW. Rising in the Border Ranges, it is navigable inland to the bustling alternative town of Murwillumbah, some 30km up river. Murwillumbah is worth a visit; it was once a timber town and positioned so to ship the highly valued rain forest timbers down river to be picked up at wharves once at the mouth of the river. High on the south side of the river is the Murwillumbah art gallery in a new well positioned building. It is surprisingly worth a visit; there is also a coffee shop / cafe on site. At Kondong is a sugar mill, the river previously being the transport option for the carriage of cane to the mill. At Tumbulgum is a bridge to the north, which offers an alternative drive to Murwillumbah, and another road that leads over the MacPherson Range to the Currumbin Valley in Queensland. The pub at Tumbulgum is a popular watering hole, and the town now boasts a coffee shop and restaurant. The boat ramp at Tumbulgum makes this spot also a popular spot for water skiers. The river has always been a favorite for fishermen, but for an innocent newcomer to catch a feed would be a minor miracle. House boats are available in the Tweed Heads marina, and there are endless peaceful and beautiful reaches of the river to explore. Dinghies are also available for hire at Boyds Bay inlet and at Fingal Head. The river is full of shoals, so care must be taken of navigation marks and buoys.
Mount Warning Named by James Cook in 1770 to warn sailors of the Danger Reefs off Point Danger (now named Fingal Head in error), this prominent 1156 metre peak towers over the Tweed River valley, the coast line and offers great views of the Macpherson Range to the north. Drive there via Murwillumbah and follow the signs up the Tweed River valley. The access road rises to about the 500 metre mark, and a graded switchback foot track continues to the top. Allow for about 2 hours for the walk to the top, which finishes with a chain up slabby sections to the summit. National Parks have constructed a 360 degree viewing platform on the summit, which slightly jars, but which is quite practical. The nearest pub to the base of the mountain is at Uki, the Mount Warning Hotel.
Kingscliff This coastal town is at the next headland south of Fingal head, about 6km further. Until about 10 years ago it was a sleepy campers mecca, but now boasts a vibrant real estate industry, and a busy coffee shop and restaurant strip, and a shopping centre containing a Woolworths. Camping sites are still available right on the beach. The surf is generally on the small side and board surfers are rarely seen out. Cudgeon Creek enters at the point, and offers blue water fisherman relatively easy access to the ocean, weather dependent of course. The mouth of the river is a favorite swimming place for all ages. There are numerous ocean front parks and facilities. The pub is the popular Grand Pacific Hotel. Further south from Kingscliff is the newish Salt real estate development featuring ocean front hotel, restaurants and bar. Further south from there is Casuarina, a newish development designed to have minimal impact on the environment and which boasts many beach houses of original design, and a surfing beach. One of the features of this development was the apparent requirement that no beach front homes were to have a view of the ocean, so from the beach there is no sign of near habitation.
Continue further south to Cabarita, Hastings Point and Pottsville, all very nice ocean front townships with surf beaches. There are several camping grounds to be found. The only pub is the Cabarita Hotel at Bogangar.
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Thanks to a huge effort by many, many people in the Wonderland community, I am extremely pleased to announce the birth of Open Wonderland – a fork of the Project Wonderland code. Along with the new open source project, we have launched a non-profit, called the Open Wonderland Foundation, to act as the governing body for the open source project. Here is the press release that explains the transition. The new pages to bookmark are at the end of the post.
Open Wonderland Foundation Launch
St. Paul, Minnesota, March 10, 2010 – Today Ken Miller, the CEO of Virtual Learning Labs, announced the formation of the Open Wonderland Foundation and the creation of the Open Wonderland virtual world platform. The Open Wonderland platform is a “fork” of the Project Wonderland toolkit originally developed by Sun Microsystems Laboratories. Miller, who will serve as the Foundation’s first President and Chairman of the Board, explains that the non-profit Open Wonderland Foundation will provide direction and governance for Open Wonderland (http://OpenWonderland.org), a free and open source platform for creating 3D virtual worlds for education, business, and government applications.
Miller also announced that Nicole Yankelovich has accepted the position of Executive Director of the Open Wonderland Foundation. Yankelovich, who initiated and ran the Wonderland project during her tenure at Sun, will oversee the transition of the project. “While leadership of the Wonderland project is now in the hands of the Foundation and the open source community,” she explains, “many important aspects of the project will remain unchanged. Many of the original Wonderland core team members will continue to contribute to the open source project and the new leadership is more committed than ever to advancing both immersive education and business collaboration.”
Miller says he is pleased that Aaron Walsh, Grid Institute Director and head of the Immersive Education Initiative (http://ImmersiveEducation.org), has assured him that Wonderland will continue to be an official Immersive Education Initiative virtual world platform. “Both the platform and the content are open,” explains Walsh, “which is vital for education in both the short and long term.”
Others who have indicated they will continue to support Wonderland include Darwin Dimensions, the creators of Evolver (http://evolver.com), a compelling web site for creating avatars, including ones that can be used in Wonderland worlds. AmphiSocial (http://amphisocial.com), a provider of next-generation 3D collaboration and training environments, is also moving ahead with plans to use Wonderland as one of the platforms underlying their new product.
Unlike other open source projects that fork, there is no acrimony involved in this instance. On the contrary, the same people who were passionate about Project Wonderland, both from Sun and in the broader open source community, are taking the initiative to advance the technology under the Open Wonderland umbrella.
Among the Sun team members transitioning support to the new Open Wonderland project is Wonderland architect Jonathan Kaplan. “Now that we have the new open source project established on Google Code, we’re actively preparing for the next software release,” he reports. “This will be an incremental release that includes some important updates.” Since leaving Sun, other members of the team have been working on new modules to contribute to the Wonderland Module Warehouse – a clearinghouse for both free and commercial Wonderland extensions.
In addition to the former Sun employees, a group of dedicated Wonderland open source community members from around the world have pledged to support the new Foundation by donating their time to maintain web sites, create 3D artwork, teach tutorials, provide publicity, and help out in variety of other ways.
On the leadership side, Miller has put together a board of directors made up of an elite group of educators in the forefront of applying advanced technology, such as 3D virtual worlds, to teaching and learning. For example, Professor John Belcher from MIT makes extensive use of technology for 3D visualization in his Electricity and Magnetism courses. In addition, he was involved in starting the MIT OpenCouseware initiative to publish almost all MIT course material on the web. “One of the best things about Wonderland,” says Professor Belcher, “is that it is designed for collaboration. I was able to run our LabView application unmodified in a Wonderland world and allow groups of students to interact with it while viewing and discussing a dynamic 3D visualization. Thanks to the existence of the Foundation, I am moving ahead with confidence on my next project to bring our entire TealSIM physics simulation environment into Wonderland.”
Michael Gardner, another Open Wonderland Foundation board member from the University of Essex, was one of the first adopters of Wonderland. He and his colleagues created MIRTLE, a mixed reality solution which uses Wonderland to augment live lectures for remote students with high-quality voice, shared applications, and video. MIRTLE is now being actively used by two departments at Essex. “Based on the success of MIRTLE,” Gardner explains, “we are using EU funding to launch a new Wonderland-based project called +Spaces (Positive Spaces: Policy Simulation in Virtual Spaces). The establishment of the Open Wonderland Foundation gives us assurance that the Wonderland platform will continue to evolve in a way that will enable the success of this new initiative.”
Andy Zbinden, the Technology and Development Leader for the ShangAI Lectures at the University of Zurich and also on the board states that “We chose Wonderland because it is fully open source, thus giving us complete control in adding logging facilities and other extensions. Additionally, it gives an excellent feeling of immersion due to its stereo sound. We are gearing up to run another iteration of the Wonderland-based ShangAI Lectures course in the Fall.”
Board member Warren Sheaffer, Chairman of the Computer Science Department at Saint Paul College – recently voted the top 2-year college in the country in student degree program satisfaction, manages the Virtual Northstar project. The aim of this project is to develop, deploy, and use virtual worlds based on the Wonderland platform for applications in distance education and learning in virtual environments. “I have been working hard to help get the Foundation going,” he says, “because we see Wonderland as an important technology for the future of education as well as for the future of communication.”
The Open Wonderland Foundation will be supported by grants, private contributions, and non-profit and corporate donations. To try Open Wonderland, join the open source community, or provide financial support to the Foundation in carrying out its mission of continuing to evolve the Open Wonderland platform, please visit http://OpenWonderland.org.
All Wonderland activity going forward will take place on the Open Wonderland sites. Please update your bookmarks:
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Home-schooled teen uses unusual curriculum to publish first book
Most high school seniors come away from their final English assignments with a grade they hope is good enough to earn a diploma.
Rachael Wardyn finished her high school English class with something a little more tangible than a grade. She published a book.The 18-year-old home-schooled student who lives south of Brady has a 246-page paperback book with her name on it … as the author.
“I guess I would describe myself as a dreamer,” Wardyn says. “I enjoy reading and writing and I also consider myself an artist. Writing, for me, is just another way of making pictures.”
Wardyn started writing short stories with a special friend, Brianna, when she was 10 or 11 years old.
She said they would take a published series and make their own characters.
“She would be the editor,” Wardyn said. “She was more into the structure than the story.”
Wardyn’s love of writing blossomed from there. She has a handful of manuscripts in various stages of the process, in addition to her personal journal and her Facebook blog.
“I enjoy writing about things I’ve learned and instances that have shaped me,” she said.
Her book, “The Black Robin of Ferryn,” came about out of both assignment and amusement.
Becki Wardyn, Rachael’s mother, is an avid reader and writer herself. When the opportunity arose to use an adventure novel as the basis of the English curriculum for her daughter’s senior year, she jumped at the chance.
“I’m a wanna-be writer,” Becki said. “I’ve had a few things published but I’ve never gone to this extent.”
The Wardyns purchased the curriculum, which outlined the process for writing a 12-chapter, first-person novel in one year.
“It was very structured,” Rachael said. “A third of it was structure and the rest mostly writing.”
Rachael said she has always enjoyed fantasies so when the English curriculum required a spur-of-the-moment writing idea, she turned to a computer game and a pirate map.
The main character, Robin, developed over time.
“At first she was more mysterious,” Rachael said. “She was revengeful and not really very human.”
After awhile, though, Rachael was surprised at how much Robin became like herself.
“She seems so brave but on the inside she’s not so much,” she said. “I saw a lot of my own struggles in her, like fear of doing things alone and the pressure of leadership. The whole process was very eye-opening.”
The curriculum model not only led Rachael through the process of writing the book but it also taught her how to put the manuscript into a format to be published.
“After she completed the book for the course, I encouraged her to get it published,” Becki said. “It was a very good story and having it in book form would give her something to show for her work.”
They decided to try and get it done before Rachael’s graduation in May.
After interviewing a self-published author, Rachael decided that would be the way to go.
“The turn-around time was going to work better for us,” she said.
So Rachael chose a photo for the cover, the font for the title, the words for the preface and everything about the book.
Then they sent it off to www.48HrBooks.com.
One thing about self-publishing,” Becki said, “is that it’s your book. Everything about it is yours. You retain all of the rights but you also do all of the work.”
That means it’s up to Rachael to market and sell her book.
Rachael said she feels like people look at her with a whole new level of respect when they learn she has written and published her own book at 18 years old.
The best compliment she has received so far was from an 11-year-old boy at church.
“He told me he stayed up until midnight reading it because it was so good,” she said.
Knowing Rachael and reading her book inspired him to write in his own journal, his mother told her.
Rachael’s next adventure will take her to classes at North Platte Community College where she plans to pursue an associate of arts degree through general studies classes and maybe continuing later in an English field.
“I’ve also looked into photography and drama,” she said. “I like to be in plays but I know I’m not an actress.”
People have asked Rachael if there will be a sequal to “The Black Robin of Ferryn.”
“I have an idea but whether it will turn into another book is yet to be determined,” she said.
There are several other stories floating around in her head, though. Her first is not likely to be her last.
- Consultant retained for Lake Helen City engineer finalizing design
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- ‘Circle of Friends’ said to be successful
- Tiani Reeves leads a group of five Swede state qualifiers
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A new series of classes has been added to this year’s offering of Chinese language programs from the Confucius Institute at Middle Tennessee State University.
For the first time, the institute will provide courses for children of Chinese heritage who speak Chinese as their first or second language on Saturdays beginning Saturday, Jan. 19. Other students with compatible levels of proficiency are also welcome.
Elementary Chinese for children, Level A, will run from 10 a.m. to noon. The Level B elementary class will go from 10:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m.
In addition, three sections of adult beginning Chinese will be offered. Levels A and B-1 will be available Saturdays from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. Level B-2 will be taught Tuesdays from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
The beginning level courses will focus on basic vocabulary, sentence structure and simple conversation. More advanced levels will help students build skills in reading, writing and communication using the language.
Adult intermediate Chinese will be taught from 10:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m., and Adult advanced classes will be taught from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. on Saturdays.
The Confucius Institute also will guide an after-school program that introduces the Chinese language from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays beginning Tuesday, Jan. 22.
Students ages 6-12 will have the opportunity to develop communication skills through formal teaching and fun activities such as songs, crafts and games. The focus will be on basic conversation, entry-level vocabulary and writing.
Tuition for the after-school program is $300 for 30 two-hour sessions with a $15 materials fee for each student. Tuition for all Chinese language courses is $150 for 15 two-hour sessions.
A 50 percent tuition discount is available for MTSU faculty and staff who take adult Chinese languages classes. Children and grandchildren of faculty and staffers may take advantage of a 25 percent tuition reduction.
MTSU students may attend classes for no charge.
Tuition is nonrefundable after the first two sessions for all courses.
For more information, contact the Confucius Institute at 615-494-8696 or visit www.mtsu.edu/cimtsu.
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Free JEE ADV-13 Course
I have a friend's son studying in Kota. Apparently, the institute's teachers praise the child, but I find that his written and spoken English is not good. Does it matter?
written and spoken english are immeterial for iit. they play their best part in campus interviews. once if gets an admission in the iits he can improve his speaking skills. but about the hand writing, after 19 he cant change. so he has to practice it atleast now . ofcourse it is immeterial for jee but in future it plays a pretty part.
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CP <3's 8-bit Art
Today’s Creator feature on Paul B. Davis has got us all nostalgic for the days of 8-bit video game classics like Atari, Pac Man and Super Mario Bros. Artists like Davis have been hacking video games and gaming consoles to make art and music for years now, but even though the grainy, pixelated style is oh-so-retro, there’s something distinctly fresh and new about their updated takes on the familiar graphics and soundtracks of yesteryear (and it’s got everyone from Kanye to the Museum of Modern Art taking notice).
We decided to do a round-up of some of our favorite 8-bit inspired artists and projects. While the assortment of works below has got us yearning for our old Gameboy, we also gotta admit, Nintendo never looked or sounded quite this good:
Super Mario Clouds – Cory Arcangel
Arcangel is one of the best-known and most highly regarded artists of this genre and an early collaborator of Davis’s (in 1998 they founded BEIGE, a programming ensemble together). His piece Super Mario Clouds (above) is his most famous work and features a Super Mario cartridge where everything but the clouds has been erased.
MY DESK IS 8-BIT – Alex Varanese
Ok, so we’re not sure if this video is actually coded or if it’s purely a stop-motion animation composition, but we think that’s kind of the point Varanese was trying to make. Citing both the innovative French director Michel Gondry and the iconic 1980s space-fighter shoot-em-up game R-Type as his influences, Varenese arrives at a style that seamlessly incorporates both.
8-bit City – Brett Camper
This lo-fi web map of New York City is the first in a series of 8-bit inspired city maps from Camper, who recently crowd-funded his project through Kickstarter. Using data from sources like OpenStreetMap, Campter merges the aesthetics of 1980s role-playing and adventure games with today’s GPS technology to create an interactive, Google Maps-like web map that lets you zoom from an aerial view of the city down to street-level anywhere in NYC.
Super Mario Bros. – Andreas Heikaus
Recent college-grad Andreas Heikaus created this CG animated Super Mario Bros. video for his final thesis at the University for Applied Science and Art in Hanover. Heikaus writes that he was inspired by the desire to release the Super Mario game from the limitations of the TV or game console screens and merge it with a new, interactive environment. The result is a work that feels part 8-bit, part street-art. It’s got us all in a frenzy!
Game Glitch Gifs – Max Capacity
We spotted these animated gifs of video game glitches on the Rhizome blog this morning and were instantly charmed by their seizure-inducing commemorations of code gone wrong. I mean, seriously, who doesn’t love to spot a major FAIL and then rub it in the manufacturer’s face by turning it into an art project? Props to you, Max Capacity.
Bit-Pilot – Zach Gage
Lest you think that 8-bit art is relegated only to computer screens and live performance, here’s a game from Zach Gage for your iPhone. Dodge lasers and asteroids in an effort to keep your bit pilot alive to the wonderous chiptunes of Sabrepulse. Seriously, the soundtrack alone is worth your 99 cents.
The Thrill of Combat – Mark Essen
You’ve already met Mark Essen from his Creators Project feature, but in case you missed the memo, this guy is the jam. Essen has been making his own games since high school (which wasn’t all that long ago, he’s only 24) and since then, his play-able video games have been featured in art museums and galleries all over the world. Some of you lucky ones may even get to take a crack at Essen’s “The Thrill of Combat” game at one of our multi-city launch events.
Pixels – Patrick Jean
Chances are you’ve already seen Patrick Jean’s epic Pixels stop-motion short — you know, the one where 8-bit icons from the ‘80s are attacking New York City. The video quickly became an internet sensation after it was posted on YouTube by OneMoreProductions a few months ago. And what’s not to love? Donkey Kong is throwing barrels off the Empire State building, crashing cabs and turning them into a pixel explosion, skyscrapers become Tetris pieces and PacMan eats the NYC Subway map. You can also catch a screening of Jean’s pixelated masterpiece at our upcoming London event.
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Apple is set to expand its environmental concern by teaming up with China’s Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs to audit its Chinese supply chain for pollution. Joint investigations are expected to start “in the next few weeks,” according to one report, with “a maker of printed circuit boards” the first of Apple’s suppliers to enter the spotlight.
All items tagged with "Pollution"
Apple and several Chinese environmentalists met Tuesday to clear the air on disputes over pollution they claim comes from factories supplying the tech giant with much sought-after iPhones and iPads. Following the Beijing meeting, one environmentalist questioned Apple’s sincerity.
Chinese environmental activists are threatening to tarnish Apple’s image unless the tech giant reduces the amount of pollution coming from suppliers in this populous country. Five non-governmental organizations Wednesday released a report charging Apple uses suppliers which take “advantage of the loopholes in developing countries’ environmental management systems.”
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While it has aggressively slammed environmental groups for using foreign dollars to finance a small portion of their budgets, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government is being tight-lipped about revelations that climate change skeptics in Canada are getting money from an American think-tank with corporate funding.
Newly released documents have revealed three Canadians were part of a network of academics receiving monthly payments from the Chicago-based Heartland Institute as part of its advocacy work to cast doubt on scientific evidence linking human activity to global warming observed in recent decades.
Two of the three Canadians mentioned in the internal records have confirmed they were getting paid by the Heartland Institute.
“There’s nothing secret about it,” said Madhav Khandekar, a retired meteorologist based in the Toronto region who was getting about $1,000 per month from the think-tank. “This is a sort of stipend that I get for doing the literature review and providing commentaries on the website. It is posted for people to read.”
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. "Appendix F: Privacy-Related Law and Regulation: The State of the Law and Outstanding Issues." Protecting Individual Privacy in the Struggle Against Terrorists: A Framework for Program Assessment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2008.
The following HTML text is provided to enhance online
readability. Many aspects of typography translate only awkwardly to HTML.
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as the authoritative form to ensure accuracy.
Protecting Individual Privacy in the Struggle Against Terrorists: A Framework for Program Assessment
eral law defines “probable cause” to mean “a belief that an individual is committing, has committed, or is about to commit a particular offense” and that the information sought is germane to that crime.1 The Supreme Court generally requires that the government provide the subject of a search with contemporaneous notice of the search.2
Collecting information from a person constitutes a search if it violates that individual’s reasonable expectation of privacy. The Supreme Court has held that a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy in their homes, sealed letters, and the contents of their telephone calls. On the other hand, the Court has determined, for example, that warrants are not required to search or seize items in the “plain view” of a law enforcement officer,3 for searches that are conducted incidental to valid arrests,4 or to obtain records held by a third party, even if those records are held under a promise of confidentiality.5 The Court has interpreted this last exception broadly to find that the Fourth Amendment is inapplicable to telecommunications “attributes” (e.g., the number dialed, the time the call was placed, the duration of the call, etc.), because that information is necessarily conveyed to, or observable by, third parties involved in connecting the call.6
Moreover, the Fourth Amendment poses no limits on how the government may use information, provided that it has been obtained legally, and some limits on the use of data obtained illegally. Consequently, personal data seized by the government in compliance with the Fourth Amendment may later be used in a context for which the data could not have been obtained lawfully. The rest of this section addresses two important examples of areas in which the evolution of technology and new circumstances suggest that current Fourth Amendment law and practice may be outdated or inadequate.
F.1.2 Machine-Aided Searches
In some ways, machine-aided searching of enormous volumes of digital transaction records is analogous to a general search, especially if those records contain highly sensitive information. Much like a general search in colonial times was not based on specific evidence or limited to a particular person or place, a machine-aided search through digital databases can be very broad.
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Anti-Defamation League Comes Out Against Ground Zero Mosque
So much for religious tolerance.
The Anti-Defamation League has joined the likes of Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Rick Lazio, and a slew of other Conservative protesters in standing against the building of a mosque in the vicinity of the World Trade Center site.
In a statement issued by the Jewish organization, the group claims that while "proponents of the Islamic Center may have every right to build at this site, and may even have chosen the site to send a positive message about Islam," it is ultimately "not a question of rights, but a question of what is right."
Moreover, despite "the bigotry some have expressed in attacking" those behind the building of the mosque (which the ADL deems "unfair" and "wrong"), it is their judgment that "building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain - unnecessarily - and that is not right."
As Tablet's Marc Tracy puts it:
Founded in 1913, the ADL, in its words, "fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects civil rights for all." Except when it does the precise opposite.
Read on for the full release:
We regard freedom of religion as a cornerstone of the American democracy, and that freedom must include the right of all Americans - Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and other faiths - to build community centers and houses of worship.
We categorically reject appeals to bigotry on the basis of religion, and condemn those whose opposition to this proposed Islamic Center is a manifestation of such bigotry.
However, there are understandably strong passions and keen sensitivities surrounding the World Trade Center site. We are ever mindful of the tragedy which befell our nation there, the pain we all still feel - and especially the anguish of the families and friends of those who were killed on September 11, 2001.
The controversy which has emerged regarding the building of an Islamic Center at this location is counterproductive to the healing process. Therefore, under these unique circumstances, we believe the City of New York would be better served if an alternative location could be found.
In recommending that a different location be found for the Islamic Center, we are mindful that some legitimate questions have been raised about who is providing the funding to build it, and what connections, if any, its leaders might have with groups whose ideologies stand in contradiction to our shared values. These questions deserve a response, and we hope those backing the project will be transparent and forthcoming. But regardless of how they respond, the issue at stake is a broader one.
Proponents of the Islamic Center may have every right to build at this site, and may even have chosen the site to send a positive message about Islam. The bigotry some have expressed in attacking them is unfair, and wrong. But ultimately this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right. In our judgment, building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain - unnecessarily - and that is not right.
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Arctic sea ice is near its annual low extent for the year. Will it reach a new record low? While many people are watching this year’s ice extent closely, the effect of climate change on ice extent in a single year is different than its effect in the long term. Arctic sea ice has declined more than 30 percent in summer since satellite measurements started in 1979. But from year to year, ice extent jumps up and down quite a lot.
Scientists now believe that the already-weakened ice cover was pushed to a record low ice extent in September 2007 by a perfect storm of conditions: persistent weather patterns that favored ice loss combined with thinner and therefore more vulnerable sea ice. Just how much of the recent Arctic ice loss was caused by persistent weather conditions, and how much is because of climate change resulting from increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere?
