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CIS/SLATA/ACS Speaker Series: Danielle Citron
March 12, 2010 12:45pm - 2:00pm
The online harassment of women exemplifies twenty-first century behavior that profoundly harms women yet too often remains overlooked and even trivialized. This harassment includes rape threats, doctored photographs portraying women being strangled, postings of women’s home addresses alongside suggestions that they should be sexually assaulted and technological attacks that shut down blogs and websites. It impedes women’s full participation in online life, often driving them offline, and undermines their autonomy, identity, dignity, and well-being.
The public and law enforcement, meanwhile, routinely marginalize women’s experience, deeming it harmless teasing that women should expect, and tolerate, given the Internet’s Wild West norms of behavior. Recognizing cyber harassment for what it is — gender discrimination — is crucial to educate the public about its gendered harms, to ensure that women’s complaints are heard, to convince perpetrators to stop their bigoted online attacks, and ultimately to change online subcultures of misogyny to that of equality.
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Chaining creates aggression in dogs. But aggression is not
the same thing as protectiveness.
There is a difference between raising a protective dog and an
A protective dog is used to being around people and can tell when his
family is being threatened. A dog learns to be protective by spending lots
of time with people and by learning to know and love his human family.
When your dog loves you and your family, he will want to protect you from
Leaving a dog on a chain and ignoring him is how to raise an aggressive
dog. Aggressive dogs can't distinguish between a threat and a family
friend, because they are not used to people. Aggressive dogs will attack
anyone. They will attack children who wander into the yard, a policeman,
the meter reader, the mailman, other dogs, etc.
If your aggressive dog attacks someone in your yard or breaks loose from
his chain and attacks, you are in danger of being sued, prosecuted, and
required to pay the medical bills of the injured person. Your dog will
probably be put to sleep if he attacks someone, even it the attacks occurs
on your property.
In 2004 alone, chained dogs killed 6 children and injured 21
According to the CDC, dogs most likely to bite
are chained, male, and unneutered.
Is your chained dog going to be the next one to
A chained dog canít do anything to stop an intruder!
All he can do is bark. Do you really get up to investigate every time
your dog barks? Barking is simply not an effective means of guarding your
Statistics show that inside dog provides very effective security.
There are news stories all the time about inside dogs that save their
families from fires, intruders, and even gas leaks. A robber will think
twice about breaking into your home if he hears and sees a dog on the
other side of the door. A robber will not think twice about breaking into
your home if there is a chained dog in the backyard barking. He knows that
chained dog cannot hurt him.
K9 police dogs are extremely effective guard dogs, and they usually
live inside with the policeman and his family.
K9 police officers know that in order to get the smartest, most protective
dog possible, they need to spend hours and hours with the dog. Police dogs
become a beloved part of the police officerís family. They are not chained
and neglected in the yard. They are treated with kindness by the officers.
This kindness makes the dog want to protect the officer.
If all you want is a burglar alarm, consider an electronic one.
Installation is usually free, and the small monthly fee will cost you
about the same amount as feeding a dog. An electronic alarm is certainly
more effective than a dog, too! When your alarm goes off for more than a
minute or so, the police will be sent to your home. And a piercing alarm
will sound the whole time
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Something about Apple’s press conference yesterday just didn’t sit right with me. Apple has put up a page with videos of various other smart phones displaying the same type of behavior when griped in a certain way. It also has put up a page where its explains its $100 million dollar testing facilities it uses for testing reception and signal in various conditions, just to let us know how much the company cares. Steve Jobs said that they love us. They seem to be doing the right thing by giving out the free bumper cases, but how they explained why the cases are needed in some instances didn’t quite cover everything. Attenuation is only half the story.
Way back when, a couple of lifetimes ago, I was a Radioman in the Navy, and as part of my education and advancement requirements I had to study antenna and wave propagation theory. For the sake of brevity, I’m going to over-simplify this to the point where real engineers might get a headache if they continue on, but here goes anyway.
Radio signals traveling through the air look like waves if drawn on paper. These waves travel at a constant speed, the speed of light, so to send more waves through on a signal, the waves must be smaller. The number of waves traveling along a signal is referred to as hertz, and the size of the wave is its wavelength. The antennas used to generate and receive these waves need to be the right size, and the right shape. Back when I was in the Navy, we were transmitting waves that required a 35 foot whip antenna because we were transmitting in the High Frequency (HF) range. As the frequency of the wave gets higher, the size of the waves and the antenna used to transmit and receive them become smaller, and more precise.
Cell phones operate in the Ultra High Frequency (UHF) frequency range, so the antenna that they use is much smaller than lower frequency transmissions. The iPhone 4 has two antenna that wrap around its case, one for cellular use and the other for Wi-Fi and bluetooth. The two antennas are separated by the small gap in the lower left hand side of the case, which Apple has identified as the antenna’s most sensitive part. This is true, in part because of the attenuation (or “blocking of the signal”) when you put your hand over the gap.
The other part of the equation that Apple is not talking about is that while your hand doesn’t make a particularly good medium for radio waves to travel through, it does make a fairly good electrical conductor. When you place your hand over that gap, you are actually bridging the two antennas together and making a larger antenna. A larger antenna that is not the right size for the frequency of AT&T’s cellular network, and the bars drop right off.
I don’t have the equipment on hand anymore to test this, but the video below, linked to by an expert on antennas (via Daring Fireball), seems to show the behavior I would expect. At around the 1:30 mark, a key placed over the gap drops the iPhone 4′s reception down from five bars to one, and the narrator says that eventually there will be no signal at all. When the key is removed, the bars return.
The free bumpers solve both problems for the iPhone 4. They prevent the antenna gap from being bridged by anything conductive, and they give a little more room between the antenna and your hand, to help with attenuation. Unfortunately, the bumpers do not address the actual design of the antenna. It may be possible for Apple to move the antenna gap to a different spot on the phone in future revisions of the iPhone. For example, why not put the antenna at the top of the phone where people are less likely to hold it? As answered by AntennaSys in the link above, physical placement of the antenna is mandated by the FCC. If bridging the antenna gap is the problem, it may be possible to move the gap to the bottom of the phone, but since that would change the shape of the antenna, I’m not sure if that’s possible or not. Anandtech has a beautiful solution using Kapton insulating tape, which makes the iPhone look like it’s been plated in gold. If Apple were to add a layer of insulation to the iPhone, that might alleviate the symptoms.
I’m not the only one who thought that Apple’s explanation seemed lacking. TidBITS writer Rich Mogull has a very detailed article where he draws a similar conclusion. If you’d like to know more about the issue, I’d suggest dropping his article into Instapaper. If you’ve got any ideas about the iPhone 4′s antenna “situation,” I’d love to hear from you in the comments. Especially if anyone can reproduce the key trick from the video.
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January 20—Northwestern alumni Maralee Scott ’83, was recently accepted into the NASA Endeavor Science Fellowship Program for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education. Scott graduated from Northwestern with a degree in Early Education and currently teaches sixth grade math, science and writing at Meridian Middle School in Illinois.
A NASA representative noted that Scott’s application was "one of the top received in a year where NASA received twice the amount as usual." He also commented that her application showed a number of examples of the rich support her district provides.
"One of our district science goals this year is to visit STEM schools around the country to see how this model could be implemented in our schools," Scott noted in her application. "I have a vision for becoming STEM certified through the NASA’s Endeavor Project so that I can learn the best practices for teaching my students and mentoring my colleagues."
Scott is one of 42 US science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) middle and high school teachers who will have a unique opportunity to work beside NASA engineers and mentors. The innovative program focuses on aeronautics modeling and simulation and provides teachers with the opportunity to experience cutting-edge technology, explore aerospace engineering concepts, and develop hands-on lessons that will engage and inspire students.
During the past decade, there has been a lot of discussion and focus on the need for STEM programs. In 2007, the 110th Congress and President Obama signed the America Competes Act of 2007 which combined earlier major STEM education legislative proposals. In January 2011, Obama emphasized STEM education in his State of the Union.
Scott will begin the program on January 11, 2012. She and her husband, Mike ’84, currently reside in Buffalo Grove, Ill. with their two daughters.
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New study reveals Americans choose to generously give to others
The telephone survey, commissioned in July by SunTrust Bank, polled 2,058 adults over the age of 18 to gauge public opinions and beliefs about charitable giving in the U.S.
According to the survey, respondents were also most likely to support causes relating to their church or other religious organization (53 percent); to organizations that combat hunger and poverty (50 percent); or to provide disaster relief from hurricanes and other natural catastrophes (48 percent). The non-profit organizations least likely to receive donations from survey respondents were those supporting animal causes (32 percent); environmental issues (25 percent); or the arts and culture (21 percent).
The SunTrust "My Cause" poll coincides with the bank's new promotion that offers certain clients the opportunity to have SunTrust Bank make a donation in their name to their favorite charity or receive a gift card for their own personal use.
When asked, more than half of respondents (59 percent) said they would prefer to give the donation to charity rather than get the cash (33 percent) for themselves.
"The survey answered many questions we had about charitable giving as we launched the 'My Cause' promotion," said SunTrust Corporate Executive Vice President Gene Kirby, head of the Company's Retail and Commercial Banking lines of business. "We are encouraged by how widespread charitable giving is, and we are delighted that more than half of those asked would choose to give back to their communities and help others. That says a lot about the generosity of Americans today."
The survey also found that most Americans don't have an "either/or" approach to supporting their favorite causes: Those who had made recent monetary donations to charity are also significantly more likely (94 percent) to support non-profit organizations in other ways than those who haven't donated recently (74 percent).
Younger Americans (18-34 year olds) are also more generous with their non- monetary support than older Americans (35+ years old), and are more willing to purchase products to support a cause, volunteer with the organization, attend fundraisers and participate in large-scale events. They are also more likely to wear bracelets or other accessories associated with a cause.
Other significant findings in the SunTrust Bank "My Cause" poll include:On average, Americans spend 4.1 percent of their annual household income on charitable causes; those over 55 years of age donate the largest percentage (4.6 percent) versus those 18-34 (3.8 percent)Across gender, age and region, Americans were most motivated to give back for two reasons: It's the right thing to do (89 percent) and because they want to help others (88 percent). Just 26 percent of respondents say they donate money to receive a tax write-offThree-quarters of Americans (76 percent) prefer to support their charity of choice by giving money instead of by volunteering timeWomen are more likely than men to give to a charitable cause (93 percent vs. 87 percent); women are also more inclined to choose the $100 SunTrust donation over the cash incentive (65 percent vs. 54 percent)Southern adults donate the highest proportion (4.5 percent) of their income to charitable causes, followed by the Midwest (4.2 percent), the West (4.0 percent) and the Northeast (3.6 percente)Two in three Americans (63 percent) give money directly to people in need, such as those on the street or via churches and community organizationsSeven in 10 Americans are inclined to do business with companies that give back to their communities
Visit www.suntrust.com/mycause for more details about the SunTrust "My Cause" poll or promotion.
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Post by: Kim Stephens
For the most part, my blog focuses on emergency management, I don’t tend to delve into the use of the social media by law enforcement as much. However, there are lessons emergency managers can learn from this community when it comes to the use of social networks for crisis communications and citizen engagement. This is why my next choice for the top #SMEM example for 2011 is not only a law enforcement officer, but an international example as well: West Midland’s PD Superintendent, Mark Payne.
Police throughout the UK have been heavily criticized for how they responded to summer 2011 riots that spread across England. Their failures were debated in the international media for months (especially the debate about whether or not social media sites should have been shut down); internal After Action reviews identified many areas for improvement. The Guardian article, “Revealed: How Police lost control of summer riots in first crucial 48 hours,” describes the Police Federation report which found one of the top concerns to be communication failures that resulted in front line officers feeling “directionless”. The report, however, also touched on the use of social networks and pointed out the important role they played in providing “essential intelligence that was not, and would not, have been available through conventional methods.”
Mark Payne, however, understood the value of social media, even well before the riots. Before being promoted to Superintendent, he was the head of the Press Office (or PIO), which appears to have made him not only an effective communicator, but a person well aware of the power of social networks. Through his leadership, the department has fully embraced the medium as demonstrated by this helpful list of all of the platforms where they have presence. Superintendent Payne also has his own official blog and twitter account.
Mr. Payne used his blog to describe his experience during the riots and the role social media played for his department. In that blog post–worth printing and tacking to the wall, he outlines some key points:
- Yes, social networks helped posters organize, but instead of trying to shut down the networks police need to “show up” to these virtual organizing sessions just as they would to a physical location.
- “When protests were being organised in student union bars, our answer was not to try and close down every bar and pub where the meetings might happen. Instead we chose to overtly approach these meetings and speak to the organisers to help us plan. Where co-operation was not forthcoming, we used covert tactics to gain a better understanding. In my view we should be taking exactly the same approach to social media.”
- Authorities should use twitter to update community members and there ARE consequences of not participating.
- ”One thing that we have seen over and over again during emergency situations is that where there is no information coming from the authorities, the gap will be plugged by speculation.”
- News media will pick up your twitter feed as a source of verified, official information–as long as you do a good job.
- “National TV channels were running banner headlines which were straight lifts from my tweets. I gained 5000 extra followers in the 24 hours after the riots started which gives you some idea of the amount of people who wanted to be kept up to date.”
He also has four key lessons he wants other departments to take away from his experience:
- Use the tools before a crisis.
- You will probably make mistakes: don’t let this fear stop you. We’re all human and people will not hold this against you or your department. (Left unsaid, they will hold it against you if you don’t provide timely updates.)
- Reach out to the existing networks.
- Be engaging: answer questions and don’t just push information.
Thanks to Dan Slee (who writes a great blog on social media and local government) for reminding me about this story.
- December List: Partnerships Toward Safer Communities and Patrice Cloutier (idisaster.wordpress.com)
- December List: QPS Media, An example to the world (idisaster.wordpress.com)
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March Cub Scout Roundtable Issue
Volume 7, Issue 8
Save It For Us
Webelos Sportsman & Family Member
Tiger Big Ideas 14 & 15
Simon Kenton Council
Play a game of hazards.
Set up a room with several hazards.
Have boys come in and find as many hazards as possible.
Practice house cleaning skills by cleaning the
chartered organization areas. Be
sure to get per-
mission and ideas first.
Have a mother come in to the den meeting and
talk about clothes washing. Announce
that next week's meeting will be at the local Laundromat.
Each Scout is to bring a load of wash, soap, and change for the
washer and dryer. Practice ways
to fold laundry.
Invite a home economics teacher or dietician to
talk to your den. Perhaps your
den could also plan a week's worth of meals and visit a retail food
establishment to price the food required.
This would also cover a requirement in the Fitness Activity Badge.
Make outlet insulators.
Use foam meat trays, save at home or ask local grocery store for
some. Use outlet covers as
Invite a fireman to a den meeting to talk about
home safety. Perhaps he can
also provide you with a copy of a home inspection sheet.
Take a guided tour a waste disposal facility.
Invite an energy conservation engineer to give
a talk on energy. Tour an
energy conserving home that is built underground.
Make a list of fun activities that involve
little cost; do them over several meetings.
Invite someone from OSHA or a plant safety
committee to give a talk after touring a manufacturing facility.
Have a family relation's teacher visit and
Switch chores with another family member for a
Keep a personal budget for a month.
Visit with a local financial institution to
find out how the monetary system works and how saving money as a family unit
can be beneficial in the long run.
Contact the local public utility companies, or
the environmental control agency to find out how our natural resources can
be saved and what we can do as individuals within the family unit to
Have the boys make their chart showing the jobs
that they and other family members have in their homes.
Have them bring the charts to the meeting and tell what jobs they are
taking on for the next two months, and how they will do them.
Before the boys inspect the home and grounds to
make a list of hazards or lack of security, you might want to talk over some
of the home hazards they may find.
You could also contact the Police Department
and ask if someone from Crime Prevention could attend one of your meetings
to talk about security in your home.
Make a contest out of making a list of things
for which families spend money. See
who can make the longest list. Talk about the list and see what important
expenses were omitted. Give one
point for each item. Most boys
will forget things like rent, utilities, car payments, stamps, insurance,
Have a contest - take a small piece of cloth
and a button, needle and thread.