A recent study from Jennifer Kay and colleagues at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, helps answer that question. The team used a computer climate model called the Community Climate System Model (CCSM4) to study how much natural variability and human-caused climate change contribute to changes in sea ice. Kay said, “We found that observed Arctic sea ice loss during the satellite era cannot be explained by natural causes alone. That’s consistent with previous studies. But we were surprised to see so much variability in the sea ice trends in our simulations.”
The study showed that approximately half of the decline in Arctic sea ice from 1979 to 2005 could be blamed on increased greenhouse gases: increasing air temperatures thinned the ice pack over many seasons, leading to other changes like more open water and a warmer ocean surface that promote even more melt. But the other half of that decline resulted from variability that is a part of the climate system, such as changes in wind patterns. That means that even in a warming world persistent periods of weather that encourage ice growth—cold temperatures or ice-spreading winds—could cause the ice to expand for a few years before declining again..
Researchers often use models to study climate change to see how complex factors work together. The CCSM4 model that Kay and her colleagues used includes atmospheric, land, and ocean processes that all interact, allowing the researchers to run experiments that can simulate how sea ice behaves. Kay said, “Models let us replay the 20th century multiple times to quantify the relative contributions of climate variability and greenhouse gas increases to observed and modeled hemispheric sea ice trends.”
The new study suggests that inherent variability in sea ice extent will make it impossible for scientists to predict exactly when the Arctic will lose its ice. “What happens on short timescales depends a lot on inherent variability that may be impossible to predict,” said Kay. But in the long term, the influence of climate change means that sea ice will continue to decline. Kay said, “There is no escaping that we will see an Arctic with no summer sea ice this century if we continue to rapidly increase greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.”
Kay, J. E., M. M. Holland, and A. Jahn. 2011. Inter-annual to multi-decadal Arctic sea ice extent trends in a warming world, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L15708, doi:10.1029/2011GL048008.
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With Congress hostile to cap and trade and most other ideas for slowing, let alone rolling back, global warming, it will be difficult for him to do what's necessary.
Let's get one thing out of the way: No president, and no country, can stop global warming single-handedly. Even slowing it is tough. President Barack Obama isn't going to halt the rise of the oceans in his second term. And with Congress hostile to cap and trade and most other ideas for slowing, let alone rolling back, global warming, it will be difficult for him to do what's necessary.
The planet, of course, isn't interested in excuses, not when the Arctic is turning free of summer sea ice some 50 years ahead of schedule. If Obama wants to make real progress, he's going to need to use every rhetorical skill in the playbook to tell Americans that this issue matters for their lives. And he's going to need to get creative.
The president can start by setting an example in his own house, quite literally. Based on Executive Order 13514, signed in October 2009, Obama established a 28 percent emissions-reduction goal for the federal government by 2020.
While working toward this goal, the administration should take the opportunity to implement a tried-and-true market approach: Follow the lead of some big corporations like Microsoft and make each part of the government financially accountable for its greenhouse gas emissions by putting a price on carbon dioxide - at least the roughly $20 per ton established by the federal government's own interagency working group as the single best value. That would allow the government to meet its overall target the most cost-effective way possible.
Why would that work? Look no further than a few feet from Obama's doorstep. In 2010, the city of Washington imposed a 5-cent fee on disposable bags - and it has worked, cutting their use by 80 percent within a year by some estimates. (Ireland's 15-euro-cent fee introduced in 2002 slashed bag use more than 90 percent - a billion bags a year.) It teaches a valuable economics lesson: Incentives get results.
But barring a deal with Congress - not to mention a global climate deal with real teeth - that could make such smart incentives possible, how can Obama achieve the maximum amount of overall carbon reductions? It turns out he has many ways to make a real and appreciable difference.
Obama should look to the time-tested Clean Air Act of 1970 and its 1990 amendments, both passed with large bipartisan majorities and signed into law by Republican presidents. The 1990 amendments gave the country cap and trade for sulfur dioxide, a resounding success story that started to combat acid rain - in record time and under budget. He ought to use the Clean Air Act to reduce carbon dioxide as well. The president's legal authority on that is clear.
In 2007, the Supreme Court, ruling against a then-reluctant Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), found that carbon dioxide is indeed an air pollutant. In 2009, the EPA determined carbon was dangerous enough to require regulation under the Clean Air Act, a decision since affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
If Congress refuses to act, Obama ought to spur the EPA's regulatory efforts. These fall chiefly into three areas: transportation, power plants and other stationary sources, and methane leakage.
During his first term, the EPA strengthened greenhouse gas and fuel-economy standards for cars to achieve a fleetwide average of 54.5 miles per gallon by model year 2025 - nearly doubling the number of miles the average car can go on a gallon of fuel. Obama ought to build on that to decrease carbon pollution from transportation more broadly, beginning with vehicles ranging from 18-wheelers to commercial delivery trucks.
Power plants pollute even more than cars, and new standards for plants, especially existing ones, could deliver even more climate benefits. Newly cheap natural gas extracted from shale formations is already making new coal plants uneconomic. Continually strengthened Clean Air Act standards could show that natural gas is truly a bridge to a cleaner energy future, not a way to get addicted to yet another fossil fuel.
Natural gas, of course, is no panacea. It produces half as much carbon dioxide as coal when burned, but natural gas is mostly methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, especially in the short term - decades rather than centuries. Getting methane leakage under control is essential. If too much leaks from the supply chain, whatever advantage natural gas has over coal could be erased. Without going to Capitol Hill, Obama can further tighten methane-leakage standards to ensure the shale gas revolution does, in fact, decrease the power sector's global warming impact.
Obama's climate policy has been lucky as much as it has been good. Through a combination of cheap natural gas, increased use of the Clean Air Act, and state action, the United States is almost on track to achieving Obama's declared goal of decreasing carbon emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. Achieving that goal, however, won't happen automatically. It will require using the Clean Air Act to rein in the worst offenders. Moreover, Obama's long-term goal of reducing emissions 83 percent below 2005 levels by 2050 cannot be met by executive action alone.
How can he do it? The most effective way of tackling carbon pollution is to enlist market forces on a grand scale by putting a price or a direct cap on carbon. Congress would set limits on overall emissions and then get out of the way, letting businesses and entrepreneurs figure out the best and cheapest way of avoiding emissions. California can help set the right example with its comprehensive cap-and-trade system - the same approach that has done wonders for decreasing acid rain.
But until that long-delayed moment when Congress becomes ready to follow the president's lead, relying on existing law will have to do.
Gernot Wagner, author of "But Will the Planet Notice?: How Smart Economics Can Save the World," is an economist at the Environmental Defense Fund.
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As the dollar has hardened almost 25 per cent from about Rs 45 a year ago to Rs 56 levels, the country’s import-dependent defence is taking a hit. The 13.15 per cent rise in the latest defence budget — from Rs 1,70,937 crore last year to Rs 1,93,407 crore for 2012-13 — has been wiped out and more. The picture is even bleaker when inflation is factored in, which runs at about 15 per cent annually for defence equipment.
The damage extends to the Indian defence industry, which even in ‘indigenous’ weaponry uses a substantial share of foreign components and systems, ranging 30-70 per cent. Until last year, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) sheltered the defence public sector — which includes eight defence public sector undertakings (DPSUs) and 39 Ordnance Factories (OFs) — through a mechanism called foreign exchange rate variation (FERV), which adjusted their income to cover forex fluctuations. In contrast, the private sector has stood exposed to foreign exchange risk.
Consequently, many private players stare at unexpected losses. Take Larsen & Toubro (L&T), which won a Rs 1,000-crore contract in March 2010 to build 36 fast interceptor craft for the Indian Coast Guard. These are 110-tonne patrol and rescue vessels propelled by water jets at a scorching 44 knots (81 kilometres per hour). L&T says about 40 per cent of the vessel is imported, including the engine and the water jets. Given a profit margin of 10 per cent, the L&T quote catered for a forex component of Rs 360 crore. Given the rupee’s fall, that forex component has risen to Rs 445 crore today. L&T says it is struggling to break even on this contract.
Or take the Bangalore-based Alpha Design Technologies Ltd, which won a Rs 48-crore contract last September to build target designators for the air force, laser beams that “light up” a target, allowing a laser-detecting aircraft bomb to ride the reflected beam to the target for a pinpoint strike. When Alpha submitted its bid in November 2010, the dollar was worth Rs 44.37; now it is 25 per cent higher. Given that 70 per cent of the target designator is imported, Alpha faces a substantial loss.
“We were competing against DPSUs like Bharat Electronics Ltd, which the MoD covered against FERV risks. With profit margins in defence electronics barely five per cent, how could we afford forex hedging?” asks Colonel H S Shankar, CMD of Alpha.
Industry sources tell Business Standard that forex hedging costs were about six per cent annually, when the rupee was stable. A three-year hedge, essential given the time taken for discharging defence contracts, would have cost 17-18 per cent. With the rupee depreciating, a three-year hedge will cost a vendor 30 per cent.
“With the rupee nose-diving, quoting for fixed price contracts has become extremely risky without hedging at a high cost. Imagine the plight of Indian bidders when competing for Indian defence contracts against foreign companies who are anyway automatically protected,” says M V Kotwal, president (heavy engineering), L&T.
The private sector has asked industry bodies, CII and Ficci, to approach the MoD for protection. Business Standard has learnt that Ficci will be considering the issue at its National Executive meeting on May 29. So far, the MoD has been unsympathetic. L&T’s Kotwal says private sector companies had asked the MoD to treat them on a par with the DPSUs, which enjoyed FERV protection. The government acceded to that request in the latest Defence Procurement Procedure of 2011 (DPP-2011), but not in the manner requested. “Instead of allowing FERV for the private sector, DPP-2011 denied it to both the public and the private sector!” says Kotwal.
In fact, DPP-2011 shelters Indian vendors from FERV in global contracts, i.e. when an Indian company competes and wins in an international tender. However, FERV shelter is disallowed in the contract categories of ‘Buy (Indian)’; ‘Buy & Make (Indian)’; and ‘Make’ categories, which are open to Indian companies alone. The only exception is for DPSUs, when the MoD nominates them as the source for procurement or production.
CEOs of defence manufacturers point out they already absorb significant risks, including potential fluctuations in commodity prices, especially aluminium and steel. But, they say it is unfair to expect them to cater for rupee fluctuations that stem from the government’s macroeconomic policies.
“When the government buys from a foreign arms vendor it absorbs the forex risk, but it wants fledgling Indian defence manufacturers to absorb that risk themselves. The private defence industry is just learning how to walk; it cannot yet carry the forex risk. If the MoD is serious about building a private defence industry, it should not transfer forex risk to us,” says Rahul Chaudhary, CEO of Tata Power (Strategic Electronics Division).
Across the defence sector, there is recognition the ongoing forex-related turmoil is rooted substantially in the MoD’s inability to develop manufacturing capabilities in the materials, components and sub-systems that go into modern weapons systems.
“India has successfully integrated high-tech weaponry like the Tejas light combat aircraft; the Arjun tank; even a nuclear submarine. But as long as the MoD does not build capability in basic components that the country continues to import -- such as Very Large Scale Integrated (VLSI) chips and image-intensifier tubes and thermal imaging detectors for night vision devices -- even these indigenous programmes carry extensive forex risk,” says Major Karun Khanna, advisor to Alpha Design Technologies.
The rupee depreciation has also affected capital procurement from foreign vendors. Says KPMG’s defence analyst, Neelu Khatri, “The capital budget allocation of Rs 79,579 crore in April was worth $15.6 billion then; today it is worth just $14.22 billion. An effective cut of $1.42 billion means a nine per cent procurement cut for a nation that is heavily dependent on imports and already suffering an alarming rate of equipment obsolescence.”
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Today is Back Up Your Birth Control Day which is a day centered on educating folks about and raising awareness of Emergency Contraception.
So let’s get our learn on!
Emergency Contraception (EC) otherwise known as “the morning after pill” is a safe and effective way to help prevent pregnancy AFTER unprotected sex or birth control failure.
As a woman who volunteers with pregnant teens and homeless mothers I take this issue very seriously. EC is a part of choice and we’re going to have to fight to keep EC available…to educate the public about it…and to protect our right to use it.
EC is available without a prescription for women 18 years and older and can be obtained at the pharmacy. Women younger than 18 will need a prescription from their doctor or other heath care provider. Visit www.IneedEC.info for information.
We must be prepared to fight for the right of all women to be informed of this option when being counseled after rape. The victims of rape now have the option to prevent conception…the ability to take back that measure of power and control over their body…the blessing of not having to wait days or weeks to confirm their pregnancy status when they are already burden with test results to confirm all manner of other things.
I have met women who would have and I have met women who would not have taken EC after rape. All women deserved the respect and dignity of that choice.
EC is a higher dosage of the same hormones found in birth control pills.
We must be prepared to protect this choice the participants in “oh shit, it broke” incidents or the unfortunate attempt at the withdrawal method. I’ve witnessed all of the sad ramifications of a culture dedicated to raising young people in a state of reproductive ignorance and eager to punish them when they act based on what little they do know.
EC - when used within 5 days of unprotected sex - can significantly reduce the risk of unintended pregnancy.
Yes, we must fight for the protected right of all women to have this option. The young women I meet who knew that they will be kicked out of their home for “coming up pregnant”. The women who tell me how they wish there had been some other way.
There are safe and legal choices that empower rather than punish and we must be prepared to protect and defend them.
EC is NOT the same thing as Mifeprex or RU-486. EC will not terminate an existing pregnancy. EC will not work if a woman is already pregnant.
So, a bitch encourages y’all to get your learn on.
Educate others in your family, friendship circles and community.
Plan B® is the name of the "dedicated" EC product on the market. Plan B is available to women 18 and older and can be obtained from a pharmacist. Women younger than 18 need a prescription from their doctor or other heath care provider.
Knowledge has been, is now and forever will be power.
Which is why they fear it.
And why we must continue to seek it.
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A light bulb was a device that uses an electrical current to produce light. Various types of light bulbs did this in different ways.
On Earth it was invented by Thomas Edison, but seemingly identical technology also existed on other planets, for example Ekos.
In an alternate 1944, Trip Tucker managed to escape Nazi captivity by smashing a light bulb, and using the glas shards to cut the ropes around his wrists. (ENT: "Storm Front, Part II")
Contrary to popular expectation, the Y2K bug did not turn out a single light bulb on new year's eve 2000. (VOY: "11:59")
In 2151, Jonathan Archer complained that you can't just yank out an antimatter injector as if it was merely a light bulb. (ENT: "Acquisition")
In 2268, Spock managed to utilize and Ekosian light bulb and a piece of Rubindium to create a primitive laser. (TOS: "Patterns of Force")
Vic Fontaine once referred to himself as a light bulb, albeit one with "pretty sweet pipes", acknowledging the fact that, as a hologram, he was little more than photons and force fields. Doctor Bashir's friends were surprised that Fontaine was a self-aware hologram, something they had never seen before. (DS9: "His Way")
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The purpose of this study is to present a philosophical analysis of the justice of contemporary Zionism as realized by the State of Israel, including Israel's territorial and demographic aspirations and the way it conceives of itself as a Jewish state. Specifically, I will examine the justice of contemporary Zionism in the light of the gap between a particular version of Zionist ideology that oculd be considered just and the situation today, which is a consequence of both current Israeli policies and the Zionist past. I will mainly focus on three components of this situation: the Palestinian refugee problem...; the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip...; and the policies of the State of Israel toward the Arab minority living within Israel's pre-1967 borders.What Gans does in the book is to attempt to establish what is morally defensible and and reasonable about Zionism, and then compare it with the principles and policies of the Zionist state founded in 1948. Thus, for example, he argues from a liberal Zionist perspective in chapter one that the Jews constitute a people with a legitimate claim to national self-determination and self-rule -- but that this does not confer on them automatically a right to Jewish hegemony in a Jewish nation-state. Such a hegemony is only justifiable "circumstantially" and only applies to restricted domains of demography and security, and then in much more limited ways than implemented now. Nor must there always be a need for a Jewish nation-state in order to realize Jewish self-determination. While Gans defends some of the special considerations that the Jewish state gives to its Jewish citizens, for example, in the sphere of immigration, he sharply restricts these special considerations and declares them in principle undesirable as permanent policies. Most of the time he picks apart the classic arguments used by liberal Zionists to defend Zionist policies of preference and discrimination. Those passages are, of course, my favorite parts of the book. One final word: on the back cover there are two blurbs, one by American Jewish political thinker, Michael Walzer, and the other by Israeli philosopher, Avishai Margalit, both liberal Zionists. Margalit praises Gans' fairness; Walzer, Gans' meticulous presention of the arguments. Neither endorse the positions taken by the author, and I think that this is significant. It is a pleasure to read a book where, agree with the thesis or not, one can admire the intelligence and the moral sensitivity of the author. Criticisms will follow.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Chaim Gans' "A Just Zionism: On the Morality of the Jewish State"
I have in my hands -- well, next to my computer -- not only one of the most interesting books ever written about the morality of political Zionism (and the morality of Israel's policies), but one of the most sensible and sensitive books ever written about Israel and Palestine. Although I don't agree with many of the author's arguments or conclusions -- he still cuts political Zionism and Israel too much slack, in my opinion -- I have no hesitation in giving him and his book a moral "heksher"/seal of approval. In A Just Zionism: On the Morality of the Jewish State (2008, Oxford University Press), Tel-Aviv University law professor and moral philosopher Chaim Gans presents a defence -- albeit a limited one, as we shall see -- of the right of the State of Israel to continue to exist as it was founded, and of some of Israel's controversial laws and policies, e.g., the law of return. His arguments position him to the the left of the Israeli-Jewish consensus (including much of the Meretz party), but to the right of the post-Zionist crowd. Gans is a liberal nationalist, that is, he believes that nationalism is defensible because a common national heritage has great possibilities for enriching the lives and identities of individuals in a liberal state. So if you're a post- or anti-nationalist, this book is not for you. In fact, what I like about most about the book it that is assumes, for the sake of argument, the truth of the Zionist narrative of Jewish history and the legitimacy of liberal nationalism. The author then explores what justifiably follows from such assumptions. And his answers will not make make most Israel advocates happy, those who, like most of us, are content with fallacious and self-serving moral arguments. Because of its importance I plan to discuss the book in a series of posts. I have also put a widget on the right side of the page for the convenience of people who want to buy the book. Let me say this upfront: if you are reading this blog, you should read Gans' book. And that includes anti-Zionists, non-Zionists, and ultra-rightwing Zionists. The only people who shouldn't read the book are those who don't like to follow, or can't follow, a philosophical argument, or those who don't care to read anything written by an Israeli. Whatever pennies I get from Amazon Associates I will donate to leftwing Israel-Palestine causes, so if you are a rightwinger, you may want to get the book directly from Amazon. Here are some lines from the Introduction:
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Henry and the Bully
When a bully starts stealing Henry’s soccer ball at recess, the little mouse doesn’t know what to do. He tries to ask his teacher for help, and his mom, too. But soon Henry realizes he’s got to find his own way to solve his bully problem.
Classroom favorite Nancy Carlson encourages young readers to use creativity and empathy to tackle one of school’s toughest challenges.
To keep up-to-date, input your email address, and we will contact you on publication
Please alert me via email when:
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“World Enough & Time: On Creativity and Slowing Down" by Christian McEwen (Bauhan Publishing, $22.95)
A fine Christmas gift would be one that beckons you to incorporate the gentler holiday spirit into the rest of the year. Christian McEwen’s remarkable “World Enough & Time: On Creativity and Slowing Down" demands to be read slowly, savored and then allowed to simmer quietly in the soul.
Having acquired a small army of loyalists, both in the United States and abroad, it has just gone into its third printing. The wonder of this book lies not in its new truths, but rather in its eclectic and quirky re-invention of timeless truths.
While McEwen ties her central focus — “hurry sickness" — to texting, email, the Internet and other digital diseases of our age, her book shows that creative men and women have been rebelling against hyper- accelerated lives for centuries. The most concise summary of “World Enough" comes from Socrates, the ancient philosopher who McEwen notes approvingly warned his fellow Greeks: “Beware the barrenness of a busy life."
Lauding nature and “childhood’s golden hours," McEwen often echoes the anti-technological notes of American transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. But what elevates her book, beyond its rich thought and lush writing, is her emphasis that you don’t need to become a hermit fleeing to a cabin on a pond in order to find a more meaningful life.
With her gift for making connections over time across literary, religious and cultural traditions, McEwen insists that pursuing seemingly impractical interests such as reading or walking, daydreaming or gazing, can produce important practical gains.
“Wordsworth was read by Thoreau who was read by John Muir who in turn was read by Theodore Roosevelt, leading him to write the bills that inaugurated the National Park system," she writes.
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Observations on nature and gardening from an Carolina wildlife gardener
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Colorful winter vegetables
I'm adapting a program about creative and attractive vegetable gardening to focus on urban vegetable gardening (for a talk next week) and came across a photo I took of a mid-winter vegetable planting last December. Impressive, partially because there hadn't a long hard period of freezing temperatures.
Our gardens (in the piedmont of SC and the mountains of NC) are increasingly home to native plants, birds, small mammals, and insects of all sorts. My gardening companion (my husband) is equally the gardener in our gardens. Woody, our rescue Golden, is now putting his own stamp on our gardens. He follows his previous fellow goldens (and my former gardening assistants): Mocha and Chessie. They bring life to our gardens.
I reduce the sizes of most images, but they're still bigger than what's seen on the blog (click to enlarge!)
Text and images are my original work, except where credited elsewhere and protected by copyright.
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Clinton to leave China for Bangladesh cauldron
DHAKA: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton leaves a diplomatic crisis in China for a difficult mission in Bangladesh on Saturday where violence and a crackdown on the opposition threaten new instability.
Clinton, set to sign a new partnership agreement, is the first US secretary of state to visit Bangladesh since Colin Powell in 2003 amid chronic political infighting in the world’s third largest Muslim-majority country.
The last few weeks have seen rallies and strikes over the disappearance of regional opposition figure Ilias Ali in mid-April, who supporters say was abducted by security forces. Four people have died in the unrest.
Following a rally in the capital last weekend and a series of explosions at a government building complex, police have since charged and arrested a number of senior figures from the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
A US official said that Clinton would meet Saturday with both Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and BNP leader Khaleda Zia, who have dominated Bangladesh’s politics for decades and whose mutual dislike is as intense as it is personal.
The official said Clinton would promote democracy and good governance but look to broader interests with Bangladesh, a US partner in counter-terrorism efforts and the world’s largest contributor to UN peacekeeping.
“Secretary Clinton’s trip is an opportunity to take the bilateral relationship to a new level with this moderate, tolerant, democratic, Muslim-majority nation that offers a viable alternative to violent extremism,” the State Department official said on customary condition of anonymity.
Bangladesh is “a voice for regional stability in a troubled region,” the official said.
Analyst Manzur Hasan, a professor of Brac University in Dhaka, believes Clinton will press Hasina over governance problems in the notoriously corrupt and politically unstable country.
“She is arriving at an awkward moment in a situation of political turmoil when the country is facing some serious issues and difficulties because of the return of the confrontational politics and street protests,” he told AFP.
Recent problems for Muhammad Yunus, Bangladesh’s only Nobel peace prize winner and a personal friend of Clinton and her husband Bill, will be another thorny issue for the secretary of state to address in her meetings.
Yunus was forced out of his ground-breaking micro-credit bank last year and has since claimed he is the victim of a vendetta that will result in the government seizing his empire of social businesses aimed at alleviating poverty. Clinton will meet Yunus on Sunday, the US official said.
In Dhaka, the government has talked up Clinton’s visit as an event that will take ties to “a new height”.
“It will be a new beginning of bilateral relations between the two countries,” Foreign Minister Dipu Moni said on Thursday.
“Her visit is extremely important for Bangladesh.” Moni told reporters Dhaka would press for lower tariffs on its exports to the US, its largest market, and the two nations were in the final stage of signing an agreement to boost economic ties.
Gowher Rizvi, international affairs adviser to the Bangladeshi prime minister, told AFP the partnership dialogue would be “similar to the ones the US have with India and China”.
Clinton’s trip to China has been overshadowed by a row over blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng who fled to the US embassy last week.
US officials said Friday that Beijing had agreed to let Chen leave for the United States, after a controversial initial deal under which the activist left US protection with promises for his safety inside China.
Clinton is due to leave Dhaka on Sunday for the eastern Indian city of Kolkata and then proceed to New Delhi for talks on expanding an alliance that has grown in its importance but is widely seen as having failed to blossom.
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I spent quite a few years in the mid-90s trying to get Kano established as a
basic analytical framework for designers (product designers, in those days).
I believe that Kano and Six Sigma are essentially a bunch of great
principles that have been tied into over-prescriptive methodologies (as Ji
mentioned in his post). If you can (although I doubt that you will be able
to!) stick to the principles and ditch the prescriptions.
For anyone interested in the principles of Kano, here's a summary (there's a
couple of pages on the subject in my '95 book Product Design ISBN
Dr Noriaki Kano suggested that perceived quality of a product/system was
determined by three sets of user needs: 'Basic', 'performance' and
Basic needs are unspoken (latent) needs. Users don't tell you about them
when asked. They are the underlying expectations about what the
product/system will offer and hence are taken for granted. When you buy a
car, you expect it to have wheels. Ask any buyer what they are looking for
in a new car, however, and they are unlikely to mention that it needs to
have wheels! This may seem obvious but a friend of mine was caught out on
this a couple of months ago - they bought an budget all-in-one TV and VCR
only to find when they got it home that it couldn't record on one channel
whilst playing a different channel. For him, this had been a latent, basic
need. The dynamics of basic needs are that they lead to dissatisfaction when
not met but don't lead to any positive sense of satisfaction when met.
Performance needs are spoken (manifest) needs. These relate to the range of
features that are recognised as current differentiators in the marketplace -
the more of these features that any one product offers the higher
'performance' it is seen to have. In mobile phones at present, the
performance factors include downloadable games/ringtones, built-in camera,
email/web access, tri-band etc. The dynamics of performance needs is that
they are additive and move perception of quality from dissatisfaction (this
product/system has a below-average set of features) to satisfaction.
Excitement needs are unspoken (latent) needs. They are what the user doesn't
know they need but are excited by when they see it. They are the 'spark' or
the 'factor X' that good design can add to a new product/service. The
classic example was the Sony Walkman - the market research found nothing to
suggest that customers wanted such a product - but when customers saw it
they fell in love with it. The dynamics of excitement needs is that failure
to meet these needs causes no dissatisfaction but meeting an excitement need
causes ... well excitement - and often higher levels of satisfaction that
any number of accumulated performance needs.
One final thing to note is the dynamic nature of users' perception of needs.
An excitement factor is only exciting once. Once it is out there in the
marketplace, it becomes a performance need and is balanced against all the
other performance needs. After a while, performance needs can become basic
needs - in the 1950s one of the great excitement factors in televisions was
the introduction of colour screens. Now, colour TV is a basic need.
I think these are robust but simple ideas that have great potential value as
a conceptual framework for interaction design; but I've also seen some
hideously complicated and very restrictive methodologies that have attempted
to implement them.
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If there were one guiding principle that encapsulated all pragmatic optimists, it would simply be: “judge your worth not by what you own, but by what you create”…In my travels documenting and working with a number of these individuals I’ve observed number of core principles they all seem to share, and they’re principles any of us can adopt:
- Have an unashamed optimism of ambition. (Don’t feel embarrassed to say that things can be better. Have no qualms about imagining an improved world and advocating for it, no matter how much derision you may receive at the hands of the cynical.)
- Engage in projects that are bigger than you are. (“Find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it.”)
- Your ideas are for sharing, not protecting. (Pragmatic optimists happily let their ideas go out dating.)
- Making mistakes is OK, but not trying is irresponsible.
- You’re defined by what you do, not by what you intend to do. (Pragmatic optimists aren’t interested in what you might do if you had more time, or if your manager was more understanding, or if you were the manager, or if it was next week. You are what you do. That’s it. Get on with it.) [Read more...]
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Locally United Towards Helping Calgarians Live More Fulfilling, Sustainable Lives
In July of 2010 Community Natural Foods was excited to announce their new partnership with Green Calgary and as a major sponsor of the Healthy Homes Calgary program.
Green Calgary’s Healthy Homes program aims to improve personal health, build community resilience, and reduce pressure on the natural environment.
Community Natural Foods is Calgary’s original natural and organic market. They are committed to providing Calgarians with unrefined organic foods, natural nutritional supplements and sustainable lifestyle products dedicated to encouraging our community to live a healthier, more natural life, conscious of our planet’s well being.
As a major sponsor of the Healthy Homes Calgary program, Community Natural Foods is excited to embark on a collaborative journey with Green Calgary to support interested Calgarians in making real, meaningful lifestyle changes.
With Healthy Homes’ emphasis on making connections between actions taken in the home and how they impact the larger community of life, like-minded Community Natural Foods hopes to inspire Calgarians to know what’s in their food and where it comes from. By helping Calgarians eat a more wholesome, local, and organic diet, Community Natural Foods supports the health and vitality of this beautiful earth we all share.
If you are interested in signing up for a Healthy Homes visit please follow this link for more details and to sign up: Your Healthy Homes and Community
To read more on Green Calgary and Healthy Home Tips click here
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Parents who allow their children to stay on their employer-based health insurance plans until the age of 26 will see their health insurance premiums go up nearly 1% next year, HHS announced in an interim final rule
The rulemaking instructs employers and insurers on how to carry out this benefit, which officially begins on Sept. 23, although most insurance plans are allowing uninsured young adults to join their parents' health plan ahead of that deadline
According to HHS, the new benefit will cost $3,380 for each dependent, which will raise premiums by 0.7% in 2011 for employer plans. Premiums are also expected to rise by 1% and 1.2%, respectively in 2012 and 2013, although HHS expects the actual increase across the entire individual market will be smaller than these estimates.
In her blog, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the slight premium increases are worth it and that graduating seniors and their families will get “added security in exchange for premiums that are only expected to rise by .7%.”
It's not a bad deal for insurance companies or employers either, Sebelius wrote. “Insurers will save the administrative costs that would have added up as they dropped people in May only to sign them back up in September. And businesses have already been notified that the tax exclusion for employer health benefits will apply to all the young adults who choose to stay on their parents' plans.”
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FEW Greeks have a good word to say about the European banking system these days. They believe it’s the real reason for their current crisis, having pushed easy money on their politicians and now demanding a pound of financial flesh.
It was the same story 800 years ago. The men of the Fourth Crusade, who had originally set off to fight for Christianity in the Holy Land, found themselves instead ransacking Constantinople, the capital of the Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire, because of enormous debts that had been racked up in the West.
The way Europe has behaved over the current Greek crisis is scarcely less shameful than the way those crusaders behaved all those centuries ago. If nothing else, that dark spot on the West’s historical record should be a warning to the bankers and politicians who would rather watch Greece fall apart than take responsibility for their own profligacy.
Greece may be on Europe’s periphery today, but in the 12th century Constantinople was the gateway to a lucrative trade in spices, silks and luxury goods coming from the east. This trade had made fortunes for men across Europe — as the economies of Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy have done over the last two decades.
Traders from places like Venice, Genoa and Pisa in the late 12th century managed to win for themselves the sort of advantages and loopholes in Constantinople that bright young fund managers would kill for today: they negotiated positions that allowed them to undercut local traders, alongside smart commercial treaties that let them minimize or even sidestep their taxes. As with modern Greece, this led to a flow of cheap foreign capital into the markets.
Around 1200, though, things went sour. A sharp contraction of trade in the Byzantine Empire was exacerbated by wild overspending by Venice, the medieval equivalent of a European central bank.
Almost overnight there was a switch from the easy money, where everyone was a winner, to the dark arts of debt collecting. As with Athens since the financial crisis took hold, it became clear that no one would take responsibility for lending too much, for basing forecasts on only best-case scenarios.
Someone would have to cover the losses, and Venetian merchants were adamant that it would not be them. Constantinople and the Greek-speaking empire, riven by internal divisions, was the obvious mark.
Eventually, one of the rival factions in Constantinople offered a deal with Venice: in exchange for covering the Most Serene Republic’s losses, the faction would receive Venetian military muscle to secure its claim on the Byzantine throne. Venice jumped at the deal.
But Constantinople had vastly underestimated the size of its new debt obligations — and overestimated the stabilizing effect of Venetian arms. Financial obligations mounted abroad, while political paralysis deepened at home.
Everyone from the pope to the kings of Europe knew about the pressure building against Constantinople. One Western delegation after another told the Greeks to get their act together — or, to put it more bluntly, to pay up. The crusaders, under the sway of Venice, lay siege to the city.
Eventually, the Westerners had enough of the procrastination. Seizing their chance, the knights stormed Constantinople. What happened next was a disgrace: the prize assets of the empire were looted at will, seized as collateral by a mob that behaved with no concern for the city’s inhabitants, its culture or its history.
According to one account, prostitutes danced on the altar of St. Sophia, the most beautiful church in the whole of Christendom. Palaces, gardens and holy places were ransacked, with treasures taken off by the cartload. The great collections of relics held in the imperial capital were seized by the Westerners to adorn cathedrals and churches across Western Europe; to this day four bronze horses, stolen from the hippodrome of Constantinople, stand atop the Cathedral of St. Mark in Venice.
Judging the Greeks fiscally and politically incompetent, the conquerors appointed a regent. Baldwin of Flanders, crowned emperor of Constantinople in 1204, was a classic I.M.F.-style appointee: a safe pair of hands, someone with whom other Western leaders could do business.
Meanwhile, the noblemen leading the Crusade, many of whom had brought ruin in the first place with their reckless promises, took control of whole areas of the city and empire for themselves — a classic case of getting in at rock bottom. (So keep an eye on those bankers and their villas in the Aegean; you don’t need to be a historian to know it is a buyers’ market.) The new Latin Empire of Constantinople lasted just 50 years before the Greeks returned to power.
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Hippocrates was right on the money when he said “let food be thy medicine”. We know that what we put in our bodies is responsible (at least in part) for how we feel, and that how we raise and prepare our food is responsible for the state of the environment. But how do we go about lessening our “global footprint” on the earth while eating foods that are both nourishing and satisfying?
Increasing your intake of organic fruits and veggies with vegetarian, vegan, or raw meals is a great way to start. You don’t have to be a full-time vegetarian to reap the benefits either. Reducing the amount of pre-packaged foods and animal products that you eat is far easier on the earth and your body. The only question left then is, will I enjoy the taste? You better believe it! In a hands-on cooking class designed for beginners and budding chefs alike, you’ll learn to make delicious plant-based meals that will impress and satiate everyone. After the courses you will understand the basics of creating fast, healthy, yummy recipes, allowing you to align your diet with your green ideals. An excellent gift for yourself or anyone who wants to eat better and feel better.
Raw Cuisine (L.A. or Miami) $270-370
Vegetarian Cooking (L.A.or O.C.) $305
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County minimum wage ordinance squeaks by
The Bernalillo County Commission has approved a measure boosting the pay of those earning minimum wage in Bernalillo County. County commissioners voted 3 to 2 to raise the minimum wage to $8.50 an hour; workers earning the state’s minimum wage are currently paid $7.50 an hour. The commissioners voted along party lines with three Democrats supporting the measure while Republicans voted against. Workers impacted by the increase will see two 50-cent hourly increases over the next year to earn $8.50 an hour by January 1, 2014.
“Bernalillo County families deserve a fair wage for a hard day’s work,” says Commissioner Art De La Cruz, who sponsored the measure. “I am committed to economic development and creating jobs, as well as livable wages for the workers that are the backbone of many successful companies and businesses here in Bernalillo County.”
But Commissioner Wayne Johnson, who voted against the measure, believes the push for a wage increase was political pandering at its finest.“The only real beneficiaries of this policy are politicians who pander to extreme interest groups and larger businesses that have the ability to survive the arbitrarily imposed costs and benefit once their smaller competitors are forced out of business,” said Johnson.
The new ordinance will apply to about 1,400 businesses in the unincorporated areas of Bernalillo County outside the city limits, and it's consistent with the wage increase approved by Albuquerque voters. Last November, Albuquerque residents approved a minimum wage ordinance that went into effect Jan. 1, 2013, raising the city’s minimum wage from $7.50 to $8.50 per hour.
The increase was met with controversy after Mayor Richard Berry backed City Attorney David Tourek's hesitant stance on stepping in to private sector employer-employee disputes to enforce the increase. More than a week later, Berry's administration changed its tune by filing a lawsuit against a local business refusing to honor the increase.
Tipped employees are also covered by the new county wage ordinance. If a tipped employee’s hourly rate, including tips, doesn't meet the minimum wage, the employer must make up the difference. Tipped employees can continue to pool tips under the new ordinance. As with the city's minimum wage ordinance, the county will adjust the wage according to cost of living increase.
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Hip arthroscopy is a surgical procedure that allows a surgeon to diagnose and treat certain hip disorders by providing a clear view of the inside of the hip, through a small incision.
The most common conditions that lend themselves to hip arthroscopy are removal of loose bodies, and the removal of torn or loose portions of the hip cartilage or labrum.
Patients who may benefit from hip arthroscopy are identified with a combination of clinical history, physical examination, X-rays and often a magnetic resonance (MRI) scan of the hip. Candidates for hip arthroscopy include active individuals who have painful hips, where there exists an opportunity to preserve the amount of cartilage they still have. Hip arthroscopy may help postpone the need for hip replacement surgery – or eliminate it altogether.
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Anything is possible, but upgrading an ePods with this CPU would entail esentially redesigning the processor board almost from scratch. Possible yes, practical no, expensive extremely.
Even though the processor you reference is MIPS based, that only covers the CPU core. The toshiba part contains more than the mips core but other peripheral logic such as the Bus Interface, real time clock, serial interfaces to name some. The chip you reference may indeed also have some of these functions but there little to no chance that they would be implemented in the same way Toshiba did there.
Next, even though they both may have a MIPS core the physical packages would not be the same. There is no set processor socket like the intel Socket 7. Each manufacturer assigns the pinout based on the IOs of their particular processor and the physical layout of the chip. Power and grounds are assigned based on the physical package used and the physical chip design.
So even if by some incredible long shot chance that the processor you reference came in a package with the same number of pins using the same pitch and grid, the signals, power, and grounds would never line up for every single pin.
Lastly, if the processor you reference is running at 450Mhz+ it will have a lower core voltage than the Toshiba part. It will also require a different reference clock. The epods board is designed for the processor it has not others.
In reviewing the list of things that would have to be compatable between the processors, I cannot find one that would be compatible. As I said at the beginning, anything is possible and you could essentially redesign the ePods board to accomodate the new processor but it would be less expensive to design a new system from scratch than trying to work around all of the incompatabilities.
I have only pointed out the blatantly obvious and if these did not occur to you then you have no business trying to upgrade your hardware. No offense intended, but you would be in way over your head attempting any HW upgrade to the ePods unless you educate yourself on some of the fundamentals.
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the Most Out Of Your Dental Visit
For many health care problems, dentists can offer multiple treatment
options or grades of dental care. These options may vary in complexity,
durability, and cost. A good example is that a dental implant, a bridge
or a denture can all replace a tooth that has been extracted. Which
one is chosen depends a great deal on what you, the patient, wants.
together, you and your dentist can choose the treatment options that
best meet your needs. This relationship is a shared responsibility.
should explain each treatment option, including its benefits and drawbacks.
You should tell your dentist about yourself and your needs, and ask
your dentist and office staff as many questions as needed to help you
your treatment recommendations. For additional information, consult
your local or state dental society, your library, or visit the American
Association web site, at http://www.ada.org.
Here are some considerations that will help you get information you
need to be a smart consumer of dental care:
What does this treatment recommendation mean?
If you don't understand
any part of what your dentist recommends, don't be afraid to ask
for more information.
Are other treatment options available?
How do options differ from
cost? Which solutions will last longer? Do all options solve
Among the dentists recommendations, which treatments are absolutely
Which are elective? Which are cosmetic?
Which procedures are urgently needed and which ones are less urgent?
Your dentist should be able to prioritize a treatment schedule
to help you distinguish problems needing immediate attention
from those that are less urgent. Often, treatment can be phased
in over time. Be sure to understand the consequences of delaying
How much will this cost, and how and when are you expected to pay?
Does the dentist participate in your health plan? What method
of payment does he or she expect? And when is payment due? Make
sure you understand the fees, method and schedule of payment
before you agree to any treatment.
Feel free to call around the community to compare
such factors as location, office hours, fees, and what arrangements
will be made in case of an emergency. If you are comparing fees,
ask for estimates on full mouth x-rays and a preventative dental
visit that includes an oral exam and a tooth cleaning.
If you have talked with your dentist and are unsure what to do,
get a second opinion. To find a dentist for another opinion,
call your local dental society (listed in the white pages), or
ask a relative or friend for referrals. If there is a dental
school in the area you may be able to make an appointment at
If you are dissatisfied with your dental care, or otherwise feel
your dentist has treated you improperly, contact your state dental
association. Most state dental associations offer peer review
services to mediate disputes between patients and ADA-member
dentists. These services are available free of charge for patients,
and an analysis of peer review cases indicated.
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June 5, 2008
Negotiating with Syria, still with the Rev. Wright brouhaha, Museum of Tolerance expansion
Talks With Syria
M.J. Rosenberg opens with the unqualified claim that former Israeli Ambassador Dore Gold is "appalled" by Israel's negotiating with Syria. ("Israeli Talks With Syrians Make Sense," May 29). False. Gold has expressed no such view.
Indeed, he actively participated in negotiations with Syria nearly a decade ago.
The only basis the author cites for this claim is a quote in which Gold warns against one possible outcome of these talks: A complete Israeli withdrawal from the Golan. But to reformulate that as opposition to Israeli-Syrian talks altogether, even being "appalled" by them, exceeds even the most creative interpretation.
Far worse, the author joins political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in the libelous charge that certain Israeli officials goaded the United States into invading Iraq. Rosenberg states this outright about Gold, in particular, at least twice in the article. That is not only false but spectacularly so. Gold's only known statement on the issue was a position paper taking great pains to dispute that very claim about Israel's role (see "Wartime Witch Hunt," at www.jcpa.org/jl/vp518.htm).
M.J. Rosenberg argues that Israel would be wise to negotiate with Syria to stop Hezbollah attacking it, showing he has learned nothing about Israeli negotiations with other terroristic, unreconstructed Arab parties.
Talking to Yasser Arafat and Syria's Hafiz Assad achieved nothing, even when massive concessions were offered. And in Arafat's case, where concessions were made, Israel ended up with a terror regime on its doorstep and the loss of more than 1,000 Israeli civilians to terrorism, more than all the Israeli civilians lost to terrorism in the 47 years that preceded Oslo.
Rosenberg might fantasize about Syria leaving Lebanon and reining in Hezbollah, but why would the Syrian Baathist regime be willing to do this? If a groundswell of Lebanese revulsion and international condemnation didn't achieve this in 2005, it's hard to see how negotiations with Israel will achieve it today.
The conflict with Israel is the Syrian regime's warrant for power and oppression. It shares (and increasingly encourages at home, despite its putative secularity) the Islamist goals that drive Iran, and it prefers absolute power over economic reform and opening up to the West. Until that changes, Israeli concessions will only bring dangers, not security.
Morton A. Klein
Zionist Organization of America
Museum of Tolerance Expansion
[Daniel] Fink's letter misrepresenting the Museum of Tolerance needs to be addressed (Letters, May 29).
The Museum of Tolerance is not a Holocaust museum. It is the educational arm of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and its mission is to educate, using the history of the Holocaust. It exposes intolerance, racism, terrorism and modern-day genocides, and it empowers all to take responsibility for their own words and actions. One should never forget but remember by the example of how we live our lives.
As someone who has been involved with the Museum of Tolerance for many years as a volunteer/docent, I take exception to Fink's assertion that the museum wishes to "build a commercial catering facility" on its premises.
I see how young and adult visitors alike are made more aware of their potential to prejudge and are moved by their experience. The museum has an outstanding education and diversity-training program for law enforcement, educators, professionals and school and college groups that reaches far and wide. Its contribution to many walks of life makes an enormous difference. I am so proud to be affiliated with this institution.
The Wright Flap
Raphael Sonenshein errs in characterizing Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) as "the black candidate," as he is mixed race -- and that may be the point ("The Wright Flap and the Black Candidate," May 9).
The senator has played every side of the race issue: mixed race, black, African American, post-race, racial evangelist. From adopting the Rev. Jeremiah Wright as a virtual blood relation and throwing his (Obama's) own grandmother under the bus for Wright, to rejecting Wright when Wright didn't play by the (Obama) rules.
Sonenshein errs equally if not more seriously in presuming that an endorsement of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) by the Rev. John Hagee, who is at least a supporter of Israel, is equivalent to Obama's 22-year relationship with Wright, who considers Israel a terrorist state.
More to the point, Hagee has sent a formal written apology to Bill Donahue of the Catholic League. Wright has not apologized for anything.
Even without the apology, Sonenshein's premise is overreaching, and he does not address a fundamental question: What is more potent? Obama's facile dismissal of Wright's vicious anti-Israelism or Wright's embrace of Louis Farrakhan's hatred for the Jewish state.
The issue is not whether a superficial dismissal of his crazy (suddenly) "former" pastor by Obama placates Jewish supporters, but actually whether Wright poisons the minds of many thousands of African Americans against Israel -- and that Obama has avoided this issue like the plague it is.
If Obama is as qualified to be president as Sonenshein believes, he should be far more concerned that his chances have been virtually torpedoed by Wright -- while somehow discounting any effect of other unsavory associations -- while Hagee will, in fact, have no such effect on McCain, despite the columnist's obvious attempt to distract by arguing that it should be otherwise.
Jarrow L. Rogovin
In an April 25 letter refuting The Journal's reporting that Scott Radinsky isn't Jewish ("Dodgers Hit Grand Slam in History of Jewish Players," April 18), Ephraim Moxson, co-publisher of Jewish Sports Review, wrote that Radinsky is the son of a Jewish mother and Polish father. The Journal contacted a representative for the former Dodger pitcher, who confirmed that neither Radinsky nor his mother are Jewish.
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Sign up for the free, online BetterU makeover at
Heart Disease is the number one killer of women.
This means mothers, sisters and friends are dying at the rate of one per minute because they don't know that heart disease kills or sometimes they don't even know they have heart disease, according to the American Heart Association.
The American Heart Association is taking action. It's Go Red for Women movement is kicking off this year's Go Red makeover program BetterU.
To get you motivated, Taryn Vanderford and Erika Tallan are taking the 12-week challenge.
The first step, Taryn and Erika had to get pricked.
"There's certain tests that are diagnostic for certain diseases for cardiac, such as fasting glucose for diabetes, lipid panel for high cholesterol, your LDL your good cholesterol which could be a sign of cardiac disease or sclerosis," said Nebraska Heart Institute Lab Director, Ryan Storz.
Step one of the BetterU challenge is to get your blood drawn.
At the Nebraska Heart Institute, Taryn Vanderford and Erika Tallan braved the needle and their empty stomachs.Before the blood test they had to fast for a minimum of 8 to 12 hours.
"If you don't fast you could have a falsely elevated cholesterol or falsely elevated glucose and we want everybody to have a true level baseline. Anytime you eat anything your insulin and your blood sugar will spike and it will drop and usually after you've eaten, your cholesterol will fluctuate. Traditionally studies have shown that after 8 hours things will go to your normal levels," said Storz.
And be careful what you eat the night before your tests. Some foods high in fat can throw off results too.
"We've had examples where people will have a couple bratwurst the night before and then have come in and their triglycerides or their bad cholesterol is falsely elevated. So that's why we always recommend in addition to the fasting for 8 hours that you eat a healthy meal the night before," said Storz.
Getting your blood tested takes less than 10 minutes of your life and it could add years to it.