He the boys sew a button on - judge the button that is sewn best.
Have a cooking contest. Have each boy cook one
dish and bring it to the meeting.
Be sure they can tell how they made the dish.
Have the boys fix a meal and invite the parents
to your meeting for a feast! In
the meal planning, they must plan the meal, shop for the food and then cook
Have a "Family" meeting at your den
meeting and have the boys show Cub Scout Spirit by doing their best to make
plans for the rest of the year, or at least three months.
You might invite a mother to show some cooking
skills to the boys or to explain recipes.
Have the boys use measuring spoons, cups, etc. Have them explain such terms as cream, braising, stewing, and
Plan a family game night - each family brings a
game and takes part in sharing the game with another family.
The boys could even "invent" games for the families to
It might be fun to have the boys make a recipe
book with their favorite recipes from home or a campout recipe book for den
campouts. This could include breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Have a meeting where boys try food that they
have never tasted before. Have
a "Taste It, You May Like It" party.
A crest is a design signifying your name, and
some noteworthy deed performed by an ancestor.
Have your boys design their own crest, incorporating the initials of
their name, and some achievement. For
instance, if a boy's initials are J. O. T. and he is a baseball player, his
Crest might look like the one shown here.
Have each boy explain what their crest represents and reproduce it on
a foot locker, tool box, a box used to store baseball cards, a plaque, or on
paper for a book cover. Reproduce
it with acrylic paints or permanent markers and cover it with clear urethane
varnish or modge podge.
Sam Houston Area Council
not throw away those seemingly ruined clothes.
Let the Cubs try to save them.
Removal with a store-bought cleaner-ballpoint
pen ink, facial makeup, motor oil, rubber cement, wax:
(One of my favorite pen ink stain removers is using a cheap hair
spray on the ink spot--Baloo)
Put absorbent cloth or paper towel under
Place chemical cleaner on stain.
Rub stain until it leaves the clothing and
passes into the material below.
Remove the absorbent material. Put cleaner on a
new cloth. Wipe around edges of
stain and toward center of stain.
Let dry. Reapply treatment if removal
Removal with water -
blood, ketchup, coffee and tea, dairy products, grass, mustard, soda pop:
Place absorbent cloth or paper towel
under stained area.
Rub stain gently with water.
If stain is persistent, rub in drops of detergent.
Rinse out detergent.
Remove absorbent material.
Sam Houston Council
Save your family memories and pass them on to
the next generation. Nothing
gives more enjoyment to a family than "REMEMBER WHEN". Children
learn who they are from their parents and grandparents.
To play FAMILY FACTS have each member of your family write out
questions that only your family would know - the more personal the better.
Who went to Canada on vacation?
What was this family's first pet?
Who broke their arm during the school play?
Who ran into the basketball standard
and chipped his front tooth?
What was the address of our first
When is Grandma's birthday?
When did dad graduate from high school?
Play in the car, home on a rainy day or at
family gatherings. For a
different twist, make up cards in categories -dates, people, places, events,
pets, vacations, etc., and play family trivial pursuit. Use the regular
Trivial Pursuit game, but substitute you family cards.
Sam Houston Council
Cubs are not aware of how their families spend money. Food, clothing and entertainment are obvious. Suggest to the
parents that they share the actual bills with their children and have them
add up the total cost. They will be amazed.
As the Cubs conduct the safety/energy checklist, encourage the
parents to discuss the cost of keeping the house in good repair, the cost of
water use, the cost of cooling and heating the house, etc. Then the Cubs will be better prepared to share in ideas for
saving money and they will be ready to develop a family energy-saving plan.
Family Conservation Project
Sam Houston Council
With the spring comes the opportunity to be
outdoors. Earn the World Conservation Award while recycling and developing
Materials found in Baloo's
Bugle may be used by Scouters for Scouting activities provided that
Baloo's Bugle and the original contributors are cited as the source of the
Materials found at the U. S. Scouting Service Project, Inc. Website
©1997-2002 may be reproduced and used locally by Scouting volunteers for
training purposes consistent with the programs of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA)
or other Scouting and Guiding Organizations. No material found here may be used
or reproduced for electronic redistribution or for commercial or other non-Scouting purposes without the express
permission of the U. S. Scouting Service Project, Inc. (USSSP) or other
copyright holders. USSSP is not affiliated with BSA and does not speak on behalf
of BSA. Opinions expressed on these web pages are those of the web authors.
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Spetsnaz GRU hand-to-hand combat style is a martial arts system taught by Alexandre Popov for use by special reconnaissance/saboteur units of the GRU. Popov’s System, based on Southern Chinese and Russian styles of fighting was developed in the 1920s and 1930s. There is strong infuence of Shaolin kung fu in this system. Though also taught to Spetsnaz, it is completely different from and has no relation to Systema.
“The main mission of a Spetsnaz fighter in a Close Combat is to destroy the enemy with any available means as quickly as possible despite their arms and superior number…”
The fighter himself should not be seriously affected, otherwise he could jeopardize the achievement of a fighting mission by his reconnaissance/sabotage team.
That’s why the combat training of a fighter from the Spetsnaz is aimed at gaining a flawless proficiency in many types of fire arms and cold steel and traditionally a combat knife is of special importance among them.
Usually a fighter from the Spetsnaz has several knives: knife-bayonet for a Kalashnikov’s submachine-gun (AK-74), combat knife, all-purpose “survival” knife, all-purpose clasp-knife, hidden knife, and (or) fling knife. If necessary, any can become an effective weapon.
The basic peculiarity of a knife combat is that it is the combat of short duration. After fighters have approached a striking distance, the result of a fight is at stake within fractions of a second; one or two exact lunges and you win or perish. That’s why the main requirement to a fighter from the Spetsnaz at the initial training stage in knife-combat technique is flawless acquiring of basic methods up to the automatic level: one has no time to ponder in a fight!
It is necessary to acquire naturalness of method execution through hard training. You must feel the knife as an extension of your hand. Your movements must be light and quick, one movement should smoothly transform into another one.
Peculiar features of a knife combat according to the version of the Spetsnaz GRU are many withdrawals, jumps, turns, sudden changes in levels and attack directions (the latter is especially actual in a fight against several enemies), wide use of feints. And all those are done in continuous motion! It is very difficult to follow even flutter of the knife in expert’ hands, but to foresee the place at which a strike will be delivered… it is practically impossible.You might also like:
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E.O.W Round #178: Nazgűl Nest
E.O.W Round #178: Nazgűl Nest VOTING POLL
“Those who used the Nine Rings became mighty in their day, kings, sorcerers, and warriors of old. They obtained glory and great wealth, yet it turned to their undoing. They had, as it seemed, unending life, yet life became unendurable to them. They could walk, if they would, unseen by all eyes in this world beneath the sun, and they could see things in worlds invisible to mortal men; but too often they beheld only the phantoms and delusions of Sauron. And one by one, sooner or later, according to their native strength and to the good or evil of their wills in the beginning, they fell under the thralldom of the ring that they bore and of the domination of the One which was Sauron's. And they became forever invisible save to him that wore the Ruling Ring, and they entered into the realm of shadows. The Nazgűl were they, the Ringwraiths, the Úlairi, the Enemy's most terrible servants; darkness went with them, and they cried with the voices of death.”
— The Silmarillion, "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age"
Now... you’re probably thinking. How can a Nazgűl be “born” if they were already born as men? My answer to you is to think of doing something less connected to the mythology. A mythical creature in some kind of tangible environment, like you would see in a natural history museum. Of course, that environment could be anything as long as it makes some kind of sense. Imagine for a second that the Nazgűl can be born and your job is to illustrate that.
What not to do: Don’t draw a Mordor landscape! I think this offers a very exciting theme with an iconic creature in mind. I would suggest to try to come up with something that would actually work in the real world and require you to do some wildlife research. It can vary from terrifying dark cliffs to beautiful mountains. Imagine a Nazgűl feeding it's chicks on a bright sunny day. Could be interesting.
“The Nazgűl came again . . . like vultures that expect their fill of doomed men's flesh. Out of sight and shot they flew, and yet were ever present, and their deadly voices rent the air. More unbearable they became, not less, at each new cry. At length even the stout-hearted would fling themselves to the ground as the hidden menace passed over them, or they would stand, letting their weapons fall from nerveless hands while into their minds a blackness came, and they thought no more of war, but only of hiding and of crawling, and of death.”
— The Return of The King
Winners via tie: noche & Pixeltuner
I think the idea behind this is the way a natural nest would have looked like, before the creatures were captured and used in war. Kind of.
I had the idea where they kinda rise from the water and take the swords... cause they need to have gotten the swords somewhere...
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Vascular anomalies, vascular malformations, stork bites, venous malformations and lymphatic malformations
Vascular malformations generally are less complex than hemangiomas. Unlike hemangiomas, vascular malformations usually are visible at birth, are permanent and do not grow on their own but only as the child grows. Often they are called salmon patches, stork bites, angel kisses, port-wine stain, venous malformations and lymphatic malformations.
Transient macular stains (stork bites, salmon patches, angel kisses)
Transient macular stains are the most common birthmark, affecting up to 70 percent of newborns. They usually are found on the nape of the neck, the eyelids, the forehead and, less commonly, the upper lip. Some fade by age 1, but those on the neck are more persistent, affecting up to 25 percent of the adult population.
Port-wine stain (capillary malformations)
Port-wine stains are malformations of the superficial capillaries of the skin, therefore the term capillary malformation is more accurate. Capillary malformations are present at birth. They may be only a few millimeters in diameter or may cover large areas of the body–up to half the body surface. But facial lesions are the most common. Lesions are pink-red in color. With time they darken to a purple or "port wine" color and may develop a pebbly or slightly thickened surface. Currently, the most successful treatment is laser surgery, which usually is quite effective in fading these lesions. Rarely, capillary malformations are clues to the presence of other defects such as Sturge-Weber syndrome or Klippel-Trenaunay syndrome.
Venous malformations are soft, blue compressible plaques and nodules that may occur on any skin surface. They usually appear at birth and grow slowly over time. Venous malformations may be very small and of little concern. or very large. Large lesions can be disfiguring and may be complicated by thrombosis (clotting), infection and edema of surrounding tissue.
Lymphatic malformations (lymphangiomas) are composed of dilated lymph channels that are lined by normal lymphatic endothelium. They may be superficial or deep and often are associated with anomalies of the regional lymphatic vessels. The term lymphangioma circumscriptum is used to describe the most common type of lymphatic malformation and may be present at birth or appear in early childhood. These lesions usually are red to purple and 2 to 5 mm in size. They have gel-like papules clustered on a red to brown patch or plaque.
Cystic hygroma is a noncancerous mass of anomalies and cystic lymph vessels that is present from birth. It usually is found on the neck. Since the tumors tend to increase in size, plastic surgery is the preferred treatment.
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The Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment and the Coastal Region of the Mediterranean (Barcelona Convention) entered into force 12 February 1978. It can be regarded as a corner stone for the promotion of environmental protection and integration in the Mediterranean. The European Community and all the EU Mediterranean Member States are contracting parties to the Convention.
Article 4.3(e) of the Barcelona Convention, requests the Contracting Parties to promote the integrated management of the coastal zones, taking into account the protection of areas of ecological and landscape interest and the rational use of natural resources. In 2008 a Protocol was developed to provide a common framework for the Contracting Parties to promote and implement integrated coastal zone management.
On 13 September 2010, the Council adopted the decision to ratify the Protocol on Integrated Coastal Zone Management to the Barcelona Convention (Council Decision 2010/631/EU). This EU conclusion decision follows the signature of the Protocol adopted by the Council on 4 December 2008 (2009/89/EC). The text of the ICZM Protocol was published in that decision.
In his statement welcoming the Council decision, European Environment Commissioner Janez Potočnik said that the adoption of the Council's decision will mean that problems of coastal degradation in the Mediterranean can now be tackled more effectively. He stressed that the EU ratification decision "sends a strong signal of commitment from the EU to the protection and sustainable management of the Mediterranean coast."
Having been ratified by six contracting parties, the Protocol entered into force the 24th of March 2011. The ratification, or conclusion, of the Protocol means that the Protocol now becomes part of EU law and has binding effects.
More about the process leading up to the Protocol, and Integrated Coastal Zone Management in the Mediterranean, can be found on the website of the coastal centre of the Barcelona Convention/Mediterranean Action Plan, the PAP/RAC, in Split, Croatia.
To support ICZM and the Protocol's implementation, the EU co-funds a research project PEGASO. 23 partners collaborate in the project, from EU and non-EU countries around the Mediterranean, as well as from the Black Sea. The project runs from 2/2010 to 1/2014 and has a total budget of 8,9 million € (EU contribution 6.9 million €).
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As change sweeps across the Arab world, there are a variety of lenses through which to examine these changes: religious, cultural, political, economic. Shereen El Feki has chosen a decidedly less conventional lens with her new new book “Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World” (Pantheon, $29), due out Tuesday.
The book takes a close look at the sexual lives of men and women in the Middle East. Combining original research with first-person stories from housewives, young virgins, activists and sex therapists, “Sex and the Citadel” provides a detailed account of a veiled and sensitive aspect of Arab society.
Currently dividing her time between London and Cairo, El Feki has worked as a journalist for the Economist and a presenter with Al Jazeera English. She also is a former vice chairwoman of the United Nations’ Global Commission on HIV and Law.
El Feki took a break from a full day of live interviews and popped into a London cafe to catch up with us over email (as well as take shelter from the brutal rain). She will be making her way to Los Angeles for a Writers Bloc event this Sunday at 1 p.m. at the Silent Movie Theatre, where she will be in conversation with Egyptian American comedian Omar Elba.While "Sex and the Citadel" takes a look at the sexual lives of men and women across the Middle East, there is a stronger focus specifically on Egypt.
My book is centered on Egypt, and in particular Cairo, in part for personal reasons. My father is Egyptian, most of my family live in Egypt, I carry an Egyptian passport and I’m Muslim. But I grew up in Canada, and I never thought much about my Arab heritage -- until Sept. 11, that is. The events of that day and their aftermath spurred me to look more closely at my Arab origins, to better understand where I came from.
But this is more than personal. Egypt is a natural focus of this book because it is the most populous country in the Arab region. Because of its strategic geopolitical importance, it retains formidable political, economic, social and cultural influence across the region. The collective sexual problems faced by Egyptians -- taboos against premarital sex, masturbation, homosexuality, unwed motherhood, abortion, and a culture of censorship and silence, preached by religion and enforced by social convention -- are found across the Arab region. And the solutions that Egyptians will, I hope, find in the years to come will have relevance for their neighbors across the Arab region as well.
Why did you choose sex as the lens through which to examine political and social change throughout the region?
My background is in HIV/AIDS. I trained as an immunologist before becoming healthcare correspondent at the Economist (where part of my beat was covering the global HIV/AIDS epidemic), and most recently I was vice chair of the UN’s Global Commission on HIV and the Law. If you want to understand HIV in the Arab region, you have to look at sex because it is the main route of transmission in most countries in the region, and taboos around sex pose a serious challenge to tackling HIV.
It became clear to me that sexuality, more broadly defined, is an incredibly powerful lens with which to study a society, because it gives you a view not only of the miniature of people’s intimate lives but also the wider canvas of public life. Beliefs and values, attitudes and behaviors around sex are shaped by bigger forces -- politics, economics, religion, tradition, gender, generations. If you really want to know a people, start by looking inside their bedrooms.You delve into a subject matter that is both intimate and largely hidden from view. How did you go about conducting research?
My approach came from my background as both a scientist and a journalist. The academic in me set out to identify, collect and analyze as much of the existing research on sexuality in the Arab region as I could find. It wasn’t easy; research on sexual life in most of the Arab world is still scarce (there is, as yet, no Kinsey or Hite Report for the region -- badly needed, I might add), and more often than not, the results have ended up in a locked drawer due to state or self-censorship.
But after five years traveling across the region, I managed to find a treasure trove of studies and surveys, which readers can explore in my book and on my website, sexandthecitadel.com. But I’m also a journalist, so I was interested in personal stories as well. Throughout the book, the individual tales are a bright light on the research findings, illuminating points in a human and highly engaging way.