Then after those 12 weeks you get our blood drawn again to see the improvements. In past years, participants have seen drastic improvements in blood sugar and cholesterol levels.
The 12-week BetterU program kicks off August 29th.
Taryn and Erika invite you to join them and make it your mission to help fight heart disease in women.
Go Red BetterU is a free 12-week online nutrition and fitness program that can makeover your heart.
Each week will focus on a different area of your health and provide step-by-step guidance.
You'll have access to everything from daily expert tips and an online journal to a down-loadable better-me coaching tool.
They have heart healthy recipes like: braised beef steaks with zesty sauce, lemon green beans with parsley and almonds, broiled orange roughy parmesan, glazed sweet potato cubes, and Tex Mex chili pie!
You'll also get insider advice.
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Elliott Carter: Collected Essays and Lectures, 1937-1995
edited by Jonathan W. Bernard
University of Rochester Press, 369 pp., $24.95 (paper)
The Music of Elliott Carter, second edition
by David Schiff, foreword by Elliott Carter
Cornell University Press, 372 pp., $35.00
We have in our midst an American composer, Elliott Carter, who has reinvented the string quartet, perfected the microdrama for a single voice and a handful of instrumentalists, introduced a new sense of civility into the performance of very difficult pieces for large orchestra, and speculated about the nature of time and memory as persistently as anyone since Marcel Proust and Edmund Husserl.
Like his fellow composer the late Roger Sessions, Carter’s aim in composing has always been “to help build a really new and better inner world.” As long ago as 1944 he wrote in Modern Music that “there must be good thinking and good talking about music to preserve its noble rank as a fine art for all of us.” As for “good talking,” Carter has never fallen short. Already in 1953 he had said in an address at the University of Illinois, “This is the time to work our hardest and our best if we want musical culture to survive.”
In this matter, no one of his generation in the United States has worked harder than he, or been more widely acclaimed in Europe. Musicians in many countries love to play his music, and many audiences want to hear it. And although he turns ninety on December 11 the years have so far lain lightly upon him. In conversation he is, as always, brisk, limpid, intellectually dead-center and ready to chase after whatever hare may have been started by others. His bearing in discussion is that of a senior cherub whose sense of wonder is still very much intact.
Among covert autobiographers—people, that is to say, who contrive to write their memoirs while eschewing the word “I”—Carter has had a place of his own ever since 1937, when he began to write music criticism for Modern Music in New York. (He was twenty-eight years old at the time.) Given that the junior critic customarily is assigned the concerts that no other critic has asked for, these notices might have been journeyman work. But Modern Music, as edited by Minna Lederman, was not an ordinary magazine. It aimed to do for music what had been done for literature by Scofield Thayer’s The Dial and by Eugene and Betsy Jolas’s transition.
Nor was Elliott Carter a beginner. By 1937 at twenty-eight he was entirely able to deal with the New York musical scene, season by season, without a word misused or a word wasted. He was clear, concise, and not afraid of a fight. In an article published in March 1938 he distinguished between two kinds of listener. The first was “the one who gives himself up to an evening of reminiscence or revery after having checked out his conscious critical self at the door with his hat.” The other was the listener “who seeks a living message to him from another living man that will help him to understand the people about him.”
Carter saw it as the duty of the critic to …
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A new US based poll suggests that swing voters in the US, who’re essential to the fate from the Democratic Party, care most about three things: reigniting the economy, reducing the deficit and creating jobs. However the latter two goals are usually incompatible, especially during major recessions. In times of high unemployment, government deficits are required to underwrite growth, considering that the private sector shift to non-government surpluses leaves a huge spending gap and corporations responded to the failing sales by reducing production. Employment falls and unemployment rises. Then investment growth declines since the pessimism spreads. Before too much time you have a recession. Without any discretionary change in fiscal policy (now referred to within the public media as “stimulus packages”) the government balance will head towards and frequently into deficit, unless the US miraculously becomes an export powerhouse along emerging Asia lines, and runs persistent current account surpluses, to some degree that allows the governments to operate budget surpluses.
Once again to occur, particularly when the largest current account surplus nations, notably Germany, hang on to a mercantilist export led growth model, an unavoidable results of that country’s aversion to increased government deficit spending. The German government’s reticence to counter any kind of shift in regard to the current account surplus is particularly significant in light of the continuing and intensifying strains developing in the EMU nations (see here) . Last week’s Greek “rescue” is Europe’s “Bear Stearns event”. The Lehman moment has yet to come. One possible outcome of this might very well be significantly larger budget deficits in america along with a substantial increase in America’s external deficit, given the unlikelihood of America becoming an export super power again. Allow me to elaborate below.
Within the euro zone, Now i see 1 of 2 possible outcomes. Scenario 1: the problem of Greece isn’t contained, and the contagion effect reaches another “PIIGS” countries, leading to a cascade of defaults and corresponding devaluations as countries exit the EMU. Interestingly enough, the country that could well be affected most adversely in this situation is France, as the country’s industrial base competes largely against countries like Italy and the corresponding competitive devaluation of the Italian currency in the event of a euro zone break-up could well destroy the French economy (by comparison, like a capital goods exporter with few euro zone competitors, Germany’s industrial base will be less adversely affected in our view).
In Scenario 2 (more likely for me) we get some greater fears about other PIIGS nations (discussion has become embracing Spain, Portugal and Ireland). The EMU might well hold together however the corresponding fear of contagion could provoke capital flight and drive the euro down to parity (or lower) using the dollar. Obviously, the euro’s weakness creates other problems: when the euro was strengthening last year because of portfolio shifts from the dollar, a lot of those buyers of euro bought euro denominated national government paper (including Greece). The resultant portfolio shifts helped fund the nation’s EMU governments at lower rates during that period. That portfolio shifting has largely come to an end, making national government funding inside the euro zone more problematic, because the Greek situation now illustrates.
The weakening euro and rising oil prices raises the chance of ‘inflation’ flooding in with the import and export channels. With a weak economy and national government credit history particularly sensitive to rising rates of interest, the European Central Bank (ECB) could find itself in a bind, as it will tend to favor rate hikes as prices firm, yet recognize rate hikes could cause a financial collapse. And really should a government like Greece be permitted to default, the next realization might be that Greek depositors will require losses, and, therefore, the entire euro deposit insurance lose credibility, causing depositors to take their funds elsewhere.
It all could get very ugly for the ECB. The only real scenario that theoretically helps the value of the euro is really a national government default, which does eliminate the euro denominated financial assets of this nation, but of course can trigger a euro wide deflationary debt collapse. The ’support’ scenarios all weaken the euro as they support the growth of euro denominated financial assets, to begin triggering the inflationary ‘race to the bottom’ of accelerating debt expansion.
So timing is extremely problematic. An immediate decline of the euro would facilitate an aggressive advantage within the euro zone’s external sector, but it could also set alarm bells off at the ECB if this type of rapid devaluation creates perceived incipient inflationary strains within the euro zone.
What about the united states? Within the latter scenario, we can envisage a scenario in which the mixture of panic and corresponding flight to safety to the dollar and US Treasuries, concomitant with the increased accumulation of US financial assets (which arises because the inevitable accounting correlative of increased Euro zone exports) means that America’s external deficits inexorably increase. There will probably be increased protectionist strains, a potential backlash against both Asia and europe, particularly if the deficit hawks begin sounding the alarm on the inexorable rise of america government deficit (that will almost certainly increase in the scenario we’ve sketched out).
Let’s assume that the united states doesn’t wish to sustain further job losses, the budget deficit will in the end deteriorate further, either “virtuously” (via proactive government spending which promotes a complete employment policy), or perhaps in a poor way , whereby a contracting economy and rising unemployment, produce larger deficits via the automatic stabilisers moving to shore up demand because the economy falters.
How large can these deficits go? Easily to around 10-12% of GDP or more (in comparison to the current 8% of GDP) should a euro devaluation constitute an adequate magnitude to induce a clear, crisp deterioration of America’s trade deficit. Possibly even higher.
What will function as the response from the Obama Administration? America can sustain economic growth having a private domestic surplus and government surplus when the external surplus is big enough. So a rise strategy can still be consistent with a public surplus. But this becomes virtually impossible when the euro zone’s problems continue, once we suspect that they’ll.
President Obama, however, has long decried our “out of control” government spending. He clearly gets this nonsense in the manic deficit terrorists who don’t understand these accounting relationships that we’ve sketched out. Consequently he is constantly on the advocate that the government leads the charge by introducing austerity packages – just once the state of private demand continues to be stagnant or fragile. By perpetuating these myths, then, obama himself becomes part of the problem. He ought to be using his position of influence, and the considerable powers of oratory, to alter public perceptions and explain why these deficits are not only necessary, but highly desirable in terms of sustaining a complete employment economy.
Governments that issue debt in their own currency and don’t promise to convert their currency into anything else can always “afford” to run deficits. Indeed, within this context government spending financially helps the non-public sector by injecting cash flows, providing liquid assets and raising the net price of some or all private economic agents. As opposed to today’s budget deficit “Chicken Littles”, we maintain that talking about government budget deficits so far as the attention can easily see is ludicrous for the simple reason why because the economy recovers, tax revenue rises, the deficit automatically reduces. That’s the entire reason behind engaging in deficit spending in the first place. Any projections that demonstrate the deficit continuing to climb without limit is misguided – the Pete Peterson projections, for example, won’t ever happen. As we near and exceed full employment, inflation will pick-up, which reduces transfer payments and increases tax revenues, automatically pushing the budget toward surpluses.
Within the 220 year experience of the United States there have only been a couple of years when we’ve not had deficits and each time the surpluses were immediately then a depression or a recession. History shows that we are able to run nearly permanent deficits which when we do, it’s better for the economy. The challenge for our side from the debate would be to expose these voluntary constraints for what they’re and explain why the US is not a Weimar Germany waiting to occur.
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I was around eight years old when I got chicken pox, and I remember there was a lot of scratching and calamine lotion involved. These days, you don’t really hear about kids catching chicken pox, thanks to a vaccine approved by the FDA in 1995.
Had a chicken pox vaccine been available to me as a child, would I now be immune to developing shingles, a disease caused by the same virus? An article in today’s San Francisco Chronicle describes how experts, including Ann Arvin, MD, who led research that helped explain immune responses to varicella zoster (the virus that causes chicken pox), are uncertain of the answer. But:
In the meantime, [Arvin] offers advice to adults over 50 who fear shingles’ wrath: Get the shingles vaccine. Zostavax, which is also created from a weakened form of varicella, boosts adults’ ability to fight the existing virus if it reactivates. The FDA approved the vaccine for people 50 and over in 2011, after a study of 22,000 people showed that people who had the vaccine were 70 percent less likely to get shingles within a year than people who received a placebo…
Previously: CDC: More U.S. adults need to get recommended vaccinations, “Herd immunity” causes dramatic drop in infant chicken pox and Vaccination could eliminate chicken pox-related deaths in the U.S.
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California's effort to collect information on 911 medical responses around the state is foundering because of flawed data, aging computers and a lack of participation from fire departments, authorities said.
The state Emergency Medical Services Authority has been trying for three years to collect and centralize reports on millions of emergency medical responses, including response times, to help improve life-saving practices.
State officials want data from the moment that 911 dispatchers answer calls to the point at which patients are transferred to hospitals. That would, for the first time, permit researchers, regulators and public officials to compare response times and patient treatment.
However, the voluntary program has been stymied because nearly half of the state's 32 regional emergency medical agencies, which were supposed to gather and submit reports from fire departments and ambulance services, failed to contribute to the program, the Los Angeles Times reported (
Some fire departments say they don't have the money or time to respond while others have submitted problematic data. Some fire departments calculate medical response times from the second a 911 call is answered, while others count from the point at which fire stations crews are alerted.
"We can't compare apples to apples. We compare apples to oranges and peaches," said Tom McGinnis, the state official overseeing the project.
Some fire departments rely on outmoded computer systems and the state isn't forcing cash-strapped local agencies to participate because many would have to replace their computer systems, McGinnis said.
"Really what it comes down to is money," he said.
The only way to make the program work is to clarify the reporting standards and make participation mandatory, said Bruce Wagner, the top administrator for the emergency medical services agency in Sacramento County.
His agency hasn't provided the state data because fire departments and ambulance companies under his jurisdiction don't want to spend the time and money.
"It's hard for us to tell them they are going to incur additional costs if it's not mandated," he said.
Information from: Los Angeles Times,
The Associated Press
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Sepia sp ON EXHIBIT:
Boneless Beauties at Ocean Journey.
A cuttlefish can rapidly change the texture of its skin. This technique is often used to communicate to other cuttlefish during mating rituals, but also helps the cuttlefish hide from predators. If hiding doesn’t work, the cuttlefish can quickly jet away, leaving behind a cloud of foul tasting black ink in the face of its attacker.
Like many species of cuttlefish, the Pharaoh cuttlefish is a valuable part of large-scale commercial fisheries through Asia. Cuttlefish are harvested for their meat.
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Research Provides Communication Guidelines in Cross-Cultural GP Consultations
Thursday, 3 March 2011
NUI Galway researchers have won a prestigious award for their work on the development of guidelines to support communication in cross-cultural general practice consultations. Dr. Anne MacFarlane, Lecturer in Primary Care, Discipline of General Practice, School of Medicine has led the Health Research Board Partnership Award with colleagues Mary O'Reilly-de Brún and Tomas de Brún, Directors of the Centre for Participatory Strategies (CPS), Galway and Alice O'Flynn and Diane Nurse of the HSE Social Inclusion Unit. This research has used innovative participatory research methods to enable the meaningful involvement of health service users from the migrant community and health service providers in the development of a guideline to support communication in cross-cultural general practice consultations. This research was recently awarded the Professor James McCormack medal for best research presentation at the Association of University Departments of General Practice Annual Scientific Meeting. This is important research for service users with limited English and their general practitioners who face significant challenges on a daily basis in their consultations because they do not have a shared language or cultural background which results in frequent misunderstandings and communication breakdowns. According to Dr. MacFarlane; "A key finding from the research is that all those involved with the research do not think the current status quo of using family members including children and friends as interpreters, is acceptable. They wish to have access to formal, trained interpreters who are monitored and evaluated in practice." Members of the migrant community from Polish, Russian, Portuguese, Urdu, French Congolese speaking and Nigerian communities in the Galway region, who participated in the research last April, were invited back to the University recently to hear details of the key findings and to provide feedback about the emerging content of the guideline to the research team. Seven representatives of the migrant community have formed a research team with academic researchers. The Service User Peer Researchers (SUPERS) are Khalid Ahmed, Jean Samuel Bonsenge Bokanga, Maria Manuela De Almeida Silva, Aga Mierzejewska, Lovina Nnadi, Florence Ogbebor and Katya Okonkwo. They trained in participatory research methods with the Centre for Participatory Strategies, Galway and this training enabled them to give members of their wider communities an opportunity to 'have a voice' in the development of the guideline, working in their own languages and with SUPERS from their own cultural backgrounds. As one SUPER (Florence Ogbebor) remarked, "This type of research actually brought the voices of the people upstream to the policy makers, where their voices could be heard". The use of participatory research approaches for research based on academic-community partnerships is very innovative in Irish primary care and the involvement of the Centre for Participatory Strategies has been instrumental in the design and delivery of the project. Directors of the Centre for Participatory Strategies (CPS), Mary O'Reilly-de Brún and Tomas de Brún said, "In this research project, we found it very exciting to experience the enthusiasm and creativity of the SUPERS. Together, we co-designed the research process, and culture-proofed all the research materials - this ensured that no migrant participants would be offended by the visual images we use with groups where not everyone readily reads and writes. This is one of the strengths of the participatory approach used, no one is disenfranchised and everyone's voice counts."
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Definition of Hypengyophobia or the fear of responsibility. This article provides information on the causes, symptoms, diagnosis and treatment of this phobia.
Hypengyophobia is an overwhelming, irrational fear of responsibility. The hypengyophobic person might be self-indulgent, neglecting all responsibilities, to the expense of others. Other individuals coping with this phobia may refuse to accept responsibility for anything and may actively blame others when their failure to take responsibility results in mistakes being made.
Sometimes referred to as Hypegiaphobia, this word derives from the Greek “hypengyos”, meaning responsible and “phobos” meaning fear.
What Causes Hypengyophobia?
As with all phobias, the person compromised by Hypengyophobia has suffered a real-life trauma at some time in their life. That traumatic experience is then consistently and automatically associated with responsibility.
Perhaps the hypengyophobic individual has taken responsibility, in the past and has failed. Maybe in that failure there were severely negative consequences. Maybe, as a child, this person was raised by overly strict parents and learned to rebel against responsibility.
Whatever the cause, the hypengyophobic person can experience anxiety and emotional turmoil that is completely disruptive to their ability to function.
What Are the Symptoms of Hypengyophobia?
The symptoms of Hypengyophobia are individual and will vary from person to person. Some people, when confronted with their fear of responsibility, may begin to perspire, feel slightly uncomfortable or become nauseated. At the opposite end of the spectrum, other people are so severely compromised by this phobia, that they may experience crippling anxiety and/or panic attacks.
Other symptoms of Hypengyophobia may include:
- A Dry Mouth
- Heart Palpitations
- Heightened Senses
- Feeling Dizzy
- Muscle Tension
- Rapid Heartbeat
- Feeling Out of Control
- Feeling Trapped and Unable to Escape
- Intense Feeling of Impending Disaster
How Is Hypengyophobia Diagnosed?
The vast majority of cases of Hypengyophobia are self-diagnosed. The individual realizes that their fear of responsibility is irrational and is severely compromising their ability to function on a daily basis.
The hypengyophobic person may discuss their phobia with the primary physician. Rarely would the doctor diagnosis Hypengyophobia based on that initial discussion with the patient. More routinely, after ruling out any medical reason for this phobia, the doctor will refer the person to a mental health professional for comprehensive assessment and evaluation.
How Is Hypengyophobia Treated?
When the fear of responsibility becomes intense enough to disrupt an individual’s ability to function, there are a number of ways to treat Hypengyophobia.
These can include:
- A referral from the primary physician to a therapist who specializes in the treatment of phobias.
- Traditional “talk” therapy that will teach the person to recognize and control their phobia.
- Exposure Therapy.
- Self-help techniques such as purposeful muscle relaxation.
- Support groups with other people who are coping with this specific phobia.
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or Desensitization Therapy.
- Relaxation techniques such as deep breathing and visualization.
- In severe cases of Hypengyophobia, anti-anxiety medication can be prescribed.
Hypengyophobia is an intense, irrational fear of responsibility. Sometimes that fear can become so overwhelming as to completely halt a person’s ability to function on a daily basis. Unchecked, Hypengyophobia can become a debilitating condition that interferes with an individual’s personal life, their social life and job responsibilities. Untreated, Hypengyophobia can have a devastating impact on every aspect of a person’s life.
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What kind of homework should I expect for my first grader each night?
Each night, Monday-Thursday, your child will have reading, math, and Fundations homework. The math homework will be sent home daily and will correlate to the lesson taught that day. The Fundations packet will be given out on Monday and due back on Friday morning. WIthin the packet, there will be something assigned for each night of the week. Additionally, they should read for atleast 10 minutes each night. Back to Top
Can we finish the Fundations packet on Monday so it is done for the week?
No. I urge you to complete the homework in the order it is given. If you go ahead in the packet, your child may get frustrated because they are working on something I have not taught them yet.Back to Top
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5 years of European Consumer Centres Network
Troubles abroad - Help at home
Between 2005 and 2009, the European Consumer Centres Network (ECC-Net) handled almost 270.000 contacts.
Main topic has been: advice or help on cross-border shopping.
According to the ECC-Net 5th anniversary report the number of annual contacts has been rising steadily, from about 43.000 in 2005 to over 60.000 in 2009.
The annual value of amicable settlements of complaints with traders (in reimbursements and compensation for consumers) reached € 3.5 million in 2008.
The European Commission and Member States co-finance the ECC-Net which offers consumers free legal advice and assistance in every EU country as well as Norway and Iceland.
European Consumer Centre Austria
In Austria the European Consumer Centre is located at the national consumer organisation, the Verein für Konsumentenorganisation (VKI).
Online purchases on the top of the statistics
Online purchases continue to be the main source of complaints for cross-border consumers: in 2009 they represented more than half (55.9%) of all complaints received.
An important safety net for EU consumers
Speaking to ECC Directors at the launch of the report, EU Health and Consumer Policy Commissioner John Dalli said: "The European Consumer Centres provide an important safety net for EU consumers who want to seize the opportunities offered by the internal market by looking for better value and greater choice across borders. Thanks to this unique network, they can get effective and free assistance in their own country and their own language no matter where else in the EU they had a problem". To conclude: "When people ask what the EU is doing concretely for consumers, the work of the ECC-Net can be proudly cited as a prime example”.
The ECC-Net - how it works
A Czech consumer ordered several CDs from a Danish online shop, paid by credit card, but never received the goods. The trader promised to send the goods within a week, then two weeks, and then said the delivery would take longer. The consumer asked for his money back, but received no reply. The consumer contacted the Czech ECC who asked their Danish partners for help. The trader made a full refund, after ECC Denmark's approach.
The above is an example of a typical complaint handled daily by the network of 29 European Consumer Centres. ECCs exist in every EU country plus Norway and Iceland. They provide free information and advice to citizens shopping cross-border and help with their complaints when something goes wrong.
Out-of-court settlement has priority
The ECCs regularly achieve amicable settlements of complaints (48% in 2009). When no amicable settlement is possible, the complaint is typically transferred to other bodies, such as alternative dispute resolution (ADR) bodies or the national enforcement agencies. The ECCs also disseminate information proactively, including tips and fact sheets for consumers on popular topics, such as renting a car in another EU country. Another product of the ECCs' joint work is 'Howard' the online shopping assistant: a web tool to help online shoppers avoid fraudulent web traders and get advice about shopping online.
ECC 5-Year Report (2005-2009)
- In 2009, more than half (55.9%) of all complaints received by ECCs concerned online transactions. The remaining contacts were for information and advice.
- The sectors which ECC clients complained about most were: transport (30.6% of complaints in 2009), recreation and culture (26.2%) as well as restaurants and accommodation (13.3%).
- Among the complaints on transport services, more than three out of four (75.6%) concerned air transport, e.g. refunds and compensations for cancelled flights or lost luggage.
- The problems reported by ECC clients concerned mostly: the quality or characteristics of the goods or services themselves, (29% in 2009) their delivery (21%), such as non-delivery or delayed delivery, and the contract terms (18%), e.g. concerning the terms of ending the contract.
- There has been a decrease in complaints about unfair commercial practices and selling techniques.
The report was presented to Members of the European Parliament at a special exhibition of the ECC Net in Brussels.
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Lisa Margonelli first became fascinated with oil while observing an experimental cleanup in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay oil field. The lab was a tank containing sixteen gallons of seawater in which a chemist had made several controlled oil spills. As Margonelli looked on, the chemist tossed napalm on the pancake of spreading crude, the oil ignited, and “the flames began to dance…painfully hot, yet too brutal and fascinating to ignore.” That day, “oil the abstraction died and was reborn as a mythic molecule—powerful, violent, and charismatic—capable of running the world.” That image of oil as exciting and captivating sets the tone for Oil on the Brain, in which Margonelli, a journalist and fellow at the New America Foundation, embarks on a global exploration of the science, economics, and politics of producing this highly coveted commodity.
Oil on the Brain fits comfortably into what has become a popular genre of serious nonfiction: the story of the extraordinary roots of an ordinary ingredient of contemporary life, be it fast food, household trash, or a cotton T-shirt. Oil lends itself well to this approach, and Margonelli’s tale is an upbeat, adventurous one meant to amuse and entertain even as she investigates the complicated processes and sordid byproducts of gasoline production. It’s a difficult balancing act.
Margonelli begins at her local San Francisco gas station, where she is overwhelmed by the vast assortment of corn nuts, Snapples, lottery tickets, and condoms necessary to keep the station afloat. Despite an occasional surplus of detail, Margonelli manages to bring the mundane world of gasoline retail to life through a series of likable characters. There’s Roger, a tanker truck driver, who, in his “mirrored wraparound sunglasses…slightly resembles the truck he drives” and routinely braves potential flaming catastrophe. And Chris, his dispatcher, a tough blonde with a bottle of “Chill Pills” on her desk who “coos and growls” her orders across northern California.