You include first-person accounts from virgins to housewives to sex therapists. How did you find these women?
It was surprisingly easy. Some of the characters in my book -- like Heba Kotb, the Arab world’s best-known sexologist -- are celebrities in their own right, whom I essentially cold-called and were gracious enough to open their homes and their offices to me.... Through my work on HIV, I collaborate with a large number of NGOs across the region -- for example, ALCS in Morocco -- and they were kind enough to introduce me to some of their beneficiaries on the sharp end of sexual stigma, such as female sex workers, men who have sex with men, and unwed mothers. And through friends, I got to know people from all walks of life.
Was it challenging for these individuals to open up about the subject of sex? Did it ever seem as if they feared for their safety by discussing such a sensitive topic?
One of the biggest surprises in writing this book is just how open people were to talk with me about their intimate lives.... In fact, the poorer and less educated the people, the more open I found them to a frank, and often very funny, exchange of views.
This was especially true of wives, who were generally more articulate on these matters than their husbands, partly because of their greater ease at talking with someone of the same sex and partly because of the heavier burden they carry.
Throughout the book, it's clear that many Arab women share the sexist ideologies of their culture, even though they suffer as a result. Why do you think so many women hold so tightly to those beliefs?
The patriarchy runs deep in Arab societies: It is reflected in unequal laws for men and women; in cultural practices such as female genital mutilation which seeks to “tame” women’s sexual desire; or in double standards around virginity. And you’re right, it is often women who uphold these norms as strongly as men; for example, condoning physical discipline if a wife strays or refuses to consent to sex. The patriarchy survives, in part, because women derive some benefit from it -- for example, a wife’s obedience in exchange for a husband’s financial maintenance. These patriarchal attitudes are often reinforced by selective interpretations of religion which, for example, emphasize qawama -- male authority -- and which have greater prominence than ever before thanks to the rise to political power of Islamic conservatives in Egypt and its neighbors in the wake of the Arab Spring.
Even though the subject matter is serious and often somber, you still manage to insert a humorous tone at certain points in the book. How did you strike a balance?
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In this 20 minute video I suggest six strategies for talking to people who do not accept climate science. I argue strongly that one should avoid a debate about the data and content of the science, and concentrate instead on addressing the values and emotions from which people construct their beliefs. The strategies are: finding common ground; expressing respect; clearly holding your views; explaining the personal journey that led to your own understanding; speaking to people’s worldview and values, and finally offering rewards that speak to those values.
These recommendations are based on the current social research and four years experience of leading workshops on peer to peer communications. My colleague Dr Adam Corner has prepared a paper at www.talkingclimate.org with links to the original research.
I want to apologise for using the phrase Climate Change Denier which is tricky I know. It is, I am sure, the best title for people looking for this material and I want the video seen by as many people as possible. Half way through the video I recommend using the term Climate Dissenters as an alternative.
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Not anymore, no more those sticky anti aging creams and expensive painful cosmetic surgeries. Women accumulate wisdom
as she ages, but wrinkles? Definitely a major DON’T. So do you really need to save up hundred of dollars to erase fine lines and wrinkles that make you more human in the first place?. To fight and slow down skin aging, it is not only important for us to understand the techniques and tools to change how time (among other factors) affects our skin. Below we spell out some cool tips for younger looking skin.
Yes, it is true that age catches up with time. Of course, one of the main factors is thus time. Skin loses its moisture when the epidermis, which is the skin’s outer layer loses it immunity. Skin becomes pale and looks without any life when the blood vessels starts decreasing in number and your skin loses that glow about which everyone used to talk.
Genetics also play an important role in how your skin will give in. For example, women with fair skin show signs of skin aging earlier than women blessed with naturally, dark skin. But no matter how beautiful your mom’s skin is, or your cousin’s, it still depends on how you take care of it.
Natural tips For Younger Looking Skin
You can have a great skin even if you dont have the cash and suffer pain for cosmetic surgeries. But before you drive straight to the organic beauty products section, you need to know which is which, that is, what is really effective to add in your list of tips for younger looking skin .
Though most beauty tips marketing strategies of these products are way ahead of science, there is enough work that has been published on peer-reviewed journals that convinced me that antioxidant botanicals will be one of the biggest thing in skin care, notes Dr.Richard Baxter of Calidora Skin Clinics, here are the few organic skin products:
• Green tea
Have you ever thought whether it is much more beneficial or not if the tea that you had every morning if applied to your skin, what effects it can bring Not that any researcher has claimed that it brings positive effects on your skin. But green tea does one thing for sure, that is it is a very strong antioxidant, it can fight harmful UV rays effectively.
Ageing process is what affects your skin most and make it look tiring, however soy is something which reduces this effect and it prevents pigmentation, so make it a part of your skin care regimen.
Finally read one of these tips as a bonus Improve Beauty: Getting By Without Your Makeup Case
Filed under: Product reviews and shopping
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- About Us
- Our Work
- Work With MSF
- Public Events
- Press Room
News for the Week of September 13, 1999
September 13, 1999
Teams Forced to Leave East Timor
Escalating violence in East Timor forced MSF teams working in Dili and Baukau to evacuate the Indonesian territory last week. Three teams with a total of 13 medical and non-medical volunteers are currently on stand-by in Jakarta and Kupang, Indonesia, and in Darwin, Australia, in preparation for returning to East Timor as soon as the security situation allows. A full charter of relief materials has been flown to Darwin in anticipation of providing relief to refugees in West Timor and the resumption of MSF programs in East Timor.
Psycho-Social Program Opens in Sierra Leone
MSF has launched a psycho-social project in Freetown, Sierra Leone. An MSF clinical psychologist is working in collaboration with the Ministry of Health to train nurses and social workers as counselors who can offer psycho-social care to people suffering from war-related trauma. Sierra Leone has endured eight years of civil war which has not only cost thousands of lives, but also resulted in countless people suffering from brutal amputations of arms and legs. A psycho-social center is to be set up in Freetown where MSF mental health experts will train staff to treat clients. The project will later be extended to other parts of Sierra Leone. In Freetown, MSF is also supporting the local non-governmmental organization, Forum for African Women's Education (FAWE), which offers medical aid and psycho-social support to victims of rape and sexual abuse. MSF is providing training as well as medicines and medical supplies. The only psychiatric clinic currently operating in Freetown is Kissy Mental Hospital, which has been severely neglected and partly destroyed during the past years. It is now under rehabilitation by MSF, so that patients can be treated in more acceptable conditions.
Measles Epidemic in Eastern Congo
Measles has broken out in the Ituri district in the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and the number of cholera and plague cases has also increased sharply. MSF has vaccinated nearly 35,000 children in the past week. A violent conflict that started in June is being waged in the Ituri district between two ethnic groups, the Hema and the Lendu. The war is reported to have already claimed a large number of dead and injured. There are also an estimated 40,000 displaced persons, many living in poor hygienic conditions and without good medical facilities. Health centers in the region have been looted, set on fire, or abandoned. As people are unable to reach their fields, there is a shortage of food. This combination of underfeeding, overcrowding and a low level of vaccination has resulted in a measles epidemic. Spurred on by the spread of cholera in the region, MSF has distributed medicines and water-purification equipment. Working with local health clinics, MSF is also examining measures that can be taken against plague, a disease that is endemic in the region.
HIV/AIDS Prevention Program Takes to the Roads in Cuba
As of August 12, the mobile AIDS-prevention project run by MSF in Cuba is on the road with its caravan. Fifty volunteers are traveling the country to give out information on safe sex, distribute flyers and condoms, and organize cultural events. Many of the volunteers themselves are HIV positive or living with AIDS. By the end of August, 15,000 flyers and 48,000 condoms had already been distributed. Public reaction has been enthusiastic and even the Minister of Health spontaneously praised the project. The mobile project is a joint initiative by MSF and the National Centre for STD and HIV/AIDS prevention.
Cholera Outbreak in Madagascar
Three districts of northern Madagascar (Ambanja, Ambilobe, and Nosy-Be Island) have been struck by a cholera epidemic. Twenty-four deaths and 279 cases have been officially reported since August. MSF teams are treating patients in the Nosy-Be Hospital. Poor sanitation and an insufficient water supply are also adding to the spread of the disease in Nosy-Be. An MSF water/sanitation volunteer is now working with the local authorities to help provide clean water and sanitation facilities in the area.
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Figuring out what happens when foreign bodies invade the human body is fairly serious business. Confined mostly to the realm of test tubes, complex reactions like the human immune system responding to a tuberculosis infection have been difficult and time consuming to study – willing volunteers for this kind of study are hard to come by.
Computer modeling has made these trial-and-error type studies easier by being able to replicate a system's response to an introduced external factor -- simply program the behavior of the components of the system and hit the start button.
Agent based modeling may take this kind of systems study to the next level, however, and a team of computer scientists at Michigan Tech University are making it happen without the use of super-powerful, super-expensive supercomputers. Under the direction of Roshan D'Souza, computer science students at MTU have developed agent based modeling software that harnesses the power of modern graphics processing units.
"With a $1,400 desktop, we can beat a computing cluster. We are effectively democratizing supercomputing and putting these powerful tools into the hands of any researcher. Every time I present this research, I make it a point to thank the millions of video gamers who have inadvertently made this possible,” says D'Souza of the project.
Agent based modeling is a very powerful tool in which many different components, factors and behaviors can be programmed and then let loose in a simulated environment. The outcomes of large systems are often unpredictable and surprising.
MTU's software, which was created by computer science student Mikola Lysenko, is not limited to small systems with few factors such as the previous tuberculosis example. Ryan Richards, a fellow computer science student explained, "We can do very complex ecosystems right now. If you're looking at epidemiology, we could easily simulate an epidemic in the US, Canada and Mexico."
It seems the days of supercomputers and complex simulations may be numbered, becoming an endangered species quickly at the hands of the relatively inexpensive gamer's video card. Perhaps the next step in evolution for these modeling software projects could be similar to Stanford's very successful Folding@Home project, using the client's GPU to power its way to understanding new and complex systems.
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What is peripheral neuropathy?
Peripheral neuropathy is a common condition caused by damage to the peripheral nerves of the nervous system. The peripheral nerves spread out from the brain and spinal cord. The peripheral nerves relay nerve impulses and sensory information from the body to the spinal cord, where they are then carried to the brain. The peripheral nerves also carry motor signals for muscle movement and other functions from the brain and spinal cord to the rest of the body including the organs.
Peripheral Neuropathy Must Reads
Damage to the peripheral nerves interferes with normal functioning of the peripheral nervous system. Typical symptoms include unusual or abnormal sensations of the extremities, which commonly occur in the feet. A wide variety of other symptoms can occur as well because there are many types of peripheral nerves with specialized functions that can be affected by peripheral neuropathy.
A very common cause of peripheral neuropathy (diabetic neuropathy) is diabetes. Peripheral neuropathy can also result from certain metabolic disorders, infections, malignancy, inflammation, vitamin deficiencies, toxins, inherited conditions, and other abnormal processes.
Treatment of peripheral neuropathy involves diagnosing and treating the underlying disease, disorder or condition. Some conditions can be successfully treated and cured, while others may require more intensive treatment.
Complications of untreated peripheral neuropathy can be serious and include muscle wasting, paralysis, serious infections, and gangrene. Seek prompt medical care if you have symptoms of peripheral neuropathy, such as changes in sensation, difficulty moving, or other unusual symptoms. Prompt diagnosis and treatment of peripheral neuropathy and its underlying cause reduces the risk of permanent nerve damage and serious complications.
Some complications of peripheral neuropathy can be life threatening. Seek immediate medical care (call 911) if you, or someone you are with, have chest pain, difficulty breathing, or a change in alertness or passing out.
What are the symptoms of peripheral neuropathy?
Peripheral neuropathy generally develops slowly over a period of months as peripheral nerves are progressively damaged. A wide variety of symptoms can occur because there are many types of peripheral nerves with specialized functions that can be affected by peripheral neuropathy.... Read more about peripheral neuropathy symptoms
What causes peripheral neuropathy?
Peripheral neuropathy is caused by damage to the peripheral nervous system. The peripheral nerves carry motor signals for muscle movement and other functions from the brain and spinal cord to the rest of the body. The peripheral nerves also relay nerve impulses and sensory information back to the central nervous system (spinal cord and brain).... Read more about peripheral neuropathy causes
How is peripheral neuropathy treated?
Treatment plans for peripheral neuropathy are individualized to the underlying cause, the presence of coexisting diseases and complications, the age of the patient, and other factors. Treatment generally involves a multifaceted plan that addresses the underlying cause of neuropathy, minimizes the pain and abnormal sensations, and reduces the risk of complications, such as gangrene. The ultimate goal is to help you achieve and maintain an independent and active life.... Read more about peripheral neuropathy treatments
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Note: This blog originally published in February 2011.
Pilates is all about keeping the spine in good health, which means being able to properly engage your core muscles. This doesn’t mean squeezing your ab muscles as hard as you can. It means using your ab muscles to lengthen and support your spine so gravity doesn’t compact it over the course of your life. Most people do crunches to work their core, but crunches actually shorten your ab muscles and thus make your waistline thicker and shorter. Think of a dancer, how long and tall they look.
Pilates teaches us to be able to move around while keeping the core muscles lightly engaged. When the spine is long, the vertebrae and disks are able to move and rotate. This means we are able to move pain free and avoid degeneration.
There is a set number of exercises in Pilates, all aimed at practicing how to use our abs, low back, and thigh muscles to keep our spinal column long and flexible. Think of a spring and stretch it gently so there’s a little space between each coil. This length will greatly reduce the wear and tear on our disks and bones.
Like I mentioned earlier, it’s not about contracting muscles as hard as we can, it’s about getting more coordinated with that contraction. While writing with a pen, pushing the pen into the paper harder will not make the ink come out any easier. Neither will tightening our grip and squeezing the pen.
Writing with a pen takes that exact amount of pressure from our fingers to make the ink trail out on the paper. Our ab muscles are the same way. Contract ‘down’ (trying to get our ribs to meet our hips) and we get shorter and our spine compresses. Contract ‘up’ (as if to float the ribcage above the hips, making the waist long) and we greatly reduce the stress of gravity on our spine.
Yoga is also about flexibility, but in our muscles. A lot of people automatically think of being able to do the splits or twist into a pretzel, that’s the extreme and not everyone will be able to do those poses. Just like not all of us are able to run a marathon or throw a wicked curve ball.
Yoga helps maintain a level of flexibility that allows us to be pain free and able to move easily. Every job that exists creates some amount of tension in the body. If we don’t make the effort to undo that tension, it will slowly build up and one day we wake up and it’s not so easy to bend over to tie our shoes, or we find ourselves rubbing our own necks hoping to relieve the pain.
Yoga helps us balance stress in our lives. Yes, we have to work and yes, we will create some tension. Then we go to a yoga class and we make the effort to gently undo that tension and feel our muscles release.
In addition, yoga helps balance the stress in our minds. During class, focusing on your body and breath allows the mind to relax and let go of daily stress. And yoga definitely adds strength. It’s a different kind of strength. Weight training teaches our muscles to be strong for just a few seconds at a time, while yoga teaches the muscles to be gently strong for a longer period of time. It’s up to us to make sure we don’t push to that point of straining to struggling to stay in a pose.
Which one should you practice?
Now you are probably wondering which one if for you. I practice both, and if I had to give up one, I really don’t know which one that would be! Start with a class that is close to home (or work) and easy to get to and hang in there. For some people, these classes offer a very different way of working out. I suggest taking the class once a week for 2 months and see what differences you feel.
What’s funny for me is I don’t realize how much these classes are helping me until I miss a few and my muscles are all stiff and achy. Don’t think of these classes as something you ‘should do because it’s healthy.’ Think of them as ways you can really take care of yourself. Taking a little time for yourself to get away from the daily grind and rejuvenate yourself.
Remember, you will not have energy to take good care of your loved ones if you do not first take good care of yourself!
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Your Body's Biggest Enemy
You might not want to take the following stat sitting down: According to a poll of nearly 6,300 people by the Institute for Medicine and Public Health, it's likely that you spend a stunning 56 hours a week planted like a geranium—staring at your computer screen, working the steering wheel, or collapsed in a heap in front of your high-def TV. And it turns out women may be more sedentary than men, since they tend to play fewer sports and hold less active jobs.
Even if you think you are energetic, sitting all day at work is common for most of us. And it's killing us—literally—by way of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. All this downtime is so unhealthy that it's given birth to a new area of medical study called inactivity physiology, which explores the effects of our increasingly butt-bound, tech-driven lives, as well as a deadly new epidemic researchers have dubbed "sitting disease."
Read the rest fo the article!
"The TreadDesk is indeed an idea who's time has come. I love it".
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Bland County History Archives
Over more than 15 years, Rocky Gap High School of Rocky Gap, VA, has offered students the opportunity to participate in a history and technology project. While working on the project, students conduct oral history interviews, and archive these interviews and related photographs in a database and, in many cases, online.
The main page can be somewhat difficult to navigate. However, the largest portion of content can be found under Stories of the People. This section contains roughly 90 oral history transcripts on the lives of Bland County residents. Topics range from train rides and farm life to working in a World War II aircraft factory and religious practices. Some of the transcripts are also accompanied by photographs of the interviewee throughout his or her life.
Yet other transcripts link to collection pages which bring together related oral histories, as well as narration written by students. In some cases, video and audio versions are available in addition to the text transcripts. Topics include the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), church, death practices, farming, logging, the railroad, school life, tunnel building, and Bland County residents at war.
For more information on the project and its facilities, try the links under "Mountain Home Project."
This website is excellent as inspiration for beginning your own local history projects, as well as a fantastic resource for anyone looking for information on life in rural Virginia.
Note: The site is frequently unavailable for short bursts of time. Try again later if you reach a 404 error page.
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It’s about time girl…
Posted by: Sharmila Rajah, 28-Apr-2008
After a couple of months babbling dada -dada, Ayanna has finally said those magic words – MAMA MAMA. Yes.. yes I know there’s no reason to get overly excited; Ayanna says these indiscriminately, with no meaning attached to what’s being said. Nevertheless, it’s great to hear them out loud – so well articulated and with such love attached J.
Ayanna is busy practicing her ‘m’ sounds. She’s added baba –baba to her list as well. She’s vocalizing and attempting to imitate sounds she hears around her. She started with dada as it’s the easiest consonant to pronounce. All these are part of Ayanna’s journey in developing her linguistic skills. Hers began at birth with the first words heard.
Soon Ayanna will begin to understand the names of other people and objects she sees daily. In a few months time, she may begin to follow simple commands such as ‘wave bye-bye’ or ‘give me a kiss’.
It is important to encourage receptive and spoken language development every day in many ways. Try:
- Slowing things down: help baby pick out words by speaking slowly, clearly and simply.
- Focus on single words: emphasize individual words and simple phrases commonly used. Pause to give baby plenty of time to decipher the words before moving on to something else.
- Downplay pronouns: stick to using ‘mummy’, ‘daddy’ and baby’s name instead of I, me or you.
- Emphasize imitation: respond and imitate baby by saying baba, dada or mama. This will teach baby to imitate your words without prompting.
- Talk it up: talk to your baby about everything as you go about your day together.
- Build a repertoire of songs and rhymes: baby loves the repetition and she learns from it.
- Use books: simple rhyme books with vivid pictures get your baby’s attention.
- Wait for a response: baby will often have a response to what you say.
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Six years ago, one reality television show animated an idea into the minds of two brothers. Mark and Luke Foshee were watching the TLC program “Little People, Big World,” when they saw the Roloff family’s pumpkin patch and immediately knew they wanted to create their own version. After a year of preparation, the Foshees opened the Farmer in the Dell Pumpkin Patch.
Mark Foshee, Auburn University graduate, said they started the pumpkin patch as a way to get through college. “We weren’t trying to get rich off of it, we wanted to start small because our hope was that 20 years from now we would be big,” said Foshee.
“I’ve loved the experience because we’re making memories as a family,” said a beaming Marie Foshee. This member of the Foshee family wears many different hats around the pumpkin patch. She is not only the mother of the founders, but also the school group tour organizer, and most importantly to animal lovers: owner of the goat.
Charlie the goat is a recent addition to the pumpkin patch. Marie Foshee said he has been a real crowd pleaser.
Jordan Kelly, current Auburn student, is perhaps Charlie’s biggest fan. “I think he’s really cute,” professed Kelly. “We got to be pretty good friends after I fed him.”
Another aspect that sets Farmer in the Dell Pumpkin Patch apart from contenders is that everything they sell is homegrown. This may seem like a given for a farm, but according to Mark Foshee, most pumpkin patches don’t grow their own products. Other farms actually buy pumpkins and then lay them out in the field. But at Farmer in the Dell Pumpkin Patch, people cut live pumpkins off the stems.
Foshee says that the reason that other farms import their pumpkins is because pumpkins aren’t supposed to grow this far south. Auburn’s humidity is typically too severe for them.
“But we thought we could do it, so we pressed on,” said Foshee. “Being able to beat the odds and tell people, ‘You can do it,’ - that’s what I love.”
Visitors come from Columbus, Montgomery and even Atlanta for the pick-your-own-pumpkin experience.
Last year, one local enthusiast came out the first day to claim the biggest pumpkin, said Foshee. After checking in on the pumpkin multiple times and taking pictures to document the growth, the customer decided it was time to pick the pumpkin.
“She picked it up and then turned around to get another pumpkin and tripped and landed right on that one pumpkin that she had been waiting for, and she smooshed it,” explained Foshee. “She had pumpkin guts all over her butt. It was funny for us, but traumatic for her,” Foshee said with a good-natured smirk.
Whether they return for the classic hayrides, budding mums in every color, or simply to see the smiling faces of the Foshee family, few are one-time visitors. The Foshees love welcoming the same families back year after year, especially the kids. “You wouldn’t think they would get so tall, but they’re really tall!” Mark Foshee exclaimed. “From seeing them in a stroller to walking and running around, the kids are the best part.”
While plans for the future are taken one step at a time, Mark Foshee knows one thing he wants. “My goal is to retire into the pumpkin business,” said Foshee as he chocked back a chuckle. “We’ll see how it goes.”
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Tax avoidance: Individuals' common schemes
Tax avoidance is back in the news again following the appearance of the "Big Four" accountancy firms in front of a committee of MPs.
Year after year, some wealthy individuals have used legitimate reliefs to pay little or no tax, according to the Treasury. Other schemes have been seen as more contrived.
The way in which these high-income individuals have used the system has led to an argument about morality, but also what can be done to halt the avoidance.
Accountants and commentators say this is nothing new, as many of these schemes have been around for years.
Remember, tax avoidance - unlike tax evasion - is perfectly legal, so it is up to the government to change the rules to make these people pay more in tax.
So, what are the most common ways that individuals look to mitigate their tax bill?
The BBC News website asked two experts to pick out some of the most common avoidance schemes: Ronnie Ludwig of Saffery Champness Accountants and John Whiting of the Chartered Institute of Taxation, who also advises the government on tax simplification.
Wealthy individuals have a lot of disposable income - money that is not needed to heat the house, feed the children, or pay the council tax bill.
This income can be invested in things that lead to a reduction in the amount of tax they have to pay.
For example, this income can be pumped into an individual's pension scheme, up to a certain limit, or into schemes that are aimed at allowing businesses to thrive.
The latter - known as Enterprise Investment Schemes - are designed to encourage wealthy people to invest in new businesses that appear to have good ideas, but could be risky investments.
Banks may not be willing to take the risk these days, but wealthy people are encouraged to do so because they receive tax relief on the chunk of their own income that they put in and also pay little or no tax on any return they get out if the business is successful.
Some of these schemes already have a limit on how much income people can invest and get tax relief on.
Others do not, such as giving a chunk of their income to charity, or possibly donating a chunk of their companies' shares.
Some people may choose to give some of their income to charity, rather than the state. As with some reliefs they may not benefit directly as individuals, but it may mean the government does not gain as much in tax as it might expect, as the charities would benefit instead.
This month a cap of 25% of incomes (or £50,000, whichever is the greater) was introduced for income tax relief, available on a range of methods that do not already have caps.
Another well-known ploy, available to anyone, is to insure their lives, and write this policy into a trust for their children, so the money passes straight to them without paying inheritance tax. However, for somebody approaching later life, the premiums on such a policy are likely to be expensive.
Employing a husband or wife
Again, this is a perfectly legitimate thing to do, for those who have their own business.
Many small businesses might survive only because the owner's husband or wife is prepared to do a lot of work behind the scenes for relatively little pay.
However, some businessmen and women have employed their husbands or wives, who paid little or no tax previously. They might do very little work, but are still paid a salary.
This means that the couple divides its income tax bill, rather than one of them - who might be the boss of the company - receiving all of the income and so paying a larger amount in tax.
The benefit from this arrangement arises because most people get a tax-free allowance to set against the first chunk of their income.
This applies in full only to individuals with a taxable income of less than £100,000.
Above that level, the once-universal personal allowance is gradually withdrawn.
If only one of the couple took all the income, he or she might also be pushed into a higher tax bracket.
The couple may also pay less tax by sharing ownership of the company and paying themselves a dividend, rather than salary - something that governments have also tried to crack down on.
What is being done?
Chancellor George Osborne wants to strengthen existing rules against this and similar schemes by introducing a General Anti-Abuse Rule (GAAR).
This aims to act as blanket legislation to allow the taxman to differentiate between what counts as responsible tax planning and what is abusive tax avoidance. An advisory group on the issue has now been set up, with the government intending to bring in the rule soon.
The test should be clearer - did Parliament intend for this tax not to be paid when it set out tax laws?
That does not mean that this will not be challenged by either side, and accountants say that these appeals could still be lengthy and expensive.
Some say the line between avoidance and legitimate tax planning will still be blurred. But others argue that the general rule should create a culture in which people will think twice about signing up to an avoidance scheme, knowing that they may be more likely to pay back the tax and pay a penalty.
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Product's Life Cycle
To avoid falling into any greenwashing traps, RONA decided to adopt a strict scientific method called the Life Cycle Approach.
Rather than looking only at the product’s obvious ecological features, this assessment looks at the total environmental performance over the product’s entire lifetime, from extraction of primary resources to end-of-life, including manufacturing, transportation, packaging and use. The Life Cycle Approach:
• Prevents the shifting of environmental problems from one step of the life cycle to another
• Simultaneously considers several different environmental issues
To offer our customers products that truly provide better environmental performance, RONA works with an independent third party.
Experts from the International Chair in Life Cycle Approch at the Polytéchnique de Montréal provide a rigorous product selection to be labelled RONA ECO and eco-responsible products after an in-depth, transparent and rigorous process.
HOW WE SELECT RONA ECO AND ECO-RESPONSIBLE PRODUCTS
To be considered eco-responsible, a product must offer features that reduce its environmental impact when compared to similar conventional products. The product may be identified as being less toxic, biodegradable, made of recycled materials, etc.
The first step in the selection process consists of verifying that supplier environmental claims are supported by credible, relevant evidence.
The second step consists of using the life cycle approach to demonstrate whether the claimed feature provides real and significant environmental benefits.
Having environmental features is not enough to identify a product as being more ecological: the features must generate impact reductions. For example, a product that is “compostable” is potentially more ecological than its non-compostable equivalent only if composting facilities exist where the product will end its useful life.
Not only must the features lead to reductions in environmental impact, but these reductions must be meaningful. The features must reduce the impact related to key environmental problems for this product category.
The assessment is always carried out using the life cycle approach, which assumes that products generate impacts at every stage of the life cycle: from the acquisition of the primary materials and manufacturing, to packaging, transportation, use and end-of-life.
For every environmental product feature, the consequences of that feature must be questioned at every stage of the life cycle. For example, a product made of a renewable material may not be recyclable at the end of life. Sometimes features displace the impact from one category to another: a product that consumes less energy may emit a pollutant that is noxious to human health. A good environmental feature should not shift the impact from one stage of the life cycle to another or from one impact category to another.
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New pope signals new direction for the Catholic Church
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Text Size: A | A
By taking the name Francis — one of Roman Catholicism’s most humble and beloved saints — the new pope announced changes coming to Western Christianity’s largest church, a church in crisis. The cardinals, in putting their trust in Francis, were directly responding to the challenge laid out by the former Pope Benedict XVI...
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Below is Ambassador Robert King’s annual report to Congress mandated by the North Korean Human Rights Act. Interesting tidbits include discussion in section (c)(6) of the WEST (Work, English, Study, Travel) pilot program, which allows young North Korean refugees to study in the US, and details about meetings with DPRK officials (in section (c)(2)). The meetings in question were the negotiations that led up to the aborted February 29 “food for freeze” deal that was scuttled by the missile launch.
Report of the Special Envoy on North Korean Human Rights Issues Pursuant to Provisions of the North Korean Human Rights Act (PL 108-333 as amended by PL 110-346; 22 USC § 7817 (d)) March 2011-March 2012
Section 107 of the North Korean Human Rights Act (NKHRA or the Act) of 2004 and its 2008 reauthorization specifies that the Special Envoy shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a report on the activities undertaken in the preceding 12 months under subsection (c) of the Act.
(c)(1) Participate in the formulation and the implementation of activities carried out pursuant to this chapter.
The Special Envoy, Ambassador Robert King, is an active participant in the formulation and implementation of activities carried out in the furtherance of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) as part of overall U.S. policy regarding North Korea. Ambassador King’s office is in the suite of the Office of the Special Representative for North Korea Policy, which includes the offices of the Special Representative for North Korea Policy, Glyn Davies, and the Special Envoy for the Six-Party Talks, Clifford Hart. Ambassador King worked closely with bureaus and agencies involved in the formulation and implementation of our DPRK human rights policy, including the State Department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs (EAP), particularly the Office of Korean Affairs; Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL); Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM); Bureau of International Organization Affairs (IO); and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). In addition, he worked cooperatively with the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) on issues relating to broadcasting to the DPRK. He also participated in meetings with the National Security Staff at the White House.
(c)(2) Engage in discussions with North Korean officials regarding human rights.
The Special Envoy discussed human rights issues directly with North Korean officials, including First Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Kim Kye-gwan, on three occasions: in Pyongyang in May 2011, during the first round of U.S.-DPRK bilateral meetings in July 2011 in New York, and in Beijing in December 2011. The Special Envoy’s May 2011 visit to Pyongyang was the first time the DPRK granted entry to the Special Envoy on North Korea Human Rights Issues since the NKHRA established the position in 2004.
(c)(3) Support international efforts to promote human rights and political freedoms in North Korea, including coordination and dialogue between the United States and the United Nations, the European Union, and the other countries in Northeast Asia;
In addition to participating in discussions during official sessions of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) and the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly, he also engaged in one-on-one conversations with Ambassadors to both bodies from the Republic of Korea (ROK), Japan, Russia, China, and the European Union, as well as with many others, including in HRC leadership positions. The Special Envoy also met with the Deputy UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), representatives of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and representatives of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN World Food Programme (UNWFP) responsible for DPRK programs. The Special Envoy consulted regularly with the current UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the DPRK.
The Special Envoy met in Brussels, Washington, New York, Geneva, Seoul, and Pyongyang with representatives of the European Union (EU) and its individual member countries as well as and with leading members of the European Parliament. In March 2011, the Special Envoy testified in Brussels before the Subcommittee on Human Rights of the European Parliament, and he met with the European Parliament Delegation for Relations with the Korean Peninsula. In Brussels, he met with senior officials of the European Union’s External Action Service dealing with East Asia, including the ROK and the DPRK, human rights, humanitarian assistance, and with officials of the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO).
The Special Envoy consulted regularly with the ROK. In September 2011, he met in Seoul with officials in the ROK President’s Office, including the National Security Advisor; senior officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, including the Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs; and senior officials of the Ministry of Unification. In addition, he met regularly with a broad range of human rights and humanitarian NGOs, as well as academic researchers, private think tanks, and government research institutions.