Margonelli aims to keep the journey “fun,” even as she intersperses it with such grim realities as exploding oil spills and carcinogenic exhaust fumes. Yet at times her extraordinary access to the world of Big Oil seems to cloud her critical perspective. Margonelli presents BP’s refinery in Los Angeles, for example, as an efficient, squeaky-clean operation processing 275,000 barrels of crude a day and run by hyper-vigilant professionals already developing ways to store greenhouse gases underground. But the health effects of refinery pollution, Margonelli tells us, are “hard to quantify.” Although studies have found cancer clusters and high levels of benzene, a refinery emission and known carcinogen, in working-class communities near refineries, she quotes an expert in Texas as saying “that’s partly because they are more likely to use mothballs.” In other words, don’t blame the oil companies, blame the wool sweaters. Margonelli doesn’t probe that suspicious assessment.
She next devotes a chapter to her six days on a natural-gas rig in Texas with a cranky old oil engineer named C.D. Roper. Roper “loves” petroleum, even its smell. He’s “happier than a three-nutted tomcat” calculating the layers of rock the drill bit crunches through. But the consequences of his happiness for the people who live near the drilling rig—the loss of their water supply to contamination, for example—are relegated to a single paragraph. To slight the seamy byproducts of gasoline production, and not do any reporting among the people who live in the fetid communities abutting the Gulf Coast’s refineries, seems like a wasted opportunity to reveal some important, if ugly, truths about the oil business.
Margonelli’s travels in Latin America, Africa, and Asia provide a more enlightening—and unsettling—look at the real costs of oil. She assembles a kaleidoscope of ordinary people, government officials, and industry insiders to explain how oil has controlled, and usually doomed, the countries that produce it. Chad, for instance, is host to a risky experiment by ExxonMobil and the World Bank: a $3.7 billion oil field and pipeline stretching from Chad to Cameroon. Designed to follow strict World Bank controls, the project, completed in 2003, was supposed to prove that oil extraction can both supply energy to the oil-hungry Western world and promote growth in underdeveloped nations—something it’s never done in the past.
Yet when Margonelli arrives in November 2003, Chad seems to be “undeveloping and moving backward.” In N’Djamena, the capital, traffic lights stand dim and useless ( Chad doesn’t produce electricity), generators don’t work, and gas stations lie in ruins. It seems that the best thing oil has brought are the bright, generator-powered security lights outside Exxon’s offices, where children sit on bomb barriers at night to do their homework. Meanwhile, the World Bank’s “controls” have been flouted: The panel of citizens formed to decide how to spend the oil money has been stacked with cronies of President Idriss Déby, and Déby himself has spent his first payment from Exxon on weapons. By the end of 2005, the oil project had surpassed expectations by generating $306 million in revenues, yet Chad, once the tenth-poorest country in the world, had become the fourth-poorest. According to Transparency International, a global watchdog group, it was now tied with Bangladesh as the most corrupt.
Margonelli strikingly conveys the absurdity of the situation in N’Djamena by describing what happens when President Déby comes to town. Suddenly, the streets empty. Stores are locked, cars disappear. “It’s well known that anyone caught peeking from a window may be shot,” Margonelli writes. “How strange to be Idriss Déby,” she muses, “ruler of a poor and chaotic country, and to drive through it completely depopulated, as if a neutron bomb has hit, insisting to the world that you’ve been democratically elected.” It must be stranger still to live under his rule.
Oddly enough, Margonelli finds hope in China, a country whose robust economic growth has earned both the fear of western oil companies and the scorn of environmentalists. At Shanghai’s International Auto City, where Margonelli attends a competition for alternative-fuel and low-emissions vehicles, she learns that the Chinese government wisely views energy efficiency as an opportunity to increase its global competitiveness. Daimler Chrysler, Toyota, GM, and Ford are all showcasing their newest inventions. But Margonelli is most impressed by a little yellow, egg-shaped electric vehicle called “Aspire.” Designed by students from the Wuhan Institute of Technology, its headlights and hood form the shape of a smiley face. This is the car of the future, Margonelli decides: small and slow, but efficient. Never mind that it needs a push to get started. “It has a few problems,” the engineer shouts above the motor’s high-pitched screech. “But it has a happy feeling.”
The same could be said for Oil on the Brain. Just as the Oil Age brought planes, trains, and automobiles, Margonelli concludes, its byproducts—pollution, corruption, and global warming—ought to be solvable with a new set of innovations. Perhaps, but I’m skeptical that today’s drivers are ready to trade their powerful fuel-charged engines for an electric egg—or that today’s world leaders are prepared to convince them they should.
One reason for my skepticism is Nicholas Shaxson. Poisoned Wells, a distillation of Shaxson’s fifteen years of reporting from Africa on the oil business, offers a gloomy view of oil, politics, and the international financial system. Shaxson focuses on Nigeria, Gabon, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, and São Tomé, Africa’s newest oil producer, and his stories about each of them are equally disturbing, bizarre, often confusing and ultimately dispiriting. In each place, oil—“the corrupting, poisonous substance”—has created an “Alice-in-Wonderland world” of outsized characters directing mysterious underground economies, fueling bitter conflicts, and destroying any hope for ordinary development.
Shaxson tells this history by focusing on a character who is somehow emblematic of each country’s oil-induced turmoil. In Nigeria, for example, there’s Fela Kuti, a James Brown-style musician who “illustrates the indefatigable spirit” of the country. As Nigeria fractures along ethnic lines and an oil boom fuels the conflict, Fela becomes ever more brazen and hedonistic. He’d “strut onstage in his underpants, taunting Nigeria’s elites,” until after one particularly subversive performance, he is dragged out of his compound by his genitals, brutally beaten, and imprisoned. When the oil boom ends, rival factions scramble for the remaining spoils. Fela’s band, too, is torn apart by the excesses of its own success. Finally, Fela dies of aids in 1997, “buried in his tight yellow trousers with a joint between his fingers.”
Fela’s story is “the musical score to accompany the unraveling of a nation,” writes Shaxson. Still, Fela had nothing to do with the oil industry. The story of Alhaji Mujahid Dokubu-Asari, the militant Ijaw leader who threatens the Nigerian government, and whose supporters kidnap oil workers and bunker hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude to fund their resistance, is central. But we don’t get to him until much later.
Shaxson’s chapters on Gabon, a sparsely populated, often overlooked West African oil producer, demonstrate the real contribution of his book: a vivid illustration of how oil-induced corruption, with the help of the “pinstripe infrastructure” of the international banking system, is digging its tentacles deep into the developed world.
Before Shaxson arrived in Gabon in 1997, he knew only that “it was a quiet, oil-rich former French African colony whose people consumed more champagne on average than anyone, including the French,” and whose “diminutive president, Omar Bongo, kept popping up in parts of the world that did not obviously concern him.”
Despite his short stature, President Bongo, Africa’s longest-serving head of state, “towers over the country, unchallenged,” enjoying “secret influence around the globe with a force far, far out of proportion to his country’s tiny population.” That’s because in 1967 Bongo was handpicked for power, at age thirty-two, by France’s president, Charles de Gaulle, who since Gabon’s independence in 1960 had been desperate to retain influence over the former colony.
To entrench that power, de Gaulle created the French oil company Elf Aquitaine, with Gabon as its launching pad. Bongo, as Gabon’s president, consistently granted Elf the best oil licenses on remarkably favorable terms. But it wasn’t until Eva Joly, a French investigating magistrate, started digging into Elf’s connections with Gabon in 1994 that the depths of their relationship came to light.
Despite receiving repeated death threats, Joly unveiled a complex, hidden system of secret offshore accounts that Elf in Gabon had created for funneling cash to French political parties, and through which “tides of corrupt money sluic[ed] around the globe.” Elf’s strategy was to split the paper trail among multiple countries. Without a global police force, it was nearly impossible to track the system. Many countries, meanwhile, eager to attract foreign capital, allowed their largest banks to shroud their clients’ corrupt money “in secrecy.”
In 2003, the former head of Elf was found guilty of misusing over $100 million of company funds. But as Shaxson explains, “the investigations could not tackle the wholesale bribery of African politicians, or Elf’s payments to armed rebel movements, because bribery of foreign officials was not only legal, but tax deductible in France.” (It’s not any more.) Although bribery is illegal in the U.S., it is legal for American banks to accept deposits containing money looted from foreign treasuries. Citibank set up shell corporations for Bongo for years, no questions asked. And in 2005 the U.S. government confirmed that Riggs Bank in Washington, D.C., had been accepting hundreds of millions of dollars of highly suspicious money into personal bank accounts controlled by the president of Equatorial Guinea.
Until international rules are developed to eliminate tax havens and prohibit banks from receiving corrupt money, the vast thievery of oil revenues, and the disillusionment with democracy that accompanies it, will persist. The losses are astronomical: untaxed offshore funds make up a third of total global assets, or $11 trillion. That costs governments over $250 billion a year—more than twice what’s spent on foreign aid for all developing countries combined.
That is a reality Margonelli doesn’t address. Although Shaxson, for his part, spends too much time blaming oil itself for Africa’s conflicts, he makes a critical contribution to the growing awareness and understanding of the “resource curse”: that we in the developed world, as oil’s primary consumers and financiers, are at the heart of the problem. It is not a happy feeling.
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Final EIS Issued Today: Administration Urged To Move Quickly To Restore Mexican Wolves To The Southwest In '97
Defenders, a nonprofit conservation group that has worked intensively on Yellowstone and other wolf restoration efforts for decades, stressed the need for quick Clinton Administration approval of the FWS recommendation because the Mexican wolf is already extinct in the wild and there are only 149 individuals alive in captive breeding facilities today.
Defenders' President Rodger Schlickeisen said, "Despite more than a decade of stalling, the FWS has made the right recommendation, and we now have an historic choice that can give the world's rarest wolf a new chance for survival. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt proved himself a good friend of wolf recovery two years ago when he approved reintroduction of the gray wolf to the Northern Rockies. Now he can do the same for El Lobo." Schlickeisen continued, "However, he should move quickly to implement restoration plans in 1997 because captive breeding facilities are approaching maximum capacity. Also, the longer wolves are held in captivity, the less their chances will be for success in the wild. The clock is ticking."
Although these wolves have not existed in the wild for years, Schlickeisen noted that the forced delay for the Mexican wolf resulted from political factors and not from a lack of public support: "Just as with the successful Yellowstone wolf restoration, public support for Mexican wolf recovery is overwhelming." The final release of the environmental impact statement (EIS) on Mexican wolf restoration was released at a FWS press conference in Phoenix today. On October 3, Defenders of Wildlife and other regional conservation groups filed a legal notice of an intent to sue the FWS after sixty days had elapsed unless the EIS was released. On December 4, the FWS published a notice of its intent to announce its wolf reintroduction recommendations in the EIS.
The preferred alternative in the final EIS calls for reintroduction of 3 to 5 family groups of wolves to the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area in Arizona near the New Mexico border. Defenders' President noted that, "I toured this area a few years back, and it is a fantastic location. But the Fish and Wildlife Service should expand recovery to include the White Sands area in New Mexico and sites along the Texas-Mexico border as well." Schlickeisen noted that the White Sands area is already in the wolf recovery plan for later consideration. At the press conference Defenders presented the FWS with several thousand petitions to amend the recovery plan to also include the Big Bend area of Texas or the Sierra del Carmen of Mexico. This EIS followed a public comment period during which the FWS heard from more than 18,000 individuals, organizations and government agencies. Those comments and opinion polls conducted throughout the Southwest consistently demonstrated that the public supports reintroduction by nearly a 2:1 margin.
Mexican wolf restoration has been under active consideration since 1982, when the FWS finalized the Mexican Wolf Recovery Plan, which was jointly signed by the U.S. and Mexico. According to Craig Miller, Defenders' Southwest Representative, "The Fish and Wildlife Service has gone the extra mile to address the concerns of private landowners and the livestock industry. Now it's time to move forward and get the wolves on the ground."
According to the draft EIS, the economic impacts of wolf restoration will be largely favorable and recent experience in the Yellowstone region bear this out. In addition, the final EIS does not contain permanent land-use restrictions on behalf of the wolf. "The only legitimate concern about Mexican wolf restoration is that wolves may very occasionally kill livestock," according to Miller. "Defenders of Wildlife has established a $100,000 fund to pay ranchers for all verified livestock losses to wolves; those of us who support wolf restoration are addressing this concern directly by assuming financial responsibility for the wolves' return."
There is no public comment period on the final EIS. Decision- makers are required, however, to wait at least 30 days before selecting how to proceed. If Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt promptly issues a final decision at the end of January, wolves could be released as soon as fall 1997. The FWS predicts that Mexican wolves could reach recovery goals as early as 2004.
Miller says, "The resistance to wolves specifically and to endangered species generally has been fueled by the so-called wise-use groups. These groups claim wolf reintroduction will cost jobs and result in land-use restrictions, but there are no facts to support these scare claims. Their real agenda is the continued excessive domination of public land management by commodity interests."
Contact(s):Joan Moody, 202-682-9400 x220 (Media)
Bob Ferris, 202-682-9400 x229 (Conservation)
Craig Miller, 520-578-9334 (S.West)
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‘Frozen’ is an adjective that doesn’t compute within the lexicon of gourmet cuisine. But for entrepreneurs David Hauslaib and Tom Balamaci, the founders of Pop-Up Pantry, ‘frozen’ is at the core of their service, which delivers epicurean-style meals directly to customers’ homes.
Launched in July, 2011, Pop-Up Pantry is a Los Angeles-based startup dedicated to providing the American consumer with access to gourmet meals, hitherto limited to restaurants helmed by the likes of Emeril Lagasse, Wolfgang Puck, and Mario Batali.
Now, with the aid of Pop-Up Pantry, food lovers anywhere in the U.S. can log onto the company’s website and order three-course meals prepared by world-class chefs at an affordable price-point (meals start at $17 per person).
After preparation, Hauslaib says the meals are frozen, vacuum-sealed, placed in an insulated box and delivered to customers via UPS or FedEx. Once the meals reach their destinations, clients only have to follow the simple re-heating instructions to enjoy a five-star meal with an undiminished flavor profile, according to the founder. He told VentureBeat the reheating process takes no longer than 30 minutes.
Hauslaib added, “We are one of the only food delivery companies in the country that can deliver food to you even if you don’t live in a major city.” He added that food lovers living outside of major-metro areas are “underserved.”
For example, Hauslaib said, if you “live in Kentucky or 45 minutes outside of Phoenix, unless you’re going to make the drive into the city, you’re looking at Applebees or Outback, or you’re ordering Domino’s, those are your food choices.”
Hauslaib identified the evolving television landscape as one of the factors that helped bring Pop-Up Pantry to fruition.
“You’ve got about 25 million American women in major cities, but also women living in food deserts, who really, in the last five years, have been exposed to this explosion in food culture: reality cooking shows, Food Network, the new launch of the Cooking Channel. The only magazine category seeing an increase in subscriptions is food,” Hauslaib said.
“Tom and I say, ‘you know, we couldn’t have started this company five years ago.’ There was not an education about food that really penetrated the homes of almost every American.”
The rise of food culture, the fact that recession-hit Americans are dining out less, and Pop-Up Pantry’s expected profit margins in the 30-40 percent range, convinced investors from GRP Partners, CrossCut Ventures, and Launchpad LA to collectively give the pre-prepared-meal delivery service $1.71 million in seed funding.
“What we do have is more impressive margins than anything else in the food industry,” Hauslaib said.
Additionally, that preliminary seed round included angel investments from Lebanese wheat baron Michel Daher, Crosscut CEO Adam Goldenberg, and “How I Met Your Mother” star Neil Patrick Harris, said the Pop-Up Pantry founder.
Harris, who posts often on his NPH Food Porn Twitter account, became involved with Pop-Up Pantry through his partner, David Burtka, a Mario Batali- protégé, who has submitted a dozen menu ideas to Pop-Up Pantry, said Hauslaib.
Most recently, the Pop-Up Pantry team partnered with television series MasterChef to provide customers with the winning dishes from the show’s season finale, which aired September 10. Contestant Christine Ha won the MasterChef competition with her crab vegetable salad appetizer, braised pork belly entree, and a coconut lime sorbet for dessert. Also, MasterChef enthusiasts now have the option of ordering three-course dinners inspired by Ha’s and finalist Josh Mark’s celebrated recipes on Pop-Up Pantry’s website.
“It’s taking the food you see on television, the reason you get excited about cuisine, and what you can taste and what kind of ingredients you want to pick up at the grocery store, and being able to deliver it to your door,” said Hauslaib.
“That’s the gap we wanted to solve with Pop-Up Pantry.”
Top photo: Pop-Up Pantry founders Tom Balamaci (left) and David Hauslaib. Credit: Pop-Up Pantry
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The Liberation Of Celia Kahn
J. David Simons
List Price: £8.99 |
Our Price: £7.64
You Save: £1.35
This item is normally dispatched within 3 working days.
Glasgow 1915. Set against the background of rent strikes, anti-war sentiment and a revolution brewing in Russia, a young Jewish woman from the Gorbals gains her first taste for protest and female solidarity. But it is her own rape that galvanises her even further as she campaigns to introduce birth control to the women of the city.
- "The Liberation of Celia Kahn, however, is a thoughtful, neat and plucky book, much like its heroine... The novel’s big ideas are handled expertly..." Vulpis Libris
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By Anya Kamenetz
This past weekend, EDesign Labs, a nonprofit dedicated to making sure K-12 innovation incorporates the insights of teachers and students, held a hackathon at the Center for Social Innovation in New York City, part of a National Day of Civic Hacking sponsored by Intel.
EDesign Labs was seeded by the Ford Foundation and is currently hosted at New Visions for Public Schools, a nonprofit (funded by the Gates Foundation and the NYC and federal departments of education) focused on launching new schools.
“We proposed a tough challenge,” said director Hsing Wei, whose computer science, art, and education background includes Harvard, MIT, Parsons, and Eyebeam. “‘How do we design learning for a future of computational thinkers, effective storytellers, and empathetic inventors?’”
The 100-plus hackathon attendees formed up to eight-person teams including designers, developers, local public and charter school teachers, and even a few high school students. “The teams were bigger than we expected, I think because education is a hard problem,” says Wei.
Over two days at the Center for Social Innovation, teams built or mocked up different apps to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and participation in classrooms. There was an ultra-simple, shareable video app called Off the Page; MiniStories, a comic-book like tool where students could create characters and produce short narratives; and DataCrunch and Data Hunt, tools meant to help students understand and visualize data.
The winner of the day was a science app called WavePool that turned the Microsoft Kinect interface into a tool for visualizing and manipulating soundwaves in real time. Do you know what a wave the width of your outstretched arms sounds like compared to one that’s seven centimeters wide? WavePool can show you. The team received a mentorship meeting with DreamIt Ventures, and just as important, an opportunity to pilot in two real-life classrooms.
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I'm a student at the Art Institute and have been asked to interview an experienced CAD professional. Would anyone be willing to answer a few short questions? The questions are as follows:
Name (first), location, and profession of the person,
When do they use CAD in the production process (i.e. preliminary design, design development, etc.),
The types of standardization they use, and
Advantages or disadvantages that CAD brings to their practice.
Anyone that is willing to help would be greatly appreciated!!!
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Although it's little more than a compliance car (which is why it's only being sold in California), the electric Fiat 500e actually offers some pretty impressive fuel economy numbers.
The official EPA numbers indicate 108 MPGe. This makes it the most efficient highway car in the marketplace. The range clocks in at around 87 miles, so that means it probably gets anywhere from 60 to 90 miles, depending on driving style and conditions. With a level 2 charger, you can juice it up in about 4 hours.
Although the patent was filed back in June, 2011, Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) media machine kicked into gear last week as it began to spread the news of the company's new wind turbine.
The technology, which allows for the generation of electricity by converting heat energy, instead of rotational energy, offers on-demand power by way of stored wind energy.
According to the patent, the new generation system can reduce costs associated with natural variations in wind supply. As well, it can be used as a replacement for conventional energy storage systems.
Of course, this isn't Apple's first investment in renewable energy. You may remember last year when Apple filed plans with the North Carolina Utilities Commission to double the number of fuel cells the company operates at its Maiden data center.
These fuel cells, which are manufactured by Bloom Energy, use methane from a nearby landfill as a feedstock. Apple also owns and operates a 20 megawatt solar farm in North Carolina for the same data center. That solar farm, by the way, is the largest end-user-owned onsite solar array in the nation.
Mitsubishi Corp. has recently announced that it has acquired a 50 percent stake in a solar power plant in France. This particular power plant boasts a capacity of 55 megawatts, and has been operational since June.
Interestingly, this news comes around the same time we learn that France has doubled the production capacity target for solar. The government intends to offer more financial support to small solar farms that use European-made panels.
Although I'm always happy to see the solar sector get some love in the policy arena, I have little faith in the ability of the new French government to avoid continued fiscal hardships. New regulations and extremely high tax rates for the wealthy are likely to accomplish little more than chasing out those who provide employment for French workers.
Of course, I could be wrong. I suppose we'll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, I expect we'll see a nice little bump in solar installations in France this year.
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Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life. 1925. USA. Directed by Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack
These notes accompany The Documentary Expands, which screens on March 10, 11, and 12 in Theater 3.
Calling Merian C. Cooper (1893–1973) and Ernest B. Schoedsack (1893–1979) auteurs may seem like fudging a little bit, but I don’t think it is. Yet the doubt creeps in on two levels. First, while film is undeniably a collaborative medium, the auteur theory argues that there is a singular dominant creator. The bond between these guys, however, seems so seamless in their films as to be almost unique. The other reason for hedging is that they first made their collaborative mark in documentary film, a form that presupposes that the director cannot mold his material as freely as can the maker of narrative films. (It has become obvious in subsequent decades that even the most “pure” cinéma vérité is subject to manipulation at the hands of masters like Jean Rouch or Fred Wiseman.) And it is, of course, true that immediately after Grass, Cooper and Schoedsack began to move away from authentic actuality. Read more
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Irish Plantations: By map
Developments in Ireland were a major factor in the English Civil War....
Developments in Ireland were a major factor in the English Civil War. Plot the impact of the war on Ireland as events unfolded with our series of maps of the Irish plantations
- Duration: 10 mins
- Published on: Sunday 7th January 2001
- Introductory Level
- Posted under: World History
Tudor Plantations in Ireland
The close physical proximity of Scotland, England and Ireland made social, economic and political linkage inevitable. England claimed overlordship of Ireland during the Middle Ages and, during this period, knights and adventurers claimed several estates on the island as their own. The impact of this settlement was minimal as the incomers were relatively few in number, they shared a Catholic faith with the locals and were gradually absorbed into Gaelic culture.
The imperialism of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was much more intrusive. Following England's withdrawal from Europe, the Tudors (who proclaimed themselves monarchs of Ireland) initiated a 'plantation' policy in which much larger numbers of settlers arrived on the island and displaced the locals from their land. As this occurred in the wake of the English Reformation (during which Ireland remained substantially Catholic) a layer of religious antagonism was inserted into the colonial equation. The new settlers viewed the locals as primitive savages, mired in error and superstition. Map One depicts the extent and location of English plantations in Ireland prior to 1603.
Jacobean Plantations in Ireland, 1605 and 1609
James VI's accession to the English throne (1603) and the 'Flight of the Earls' resulted in a rapid acceleration of the plantation policy. Disgruntled by the persecution they encountered following the Nine Years War (1594- 1603), one hundred aristocrats and gentry from Ulster (including the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel) fled the country in 1607, going into exile on the continent. The Crown claimed the 4m acres they left behind (mainly in Ulster) as its own and, in 1609, the Privy Council announced that this land would be opened up for plantation. Map 2 reveals the location of the new plantations established during the early years of James' reign.