The Special Envoy continued to meet with senior Japanese government officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who cover Northeast Asia. In Washington, he met with Japanese Cabinet officials responsible for the issue of Japanese abductees taken by the DPRK. He met with Japanese NGOs concerned with the abductions issue, family members of abductees, and other human rights issues.
In his meetings with Chinese officials, the Special Envoy urged the People’s Republic of China to adhere to its obligations as a party to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol to not: 1) expel orrefoule North Koreans protected under these treaties; and 2) to cooperate with the UNHCR in the exercise of its functions.
(c)(4) Consult with non-government organizations who have attempted to address human rights in North Korea;
Many kinds of NGOs deal with North Korean human rights – think tanks and academic institutions that analyze human rights issues; advocacy organizations that take action to call attention to human right concerns; organizations that seek to promote freedom of information and document abuses occurring in the DPRK; humanitarian assistance organizations that provide food, medical aid, and other assistance to the DPRK; educational, cultural, and scientific organizations that seek to engage the DPRK; churches and religious organizations; and Korean-American organizations that are interested in family reunions with relatives living in the DPRK. The Special Envoy met with representatives of these organizations in the Washington, D.C. area, participated in conferences and meetings across the United States, and held meetings during visits to Seoul, Beijing, Geneva and Brussels. He delivered keynote addresses for various organizations and engaged in roundtable discussions with representatives of many NGO groups.
(c)(5) Make recommendations regarding the funding of activities authorized in sections 7812 and 7814 of this title;
The Special Envoy worked closely with DRL, EAP, and the U.S. Embassy in Seoul to select and shape DPRK human rights programs as specified in the NKHRA. The Special Envoy also briefed House and Senate staff on issues relating to funding for DPRK human rights programs.
(c)(6) Review strategies for improving protection of human rights in North Korea, including technical training and exchange programs;
The pilot program WEST (Work, English, Study, Travel) for North Korean defector youth to study in the United States that the Special Envoy, with Embassy Seoul and the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, helped develop brought the first cohort of five North Korean-born youth to the United States. WEST participants improved their English language skills, gained substantive internship experience, and were exposed to an array of cultural, educational and social events in the United States, helping to empower these youth to take future leadership roles in their community. In collaboration with NGOs and academic institutions with longstanding partnerships with the DPRK, the Special Envoy participated in discussions on deepening educational exchanges and technical training opportunities in the areas of agriculture, education, food security, science and technology.
(c)(7) Develop an action plan for supporting implementation of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights Resolution 2004/13.
The UN Commission on Human Rights and its successor body, the UN HRC, as well as the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly have continued to adopt annual resolutions on the human rights situation in the DPRK, updating the UN Commisson on Human Rights Resolution 2004/13.
The Special Envoy coordinated with the EAP, DRL, and IO bureaus at the State Department on the U.S. recommendations and voting strategy on resolutions considered in the UN HRC and in the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly. In addition, he met with the EU delegation that annually sponsors the DPRK resolutions in both UN bodies to discuss the text of resolutions and devise a strategy for winning their passage in 2011 and 2012. He also met with delegates of a number of countries to the UN HRC, including HRC leadership, and the UN General Assembly to advocate for their support of the resolutions.
- UN General Assembly resolution 66/54 “The situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” was adopted on December 19, 2011, in the General Assembly by a vote of 123 in favor, 16 against, and 51 abstentions. This resolution was passed by the strongest number of votes to date.
- UN HRC resolution 16/8 “The situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” was adopted on March 24, 2011 by a vote of 30 in favor, 3 against, and 11 abstentions. This resolution renewed the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the DPRK.
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What's so good about Good Friday?
It's almost as if Mel Gibson's The Passion has come to life. In Chicago's largely Hispanic Pilsen neighborhood, some 7,000 people gather at Providence of God Parish for the beginning of the Via Crucis or "Way of the Cross" every Good Friday. This is no symbolic walk through the park, however; "Pontius Pilate" is dressed in Roman garb, as are the soldiers who accompany "Jesus" the 12 blocks to Harrison Park, where he will be literally tied to a cross.
Some find the realism a bit disturbing, but it makes perfect sense to Latino Catholics, says Timothy Matovina, associate professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame. "Suffering is a reality for Latino people. Our people have suffered and we continue to suffer," he says. "In the Latino world, the celebration of Good Friday is a radical acceptance of life as it is."
The important part of the Via Crucis isn't the realistic blood dripping from the real crown of thorns but rather the sense of accompaniment--with Jesus and with Mary--in the procession. "The idea is that you go be with someone in their suffering, just as you would go be with a friend or even an acquaintance who has had a death in the family," he says.
The day continues with a service featuring the Siete Palabras or Seven Last Words, the Pésame or condolences to Mary, and finally the Santo Entierro or holy entombment.
This connection of Christ's suffering to that of the people is extremely significant in popular Latino devotion as well as in liberation theology. "If Christ's suffering is redemptive, then our struggles will also have a higher meaning," Matovina explains.
This doesn't preclude working to end suffering, nor is it dangerous for victims, he says. "In fact, while people are left to wallow in their suffering, I think to remove the symbols that provide meaning to that suffering would be spiritually detrimental," he says.
Although some say that Hispanics could stand to put more emphasis on Easter, there's also a danger in skipping the suffering that comes before Resurrection. "Of course, we always need to move toward the hope of the Resurrection," Matovina says. "But, at the same time, the rest of us need to focus on the suffering of the world. That is an essential part of being a disciple."
This article appeared in the March 2005 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 70, No. 3, page 15).
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|Anne Moody (1940-)
||As the author of the autobiography Coming of Age in Mississippi, Anne Moody is one of the best-known writers of the civil rights movement....
||Biographical entry for Benjamin Franklin...
|Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
||Biographical entry for Edgar Allan Poe...
|Flight into Fancy: Poe’s Discovery of the Right Brain
||"Phrenology is no longer to be laughed at," Edgar Allan Poe wrote in an 1836 review of Phrenology, and the Moral Influence of Phrenology. "It is no longer laughed at by men of common understanding. It has assumed the majesty of science; and, as a sci...
|Frederick Kemper Freeman
||Biographical entry for Frederick Kemper Freeman...
|Hodding Carter (1907-1972)
||One of the most prominent Southern newspaper editors of his era, Hodding Carter, Jr., crusaded against Louisiana politician Huey Long and racial discrimination. A recipient of a 1946 Pulitzer Prize for his journalism, Carter also distinguished himse...
|How the Mind Turns Language into Meaning
|The Internet in Service-Learning
||Service-learning is the coupling of academic work that students do in a classroom with students’ service to an organization outside the classroom. The academic work and the service are completed together, so that students both study issues and become...
|News of Her Own: Harriett Beecher Stowe’s Investigative Fiction
||Known partly as a protest novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin is also a critique of and a substitute for contemporary journalism. Frustrated by what she felt was an inadequate response to slavery by America’s journalists, Harriet Beecher Stowe attacked both pr...
|The Paperboy Turned Novelist: Thomas Wolfe and Journalism
||After dabbling in journalism as an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Thomas Wolfe became one of America's best-known novelists. As a writer of fiction, Wolfe critiqued journalism in both his novel Look Homeward, Angel...
|The Right Brain in Poe's Creative Process
||I would give the world," Edgar Allan Poe wrote at the beginning of his career, "to embody one half the ideas afloat in my imagination" (Letters 32). The words, penned to editor John Neal in 1829, mark the beginning of Poe's lifelong fascination with ...
||The sheriff casts a long--and wide--shadow over the southern literary landscape. A lawman in a lawless region, he is sometimes the heavy and sometimes just plain heavy: an epic hero walking tall or an impotent buffoon weighing down the fun. ...
|Short Story, Beginnings to 1900
||In an era when most American literature came from the North, the South distinguished itself most notably in the short story, producing two of its foremost authorities in Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain, as well as one of its best-known characters in U...
|Thomas Dunn English
||Biographical entry for Thomas Dunn English...
|Thomas Holley Chivers, 1809-1858
||Biographical entry for Thomas Holley Chivers....
|Vardis Fisher: An Essay in Bibliography
||"Vardis Fisher: An Essay in Bibliography" summarizes editions, manuscripts and letters, biographical works, and critical books and articles on Western novelist Vardis Fisher....
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My neighbor and friend Bruce is fond of saying “a sacrifice isn’t a sacrifice unless it’s a sacrifice”. The point is that unless it hurts it is hard to call something a real sacrifice. I think there is some merit to this idea. This post is about what constitutes sacrifice in our lives today.
When you ask what a sacrifice is in a Mormon Sunday School class you will often get a variation on this answer: Sacrifice is giving up something good to get something better. An example might be that it is a sacrifice to pay tithing but that sacrifice is worth it because there is a spiritual reward that is more desirable than the money given up. Of course the problem with this definition is that it really describes any commerce transaction as well. I mean $5 is a good thing; so when I give it up for something better – like say a fish taco combo meal – have I then sacrificed? Hardly.
We could amend that definition to say we give up something good expecting nothing in return. But then we read King Benjamin’s sermon where he makes it clear that whenever we give something to God he pays in full. Plus the Lord tells us that every law we obey has an inevitable blessing associated with it. So then how is sacrificing to serve God fundamentally different then me buying fish tacos?
One could say that it is a sacrifice if we must delay our reward. When I obey God I must exercise faith that someday it will pay off, even though I don’t know when. Does that delayed reward make it a sacrifice? Well if it does then anyone who invests their money in things like mutual funds is living the law of sacrifice because there are all sorts of delayed reward monetary transactions too.
How then do we sacrifice? What is sacrifice? I’m guessing sacrifice means we do something right even when it hurts. If that is the case then Bruce is right with his saying: A sacrifice is not a sacrifice unless it’s a sacrifice. It also means that sacrifice for us today is really a variation on repentance. We repent enough for it to hurt. We give up our greed and selfishness just quickly enough for it to be somewhat painful. We work at our church calling enough to push ourselves. We give enough to the poor in our fast offerings for it to sting a little. We do right things that we really don’t feel like doing just because they are the right things.
Yes, we will be repaid by God. But since when is that such a bad thing?
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It is a ``portrait`` gallery of smeary rainbow faces.
But many of the physiognomies barely suggest eyes, nose and mouth. Hair is indicated by savage attacks of the palette knife that often result in vivid blots of impasto. And the predominantly bust-length torsos are markedly simplistic and spattered with color in intentionally decorative patterns.
Creator of the craggy personages in paint is Robert Beauchamp (pronounced Bee-chum), a Greenwich Village-based artist whose work stems from the non- representational traditions of American Abstract Expressionism.
Through Feb. 1, Beauchamp is the subject of ``An American Expressionist,`` a one-man show at Fort Lauderdale`s Carone Gallery.
A student of famed German expatriate painter Hans Hofmann in the early 1950s, Beauchamp always worked in abstraction. Surfaces sensations, for lack of a better term, are what the artist`s work is all about. Texture surmounts three- dimensional illusion; emphatic paint application supersedes weighty form; and the spirit of the painting process is more important than the resulting image.
Although Beauchamp has been compared to the so-called CoBrA artists (post- World War II expressionists from Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam), he disclaims either influence or association with Karel Appel, Asger Jorn and the rest of the CoBrA contingent.
Instead, Beauchamp`s aggressive, seemingly childlike notion of the human form emerges from a detachment from representation linked to the work of America`s post-war advocates of abstraction, including Jackson Pollock, Willem De Kooning and George McNeill. Beauchamp may have garnered a foundation of resolute composition and color from Hofmann, but his glowering figures also reflect De Kooning`s grinning earth-mother pictures of the `50s.
No preliminary studies exist beneath the heavy swirls and cascading swipes of pigment. Beauchamp is a bona fide autonomatist -- a painter who works spontaneously, allowing emotion to guide the hand.
Still, visitors to the Carone display unfailingly will search for benchmarks in reality -- a peering eye, open mouth or an implied shrug tied to flesh and bone. So be it.
Gallerygoers are better advised to look from the outside in -- not the reverse. Each maelstrom of color, each track of the palette knife unveils far more pictorial adventure than the ``who`` that lurks beneath.
The Carone Gallery is at 600 SE Second Court, Fort Lauderdale; 1-305-463-8833.
Works In Progress Gallery in Delray Beach is the perfect venue for a one- woman show by painter Melinda Trucks. The heady combination of preparatory drawings and finished canvases traces an evolution from idea to imagery.
An MFA graduate of Florida State University, Trucks has been exhibiting since 1980. But her first success in the visual arts was the design for the cover of the Allman Brothers Band album, Reach for the Sky.
In ``Ulterior Motifs,`` running through Feb. 9 at Works in Progress, Trucks explores a series of highly personal ``double innuendos`` in graphite on paper and oils on canvas. It is a show of memory and imagination made tangible, as figures allude both to motion and introspection, with the spectator caught somewhere in between.
But what kind of netherworld is this?
Although Trucks ably orchestrates the human figure within reality-based environments, a sense of exaggeration and fantasy pulls sensibilities off- center. Hands and feet are rendered larger than usual -- all for expressive emphasis. And whimsical, occasionally threatening auxiliary figures accompany personages that are surely portraits. In the recently completed ensemble Backstage Pass (1992), Trucks adds a double self-portrait.
A sense of lapsed time is revealed, too. Intentional smears of graphite pencil and the bravura of her brush are akin to the washy dissolves of a filmmaker. The handling of paint is loose, to be sure, yet carefully controlled. And each obscure narrative reflects a wide palette range, as hot reds intermingle with cool greens and blues.
What establishes the exhibition as a homogenous suite, of sorts, is the series of gargoyles, gnomes, hobgoblins and demonic sprites that inhabit most all the compositions. Of note is the work with multiple canvases, Twice as Hard.
Are the goblins guardians or invaders? And are these darkly shaded sentinels meant to be taken literally or are they part of the unconsciousness, unleashed only by the brush or pencil?
Whatever the impetus, Melinda Trucks` applied gothicism, sly draftmanship and learned paint application have come to a forceful purpose. She is an artist to watch.
Works In Progress Gallery is at 504 E. Atlantic Blvd., Delray Beach; 1-407-274-9286.
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SANTA BARBARA – Firefighters have nearly surrounded the Zaca wildfire that has been burning for nearly two months in Los Padres National Forest.
Fire bosses said Tuesday that the 240,207-acre blaze is 95 percent surrounded and full containment is now expected Sept. 4, three days earlier than previous estimates.
"Most of the fire doesn't have an infrared signature anymore," U.S. Forest Service spokesman Don Ferguson said.
Some 375 square miles of wilderness have burned since the fire started July 4 north of Los Olivos and raged through 100-year-old thickets of brush and in rugged inaccessible terrain east of Santa Ynez Valley vineyards and ranchland.
Sparks from equipment being used to repair a water pipe ignited the blaze.
Higher humidity and cooler weather helped firefighters gain on the fire in recent days. Nearly 2,200 firefighters and 33 aircraft were still working on the fire Tuesday.
Firefighting costs have exceeded $108 million.
No homes were damaged. The only structure destroyed was an outbuilding.
There have been 42 firefighter injuries, mostly minor.
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I'd like to compare some Jazz tunes.
Jazz tunes are characterized by a succession of chords. The interval between each succeeding chord (number of tones) and the order in which they appear matter.
At first, I thought of a Mann-Whitney test that could compare two tunes with a different number of chords using the ranks of their intervals.
Another thing matters, though: the quality of the chord. A major chord can follow a minor chord, a dominant one, or a semi-diminished one. So, there is a mix of ordinal and categorical variables of which to take account.
What methodology should be used in testing the similarity of two jazz tunes?
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, This post is for Jen. With winter officially here in our neck of the woods it’s time to start heating.
People heat for different reasons. Some heat just enough to hold over their semi hardy plants like fuchsias and geraniums. Some want that tropical feel year round. If you want the latter then install a good quality hanging propane or gas heating unit with a power vent to carry out the unburned gas. You can find these units in any greenhouse supplies catalog.
If you don’t happen to have that extra thousand dollars to throw at the problem this post gives examples of what I use in my 10×40 and 20×40 greenhouses
Having 6 greenhouses of differing sizes I use a variety of heating methods. At this time of year I am using only two houses. One for holding over and one for my greenhouse manufacturing shop. The house I use for holding over also has my citrus and lots of succulents and cactus plants that I will be selling next year. The cactus, succulents and the new cuttings that I am starting are in the front half of that greenhouse. The citrus and some of the plants I am holding over are in the back of the greenhouse. To accomplish two heat zones I simply drop a piece of cheap thin plastic down from the ceiling to the floor at about the middle of the greenhouse. Now I have the warm 20′ zone on the front side of the plastic and the cooler side (around 10 degrees cooler) on the back side.
My primary heat is a 4000 watt 220 volt electric heater called the Hot Shot. This heater will keep the whole 40′ house up to around 50 degrees even when it’s 20 degrees outside. This year I have also been experimenting with a portable propane heater called the Blue Flame that I got from someone like Amazon. They put out 30,000btus which seems to be more than enough to heat the entire house. I am using mine though as kind of a backup to my electric. I set the thermostat on the blue flame to come on when the temp gets below 50 degrees or so. It runs a few minutes heats the area up to about 58 degrees then shuts down. A couple of the things I like about this unit is that it has a manual thermostat, you turn it until you hear it click and kick in then you leave it alone. It also has a thermometer in the top that shows the ambient temperature around the heater. This thermometer doesn’t work if the power goes out but the heater does keep working since it has a standing pilot. This is huge, if the power goes out at night and you are all toasty in bed this heater will keep your babies from turning to popsicle. Another nice thing is that you can run this unit on a propane bottle as small as 10 gallons. That way you aren’t trapped paying the high delivered propane price you can pick up your propane at the local farm store or propane place.
For my shop greenhouse which is a 20′x40′ greenhouse I use a salamander, rocket type propane heater with a huge blower on it. They come in 60,000btu to 250,000 sizes. I went with the 125,000btu size as it is the smallest one that comes with a thermostat. I am able to set this one at 65 degrees or so and it will keep cycling on and off and keep the house at a pretty constant temp. I do vent the house once in a while and I also am going in and out constantly while I work so I’m not too worried about carbon monoxide. I have however gotten a slight headache after working in that house for most of the day. I plan to get a carbon monoxide detector today and installing it in that house then cranking the heat for a couple of hours keeping the house at 80 degrees or so to see if it is set off by carbon monoxide.
I also have one of these type of heaters in a 60,000btu which I got at Home Depot for $99. It hooks up to the small barbeque size bottles and can be used to take the chill off of a house in just a few minutes if I want to work in there. This one doesn’t have a thermostat but is useful for a quick heat and is very portable.
Ventilation. For me that’s more of a summer thing. My philosophy is don’t build your greenhouse super tight and you will have enough air coming in to support the heating unit. As far as fumes damaging your plants. The orchid that I posted a picture of is about 6 feet away from the heater and has suffered no ill effects from the propane.
Air Movement. We’re talking fans here. I use the cheap 16″ box fans that you can find at the thrift stores at this time of year for $5. I locate one of them sitting on the floor a few feet in front of my heat source and have it pointing toward the back of the greenhouse. I then have one hanging from the ceiling at the back of the house blowing toward the front. This helps mix the heated air as well as keeping the moist humid air mowing. Most greenhouse plant diseases begin with moist air settling on the plants leaves.
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News Release NR-2309
National Labs Work to Settle PHEV Fuel Economy Conundrum
NREL-developed methodology shows promise for estimating real-world energy use
September 28, 2009
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) recently joined forces with researchers from Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) to take the lead in developing and testing a new method for predicting the real-world fuel and electricity consumption of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). After examining data on the only PHEV currently available in large numbers, the NREL-developed method shows promise for reasonably predicting the PHEV’s average fuel and electricity use.
Industry debate centers on the rules for estimating miles per gallon. Current rules for conventional vehicles do not work for plug-in hybrids because the vehicles run on both electricity and gasoline.
PHEV testing is further complicated by the fact that these vehicles operate in two different modes based on the distance they are driven (initially depleting energy from the large vehicle battery, and eventually sustaining the battery charge for longer distance driving). Consensus is building on techniques to handle these first two complications, but one question that remains is how to adjust raw certification cycle test results to best predict a PHEV’s average real-world energy use.
“Official fuel economy testing for all vehicles is conducted on chassis dynamometers, which are basically treadmills for cars and trucks,” NREL Research Engineer Jeff Gonder explained. “One subtlety of chassis dynamometer testing is that vehicle fuel economy measurements using decades-old standard speed profiles may be overly optimistic compared to today’s average on-road fuel use. Official methods exist to adjust the test cycle fuel economy of conventional vehicles to better estimate expected real-world fuel use, but a similar adjustment method has yet to be finalized for PHEVs.”
In an effort to objectively predict on-road energy use of a PHEV, NREL developed a method to adjust the standard test cycle results from each mode of PHEV operation. The adjusted values are then combined into a single fuel economy prediction. NREL has applied this technique to its PHEV analysis for several years, but until recently has not been able to validate it against data on a large number of PHEVs operating on the road. Partnering with two other DOE laboratories provided that opportunity.
INL monitors fleet fuel use of advanced technology cars as part of DOE’s Advanced Vehicle Testing Activity, and has accumulated more than a year’s worth of data on roughly 100 PHEVs of the same design. (Because of limited purpose-built PHEV availability, these vehicles are production hybrid vehicles modified with aftermarket PHEV conversion kits). ANL had collected dynamometer test data on the same type of vehicle to evaluate PHEV test procedures over the standard certification cycle speed profiles.
“This analysis provided a great example of collaboration among three DOE labs,” Gonder said. “NREL applied the adjustment technique we developed to PHEV data from ANL dynamometer testing and compared the fuel economy predictions to on-road data from INL’s large fleet evaluation effort. After accounting for how frequently the PHEV’s in the INL-monitored fleet actually plug in, we found excellent agreement between the adjusted test cycle predictions and the actual fleet fuel and electricity use.”
While this finding is promising, the validation has so far only been possible on a single aftermarket conversion PHEV design. It will be important to repeat the analysis once dynamometer testing and substantial on-road fleet data becomes available for different PHEV designs, particularly those with greater electric driving capability. In the meantime, NREL plans to extend the analysis by simulating “virtual” fleets with a variety of PHEV powertrains operating on GPS driving profiles obtained from conventional vehicle travel surveys. It should also be noted that while this process seeks to predict the average on-road fuel and electricity use from a large number of PHEVs, fuel economy will vary greatly based on how the vehicle is driven and it will be important to educate PHEV drivers on how to obtain the best results.
This work is part of a coordinated PHEV analysis effort supported by the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Vehicle Technologies Program. The results of this research were presented at the recent 5th IEEE Vehicle Power and Propulsion Conference (VPPC’09) in Dearborn, Mich. Gonder published an earlier paper discussing broader PHEV fuel economy reporting issues and serves on the SAE subcommittee (chaired by ANL) that will shortly be issuing an official recommended practice for measuring PHEV fuel economy.
NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy's primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for DOE by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC.
Visit NREL online at www.nrel.gov
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This event is also described in Dzhanamsakhi. One morning, Nanak has come to the river to bathe. During bathing he disappeared in the water and stayed there for three days. During this time, Nanak had a vision of the Divine presence, and he was instructed to preach God's name (Nam) worldwide. When Nanak appeared 3 days later, he declared: "There is no Hindu, no Muslim". This meant that there are no differences between people of different faiths. Sikh tradition states that Nanak also made four lengthy trips to the east, in Assam, south through the land of Tamils in Sri Lanka, to the north, Ladakh and Tibet, and the West, in Mecca, Medina and Baghdad.
Traveling Nanak visited religious centers of Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Jains, Sufis, Yogis and Siddhas. For assistance, try visiting Kay Merrill. He met people of different religions, tribes, cultures and races. He traveled on foot, along with his friend by the name of Mardan, also a poet. His travels are called Udas. Last years of his life Nanak spent Kartarpure where erected the first temple of Sikhs. He appointed his first disciple Angada his successor. The penetration of Islam in India has resulted in 15-16 cc. original Indo-Muslim culture.
Indo-Muslim synthesis raised the religion, philosophy, poetry and literature, music and painting. Please visit Anchin if you seek more information. Sikhism, in turn, was the synthesis of certain views of bhakti movement (Indian Vaisnavas) and Sufi (a mystical movement of Islam). Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Swami Prabhupada (Abhay Charan De) appeared in the world in 1896 in Calcutta (India).
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Ask The Expert
When I bought my house, the pool was dirty and I couldn’t check out the condition. Now that it’s cleaned I see plaster coming up off of the bottom. Some are small pieces about the size of a quarter and other areas I can peel off the size of a grapefruit. The weird thing is it looks like there is plaster under the plaster that is coming off. Why is this happening and what do I need to do to fix it? Thank you,
It sounds like the previous homeowner had the pool sandblasted and plastered over, which is not the right way to do it.
What you should do is have all the plaster chiseled down to the gunite. This leaves a very coarse surface. Then you have the pool re-plastered. A lot of guys will take shortcuts thinking that sandblasting will provide a good bonding surface. It will hold for a while, but not long.
At this point you need to remove all of the plaster. You can call a plasterer and they will come out with pneumatic chipping hammers, get it all out, and haul it away. Do it once, do it right.
The new plaster doesn’t have to be white. Blues or gray bottoms are good options. Whatever your color preference is, different colors make for good looking pools.
Being a Do-It-Yourselfer, I want you to know that I really enjoy your column. I’ve got a carport with 4″ x 4″ support posts that are rotted where they were set in the concrete. I know that it’s all of the exposure to water over the years that is causing them to rot. The bottom line is, do I need to take the carport down and start from scratch or would it be better to jack it up and then replace the posts? Any secrets or recommendations you could provide would be great. Thank you very much for your time,
What you can do is get some bottle jacks. I don’t know the size or weight of your carport, but put the bottle jacks, or a one and one half ton floor jack down on a piece of 4″ x 6″ x 2″ to help transfer the load of the carport. Take a long enough 4″ x 4″ and place the top end against a 1″ x 4″ against the roof for protection. If the roof is pitched, you can nail the 1″ x 4″ in place, angle the top of the 4″ x 4″ as needed, and toenail into the 1″ x 4″.
Purchase a metal stand-off bracket with a 1″ rise. This will keep the bottom of the post elevated off of the surface by 1″ preventing water from wicking up into the post and causing rot.
Jack up the roof and remove the post. Use a concrete saw, cut an approximately 2′ square, about 18″ deep and demo. Repour concrete and using a plumb-bob, set the standoff bracket exactly where it needs to be and leveled.
Let the concrete dry for three days, come back and install the new 4″ x 4″ post, primed and painted on all six sides, on top of the new bracket. Bolt into place.
Submit questions to: firstname.lastname@example.org
Robert Lamoureux of IMS Construction, Valencia, CA, has 30 years experience as a Commercial, General, Electrical, and Plumbing contractor. The opinions expressed in “Ask the Expert” are not to replace the recommendations of a qualified contractor after a thorough visual inspection has been made.
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Disseminated infection with the fungal pathogen Penicillium marneffei is, after extrapulmonary tuberculosis and cryptococcal meningitis, the third most common opportunistic infection in HIV disease in northern Thailand. We report the clinical, microbiological, and therapeutic features of a large series of HIV-infected adults with disseminated P marneffeiinfection.
From August, 1987, to June, 1992, 92 patients with P marneffei infection confirmed by culture were seen at Chiang Mai University Hospital, of whom 86 were also infected with HIV. Clinical information was available for 80 of these patients. The most common presenting symptoms and signs were fever (92%), anaemia (77%), weight loss (76%), and skin lesions (71%). 87% of patients presenting with skin lesions had generalised papules with central umbilication. Presumptive diagnosis was made in 50 patients by microscopic examination of Wright's-stained bone-marrow aspirate and/or touch smears of skin biopsy or lymph-node biopsy specimens. Most patients who were diagnosed responded initially to amphotericin or itraconazole, whereas most who were not diagnosed and treated died. 12 patients relapsed within 6 months of cessation of treatment.
P marneffei has become an important pathogen of HIV-associated opportunistic infection in Thailand.
a Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai 50002, Thailand
b Department of Epidemiology, School of Hygiene and Public Health, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A.
Correspondence to: Dr Thira Sirisanthana, Section of Infectious Disease, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai 50002, Thailand
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The First North American Muslim Pow Wow was held in June 1993 in New Mexico, United States. The event brought together Muslims of diverse backgrounds to know one another, to increase trust, and to discover a common voice. The original Pow Wow was largely the result of efforts by Sheila Musaji and Hakim Archuletta.
'Pow-wow' is a native Algonquian word, and was used to indicate a desire for Islam to become native to the American Continent. The word further expressed the intention of the gathering, as a conference, a council meeting, a caucus, a time to hear each other out. The gathering was a grassroots, three day camping event which took on a spirit of celebration.
Annual gatherings continued over the next three years, and within the last decade such transformative study & worship circles have become formalized into what are known as “Deen Intensives”.
Deen Intensives have spread to different places in North America and as far abroad as England. The Pow Wow is currently inactive.
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New Vessel Speed Restrictions In Lower Glacier Bay And Revised Whale Waters Boundaries At Entrance To The West Arm
Contact: Allison Banks, Public Information Officer, 907-697-2230
Today, Superintendent Cherry Payne announced two changes to whale waters areas in Glacier Bay National Park. First, a 13 knot speed limit will be implemented in lower Glacier Bay to protect numerous humpback whales that have moved into the area. During the past week at least ten whales, including a mother/calf pair, have been observed in this area. Second, whale distribution has shifted in the entrance to the West Arm, now concentrating in mid-channel south and east of Lone Island, so the boundaries of the 13 knot speed limit area implemented on June 25th have been changed. These changes to whale waters desginations will be in effect from 5 AM Friday July 3rd until further notice.
Speed and course restrictions in whale waters are intended to reduce the disruption of feeding humpback whales and to lower the risk of whale/vessel collisions. Consistent whale monitoring protocols are used to document whale distribution, and adaptive management priniciples are used to define areas need to protect whales.
As shown on the attached map, lower Glacier Bay whale waters include the waters extending from the mouth of Glacier Bay to a line drawn between the northern tip of Strawberry Island and the northern tip of Lars Island. This boundary is shown on NOAA nautical chart 17318 of Glacier Bay. All vessels are restricted to a 13 knot speed through the water in this area. Vessels greater than 18 feet in length passing through this area are also restricted to a mid-channel course or 1 nautical mile offshore.
The attached map also shows the revised whale waters area at the mouth of the West Arm, which are bounded on the north by a line due east from the easternmost point at the mouth of Hugh Miller Inlet, to the opposite shore at 58 deg. 45.7 min N. The southern boundary is defined by a line from the northern tip of Drake Island to southern point of land at the mouth of Geikie Inlet. The eastern boundary is defined by a line from Tlingit Point to the northern tip of Drake Island. The western shoreline of the West Arm and the mouth of Geikie Inlet and Hugh Miller Inlet form the western boundary of the area.
The special whale waters outside the mouth of Glacier Bay from Point Gustavus to Point Dundas will remain in effect due to continuing high abundance of whales there. It was implemented on June 25th, is bounded on the north by line between Point Carolus and Point Gustavus, and on the south by the Park boundary in Icy Strait. The eastern boundary is defined by a line running due south from Point Gustavus to the Park boundary, and the western boundary is a line running due south from Point Dundas to to the Park boundary. All vessels are restricted to a 13 knot speed through the water in this area.
Boaters should proceed cautiously in all areas where whales are present because whales may surface in unexpected locations, posing a hazard to both the vessel and the whale. Vessels are prohibited from operating within ¼ nautical mile of a humpback whale in all Park waters, including those Park waters outside Glacier Bay proper. In addition, vessel operators positioned within ½ nautical mile of a humpback whale are prohibited from altering their course or speed in a manner that results in decreasing the distance between the whale and the vessel.
Boaters are advised to verify whale waters designations prior to entering Glacier Bay by telephoning (907) 697-2627 or by contacting KWM20 Bartlett Cove on marine VHF radio.