Jacobean Plantations in Ireland,1618 and 1620
Plantation continued apace during James' reign and Map 3 depicts the plantations added in 1618 and 1620. By the latter date, approximately 40,000 Scottish Presbyterians had settled in Ulster, and they brought with them not just their religious faith but also new farming techniques and a Calvinist mindset. This explains why the north of Ireland is, in many regards, economically and culturally different from the rest of the island. It also provides a historical context in which the partition of 1921 and the 'troubles' of the 1970s and 1980s can be understood. By 1641, approximately 100,000 Scottish and English Protestants had settled in Ulster and as they had gained at the expense of the locals, it explains the ferocity of the rebellion when it exploded in 1641. The 1641 rebellion was led Owen, as leader of Kilkenny Confederation, nephew of the displaced Earl of Tyrone.
English and Scottish penetration of Ireland accelerated after 1641, and Map 4 depicts the reduction in Irish Catholic landownership between 1641 and 1688.
Irish Catholic Land Ownership, 1641 and 1688
This maps illustrates the marginalisation and displacement of Irish Catholic landownership during the second half of the seventeenth century.
Map 4A depicts those areas where Catholic landownership exceeded 50% in 1641 and, conversely, where it was less than 5%. As can be expected, the areas of low Catholic landholding are in the northern counties, but Catholics continued as majority landowners throughout large swathes of the island.
Forty-seven years later (Map 4B), the picture is very different. On the eve of the Glorious Revolution, majority Catholic landownership was confined to marginal territory on the west coast, while Catholics made up less than 5% of landowners in ten counties, all in the north of the island. This map illustrates the extent to which England regarded Ireland as an imperial possession during the seventeenth century, fit for colonisation and exploitation.
Copyright & revisions
Originally published: Sunday, 7th January 2001
Last updated on: Sunday, 7th January 2001
- Body text - Creative-Commons: The Open University
- Image 'Map of Tudor Plantations in Ireland' - Copyrighted: Used with permission
- Image 'Jacobean Plantations in Ireland, 1605 an d1609' - Copyrighted: Used with permission
- Image 'Map of Jacobean Plantations in Ireland, 1618 and 1620' - Copyrighted: Used with permission
- Image 'Map of Irish Catholic Land Ownership, 1641 and 1688' - Copyrighted: Used with permission
- Image 'Map of Irish Catholic Land Ownership, 1688' - Copyrighted: Used with permission
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Vitamins essential to complete diet
Are you taking a dietary supplement that contains a vitamin that is not really a vitamin? Vitamin terminology using obsolete names or just creative license is a common marketing gimmick.
Before vitamins were discovered, scientists thought that the body only required the "macronutrients" protein, carbohydrate, fat and water.
Around the beginning of the 20th century, nutrition scientists started to recognize that there are other food chemicals that the body needs in micro amounts.
Some of these "micronutrients" were discovered to be vitamins that could miraculously cure some of the common diseases of the time.
Horrible ailments like pellagra, beriberi, and scurvy turned out to be due to vitamin deficiencies. During the process of identifying and isolating each vitamin, a number of other substances were called vitamins that later proved not to be.
Question: What is a vitamin?
Answer: Vitamins are chemical compounds other than macronutrients or minerals that are essential in very tiny amounts and necessary for normal body functions. An inadequate supply of a vitamin leads to specific deficiency problems.
Q: What are the known vitamins?
A: Throughout history, more than 50 different vitamin terms have been used.
Research and experience have shown that only 13 vitamins are known to be required for humans. These vitamins include A, B-1, B-2, B-6, B-12, C, D, E, K, niacin, folic acid, biotin, and pantothenic acid.
Obsolete vitamin names are sometimes still used for marketing purposes. Consequently, the term "vitamin" doesn't always refer to a real vitamin that is essential for normal health and growth.
Q: What are some of the bogus vitamins?
A: The bioflavinoids found in citrus fruits are sometimes called "vitamin P," however, these clearly are not vitamins.
Sometimes fatty acids are referred to as vitamin F, but these also are not vitamins.
Both "vitamin B-15" and "vitamin B-17" are phony vitamins, apparently created for marketing purposes. According to Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database, formulations of B-15 are "possibly unsafe," "potentially carcinogenic" and "can cause oxalate stones and other kidney problems." The so-called vitamin B-17 is a substance that releases hydrogen cyanide (a potent toxin) in the body.
Perhaps the most bizarre phony vitamin is "vitamin O." It is just water fizzed with oxygen.
If your bottle of vitamins lists any of these obsolete or bogus vitamin terms, consider finding a brand that sells you real vitamins.
, Ph.D., C.N.S. and Joannie Dobbs
, Ph.D., C.N.S. are
nutritionists in the Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Animal Sciences, College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, UH-Manoa. Dr. Dobbs also works with the University Health Services and prepares the nutritional analyses marked with an asterisk in this section. See also: Health Events
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By BROTHER ROGERS
On this upcoming Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, what is the state of race relations?
As usual, where you stand depends on where you sit. At first glance, the news is not so good. Upon closer examination, we are making progress.
In a column last month, I wrote about the need for blacks and whites to interact more as friends and neighbors. One of my readers responded by email, “Move to a predominantly black neighborhood and get back with me on your opinions of blacks in large groups. See how they treat you and your family. You will quickly understand why most sane white people want to live around just white people.”
I asked that reader to submit his words as a letter to the editor. He would not because he realized how out of touch those views are in 2013. That is the good news. We haven’t eliminated racism and never will. But what used to be fashionable is now considered unacceptable by the majority.
In December, a white player from the University of North Alabama football team tweeted “Take that (racial slur) off the tv, we wanna watch football!” in response to NBC pre-empting Sunday Night Football to broadcast President Obama’s speech at the memorial for victims of the mass school shooting in Newtown, Conn.
The fact that a college student would send such as message is regrettable. The good news is the reaction. His coach kicked him off the football team. The UNA president called his comments “absolutely deplorable” and said “that one of our students should utter such racial venom is completely unacceptable.”
On Jan. 4, 2013, the Clarion-Ledger reported that six young men from Rankin County admitted in court that they were part of a group who regularly came to Jackson in 2011 and 2012 to harass African Americans. These hate crimes took place even after an innocent black man was killed in Jackson by rowdy white teenagers in a hit-and-run captured by a motel’s security camera.
There was a time during my lifetime when these hate crimes might have gone unreported or been dismissed. Today, the perpetrators have been caught and will be punished by the criminal justice system.
These slurs and crimes demonstrate that racism is still with us. Laws have changed, but prejudice cannot be outlawed by government. It is particularly upsetting to see members of a new generation engaging in such despicable behavior. Unfortunately, there is still much work to be done in our homes, our churches and our schools.
These incidents and others like them are one of the reasons it is important to have a holiday honoring the accomplishments of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was the leader of a moral and political movement that transformed America, especially the South, from a place where racism was commonly accepted to a place where such behavior is now appropriately condemned. Racism has always been wrong, but it took Dr. King and the movement he led to finally teach America this important truth.
Each generation must learn anew the American values of liberty and justice for all. While we are still struggling to live up to these values, we are doing better than ever before. If we want to bring about change, it has to start with us. As the song says, “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.”
William “Brother” Rogers lives in Starkville and works with the Stennis Center for Public Service. Contact him at firstname.lastname@example.org .
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I hope this title clarifies what some people have been asking. When Aļļaah promises or threatens, it means that He is telling us about what will happen in the future. This is not like human promises, which are mere words expressing commitment to do something in the future unseen. In other words, what He promises will happen, because His Speech is flawless and pertains to what He knows, not because He is obligated to fulfill promises. For this reason, saying that it is intrinsically impossible that His promise will not be fulfilled, is based on the fact that He has told us what will be in the future. It is not based on asserting any obligation.
I hope that clarifies it.
This current issue first came up with the Muˆtazilah or philosophers, who wanted to prove that there are acts that are impossible because of their intrinsic ugliness, i.e. they are intrinsically impossible because of intrinsic ugliness. They said that if you do not accept this, then you will end up saying that it is intrinsically possible that Aļļaah should lie, i.e. say one thing and do another.
The Asħˆariyys, knowing that this would be to insult Aļļaah, needed to show that lying is impossible, but without submitting to the claim that some acts are intrinsically ugly. This is because saying that possible acts can be intrinsically ugly, and therefore impossible, is to say that the intrinsically possible becomes impossible, and that is nonsense. Since it is nonsense, the real meaning of the Muˆtazilite saying, i.e. what it actually leads to saying, is that Aļļaah is obligated not to do certain acts, and to do others. This implies that Aļļaah needs to fulfill obligations, and that would be a kufr assertion.
The Asħˆariyys then, showed instead that you can say that lying is impossible without submitting to the claim that there are intrinsically ugly acts, because Aļļaah’s Speech is not created, and therefore is not something that falls in the possible category of things. Rather, it is an eternal and unchanging attribute that pertains to what His knowledge pertains to, by which He informs what He knows. If one said that it pertains to lies also, then one has attributed a flaw to Aļļaah’s speech, saying something untrue, and that is impossible, because it is imperfection.
Accordingly, the Asħˆariyys said that it is impossible that Aļļaah should have obligations, because that would imply a need to fulfill them, yet it is also impossible that He would not do what He promised, because His eternal Speech is flawless. So one says that Aļļaah definitely fulfills His promises and threats, because His Speech must be true. It is kufr to say that Aļļaah could do otherwise, because this is to say that His Speech could be false. This has nothing to do with ability, because that Aļļaah should say something untrue is intrinsically impossible.
Yet another way to explain this is to remember that Aļļaah is not in time. He is not something that changes and goes through stages of being. It is therefore impossible that He should have obligations, because being obligated by a promise means that the saying comes before the actions. Since neither Aļļaah’s actions, nor His Speech are in time, this sort of sequence does not befit Aļļaah, because He is not in time.
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NEW YORK, NY.- Aperture Foundation
, a leading New York based arts institution dedicated to promoting photography in all its forms, and School of Visual Arts, an art school in New York City whose mission is to educate students who aspire to become professional artists, have partnered to present a group exhibition of works by alumni of SVA’s BFA Photography Department that explores issues of role playing and identity in the twenty-first-century. Identity Identities (i / i), curated by Stephen Frailey, chair of the BFA Photography Department at SVA, with an accompanying essay by Seth Greenwald, supports Aperture’s mission to promote the work of promising young artists.
The show debuted at the Galleria San Ludovico in Parma, Italy, and was originally coordinated as an exchange between photography students in Parma and the students of SVA, creating two unique shows, both dealing with the theme of identity, that traveled to the other’s country. Aperture is pleased to present the New York debut of the SVA student exhibit in its gallery space, located at 547 West 27th Street in the heart of Chelsea’s art district.
Identity, it has been suggested, is not static, but rather a shifting state of affairs that can be investigated, assimilated, and then rejected, as one does an outfit or a new hairstyle. Today’s successful face transplants performed in France, China, and the United States; gender reassignment surgery; the ubiquity of cosmetic procedures; emotional modification through pharmacology; the commercial cloning of family pets; telecommuting in the work place; and social networking tools that facilitate new communities online: all are examples of how the ways in which we identify, both with ourselves and with others, are bending and evolving.
In Identity Identities (i / i), eleven promising young artists explore the various permutations of identity in today’s rapidly changing world through the fluid and evolving medium of photography that is perhaps best suited to tackle this subject. Themes include how identity manifests itself through group identification, the places we live, and the influence of mass media and advertising. Following are brief summaries of each of the artist’s work in the show:
Allison Yeskel (United States, b. 1986) provides us with photographs of young men who have undergone varying degrees of body modification. Isolated against a black background, these simple portraits recall the earliest days of studio photography.
Joseph Sbarro (United States, b. 1986) fabricates unique figures that synthesize elements from separate bodies; the resulting biomorphic shapes are strangely beautiful, yet nightmarishly grotesque.
Jennifer Lee (Canada, b. 1986) draws on her personal history to create diaristic narratives that combine photography, fashion design, and set construction.
Hugo Fernandez (United States, b. 1985) uses photography as a method for exploring sexual identity and social acceptance.
Jess Shaffer (United States, b. 1984) manufactures self-portraits that explore the slippage of identity between childhood and adulthood, and the extent to which the one impacts the other.
Nicola Kast (Germany, b. 1982) explores German national identity through self-portraiture that portrays social stereotypes and historical tropes.
Victoria Hely-Hutchinson (United Kingdom, b. 1984) makes work that documents life in exclusive, British boarding schools. She has a deeply personal relationship to these institutions: herself, both of her parents, and her siblings have attended them.
Jing Quek (Singapore, b. 1983) investigates secondary communities whose identities are frequently hidden from us in the normal course of our daily experience.
Kelly Clark (United States, b. 1984) juxtaposes photographs of nondescript, suburban houses with descriptions of violent crimes once committed on those properties.
Anula Maiberg (Israel, b. 1982) layers printed statements over abstract backgrounds to create images that speak to issues of power and control.
Susanne Persson (Sweden, b. 1982) manipulates consumer product logos, removing select details and leaving a skeletal framework of form and color.
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Jack Hanna’s Heroes
Empowering People to Save Animals
Over the last 30 years, I’ve had the opportunity to travel the world and learn about the Earth’s vast and awe-inspiring creatures. Throughout the years I’ve seen the “wild” shrink - virtually all animals are experiencing some sort of challenge due to habitat loss or environmental change. But there is good news! I’ve discovered that whenever you see an animal, there is almost always a hardworking person nearby looking out for its best interest (whether in a zoo, sanctuary, reserve or the wild). Although animals definitely have an instinct for survival, they can’t do it without our help.
I’ve met so many passionate people who have dedicated their lives to the protection, rehabilitation, and conservation of animals. These animal advocates need financial support from people like you and me to continue their important work. The mission of Jack Hanna’s Heroes is to support the people and organizations that are working everyday to help make the world a better place for animals.
As I continue to travel around the world to film and visit conservationists, I’m always in search of heroes that are in dire need of resources and funding. I invite you to be a hero to these people and the animals they’ve dedicated their lives to…and make a contribution today.
For more information, please send inquiries to email@example.com. To make a donation by check, please make the check payable to Jack Hanna’s Heroes and mail to the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, Attn: Jack Hanna, PO Box 400, Powell, OH 43065.
Rolling Dog Ranch
The Rolling Dog Ranch in Montana is home to dozens of disabled and blind dogs, cats and horses. These are the animals who are the least likely to be adopted and among the most likely to be euthanized in traditional shelters. Rolling Dog was founded by Steve Smith and Alayne Marker in 2000, and with the help of volunteers, they work from sun up to sun down to ensure that the animals on the ranch live life to the fullest.
Sepilok Rehabilitation Center
This young orangutan is learning to climb by playing on this “jungle gym” at Sepilok Rehabilitation Center in Sabah, Malaysia. The next step will be for the youngster to climb trees in the nearby forest, in hopes of being released back in to the wild someday. The orangs currently at Sepilok are rescued orphans or confiscated from the pet trade. Staff and volunteers from all over the world, some with more than 20 years of experience, care for the orangutans until they are able to care for themselves.
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“From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, the Jews, and Israel”
By Robert S. Wistrich
University of Nebraska Press, 648 pages, $55
Imagine this: It’s the summer of 1947 and you’re a Communist or a fellow traveler or a Socialist or another kind of anti-Stalinist. Despite myriad differences with political rivals, you share the same basic position on the question of Palestine. You insist that the United Nations grant Jews a state alongside an Arab one. When the United States balks at this proposal, you attend a rally or sign a petition or fume at the State Department. In November you celebrate the United Nations’ vote in favor of partition, and six months later you curse the Arab invasion of the newborn State of Israel.
And when Israel emerges victorious, you hail the political resurrection of the Jewish nation in the form of a vital socialist or proto-socialist democracy. You might criticize some of Israel’s policies, but you do so as a sympathizer — not as a Zionist necessarily, but as someone impressed by Zionism’s achievements. If you are one of the few who oppose Israel resolutely, then you probably belong to a fringe sect. Such was reality, more or less, at the time of Israel’s creation.
A different situation prevailed four decades beforehand. Prior to World War I, nearly all socialists in Europe and the United States viewed Zionism, to the extent they thought about it, as reactionary and futile. But then again, they paid little attention to it. Early 20th-century Zionism did not seem especially significant, certainly not a pernicious force in the international arena. A shift occurred in 1917, following the Balfour Declaration and the Bolshevik Revolution:
Soviet leaders and Communists everywhere began to denounce Zionism as a tool of British imperialism. But that was communism. Democratic Socialists began to muster sympathy toward Zionism during the 1920s, enough to welcome David Ben-Gurion’s party, Poale Zion, into the Socialist International. When it came to Zionism, the interwar left was divided, which should come as no surprise, because the left was, well, divided.
Today, in the early 21st century, the picture again looks substantially different. Most leftists — progressives, radicals, socialists, anarchists — loathe Israel. Some do not. A scattering of leftists (and most liberals) still sympathizes with the Jewish state, but they feel beleaguered, defensive, even intimidated. To stand squarely and comfortably on the left today is to believe that Israel is a racist, imperialist country (“apartheid on steroids,” as a colleague put it to me). Such anti-Israelism is not altogether new; it surged within the New Left in the late-1960s and kept surging ever since, but, for many years, anti-Israelism was met with vigorous counterarguments from within the left. Noam Chomsky used to complain that pro-Israel bias pervaded the left, which was a gross exaggeration but had some basis in reality. That was then. Now, leftists accuse Chomsky of betrayal. They indict him for placing tribal loyalties above professed political principles. Why? Because Chomsky opposes boycotts of Israel and supports a two-state solution that would permit Israel’s continued existence. Noam Chomsky: Zionism’s fifth columnist.
The left’s relationship to Zionism and Israel defies simple generalization. It has, over the past century, evolved in various directions, just as Zionism, Israel and the left itself have changed. Few scholars are as qualified as The Hebrew University’s Robert Wistrich to write a comprehensive history of this vexed relationship. Wistrich has published extensively on European Socialists and their writings on Jews. Indeed, “From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, the Jews, and Israel” draws from a number of Wistrich’s previous studies. Although not entirely new, Wistrich’s impressive tome assembles a career’s worth of important research. Anyone interested in the history of socialism and the Jews must read this book.
Contemporary left-wing anti-Zionism in Europe provides the point of departure. At its obsessive, paranoid, bigoted worst, today’s anti-Zionism contains only a tenuous connection to classical Marxism and its Enlightenment values. It has become “the place where ‘Islamo-fascism’ merges with ‘Islamo-Marxism’ in an empty ‘progressivism’ without progress, driven by a convulsive hatred of Western modernity, of Jews, of bourgeois liberalism.” Chants of “Death to Israel,” “End the Holocaust in Gaza” or “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the Gas” reflect a profound ideological rupture. Why, Wistrich asks, has the left betrayed its own intellectual and political heritage? What went wrong?
Wistrich opens with those questions, yet drops them immediately. Rather than probe the discontinuities of left-wing anti-Zionism, Wistrich excavates its roots in European socialism. Continuity becomes his main theme. Over a series of case studies spanning 509 pages (not until the final 100 pages does he turn to the recent past), Wistrich examines the attitudes and ideas of socialist thinkers and leaders regarding Jews, anti-Semitism and Zionism. He presents disturbing evidence. Karl Marx, in his youth, equated Jews with economic exploitation.
Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin detested that “unique devouring parasite,” that “bloodsucking people,” the Jews. Victor Adler, a founder of Austrian Social Democracy, denounced “anti-Semitic incitement” but also felt compelled to condemn “philo-Semitic incitement” in a show of misguided evenhandedness. Adler and many of his comrades argued that anti-Semitism would inevitably disappear in the future socialist society “in which the qualities referred to, rightly or wrongly, as Jewish would not ensure influence and power or a life of indulgence.” Into such a society the Jews would completely assimilate, or, in Adler’s words, the “wandering Jew” would wander “into his grave.” And there was the problem of what might be called theoretical discrimination. Austrian Marxists developed an innovative theory recognizing the national rights of small nationalities living within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but denied those rights to Jews. Croats qualified as a genuine nation; the Jews amounted to a moribund caste.
Wistrich establishes a blemished record. Ambivalence, callousness, even prejudice existed within socialist movements dating back to the mid-19th century. Yet how should we evaluate the Socialist record overall? Wistrich fails to say directly. His selection of case studies implies that Socialists generally suffered from a special Jewish problem. Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky receives a scathing portrait for his smelly innuendos about Polish Jews and his embrace of the Palestine Liberation Organization during the 1970s. Fine. Yet Wistrich does not see fit to grant French Socialist leader Leon Blum and Socialist International chairman Emile Vandervelde equal attention for their roles in supporting Zionism during the 1920s and ’30s. A 600-page, “pathbreaking synthesis” ought to cast a reasonably wide net.
“From Ambivalence to Betrayal” misleads in another way: It fails to situate Socialists within the larger political contexts in which they operated. To what extent were Socialist parties better or worse than other parties? Wistrich mentions, here and there, the existence of right-wing parties that agitated against Jews, but he does not adequately underscore their differences from Socialists. A newcomer to the subject could easily conclude from Wistrich’s study that Socialist parties were anti-Semitic parties. In fact, the great social democratic movements of Austria and Germany, for all their flaws, neither agitated against Jews nor proposed restrictions on them. They stood for full civil and political equality. No wonder, then, that Central European Jews, almost entirely, voted for social democratic and liberal parties.
Wistrich profiles several seeming exceptions. French Jewish intellectual Bernard Lazare abandoned “self-hatred” and developed an anarchist brand of Zionism in response to the Dreyfus Affair. German evolutionary Socialist Edward Bernstein never minimized the seriousness of anti-Semitism and even cooperated with Zionists. The theoretical journal with which Bernstein associated, Sozialistische Monatshefte, published numerous pro-Zionist articles. Even the quintessential revolutionary internationalist Leon Trotsky moderated his opposition to Zionism in the 1930s and predicted with remarkable prescience the destruction of European Jewry. In an appeal to American Jews, written in December 1938, Trotsky warned: “It is possible to imagine without difficulty what awaits the Jews at the mere outbreak of the future world war. But even without war, the next development of world reaction signifies with certainty the physical extermination of the Jews.”
Wistrich treats Trotsky, Bernstein and Lazare as exceptions. Yet numerous other exceptions, mentioned usually in passing, accumulate over hundreds of pages, and the accumulation suggests a different possible account. The broad outlines of this alternative version might look something like this:
In the 19th century, European radicals often employed anti-Jewish vocabulary and concepts; however, as Marxian social democrats developed a sophisticated analysis of capitalism and as they confronted right-wing movements in the final third of the century, they began to take the problem of anti-Semitism seriously, albeit within faulty parameters that hampered understanding of Jews and their predicaments. At the same time, Yiddish-speaking Jews in Eastern Europe and North America built popular socialist movements that advanced various forms of Jewish nationalism, Zionism among them.
The rise of autonomous Jewish parties initially sparked conflicts with general socialist parties such as the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party, whose leaders failed to grasp the rationale for organizations such as the Bund. Nonetheless, in certain important instances — for example, the Bund’s relationship with the Mensheviks — tensions eventually eased and led to cooperation. The Bolsheviks never stopped condemning Jewish parties as nationalistic, but they nonetheless granted nationality rights to Jews after 1917. The Soviet government also outlawed anti-Semitism, and the Red Army quashed the mass slaughter of Jews by counter-revolutionary forces during the Civil War. In 1948, the USSR and Soviet bloc countries lent crucial diplomatic and military aid to Israel, which they soon replaced with crude anti-Semitic campaigns. Yet despite drastic shifts in Soviet policies, some Communists in the West retained sympathies for Israel and decried anti-Zionism. (A powerful statement by Austrian Communist Bruno Frei appears in Wistrich’s 1979 anthology, “The Left Against Zion.”) Meanwhile, postwar European social democrats gave consistently strong support to social democratic Israel. In the proposed narrative sketched here, blemishes would remain, but not for the purpose of an overall indictment.