Whale waters restrictions are authorized in Glacier Bay National Park in accordance with Title 36 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Subpart N, 13.1174.
Did You Know?
Red-backed voles are a keystone species. Many forest trees rely on mycorrhizal fungi to help them grow. Red-backed voles are one of few animals that eat these fungi and are important in their dispersal.
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Skip to Main Content
Breast cancer is the second-most common and leading cause of cancer death among women. It has become a major health issue in the world over the past 50 years, and its incidence has increased in recent years. Early detection is an effective way to diagnose and manage breast cancer. Computer-aided detection or diagnosis (CAD) systems can play a key role in the early detection of breast cancer and can reduce the death rate among women with breast cancer. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of recent advances in the development of CAD systems and related techniques. We begin with a brief introduction to some basic concepts related to breast cancer detection and diagnosis. We then focus on key CAD techniques developed recently for breast cancer, including detection of calcifications, detection of masses, detection of architectural distortion, detection of bilateral asymmetry, image enhancement, and image retrieval.
Information Technology in Biomedicine, IEEE Transactions on (Volume:13 , Issue: 2 )
Date of Publication: March 2009
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The federal government has come up with dozens of ways to enhance the diminishing flow of the Colorado River, which has long struggled to keep seven states and roughly 25 million people hydrated.
Among the proposals in a report by the Bureau of Reclamation, portions of which leaked out in advance of its expected release this week, are traditional solutions to water shortages, like decreasing demand through conservation and increasing supply through reuse or desalination projects.
But also in the mix, and expected to remain in the final draft of the report, is a more extreme and contentious approach. It calls for building a pipeline and exporting huge amounts of water from the Missouri River 600 miles to the west and nearly a mile high to store in Denver-area reservoirs and dole out, as needed, to reservoirs and groundwater basins along the way in Kansas.
Experts say such an ambitious plan is reminiscent of those proposed in the middle of the last century, when grand and exorbitant federal water-project plans were commonplace — and not, with the benefit of hindsight, always advisable.
The pipeline option would provide the Colorado River basin with 600,000 acre-feet of water annually, which could serve roughly a million single-family homes. But the loss of so much water from the Missouri and Mississippi River systems, which require flows high enough to sustain large vessel navigation, would likely face strong political opposition.
Burke Griggs, the counsel for the Kansas Agriculture Department’s division of water resources, said the proposal “shows you the degree to which water-short entities in the Colorado River basin are willing to go to get water" from elsewhere, rather than fight each other over dwindling supplies, as they have, intermittently, for about a century.
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Tomorrow, September 21, is the UN designated “International Day of Peace.” There are a few ways to take action in support of this day.
1. The Invocation Vigil
The 24 hours of September 21st are divided into 15 minute periods in every time zone on the planet. Every 15 minutes, in every time zone, groups and individuals from around the world will use an Invocation for Peace and for the values needed to create cultures of peace. Will you or your group commit yourself to spend specific 15 minute periods in prayer or meditation for a culture of peace and goodwill – beginning and ending the period with a sounding of the Great Invocation, or the Peace Invocation ‘May Peace Prevail on Earth’, or an invocation or prayer for world peace of your choice? Imagine the rhythmic pulse of invocation flowing from around the globe every 15 minutes. Please add the radiations of your mind and heart to this Global Vigil of Invocation, Meditation and Prayer in support of International Day of Peace, 2012. For more information and to sign up for the International Day of Peace Invocation Vigil, click here.
2. One minute of Silence at Noon
To support this Day on a spiritual level, there will this year be a wide variety of initiatives for silence, meditation and prayer. The UN continues its important focus, inviting the people of the world to observe a minute of silence at 12 noon local time, setting up a wave of silence beginning in New Zealand and flowing around the world to end in Samoa almost 48 hours later. A range of movements are collaborating for the first time with the vision of co-creating the Largest Globally-Synchronized Meditation and Prayer for Peace in human history : Be the Peace. This includes events around the world as well as three global attunements at 4:00 AM and 4:00 PM GMT on the 21st and 4:00 AM GMT on the 22nd.
3. The Walk of Peace
A silent walk from The International Garden of Peace at Meditation Mount to The Ojai Foundation Land Sanctuary, beginning at 4:45pm at Meditation Mount. Details and registration can be found through the Ojai Foundation.
Come experience silent sitting Meditation in a friendly setting with discussion and Q&A time.
First-timers and beginners are encouraged to come and learn beginning Creative Meditation.
This class is led by Ellen Hall.
There is a $10 suggested donation.
Meditation Mount is cleaning out the book shelves!
After organizing a collection of books for our public Reading Room, we still have many books left that are for sale in the breezeway from now through Labor Day weekend. Soft covers: $1.00, hard covers: $2.00, CDs: $2.00, art books: $4.00, and all other items are priced as marked. Come out and find your end of Summer inspiration, while supporting a good cause.
If you haven’t already registered, there is still space available at Kosi’s “Heart of Silence” weekend retreat! August 18-20 at Meditation Mount. This retreat offers the deepest support for resting your mind in the infinite Silence of your Heart, offering you the opportunity to directly discover the peace, freedom, and lasting happiness of your inherent nature.
Click here to learn more and register now.
Also, you can meet Kosi the day before for a Satsang at The Ojai Retreat.
Click here for more information.
Meditation Mount is a perfect place to have a non-denominational, sacred wedding ceremony. The International Garden of Peace, Auditorium and Terrace are surrounded by stunning views on all sides. Visit the Mount anytime we are open, Wednesday through Sunday, click here for more information on weddings, or send an information request to Caitlin, email@example.com.
(above) Justin Grant and Ivy Tai were married here on April 7, 2012 with their closest friends and family during a beautiful sunset. Congratulations to these newlyweds! Justin, a Thacher School Alumni, now has another milestone memory in Ojai.
(above) Zachary Kuney and Maisa Fernandez were married on the View Point of the International Garden of Peace on June 30, 2012. A scene from a dream come true for this beautiful couple who knew they would say their vows at Meditation Mount since the first time they came here together.
This just in! The entire collected works of Master Djwhal Khul & Alice A. Bailey are now live online FREE on the updated website! Beautiful new look for a stupendous series of Teachings! Released July Full Moon 2012.
As you stroll through the International Garden of Peace, just past the lily pond, nestled at the edge of the grassy view point you will find the Bench of Dreams. This bench was hand crafted by Ramon Byrne out of 1,200 year old growth Douglas Fir reclaimed from the Ventura-Ojai rail line in honor of one of the Mount’s most beloved visitors, Dr. Robert Muller. Muller is well known for over 40 years of outstanding work with the United Nations in areas such as economics and the environment, world peace and spirituality. He was forever optimistic and a prolific writer, also known for spontaneously playing “Ode to Joy” on the harmonica!
The original Bench of Dreams is located at the base of Mt. Rasur, Costa Rica, which is a place where dreams have a way of simply manifesting into reality. Next to the bench is the small indigenous farmhouse where Robert Muller wrote his “2000 Dreams and Ideas for the Year 2000.” At present, and prior to the year 2000, over one hundred of his dreams have been fulfilled!
Visitors of Meditation Mount are invited to experience our Bench of Dreams. Dr. Muller suggests that you place a pebble or stone in each hand, press the two hands together, and with eyes closed – dream of something good for the world. When opening the eyes, one stone is thrown onto the Earth, so that the sacred Earth will remember the dream, and the other stone is taken home as a reminder of the dream.
Robert Muller passed at the age of 87 in September 2010. In his physical absence, we give attention and gratitude to Robert’s dreams by creating the Bench of Dreams at Meditation Mount.
You can find Muller’s “Most of All They Taught Me Happiness,” first published in 1978, for purchase in the Meditation Mount Tea Room. There are limited copies signed by Muller himself. Meditation Mount also carries “Prophet: The Hatmaker’s Son: The Life of Robert Muller” by Douglas Gillies.
This weekend one of our guests happened to be Dan Hashemi, a professional photographer visiting from Toronto, Canada with his family. He shared this beautiful image of a Summer sunset from the View Point in the International Garden of Peace. Click the image to enlarge.
Global Resource Alliance would like to honor 10 years of your support with dinner at beautiful Meditation Mount on Saturday, June 23 from 7:00-9:30pm. Following dinner, GRA’s directors and special guest Julious Piti will present a slide show of GRA’s latest accomplishments and lessons learned over the last 10 years. Click here for more information.
This is FREE fundraising event open to the community. Please RSVP to ensure we prepare enough food for everyone. Space is limited. To RSVP, call Monica at (805) 272-5645 or e-mail firstname.lastname@example.org.
June 3 – 4, 2012
24 Hour Global Vigil — Using the Great Invocation every 15 Minutes
Every year, since 1952, people in all parts of the world have celebrated World Invocation Day on the day of the Gemini full moon. It is a global day of prayer and meditation when people of different spiritual paths invoke energies of Light, Love and Spiritual Purpose, using the Great Invocation.
You are invited to link in with others around the world in a 24-hour Vigil for World Invocation Day beginning in your own time zone 12 hours before the full moon and ending 12 hours after the full moon. Together may we link with all who love humanity and the Earth to invoke the Light, Love and Power of Divinity and visualize these benificent energies strengthening all being done in the world to build right relations and goodwill. Our work in these Vigils will be to stand with all human beings who, at this time of transition, are actively working to create a more cooperative, compassionate and equitable world.
What to do: Choose a particular period or periods of time when you will hold a meditative focus and sound the Great Invocation on the quarter hour. You can participate in the Vigil as an individual or as a group. Click here for more information.
On the rhythmic pulse of every quarter of an hour imagine the Great Invocation being sounded throughout the world for the 24 hours.
You can choose the times you will take part in the Vigil in your local time and Register By Clicking Here.
When registering please be sure to select, as your first step, the World Invocation Day Vigil – you must click on the Vigil. No times will be displayed if you do not complete this step. All times displayed are in your local time zone.
Bless the world!
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Live blog of the Seven on Seven conference May 14th.
“From Nethack to play-by-post forums on the WWW,” an Ars Technica blogger wrote in 2009, “the first thing that computer geeks do upon inventing a new medium is play Dungeons and Dragons with it.” With this half-joking riposte to conventional wisdom that new communications media are appropriated first by pornographers, the blogger introduced a roundup of instructions for adding dice rollers to Google Wave to make it a platform for turn-based role-playing games. Of course, links between computing and RPGs predate networked technology. Some of the earliest computer games were made by programmers who played D&D; and saw the connection between dice and digits. Another parallel might be drawn between the do-it-yourself culture around computing in the 1970s and the amateur storytelling demanded by RPGs. Even while computer use leaves less to the imagination today than it did thirty-five years ago, it still shares more characteristics with RPGs than older forms of entertainment do. The creator(s) of a novel, movie, or drama have combined details into a whole by the time it reaches an audience; those media come with spatial and temporal guidelines for consumption. But just as network connections are constant and pervasive, RPGs are open-ended, played with regularity and long-term commitment. Gaming (like, say, tweeting) doesn’t have the same distance between medium and audience as reading or film-going – there is a constant awareness of the self’s participation in a bigger system, and a feeling of contribution to it. RPGs, like internet use, move at the speed of life.
I think this affinity is what has prompted many artists to include allusions to RPGs in their works. Whether they adapt the forking structures or the surface details of fantasy and science fiction, whether those references are direct or oblique, references to the culture around RPGs can be shorthand for reality’s mediation by immaterial systems. Some examples: Brody Condon’s remakes of medieval paintings with game graphics, Eddo Stern’s animation of a gaming-forum flame war, Deb Sokolow’s choose-your-own-adventure drawings, the arcane protests of the Center for Tactical Magic, Sterling Crispin’s scrying devices, and the occult forms behind altar .gifs on dump.fm. These artists a have relationship to fantasy that’s distinctly different from ones who make monster portraits and fantastic battle scenes – a genre that’s also become more visible in contemporary art the last few years. (That trend, I’d say, comes because popular and critical approval for Peter Saul and Tim Burton has emboldened a younger generation of “outsider artists” who grew up with RPGs.) Indie fantasy art, like the illustrations in novels and gaming manuals, that inspire it, is about virtuosic draftsmanship and imagination. It showcases fine renderings of dragon scales and weaponry. The examples I listed above have rough edges where processes of imagination and play visibly collide with other frames of reference. Often, they achieve this by bringing technology to the foreground.
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Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Each year, teachers spend nearly $1,200 of their own money to effectively teach their students, and Sonic wants to help. They’ve partnered with DonorsChoose.org, a national leading non-profit Web site to fulfill projects requested by teachers. Projects range from soccer balls needed for gym class to ESL materials to help children read to computers needed for a science lab. If a teacher needs specific materials or resources, they can sign up as a SONIC Teacher at LimeadesForLearning.com and register their project online.
One of the unique benefits of DonorsChoose.org is that every day people become citizen philanthropists by donating to their favorite teacher’s project. Limeades for Learning is similar in that it empowers Sonic customers to take part and direct which teacher projects receive funding. From Aug. 31 to Oct. 1, customers are encouraged to purchase any frozen or fountain drink at Sonic and participate in the program. When you order a drink, each cup will be specially marked with a sticker that contains a unique code used to vote for a teacher project on LimeadesForLearning.com. Each week for five weeks, teacher projects with the most votes will be funded by SONIC up to $500,000.00. If customers want to continue to give, they will have an additional opportunity to donate money to their favorite teacher’s projects.
I have both a $25 MySonic gift card AND a $25 DonorsChoose.org card for 2 winners! Just leave me a comment here with your favorite Sonic drink and I'll choose a winner on Friday, the 18th. Good luck!
Posted by Dawn at 9:03 PM
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Clopidogrel is a medication used to prevent harmful blood clots from forming. It may be given to people who have recently experienced a heart attack, a stroke, or severe chest pain requiring hospitalization. Clopidogrel may also be used to prevent blood clots in people with poor circulation. The medication comes in tablet form and is typically taken once daily. Side effects include flu-like symptoms, major bleeding, and headaches.
Clopidogrel bisulfate is a medication that is used to prevent harmful blood clots from forming in people who have had a recent heart attack, stroke, or severe chest pain requiring hospitalization.
As mentioned, clopidogrel is licensed to prevent blood clots from forming after a heart attack, stroke, or chest pain that requires hospitalization. Also, the medication may be used to prevent clots in people with poor circulation, such as those who have peripheral artery disease (PAD). Preventing blood clots from forming and blocking blood vessels helps reduce the risk of having another related heart attack or stroke.
(Click What Is Clopidogrel Used For? for more information on these uses.)
Clopidogrel affects platelets (a type of blood cell), which clump together to form clots and stop bleeding in the event of a cut or injury. It is part of a class of drugs called antiplatelet medications (or blood thinners). Antiplatelet medications help prevent platelets from sticking together and forming a potentially harmful clot. This helps your blood flow more easily. Clots that form in blood vessels can block the blood flow to important organs, such as the heart or brain, and may lead to heart attacks and strokes. As a result, clopidogrel reduces the risk of having a future event, while also improving blood circulation in people with peripheral vascular disease.
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Free Condoms for 11-Year-Olds? Philadelphia and Its Sex Problem
Posted by faithandthelaw on April 17, 2011
Philadelphia has a disturbing problem on its hands – it has the highest rate of sexually active teens in the country and the fifth highest HIV/AIDS rate for the age group. But the city’s new campaign – offer free condoms to teens as young as 11 – to combat the problem is raising eyebrows.
The Philadelphia Department of Public Health has launched a website that allows youths to order free condoms online. Under the tab “Mail Me Condoms!” the city offers links to “how to use a condom correctly,” places in Philadelphia to buy condoms, and the option to get the male contraceptive for free.
“If you live in Philadelphia and are between the ages 11 and 19 you can now have condoms mailed directly to you for free,” reads the youth-oriented website Take Control Philly, managed by the city’s health department.
But an expert for Focus on the Family’s public policy arm does not think promoting condom use among youths is the answer to Philadelphia’s problem. Chad Hills, abstinence education analyst for CitizenLink, told The Christian Post that pushing condom use among middle school students is “irresponsible teaching, at best.”