The post-1967 hostility toward Israel still requires explanation. What went wrong, as Wistrich asks at the book’s outset? The rise of Arab nationalism and, later, Islamic fundamentalism, the rightward drift in Israeli politics and the ongoing occupation of the West Bank all have to be taken into account. Exceptions and counter-trends also require recognition. For even today, intellectuals, journals and organizations of the left continue to warn against anti-Semitism, oppose boycotts and insist on Israel’s right to exist. Within the anti-Israel movement itself, fissures and rifts have surfaced, as witnessed by Chomsky.
A less selective, more complex and judicious history of the left, Jews and Israel remains to be written. In the meantime, “From Ambivalence to Betrayal” gives readers much to consider.
Tony Michels is the George L. Mosse Associate Professor of American Jewish History at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is author of “A Fire in Their Hearts: Yiddish Socialists in New York (Harvard University Press, 2005) and editor of the recent “Jewish Radicals: A Documentary History” (NYU Press).
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Issue Twenty Three
Disability Rights Online News
is a bi-monthly update about the Civil Rights Division’s activities in the area of disability rights. The Division enforces laws prohibiting discrimination based on disability in employment, housing, access to businesses serving the public, access to government programs and services including voting and public transportation, and unconstitutional conditions in institutions of confinement.
In this Issue:
Some of the most egregious conditions faced by people with disabilities are those faced by people who are incarcerated in prisons and jails. At the beginning of 2006, state prisons held 1,259,905 inmates in custody. And local jails held 766,010. Adding in the number of people on parole or probation or in federal prisons, the number of individuals in the United States correctional system swells to more than 7 million.
Like all other facilities covered by Title II of the ADA, correction and detention facilities are required to make their programs, services, and activities accessible. This includes intake operations such as fingerprinting, initial medical and mental health screening, and determining the appropriate classification, confinement level, housing, and cell assignment for the new inmate; access to toilets, showers, food, and recreation; medical and mental health services; education, drug treatment, anger management, and sexual offender treatment programs; commissary; phone calls; jobs; religious services; work release and early release programs; and visitation programs.
Yearly, the Department receives more than 1,600 complaints from inmates in state and local facilities alleging discrimination on the basis of disability. The “Justice Project” is an initiative created in 2004 to investigate and resolve these complaints.
Inmates with disabilities allege a wide variety of ADA violations at state and local correction and detention facilities. The three most common types of allegations involve: (1) denial of access or unequal access to the facility’s programs and activities; (2) lack of effective communication for inmates who are deaf or hard of hearing and those who are blind or have low vision; and (3) denial of access to disability-related medical services and devices.
Some inmates who take medication to treat mental illness are excluded from participating in drug treatment programs that are required to be eligible for parole. Other inmates with disabilities are excluded from job assignments, preventing them from earning good-time credits that would qualify them for early release. In some facilities, inmates with disabilities are housed in the infirmary, segregated from the general population and unable to participate in the programs and activities available to other inmates. Visitors with disabilities also face difficulties due to lack of accessible parking, entrances, and visitation areas.
MEDICAL SERVICE AND DEVICE COMPLAINTS
JUSTICE PROJECT SUCCESSES
COURT APPROVES DISTRIBUTION OF $700,000 IN FAIR HOUSING DAMAGES
On December 12, 2007, the federal court in Detroit, Michigan, approved a plan for distributing $700,000 in monetary damages to 37 people with disabilities who had been harmed by the lack of accessible features at apartment complexes owned by Michigan apartment owner Edward Rose and Sons. An additional $250,000 from the settlement fund will be used to increase housing opportunities for people with disabilities. The payments are in accordance with a September 2005 consent decree entered in United States v. Edward Rose and Sons, in which the defendants agreed to establish a fund to compensate victims of their alleged discrimination on the basis of disability. (See previous story in issue #9.)
The consent decree resolved two lawsuits filed by the United States in 2001 and 2002 alleging that Edward Rose and Sons, along with their architects and affiliated companies, had failed to design and construct 49 apartment complexes in Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, Virginia, and Nebraska in accordance with the accessibility requirements of the Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Among other things, the decree required the Rose companies to set aside $950,000 to compensate people who had been harmed by the lack of accessible features and to take steps to notify tenants and other persons of their right to apply for compensation.
The Department subsequently identified 37 people who should be compensated, and the court approved the distribution of $700,000 to them. The remaining $250,000 will go toward increasing housing opportunities for people with disabilities in communities where Edward Rose and Sons operates, in a manner to be determined later by the court.
“This is an important settlement for persons who were denied the right to live in accessible housing,” said Grace Chung Becker, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “The Civil Rights Division is committed to ensuring that individuals are not prevented from occupying the home of their choice because of illegal accessibility barriers or other violations of federal law.”
“Despite the Fair Housing Act’s enactment by Congress so many years ago, some landlords still fail to make their properties accessible to persons with disabilities. This case demonstrates our office’s commitment to aggressively enforcing federal fair housing laws and our continuing – and successful – efforts to fight discrimination based on race, color and national origin, religion, sex, familial status and disability,” said Stephen J. Murphy, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. “As a result of this case, more than 5,000 apartment units are being made accessible to citizens with disabilities. We are also pleased to be able to compensate those individuals who have been victims of housing discrimination in this case.”
On January 18, 2008, New York developers Bruce Tanski, the Bruce Tanski Construction and Development Company, Michael Dennis, and the Mountain Ledge Development Corporation reached a settlement with the Department resolving the Department’s demands for monetary and other relief stemming from an earlier federal court ruling that these developers had violated the federal Fair Housing Act by failing to design and construct seven Albany-area apartment complexes to be accessible to people with disabilities.
The Fair Housing Act requires that certain multifamily dwellings include design features that make them more accessible to people with physical disabilities. In 2007, the court found that the defendants had violated the Act by failing to install accessible entrances, bathrooms, kitchens, pedestrian walkways, and thermostats within the reach of people who use wheelchairs at the McGregor Village Apartments, Clifton Court North Apartments, Andrea Court Apartments, Cranberry Estates, Pine Ridge II Apartments, Halfmoon Court Apartments, and Carol Jean Estates. For example, all of the ground floor units at these complexes were built with one or more steps in front of them.
The settlement, which was approved by the court on January 22, requires the defendants to eliminate the steps; retrofit the apartments; retrofit public and common use areas; pay $155,000 in damages to people identified by the Department as having been harmed by these inaccessible features, and pay $20,000 in civil penalties. In addition, the settlement requires the defendants to comply with federal accessibility requirements in all future construction of apartment complexes; to report to the government on any future construction projects; and to undergo training on the requirements of the Fair Housing Act.
“With this settlement, persons in wheelchairs will be able to enter the doors of their homes, reach their thermostats, and move around in their kitchens and bathrooms,” said Grace Chung Becker, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “This settlement will open up 362 more apartments to persons with disabilities.”
“The Fair Housing Act requires that covered multifamily dwellings constructed for first occupancy after March 13,1991, take into consideration the needs of persons with disabilities,” said Kim Kendrick, HUD Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. “Stairs without ramps, doorways too narrow for wheelchairs, and environmental controls that are inaccessible deny persons with disabilities equal access to the housing of their choice. This is unacceptable when one out of five people living in our country has a disability.”
The settlement also resolves the Department’s claim that Michael Dennis and the Mountain Ledge Development Corporation failed to grant reasonable accommodations to people with disabilities. Under the terms of the agreement, these defendants must develop and post a reasonable accommodation policy that contains specific and objective standards and procedures for handling requests by people with disabilities for reasonable accommodations. These defendants are required to maintain records of such requests and to report them and any related complaints to the Department.
The case began when a tenant of McGregor Village filed a fair housing complaint with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). After investigating the matter, HUD issued a charge of discrimination, and the matter was referred to the Justice Department, which filed the lawsuit in June 2004. (See previous stories in issues #2 and #19.) Three architects and an engineer who were also defendants in the case had previously reached settlements with the Department that included an additional $18,000 for payments to victims.
DEPARTMENT TO HOLD MULTI-FAMILY HOUSING ACCESS FORUM IN SEATTLE IN MAY
The Department’s next Multi-Family Housing Access Forum will be held on Tuesday morning, May 20, 2008, at the Marriott SpringHill Suites in downtown Seattle, Washington. The Access Forum is a nationwide program that the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division launched in 2005. Its purpose is to help building professionals understand their legal obligations under the federal Fair Housing Act’s accessibility requirements and to celebrate partnerships that have successfully produced accessible multi-family housing in which everyone profits – developers and consumers alike. Expected to participate are building professionals, including architects and engineers, as well as developers, government officials, and advocates for individuals with disabilities. The last Access Forum event was held in Miami in November, and was attended by more than 80 people. Previous events were held in Minneapolis, Phoenix, Atlanta, Dallas, and Washington, DC. To learn more about the program and the Department’s fair-housing enforcement activities, visit www.usdoj.gov/fairhousing/. To receive an invitation to the May event, email the Department at firstname.lastname@example.org.
IDAHO LANDLORD SUED FOR FAILING TO PROVIDE REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION
On November 21, 2007, the Department filed a disability discrimination lawsuit against the owners and property managers of Shadow Canyon Apartments, a 77-unit apartment complex in Idaho Falls, Idaho. The complaint, filed in federal court in Boise, alleges that the defendants engaged in a pattern or practice of refusing to make reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities in violation of the Fair Housing Act.
The case originated when the Inter-mountain Fair Housing Council (IFHC), a non-profit fair housing organization in Idaho, conducted a telephone test in response to allegations of disability discrimination at Shadow Canyon. During the test, an IFHC employee posed as a social worker looking for an apartment for a disabled client who used a wheelchair and had a service animal. In response, Shadow Canyon’s onsite manager stated, “We absolutely do not allow dogs. . . . Even if it’s service, we won’t allow dogs.” Eight months earlier, this onsite manager had received training from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on basic fair housing law with a particular emphasis on reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities.
The IFHC filed a discrimination com-plaint with HUD. HUD conducted an investigation and referred the matter to the Justice Department. The Department’s com-plaint seeks an injunction prohibiting the defendants from violating the Fair Housing Act, monetary damages for the IFHC, and a civil penalty.
MOVIE THEATER IN HAWAII WILL IMPROVE ACCESSIBILITY
On January 15, 2008, Wallace Theater Corporation entered into a settlement agreement with the Department resolving a complaint filed by an advocacy organization on behalf of an individual who uses a wheelchair alleging that the Wharf Cinemas in Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii, a four-theater movie complex, had only one wheelchair seating location in each of its theaters. The complainant further alleged that when two individuals in wheelchairs arrived to see the same movie, one was turned away due to the lack of accessible seating. Under the agreement, Wallace Theater Corporation will provide additional wheelchair seating locations in each theater, will install assistive listening systems in each theater, and will make modifications to its entrance doors, concession lobby, and theater doors.
POLICE DEPARTMENT SUED FOR RETALIATION
On December 10, 2007, the Department filed an ADA lawsuit in federal court in Denver against the City of Colorado Springs (Colorado) Police Department (CSPD) alleging that CSPD refused to promote Lance Lazoff to Sargeant because of the assistance he had provided to his wife, a retired CSPD officer, who has a disability and was the lead plaintiff in a successful ADA class action against the CSPD. The suit seeks a court order requiring CSPD to offer Lazoff a promotion to Sergeant, together with retroactive seniority, payment of back pay with interest, and related benefits. Efforts to resolve this matter with CSPD before litigation were unsuccessful.
ADA BUSINESS CONNECTION HOLDS MEETING IN FLORIDA
On January 7, 2008, Acting Assistant Attorney General Grace C. Becker sponsored the 22nd ADA Business Connection Leadership meeting in conjunction with the annual convention of the Society for Accessible Travel and Hospitality (SATH), held at the Disney Contemporary Resort in Orlando, Florida. Stuart Vidockler, Chairman of SATH, and Jeannie Amendola of Walt Disney World served as co-hosts for the event, which was moderated by Deputy Assistant Attorney General Loretta King. Ms. Amendola and Nadine O. Vogel, President of Springboard Consulting, LLC, served as speakers for the meeting, addressing the mutual benefits of accessible customer service for both individuals with disabilities and the travel and hospitality industries. Twenty-nine leaders from the travel and hospitality industries and disability rights organizations and the U.S. Attorney from the Middle District of Florida attended the meeting and participated in a lively discussion following the formal speeches.
The ADA Mediation Program is a Department-sponsored initiative intended to resolve ADA complaints in an efficient, voluntary manner. Mediation cases are initiated upon referral by the Department when both the complainant and the respondent agree to participate. The program uses professional mediators who are trained in the legal requirements of the ADA and has proven effective in resolving complaints at less cost and in less time than traditional investigations or litigation. Over 78% of all complaints mediated have been resolved successfully.
In this issue, we highlight complaints against social service agencies that have been successfully mediated.
In Pennsylvania, a woman complained that a social service organization discontinued childcare services to her young daughter because staff members refused to conduct blood sugar level tests. The organization agreed to train staff members to check blood sugar levels of children with diabetes and to pay $2,000 in compensation to the complainant.
In New York, a person with a neurological disability that causes her to be unable to eat certain foods complained that an organization that provides in-home meals dropped her from the program because they would not modify their menu for her. The social service center resumed service, implemented a system to work with the complainant and others to identify individual dietary needs, and apologized to the complainant.
A person who uses a wheelchair complained that a social service center in Georgia was inaccessible. The center installed a van-accessible parking space, a curb ramp, an accessible door handle at the entrance, and a new accessible restroom.
In Nebraska, a person who uses a wheelchair alleged that a nonprofit housing organization did not have accessible restrooms. The building owner widened the entrance to the unisex bathroom and reconfigured it to provide access to people with mobility disabilities.
In Texas, a parent of a child with a severe peanut allergy complained that a nationwide summer day camp program for elementary school-aged children refused to administer epinephrine via an Epi-Pen in the event of an allergic reaction, instead requiring the parent to come to the site to administer the medication. The corporate office agreed to adopt a policy requiring site coordinators to administer basic first aid to all children, including the Epi-Pen for children experiencing an allergic reaction. The respondent also purchased a supply of Epi-Pens for use in its programs throughout the country and sent a written apology to the complainant.
A parent complained that her child with autism had been denied access to a day care program in Tennessee. The program agreed to comply with the ADA and to admit the child immediately, to establish a plan for ongoing communication with the parent about any needs the child may have, and to provide individualized assistance when deemed necessary by all parties.
On January 15, Division staff participated as a panel member in a regional audio conference organized by the DBTAC-Great Lakes ADA Center in Chicago. The topic was “2008 Best Practices in Design: Balancing local, State and Federal Requirements to Ensure Accessibility.” The panel also included architects and a representative of the Chicago Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities.
August 11, 2008
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I'm developing a reporting application where a user can make some searches on our database against an extremely large data set and display them in a table on a web page. One of the searches has the potential to display way too much data for the web page to reasonably display in HTML on a single page. Pagination and "Load More"/infinite scrolling models aren't possible as the user needs the option to print or sort this whole result set. Exporting the data to a non-HTML format is possible.
I need to inform the user that their search can't be completed (as normal, at least), but how? Should I show the partial output with a message like "please narrow your search" or should I refuse to display too much data?
Displaying the large data set on the page results in very slow load time (>30 seconds), and they're going to have to run the search again to get a "full" data set. At the same time I'm afraid a "please narrow your search" message may be too vague. It is possible for me to tell them how many possible rows their search would have pulled, and how many rows I am displaying, but I'm not sure how to word this.
How can I tell a user that their search has been canceled?
The user has specifically said they don't want the data paginated except for print, all results need to be continuous.
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Subscribers: LOG IN to access quizzes, worksheets, and more! Not a subscriber? SUBSCRIBE!
Edition 5-6 Teacher's Guide: December 14, 2012 (Volume 3, Issue 12)
Students read a personal narrative, then write their own.
Students complete activities based on the TFK cover story “2012: The Year in Pictures.”
Learn how this week's cover story and related Teaching Tips meet Common Core State Standards.
Assess comprehension of this week's magazine (Edition 5-6, Issue Date: December 14, 2012).
Students read a time line to read about some of the inventions included in TFK over the past ten years, then answer questions.
© 2013 Time Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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By Mark J. Magyar
For 15 years, Democratic and Republican governors alike piled up debt and failed to make billions of dollars of contributions to the pension system. Just as the bills for those past failures are coming due, Gov. Chris Christie has proposed a 10 percent income tax cut and business tax cuts that will reduce state revenue by $2 billion by 2016.
Democratic legislative leaders and the GOP governor have been sparring over whether it is more important to cut property taxes or income taxes. Clearly, approval of a major income tax cut would preclude any meaningful property tax relief package for the next four years.
But the real issue is just how big a tax cut New Jersey can afford over the next four years — or, indeed, whether the state can afford a major tax cut at all. Without a booming economy producing record revenues, Christie’s 10 percent income tax cut could be an anchor dragging down the budget, creating a structural deficit that could be covered only by deep budget cuts, an analysis of New Jersey’s built-in budget problems shows.
During his budget address Tuesday, Christie insisted New Jersey will be able to meet its pension obligations, increase school aid, put more money into higher education and other policy priorities, and continue to make major cuts in income taxes and business taxes every year.
However, implementation of Christie’s proposed income tax cut, combined with a series of business tax cuts approved last year, would take more than $550 million in revenue out of the state budget this year and cost the state more than $2 billion in lost revenue four years from now, when the tax cuts are fully implemented in fiscal year 2016.
New Jersey’s pension contribution costs would jump from $484 million to almost $2.9 billion over that same four-year period, while debt service would rise almost $350 million.
Covering the cost of the tax cuts, pensions and debt service alone would require the equivalent of $4.7 billion in revenue growth over the next four years — a 16 percent jump from the $29.7 billion in fiscal year 2012 revenue that the Christie administration still expects to collect by June 30, despite seven months of subpar tax collections so far.
Since 2000, the only four-year periods in which state revenue growth exceeded 16 percent were those in which Democratic governors passed major increases in corporate, income or sales taxes.
“For Christie to achieve what he would like to achieve would require annual revenue growth in the area of 5 percent, and while everyone would love for the governor to be right on this, we have to be prudent and plan for the likelihood that the economic rebound does not allow for that level of growth,” said Raphael Caprio, professor of public policy at Rutgers University.
Caprio served with former state Office of Management and Budget Director Richard Keevey, former state treasurers Sam Crane and Feather O’Connor Houstoun and other budget experts on a bipartisan, blue-ribbon task force that concluded New Jersey is facing a major structural deficit through fiscal year 2016 — and that was before Christie proposed either his business or income tax cuts.
In “Facing Our Future,” a report issued in January 2011 by the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers, Caprio and the other budget experts laid out two revenue scenarios. The “more aggressive” scenario projected average annual revenue growth of 5.15 percent, while the “slow to moderate” scenario forecast average revenue growth of 3.74 percent — a growth rate that would be insufficient to cover the costs of Christie’s income and business tax cuts and the state’s pension and debt service obligations.
Fiscal house isn’t ‘in order’
Based on studies by the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Association of State Budget Officers and New Jersey’s own OMB and Office of Legislative Services, the “Facing Our Future” fiscal team concluded that long-term growth “will be moderate at best” — in which case Christie would have to slash government services or state aid to pay for his tax cuts.
However, the fiscal year 2013 budget Christie unveiled Tuesday went far beyond the “more aggressive” scenario by “Facing Our Future” in its assumptions, projecting 7.5 percent overall growth despite $550 million in tax cuts — the equivalent of an 8.4 percent revenue increase in a single year if there were no tax cuts.
The projected revenue surge would fund $1.1 billion in new spending over the current year, including a huge increase in pension funding and more money for schools, colleges, tuition aid, the developmentally disabled and drug rehabilitation programs — all providing the political buildup for Christie’s clarion call to the Legislature: “Why not cut income taxes for all New Jersey now that our fiscal house is in order?”
The answer, of course, is that New Jersey’s fiscal house, while sturdier than it was when Christie took office in the wake of the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009, is not “in order.”
If revenues come in as Christie and Treasurer Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff project next year, it would mean New Jersey’s economy has fully bounced back in a single year to pre-recession fiscal year 2007 levels; in fact, Christie’s total budget of $49.5 billion, including federal and dedicated funds, would be the largest in New Jersey history.
Problems down the road
The problem would come in the three years that follow.
Just paying for pensions, debt service and Christie’s business and income tax cuts would eat up a total of $3.5 billion through fiscal year 2016.
With Christie vowing to veto any tax increase, that $3.5 billion would represent most of New Jersey’s potential revenue growth over that three-year period, and any remaining revenue will be needed just to cover basic increases in Medicaid, health insurance for retirees and normal inflationary costs — not to mention Christie’s promise to increase pay-as-you-go funding for transportation capital projects from general revenues.
That would leave no money to restore the remaining $350 million in school aid cut during Christie’s first year, no money to invest in creating world-class universities or caring for an aging population, and no money to restore property tax credits to the $1,000-plus levels provided during the final year of the Democratic Corzine administration.
It would freeze in place the 20 percent increase in net property taxes since 2009 that resulted primarily from Christie’s rebate cuts, guaranteeing that New Jersey will continue to have the highest property taxes in the nation.
New Jerseyans consistently tell pollsters that they would prefer a property tax cut over an income tax cut.
Clearly, any serious analysis of the state’s upcoming budget issues shows that New Jerseyans can’t have both.
Mark J. Magyar is editor-at-large for New Jersey Spotlight. A veteran Statehouse reporter, he specialized in budget issues as deputy policy chief for Gov. Christie Whitman and served as policy director for the independent Daggett for Governor campaign in 2009. He teaches labor studies at Rutgers University.
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Distance Education Study Course -Biochemical Foundations for PLants
- Foundation course for anyone working with plants: from gardeners to research assistants
- Improve your understanding of what makes plants grow
- Improve your job prospects in horticultural, environmental, agricultural and other industries
Student Comment: 'Having not finished high school myself and never studied biochemistry my confidence is a little low but the encouragement I am receiving from Honor [tutor] is a tremendous help and making it easier for me as I go. [The course] is helping me realize what I am actually capable of and that I am smarter than I thought. Thank you for making it possible for me to study my passion while still being able to work.' Melissa Smith, Australia, Biochemistry 1 (Diploma in Horticulture).
This course concentrates on the chemistry of the plants. Lessons cover: Biochemical substances and terms, carbohydrates, lipids, amino acids, proteins, metabolism, the nitrogen cycle, photosynthesis, respiration, transpiration, acidity and alkalinity, nutrition, hormones, chemical analysis and biochemical applications in industry.
Some secondary school chemistry will be helpful though it is not essential.
There are 9 lessons in this course:
Lipids and Proteins
Nitrogen and the Nitrogen Cycle
Photosynthesis and Respiration
Assimilation and Transpiration
Acidity and Alkalinity
Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.
Identify characteristics of common chemical compounds important in plant biochemistry.
Explain the characteristics of major biochemical groups including; carbohydrates, lipids and proteins.
Explain the characteristics of chemicals which control biological processes, including enzymes and hormones.
Identify the role of nitrogen in plant biological processes, including the nitrogen cycle.
Identify the role of photosynthesis in biological systems.
Explain the role of respiration in plants.
Explain characteristics of assimilation and transpiration in plants.
Explain the effect of acidity and alkalinity on biochemical systems.
Develop simple chemical analysis skills relevant to testing plants and soils.
Identify applications and uses for biochemical processes and products.
Plants are made up of chemicals. An understanding of plant chemistry is a foundation for understanding not only how to grow plants but also how to use them.
Consider the folloiwing examples of different types of chemicals that are found in plants, and do this course to lay a foundation to better understanding plant biochemistry:
Selected Plant Biochemicals:
Group 1: Saponins
Saponin containing plants are characterised by soap like foam when they are shaken in water. For this reason, many native peoples throughout the world have long used saponin containing plants for cleansing.
Basically they act to speed up the passage of other substances through the walls of the gastrointestinal tract and to stimulate secretion from the mammary glands and glands along the respiratory tract.
Saponin containing plants can be used as:
a. Expectorants (ie. phlegm removing substances) eg. primrose roots, mullein flowers and leaves, lungwort leaves.
b. Diuretics (ie. substances which increase the flow of urine) eg. golden rod leaves, Java tea leaves.
c. Lactation stimulants. Nursing mothers have used goat's rue for this purpose.
They have also been used to help re establish the smooth functioning of body fluids eg. pansy and horsetail leaves.
Group 2: phenolglycosides
There are two particularly significant types of phenoglycosides:
1. Arbutin has a disinfecting action on the urinary tract when the urine is alkaline eg. blueberry and bearberry leaves.
2. Salicin is chemically related to the salicylic acid in aspirin, therefore is useful in reducing fever and relieving pain eg. pansy leaves, willow bark, poplar leaves and bark.
Group 3: anthraglycosides
In this group, Anthraquinone (also called emodin), is used to relieve constipation eg. senna leaves, aloes, buckthorn, rhubarb.
Group 4: flavonoids
Some flavonoids can act to stimulate the cardio vascular system; others have diuretic properties, whilst others inhibit infections. Rutin, one of the flavonoids, has an anti haemorrhagic effect. It also helps the blood vessels to expand, thereby lowering blood pressure. Examples of flavonoid containing plants are camomile flowers, juniper berries, broom leaves, linden blossoms, hawthorn flowers and birch leaves.
Group 5: mustard Oils
Plants that contain mustard oil glycosides can be used as rubefacients i.e. can improve the blood circulation near the surface of the skin. They can be particularly useful for relieving breathing problems during colds and bronchitis. Mustard oil glycosides also have antibiotic properties eg. water-cress.
Group 6: polysaccharides
The polysaccharide group includes pectin which acts to control diarrhoea and bleeding; mucilage which soothes inflamed mucous membranes, and inulin. Fructose results from the digestion of inulin which is readily metabolised in the body and is converted into glycogen ("animal starch") even when insulin is lacking. Mucilage containing plants are linseed, marshmallow root, coltsfoot leaves and mullein. Pectin is found in fruits such as apples.
Group 7: prussic acid
Prussic acid has a local anaesthetic effect. It is found in almonds and may be one of the reasons for the relief given to dry, chapped skin when almond oil is used.
Group 8: glycosides
Digitalis glycoside (from the leaves of the foxglove), convallatoxin glycoside (from lily of the valley), and oleandrin (from oleander), are natural chemical compounds which have an effect on the heart muscles. These should only be used with extreme caution as they contain toxins which can be fatal.
Group 9: coumarin
Coumarin containing plants such as woodruff are used to prevent or dissolve blood clots or thrombotic clots.
Group 10: tannins
Tannins have a mild astringent effect on the skin. They also have disinfectant properties, and can help to combat diarrhoea. Examples of plants that contain tannins are walnut leaves, sage leaves, blueberries, and oak bark.
Group 11: bitters
Bitters promote bile secretion, improve the uptake of nutrients from the gastrointestinal tract, and stimulate digestive juices. They also combat gastrointestinal fermentation. Plants which contain bitters are angelica root, milfoil leaves, gentian root and wormwood foliage. These four plants are called aromatic bitters because they also contain essential oils (see next paragraph).
Group 12: essential oils
When heated, essential oils (also called aromatic, volatile or ethereal oils) will variously act to reduce inflammation, relieve cramping, promote milk flow, aid digestion, expel gas, disinfect, and sooth the nerves.
Group 13: alkaloids
Alkaloids are nitrogen containing compounds with certain chemical characteristics such as reacting chemically like alkaline substances. They have many different effects on the human body, for example morphine and codeine in opium are well known pain relieving alkaloids. Nicotine in tobacco is also an alkaloid.
Group 14: purines
Caffeine is a purine which increases the flow of urine and supports healthy heart function. Too much caffeine though will cause harmful over stimulation.
Group 15: essential minerals
Plants of all kinds contain minerals which are essential for good health. For example, spinach contains large amounts or iron and Vitamin A; horsetail is rich in silicon which acts to clear up the symptoms of arteriosclerosis; bladder wrack seaweed is rich in iodine which is used to treat people with goitre and obesity.
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Waitomo is often top of mind when thinking of caving in New Zealand, however there are many awesome caving sites throughout the country for you to explore.
Spelunkers (cavers) say that New Zealand has some of the most challenging and spectacular caving systems in the world, but even first-time cavers can enjoy our underground scenery. Caving experiences range from a dreamy drift through a glow-worm grotto to a rip-roaring, rope-dangling, action-packed subterranean adventure.
In the North Island the best known caving area is Waitomo Caves in the Waikato region. There are caves that you can simply walk through; there are caves you can float through (this is called black water rafting); and there are caves that require abseiling, climbing and squeezing. Experienced operators here know how to turn you into a caver in a single day.
The South Island has several caving areas - you’ll find guided underground adventures in Nelson, Fiordland and on the West Coast. Harwood’s Hole, just off the main Motueka-Takaka road in the Nelson region, is the deepest sinkhole in the southern hemisphere. You can look into it, but be careful you don’t fall in - it’s 180 metres straight down.
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Psycho-Physical Development Mission Statement
At Seattle Prep, physical education and health are formal and important parts of the general curriculum. The department is dedicated to developing the physical abilities and character of each student in order to foster healthy and productive lives. We seek to incorporate the concept of “persona curae” into the core of the physical education of our students by developing the students’ mental, social, physical, emotional and intellectual abilities. The PPD faculty strives to instill in each student a lifelong appreciation of health and physical wellbeing. It is our goal to enhance the daily lives of our students.
“HEALTH & EXERCISE SCIENCE”
Psycho-Physical Development (PPD) is a holistic approach to health and physical education. The semester course focuses on anatomy, physiology, fitness, biomechanics, motor learning, and the sociology of play, game and sport. Students participate in both classroom and gym activities. Evaluation is based on participation, lab work, quizzes, tests, and a semester project.
“HEALTH & WELLNESS”
Sophomore students take one semester of a wellness-based classroom course. Students explore current health issues through class discussion, guest speakers, class activities and projects. Students reflect upon and assess their behaviors as related to their personal health and well-being, so they are capable of making informed choices. Evaluation is based on participation, an individual project, and two comprehensive exams.
“LIFETIME FITNESS I & II”
GRADES 10 & 11
Students are required to take two semesters of a physical activity courses. These co-ed activity courses are designed to promote exercise and sportsmanship. Students participate in a wide variety of traditional and non-traditional team and individual sports. There is an effort to reinforce concepts learned in the freshman Health and Exercise Science course. Students are evaluated on cooperation and participation.
Weight training is offered to seniors as a single semester elective.
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Welcome to the second installment of my blog series “True Teen Stories” featuring non-fiction essays from teen writers. For the record, I’d just like to say how impressed I am by the work I’ve received thus far. One of the greatest challenges for new writers is the ability to write honestly. That doesn’t mean every word the author chooses must in fact be the definitive truth, only that it represents their truth (or, in fiction, their character’s truth).
Today’s story, “Glass Houses and Shattered Bonds,” written by fifteen-year-old Emily T., does just that—detailing the unraveling of a friendship without cynicism or pretense. When I first read Emily’s story, I was struck by how familiar it felt to me, and to the friendship break-up I had back in high school. Sadly, I think it’s probably familiar for many girls. But by articulating those feelings in writing, Emily might just be able to get through this difficult situation with more clarity, instead of, say, waiting 20 years to write about it in a YA novel. (In case you didn’t know, REUNITED is about a friendship break-up.)
Emily T., age 15, is an aspiring writer from Staffordshire, England. In addition to writing, her interests include fashion design and punk rock music.
Glass Houses and Shattered Bonds
By Emily T., age 15
At the very beginning of primary school, I had one best friend, Amelia. Amelia is my oldest friend and vice versa, and though we shared a strong bond of friendship, near the end of primary school this friendship grew to include identical twins Lana and Elena. The four of us were inseparable, but the problem (according to Lana and Elena), started during our first year of high school when another new friend, Sandra, joined our group.
It all happened because of my fifteenth birthday party. As we all know birthdays are on a set date, they don’t just randomly change with each coming year. So as a normal person would do, I arranged for my party to be on the weekend of my birthday, (as my birthday unfortunately usually falls in the middle of the school term). I invited all my friends two weeks before the intended party and all was well… up until one week before my party, when Lana and Elena informed me that they had been invited to another party a month before I had told them the arrangements for mine.
Which was fine, if they’d been invited to that one first and had said yes to it, then that was fine I couldn’t just expect them to change their arrangements because that wouldn’t be fair on them. But of course, it did upset me slightly, considering they had known me for so long and had been to every one of my parties and as I’ve said before, birthdays don’t change. So not wanting to have a party without them, I graciously changed my arrangements for them, putting my entire family out, as we were supposed to be going away for weekend. But not wanting to be alone on the weekend of my birthday, I invited Amelia and Sandra over to my house for a sleepover as they weren’t going to this other party and would be doing nothing either.
Next thing I know, Elena is standing behind me saying that she and Lana will still be able to come on the original date and asking when to drop their stuff around. Usually, I wouldn’t have cared, but considering it felt like they were ditching my arrangements for someone else’s, I didn’t think it was right for them to just expect to be invited to my consolation do. So for the first time ever, I stood up for myself and said that the actual party was next week, but there was no point them coming to the sleepover as they would have missed most of it anyway by the time they got there.
This, of course, caused world war three amongst the group. They weren’t talking to me and I wasn’t talking to them. The entire week before my birthday I walked home ranting to Sandra, who patiently listened to me before we parted ways. But as soon as I was alone the tears came. I spent the entire week before my birthday feeling miserable.
Two days before my birthday, they said they wouldn’t be coming to my party because it would be too awkward between us, I of course tried to convince them otherwise but they weren’t having it, they even got their mum involved in the text conversation, painting them as the victim. This brought the total number of people in the text conversation to three against one. At this point, I could too have got my mum involved, but considering she gets paid to argue it would have been the kiss of death for the friendship. So I was outnumbered and I ended up apologizing for something that was completely irrelevant to argument and making up with them. Or so I thought…
However during the next day of school, I was sitting between them in one of our classes and none of us were talking; I was having a hard time stopping myself from breaking down into tears. Fortunately, I had to leave the room to do a job for the teacher but Elena was asked to come too. Once outside of the room, I broke down into tears and said, ‘I thought we’d sorted this out.
To which her reply was; “Why are you crying?” asked in a tone which said she couldn’t have cared less; which to me said if she really didn’t know then maybe it wasn’t worth fixing.
It was such a stupid argument, but I’d like to think it changed me for the better. Throughout this time I found out who my real friends were.
I’d like to think things got better between us from there, and for a while, they did. Until one day Lana ran off crying and Amelia went to comfort her, leaving me, Sandra, and Elena sitting awkwardly together.
Feeling fed up with the on-going argument, I arranged to meet Elena and Lana alone one day in town to discuss where we were as friends.
After spending an hour and a half going round in circles, I learned that they blamed Sandra for the friendship falling apart and wanted it to go back to just us four. Me, Amelia, Elena and Lana. When it was my turn to speak, they did what they always do and didn’t listen as to what I had to say, instead choosing to talk over me, then walking out on me, claiming they felt as though they’d gotten nowhere. Which effectively they had, because they hadn’t listened to what I was trying to say.
I still speak to Elena and Lana, seeing as they are in all my lessons, but it’s not the same. They’re not the same. I partly agreed with them when they said they wanted to go back to how it was in primary school, just not the part without Sandra. If they could go back to being their primary school selves, not repeatedly snapping at me, making me think I have to be careful with what I say when I’m with them; not being so paranoid as to what I do and who with; and less spiteful e.g. not talking to me in attempt to show me how they feel; as I can say for fact I would never do that to them. Then maybe they may be more fun to hang around with.
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://hilarywgraham.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/459/
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en
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Jul 10, 2011
looking for an easy project that requires minimal tools and can enhance your kitchen and home? in the last post i said i'd share what i did with the red cabbage i photographed. it wasn't cooked for a meal but rather used to dye a towel. that's right. according to paul of sweet paul certain fruits, veggies, juices and spices are natural sources of dye and can be used to color fabrics such as linen, wool, and cotton.
all it takes is a big pot of water, salt, fabric (natural fibers are recommended), and your choice of berries/fruits/veggies to achieve the color you want.
i partially followed paul's instructions for dyeing here, in his excellent summer e-zine of great recipes, articles, and crafts (you'll find out why i say partially in a sec). since i'm looking to add more props to use in my food photography, i thought white cotton kitchen towels were the perfect choice. paul and his crew got pretty creative with dyeing... check out what they made.
in my first trial, i should've read the directions first before proceeding with the actual dyeing process. i suppose i was so excited to begin that i forgot to prep the towels (which are 100% cotton flour sack towels from sur la table; $9.99 for a pack of 4). i'm not certain that skipping that step resulted in 2 out of 3 towels not turning out as expected, but the good thing is with each finished towel costing around $5 each (depending on the price of produce), it's not terribly expensive to experiment a second time. besides, you can never have enough towels.
the blueberries were to yield a light purple color, while the red cabbage should have resulted in dusty pink. i actually don't mind the way the blueberry towel turned out and will use it (and have, actually. see below). i was more successful with the towel dipped in blackberry (dark plum color). i plan on coloring with turmeric (bright yellow) soon.
creating the towel colored in red cabbage:
you can barely make out the blue-purple dye in the towel
i underexposed on purpose to show the color
getting ready to make the blueberry dye
and the blueberry towel in action
i sure wish bananas were great for dyeing because i have a tendency to let them go bad. i didn't let them go to waste though; a post about what i did with my overly ripe bananas to come soon.
p.s. remember to not wash your dyed fabrics with any other fabrics (especially your whites)... this tip comes from experience.
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://athenasplichta.com/journal/13389584
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N. Korea Is Not Nuclear Power: Pentagon
By Jung Sung-ki
The U.S. Department of Defense said Tuesday that the description of North Korea as a regional nuclear power in an annual defense report has nothing to do with an official U.S. policy toward the North.
``As a matter of policy, we do not recognize North Korea as a nuclear state,'' Stewart Upton, spokesman for the Department of Defense, said in a statement. ``What was contained in a recent Joint Forces Command report does not reflect official U.S. government policy regarding the status of North Korea.''
Upton added that the report ``is not meant to be a statement of policy and specifically states on the second page that the report is speculative in nature and is only intended to serve as a starting point for discussions about the future security environment.''
``We have formally communicated this clarification to the Embassy of the Republic of Korea,'' he said.
The report, titled ``Joint Operating Environment (JOE) 2008: Challenges and Implications for the Future Joint Force,'' includes Pyongyang in the list of five nuclear weapons states in Asia, alongside China, India, Pakistan and Russia.
North Korea has tested a nuclear weapon and produced sufficient fissile material to create more such weapons, said the report, published by the U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) and released Nov. 25.
The categorization stirred up controversy, as the U.S. and South Korean governments have never regarded North Korea as a nuclear state, at least officially, though Pyongyang conducted its first-ever nuclear test in October 2006, according to defense experts here.
In response, Seoul's foreign and defense ministries said they believed that Seoul and Washington still share the view that North Korea has not been declared a nuclear power.
During Tuesday's National Assembly session, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Yu Myung-hwan said his ministry confirmed from the White House that the categorization was a ``clear mistake.''
``High-level officials from South Korea and the United States have confirmed several times that North Korea is a not a nuclear state,'' Yu said. ``The agency affiliated with the Pentagon that published the report was said to have recognized its mistake.''
Pyongyang is believed to have enough plutonium to produce several nuclear weapons, but the number has yet to be confirmed officially.
U.S. President-elect Barack Obama said earlier that he believed North Korea had enough material to make up to eight nuclear weapons.
Regional powers have been pushing the North to abandon its nuclear ambitions under a 2007 disarmament-for-aid pact. Chief nuclear envoys from the United States, the two Koreas, China, Japan and Russia opened a fresh round of six-party talks in Beijing Monday to finalize the establishment of a protocol to verify the North's declaration of its nuclear programs and activities.
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http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/12/205_35902.html
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| 1.921875
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We would love some discussion and feedback about a surgical implementation science protocol we just published on BMJ Open. This research will evaluate our implementation of surgical services at our rural district hospital in remote western Nepal. As you all are acutely aware, surgical care is a severely neglected area in public health. Our theory of change, and indeed our motivation, for this research is the following: 1) pilot some methodologies for evaluation and planning of surgical services; 2) generate some baseline data; 3) provide motivation and background for larger implementation studies; and 4) advocate for increased funding mechanisms for implementation and research in global surgical and anesthesia care.
We would greatly appreciate some hard-hitting, critical feedback about the ability of this protocol to help meet these objectives. This is very much new territory for us, and the qualitative methodologies are currently still quite weak. We will be submitting this to NIH PAR-10-039 in the next cycle (which by the way is an excellent RFP for any implementation researchers out there). You may also see discussion of the article on GHD online.
Duncan Maru, MD, PhD is a co-founder and President of Nyaya Health. He is currently a resident in the Internal Medicine – Pediatrics program and fellow in Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Boston.
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<urn:uuid:79a26599-e8f5-41b5-af28-47f3c7f63521>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://blog.nyayahealth.org/page/13/
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en
| 0.94378
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| 2
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Genelec introduces its smallest speaker system to date, the new two-way 6010A (7.125x4.75x4.5 inches). The system has been designed for computer sound systems, workstations and other close-proximity listening applications requiring a low-profile monitoring solution. It can also be plugged directly into personal music playerst.
Designed as an active loudspeaker, the 6010A contains proprietary drivers, advanced power amplifiers matched to the drivers, active crossover filters and protection circuitry. The 6010A has a die-cast, all-aluminum Minimum Diffraction Enclosure™ (MDE), which features large internal volumes, softly curved edges and mechanical strength.
The 6010A also incorporates Genelec''s advanced Directivity Control Waveguide™ (DCW), which provides a smooth on- and off-axis response, while the long, curved reflex port ends in a wide flare for enhanced bass articulation.
Each monitor features a 3-inch bass driver and a 3/4-inch high-frequency driver loaded into a new Genelec advanced Directivity Control Waveguide. The free-field frequency response is 74 to 18k Hz (±2.5 dB). Maximum peak SPL output per pair with music material is 102 dB. Bass and treble drivers are each powered by 12-watt amplifiers.
The 6010A is magnetically shielded for use in environments where video monitors are in close proximity. Additionally, the 6010A has a hard-wearing painted outer surface available in black, white or silver finish.
The new 5040A subwoofer can be paired with the 6010A for both stereo and surround applications. The subs extends the LF response down to 35 Hz with enhanced bass articulation. The playback level for the system is controlled by remote volume control with the 5040A subwoofer. With five main I/O channels and a dedicated LFE channel with 35/120Hz reproduction bandwidth selection, the 6010A/5040A system can be used in 5.1 productions.
The 5040A is designed to complement up to five of Genelec''s 6010A active monitors in stereo and surround applications, or a pair of the slightly larger 6020As in a stereo configuration. The subwoofer features a single 6.5-inch proprietary driver with a 40W power amplifier. It has a frequency response from 35 to 85 Hz (±3 dB), and the ability to deliver short-term sine wave of 96dB SPL. The built-in crossover unit features six RCA input connectors for five main channels and LFE channel, and five RCA output connectors for the 6010A loudspeakers. The main channels have a fixed highpass filter to work with the Genelec 6010A while the LFE channel can reproduce signals up to 120 Hz. In addition to the RCA connectors, a 3.5mm stereo jack input connector is provided.
The units will be available in Q3 2008; pricing is to be determined. For more information, visit www.genelecusa.com. For more new-product announcements, visit blog.emusician.com/briefingroom.
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http://www.emusician.com/news/0766/nab-2008-genelec-intros-6010a-5040a/140638
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en
| 0.903421
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03 May 2003
The ocean has long been California's calling card. The majority of the state's residents live within an hour's drive of the Pacific Ocean and the coastline powers a multi-billion dollar tourism economy. Now, the seawater that incessantly pounds the state's shores may become the answer to one of the state's most vexing problems, finding enough fresh water to quench California's growing thirst. Southern California water managers are making a major investment in desalination technology.
Just inside the gate at the Encina Power plant sits a curious collection of freshly painted tanks, pumps and tubes. A private company called Poseidon Resources wants to build a huge desalination plant here and this machinery is a small demonstration facility.
The project is major step toward building a plant capable of producing nearly 190 million liters of fresh water a day. San Diego County Water Authority official Ken Weinberg recently visited the facility. He says desalination could become an important new source of drinking water. "The ocean's here," he says. "It's the world's largest reservoir and it's a reliable source of supply. It's a high quality supply because of the technology. And it's one that's here locally, that would be under our control and would be here [all the time] no matter what the weather is."
For several weeks now, this demonstration project has been turning small amounts of salty ocean water into drinkable water.
The power plant pumps in ocean water to cool its equipment. The Poseidon facility taps into that water circulation system and diverts it into the desalination machinery. Water is forced through two separate tanks filled with sand to filter out suspended objects. Then, the salty water is pumped through long round cylinders tightly packed with thin cellulose membranes.
"If you unrolled them and lined them up end to end there would be enough membrane surface to stretch from here to San Fransisco," says Poseidon spokesman Peter MacLaggan. He says by the time the seawater has passed through all those membranes, the salt has been filtered out, and the water is ready to drink. California has been trying unsuccessfully for years to turn ocean water into drinking water. Santa Barbara's brief flirtation with desalination in the mid-1980's ended after a few months because it simply cost too much.
But water-filtration technology has improved dramatically in the last decade. Mr. MagLaggan says today's filters can produce twice as much water with less energy. The filter cartridges also last a lot longer than earlier models, significantly lowering the cost. At the Encina plant, the process of converting seawater into fresh water only takes 20 minutes and the facility is already producing 130,000 liters of fresh water a day. "Water comes out of the center of the pressure vessel as high quality drinking water. It's ready for human consumption. The water coming out of the back is essentially the seawater that has twice the salt concentration it had when it came in because we've physically removed half the water," he says.
In addition to the desalination equipment, Poseidon Resources has set up a 750-liter salt-water aquarium in a nearby trailer. Peter MacLaggan says the fish tank is designed to replicate how salty discharge will affect marine animals on a calm warm day. Inside are several species of local fish, shellfish and coral. "Probably the spiny sea urchin is the one that's most affected by salt tolerances. What we've found here is that they're doing just fine," he says. "We'll continue to operate this as long as the pilot plant's operating."
The San Diego County Water Authority is so enthusiastic about the technology's potential, it's already exploring the possibility of building two more plants. They eventually hope to draw 15 percent of the county's drinking water from the ocean. With funding from the state's largest water agency, there are currently five desalination projects underway throughout southern California.
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<urn:uuid:f0aad575-15d0-4fec-9261-8034d8fadb4e>
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://worldnewssite.com/News/2003/May/2003-05-03-7-California.html
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|
en
| 0.964908
| 811
| 3.171875
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In this mini-manual, author and trainer Anne Lill Kvam outlines her personal method of training fun nosework exercises in a precise, step-by-step process.
Amongst her list of scent-work activities for dogs, readers will find confidence- building exercises and downright festive dog fun with games such as Hide and Seek, Naming Your Dog’s Toys, Finding Lost Objects and Kvam’s version of scent discrimination. The lessons progress from simple to more complex in a clearly chronicled succession.
Kvam begins with a description of canine scenting ability in relation to our own, which helps the reader recognize and conceptualize the fantastic capacity of the canine olfactory sense. As the book progresses, you’ll find positive- reinforcement training basics and a detailed description of how to personalize your dog’s reward options, all of which build a useful foundation for the detailed training exercise plans that follow. The emphasis on stress management and calm concentration on the part of both dog and handler are reiterated throughout the book, as is the essential need to recognize each dog’s individual set of motivators.
The information delivered is clear enough to allow nosework newcomers and novices to jump right into training with minimal equipment and preparation, and even more-seasoned dog handlers may find some useful suggestions for their existing nosework training plans. Readers planning on branching out into specific sports or other formalized activities should review those rules and exercises to be sure Kvam’s style of training complements their particular program. Overall, an excellent and accessible starter for anyone interested in beginning-level and fun nosework activities with their companion dog.
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://thebark.com/print/5080?page=show
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