“Most 11-year-old kids must be told to brush their teeth before bed; to take a shower at least several times a week; to put on clean clothes and comb their hair before walking out the door,” said Hills. “Now we’re handing them condoms and instantly transporting them into the world of adult sexual activity – awakening their curiosity and sexual passions before they can even think for themselves?”
The Philadelphia Department of Public Health earlier this year released a report citing the 2009 CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey findings that 15 percent of Philadelphia high school students had their first sexual intercourse before 13 years of age. And 26 percent of the high school-aged respondents said they had sexual intercourse with four or more persons during their life.
The report also found that Philadelphia youths are more likely than the average American teen to have a sexually-transmitted disease.
Philadelphia youths ages 10 to 14 were 5.3 times as likely to have Chlamydia, a common STD caused by bacteria infection, than the average American teen. The rate of another common STD, Gonorrhea, among 15- to 19-year-olds in Philadelphia is three times the national rate, and among 10- to 14-year-olds, four times the national rate.
According to the CDC survey, more than a third (37 percent) of the respondents said they did not use a condom during their last sexual intercourse.
“We hear from teachers and school counselors and sometimes the principals that kids are cutting schools in the afternoon and leaving early to go have orgies – and that’s in middle school,” said Gary Bell, executive director of Bebashi Transition to Hope, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit that seeks to respond to the increasing rate of HIV/AIDS among African Americans in the city, according to ABC News.
“They get groups together with kids of different genders – sometimes same-sex and sometimes mixed. The parents are not home and so they go there and have sex and trade partners.”
Philadelphia health officials hope the website giving away mail-ordered condoms will help lower the STD rate among youths in the city.
But perhaps the city should focus more attention on abstinence education, given the landmark study by the University of Pennsylvania last year that may have offered the most convincing evidence that such a message works.
The study first appeared in the February 2010 Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, published by the American Medical Association. It found that abstinence education was the most effective in reducing sexual activity among youths after studying 662 students from four public middle schools that serve low-income African American communities.
It found that middle school students in Philadelphia who attended abstinence-only classes were less likely to become sexually active than their peers who went to classes emphasizing only condom use or even classes that taught both condom use and abstinence.
A third of the students who completed the abstinence-only program had sexual intercourse within two years of the class. By comparison, more than half of those who participated in condom use-only program said they had sexual intercourse.
Over 40 percent of students who received either the eight- or 12-hour class that combined both methods had sex within the two year period.
“Latex, powders, pills and potions will never be the answer to this crisis,” said Leslee Unruh, founder of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse, to CP. “Condoms don’t protect the heart and aren’t 100 percent protection against many sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV. The only 100 percent effective way to protect one’s body and heart is abstinence until marriage.”
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Health Care Reform Timeline
The new health care law — called the Affordable Care Act — was passed in 2010. The law is changing the way some Americans get health coverage. Some changes are happening now. The biggest change for consumers comes in 2014, when almost everyone in the U.S. will be required to have health insurance.
- Some insurance plans are "grandfathered" — meaning they existed before the law was passed and so may not include all the benefit changes from the new health care law. If you hear about new insurance benefits coming with the changes, but your plan doesn't offer them, you may be in a grandfathered health plan.
- Young adults can now stay on their parent's health plan up to age 26. Most limits to keeping your young adult son or daughter on your coverage are removed, meaning they don't have to be a full-time student, live with you, be disabled or be a tax dependent.
- Prevention comes with no out-of-pocket cost. Other than health plans that are grandfathered, insurance will cover a long list of preventive health services, such as mammograms and cholesterol screenings. In most cases the preventive care will be paid in full by your premium, meaning you won't have to pay a copay, coinsurance or deductible.
- Health coverage is available for all kids, even those with pre-existing conditions. Previously, the pre-existing condition exclusions applied to all ages.
- Insurance coverage won't have dollar limits on the health care covered in your lifetime. Health plans won't have dollar limits on the care covered in a single year. Your health plan won't limit the dollar amount it will pay for coverage of essential health benefits within a year or over the lifetime of your plan.
- Adults who have been uninsured for at least 6 months and have been denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition may now get coverage through the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan.
- Those in the Medicare Part D "donut hole" get a 50% discount on name-brand prescription drugs and a 7% discount on generic prescription drugs. Over the next few years, the donut hole will gradually close so that there is no longer a gap in pharmacy benefits.
Down the Road
- Most people will be able to get insurance coverage, even someone with a pre-existing condition. People who have a health condition (an illness or pregnancy) or who are at higher than average risk of needing medical care, may have difficulty getting insurance, may pay more for insurance or get coverage that excludes the condition if it is pre-existing. In 2014, you'll be able to get insurance coverage, and it will include coverage of your pre-existing health condition.
- Health plans will include more benefits considered essential to good health. Beginning in 2014, most insurance plans you can choose from — whether you buy on the exchange or go directly to the insurance company of your choice — will include many benefits that are meant to make sure basic health concerns are covered.
- You'll be required to purchase health insurance if you don't already have it — and depending on your income, you may get help paying for it.
- You'll have more ways to get coverage. In 2014, there will be a new way to buy health insurance online. Beginning in October, you'll be able to compare and enroll in insurance plans available in your area using the online exchange. You can compare all your insurance options based on price, benefits, quality and other features that may be important to you, in plain language that makes sense. And, you may be able to get a new kind of tax credit that lowers your monthly premium.
- The Medicaid program will be expanded in some states to allow more people to qualify for the program.
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Thousands of buildings need to be demolished and rebuilt or repaired due to damage caused by the Christchurch earthquake, a new report shows.
The Earthquake Commission's Stage 2 geotechnical report assessed the quake damage to 22,500 properties around Canterbury.
It classified 3,300 properties as 'Zone C', meaning they have suffered major damage from land liquefaction and shaking.
Many of those properties will need to be completely rebuilt or undergo large scale repair work, the report states.
It also describes how the cracked and shifted land around the damaged houses could be stabilised.
"Zone C is the land which has generally suffered very severe or major land damage, or is close to the areas of major remedial works."
"In these zones a more coordinated and strategic approach is recommended to repair the land and to allow more robust reconstruction of buildings and infrastructure."
Houses on the banks Avon River in Christchurch were hit hard by the quake, the report shows.
They suffered heavy damage from the soil near the river liquefying and shifting their foundations.
Large area of the suburbs Burwood, Dallington and Richmond are classified as severely damaged.
Widespread land liquefaction also hit dozens of houses in North and South Kaiapoi.
The first repairs to the significantly damaged 'Zone C' houses are expected by August 2011.
Repairs to the 19,200 'Zone A' and 'Zone B' properties with minor or moderate are able to start now, the report states.
Some "older, well established" are not covered by the report's recommendations, as it would require what is described as impractical and unnecessary large scale demolition.
Earthquake recovery minister Gerry Brownlee said the report gave new certainty to Canterbury homeowners.
"For the majority of property owners, the recovery process is relatively straightforward and the repair process can start now."
Mr Brownlee urged Cantabrians to lodge damage claims with the Earthquake Commission before a cut-off date on Saturday.
Information packs about the Stage 2 report, including "individualised" letters, and a fact sheet on the claims process, were yesterday posted to Canterbury residents who had lodged claims before November 19, he said.By Hayden Donnell Email Hayden
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Profile: Chris Doyle
April 3, 2009 § Leave a Comment
Artist Chris Doyle thinks so, despite the horror and misfortune wrought from any of those scenarios. Doyle’s animated installation at Mass MoCA, “Apocalypse Management” (telling about being one being living), addresses the nature of disaster in the behavior of human beings. His work is part of “These Days: Elegies For Modern Times,” which opens at the museum on Saturday, April 4.
Doyle’s work is a sprawling tapestry portraying the end of the world. Projected onto a large screen, his vision splits the doom into two frames, each sliding along to reveal a vista not only of horror, but also of humankind fighting to overcome that which threatens to destroy them. Referencing painters like Hieronymus Bosch — thus pulling from our collective memory of what an apocalypse looks like — Doyle updates the parade of marauding cockroaches and beasties to an urban setting that we can all identify.
For Doyle, the whole thing began on Sept. 11, 2001.
“It’s hard for me not to trace it back to the experience of sitting on a couch as if it were theater and watching the towers fall,” he said. “The scale of that disaster and the scale of the rubble was just not something that I was ever eyewitness to.”
Not only did the grim spectacle outside his window change his view of the space around him, it also altered the way he reacted to similar misfortune around the globe. The experience made the world seem smaller via disaster.
“That experience changed my approach,” Doyle said. “It feels less hands-off and more real to me, so when I see images of an earthquake in China, there’s a visceral quality to it that probably wouldn’t have been the same pre 9-11.”
The collapse of the towers brought about a form of artistic post traumatic stress syndrome in which Doyle began — along with the rest of the country — processing the visuals he had taken in over an extended period of time. This brain function manifests itself in different forms — in Doyle’s case, his artwork — and also brings to mind connections with other media that create a perception that danger is everywhere.
“After September 11, I was much more sensitive to the disasters which, in combination with the Internet, made it seem for a while like they were relentless,” he said. “When you add the number of wars that have been popping up globally to the number of natural disasters that have been popping up, the news cycle tightens, and there’s no space between. We move from our experience in the media from one disaster to the next to the next. I had this sense of them being a kind of panorama. If you think of the news cycle as being spread out spatially, they start to panorama from all around us.”
In this way, the saturation of information systems — especially online and other news media — affect our perception of the world. As our psychological space changes, so does our physical space, and perception itself creates a false momentum in stress, moving any situation further along at a faster rate.
“Information can create a heightened sense of emergency that people are not feeling yet and bring it closer and faster,” Doyle said. “I was getting my hair cut the other day, and the person cutting my hair said, ‘I don’t think the economy is as bad as they say right now, from my own personal experience, but I definitely feel scared because everyone is telling me that I should be.’ I thought that maybe it just speeds up the cycle, that maybe we’re just in the first year or two of something longer, and it feels like it’s right on us.”
Doyle is fascinated by the way technology creates our physical space by commandeering our psychological one and creating our perspective, particularly regarding the Internet. He points to the Iraq War as a perfect example — Europe had a more open flow of negative war imagery from the conflict than the United States did. This visual information — and the immediacy with which it was available to Europeans who knew it was out there online — helped create the line in the sand in regard to worldwide perception of the war.
This was part of the realization that sent Doyle on the creative journey that has culminated in the work at Mass MoCA. He initially began looking at Flickr to see this kind of outlaw photojournalism.
“That changed the space around me. It’s like the weather,” he said. “You forget that your experience in life is this bubble that you’re walking around in, shaped by what you let in. The idea of being on a vacation where the media doesn’t get to you, it feels like a bit of a release because the bubble changes. It’s a horizon that you create for yourself because everything looks different.”
Doyle began searching Flickr for photos of disasters, which he began to use as backdrops for his animations. Using actors, he began filming — and, then, transferring to animation through a rotoscoping process — the actions of humans fighting to survive in the disaster portrayed. With these video loops, he replicates what he terms “Sisyphus-like quality to the characters” — and of humankind itself, as it builds and rebuilds in a cycle of destruction.
“It’s this entropy, this constant return to this state of chaos,” he said. “We build it back up and it gets knocked down. It’s horrifying what happens in all these things, but the cycle is somehow reassuring. It’s not always easy to take something positive out of all of this stuff, but I am reminded of being connected to larger cycles where this stuff happens. It has this natural flow between entropy and order.”
For Doyle, it seems that chaos actually offers some surety, and entropy creates a situation for humankind to persevere within. Amidst his images of the apocalypse, this is a great positive to him, an assurance that it’s not all just a scattered mess chaotically tumbling to the earth. In Doyle’s view, humans aren’t just shell-shocked victims but actually relentless fighters — and earth-shattering disasters may actually be natural organizers and even community-builders.
“For me, it comes from the idea that these buildings fall down all the time, and the clean-up, the level of order required, is constantly shifting between order and entropy, complete chaos,” he said.
“There’s this funny human thing about starting with chaos and sifting through it and putting it in order — this management brain — yet some of the people who feel so orderly have this other part of their personality where they embrace the wildly religious. I’m always attracted to that duality.”
The buzzword for the last election was “hope” — according to Doyle, that may well be the mantra of human survival and togetherness, a reason to overcome even the ugliest of events and the most media-manipulated fears.
“There’s a period when people feel very despairing and there isn’t a lot of hope,” he said. “I feel like all of that resilience comes from a change, a moment where people decide grief is not going to work, and suddenly they go into resilient mode and they start to clean up and do what they used to do, which is quite industrious.
“People have asked me if I saw something hopeful in all this. More than anything, there is this human persistence and perseverance, and in all of my projects, it’s about this ambition and trying, trying, trying.”
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“Frank Harmon has spent the past three decades fine-tuning his thoughtful, regional modernism.” – Residential Architect magazine
TreeHugger.com: Architect Frank Harmon on the Modern Myths of Green Design
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Press releases often take a short trip from my inbox to trash, but the one from Raleigh, NC architect Frank Harmon caught my eye with its title “Architect Frank Harmon Debunks Modern Myths about Sustainable Design.” Known to TreeHugger for his Prairie Ridge Eco-Station, what he calls “myths” are hardly that, but worth repeating anyway…
Arch Daily.com: Low Country Residence/Frank Harmon Architect
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
This house was designed by Frank Harmon Architect to tread lightly on its lush site, and to evoke the feeling of living outdoors. The long shape and one-room-deep floor plan create a slender footprint and give each room windows and porches overlooking Shem Creek. Operable windows provide natural cross-ventilation and lighting. Approaching the house under a canopy of moss-draped live oaks and up a gentle ramp, the view of the marsh – replete with blue herons and water lilies – appears like an element in a Japanese painting. A modern interpretation of Charleston’s historic shutters provides protection from harsh weather and summer sun.
House and Garden Design.com: Modern Tree House — Strickland-Ferris Residence by Frank Harmon Archite
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Situated on a steep hill and surrounded by birch and oak 150 years in Raleigh, North Carolina, Strickland-Ferris Residence is not your typical house of the forest. Designed by architect Frank Harmon, this house at 1800 sq .- ft., perched above the ground on wooden trellises and concrete pillars, allowing water to seep under and appearing as if he was ready to flee. The exterior glass and steel, draw a fine line between exterior materials and a modern interior, which ended with sparkling floors in cherry wood columns and beams and a steel ladder reused.
Inhabitat: LEED Platinum Building Planned for AIA NC’s Headquarters
Friday, December 17, 2010
By Jessica Daily
While rooftop gardens are fast becoming the norm in major cities like San Francisco and New York, the new headquarters of the North Carolina chapter of the American Institute of Architects is bringing the first green roof to Raleigh. Designed by Frank Harmon Architect PA, the building is set to meet LEED platinum standards…
Arch Daily: AIA NC’s New ‘Green’ Headquarters / Frank Harmon
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
By Alison Furuto
After two years of planning and waiting for financing, the North Carolina chapter of the American Institute of Architects, designed by Frank Harmon Architect PA, finally held its official, public groundbreaking ceremony for its new headquarters building and design center on Thursday, December 9, at 11:30 a.m.
The building will be constructed on an oddly shaped, previously unused lot on Peace and Wilmington streets between Peace College and the NC Government Complex. The new building will also be designed to meet LEED standards at the Platinum level. The AIA NC Center for Architecture & Design will be “a modern building with a green heart,” as Frank Harmon, FAIA, likes to call it, whose firm won a professional competition for the project in 2008. More images and project description after the break…
The Huffington Post: In North Carolina, A Gutsy Move
Thursday, December 2, 2010
By J. Michael Welton
When it breaks ground on its new headquarters building in downtown Raleigh on Dec. 9, the North Carolina chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA NC) also will be deploying three essential tools needed to scale this cliff-like economic downturn known as the Great Recession.
They are vision, courage and leadership.
News & Observer: Historic church plans new ‘front door’
Sunday, November 14, 2010
By Yonat Shimron – Staff Writer
RALEIGH — A decade after it built a new facility to house a day care center, classrooms and a gym, First Presbyterian Church is ready to build again.
ArchitectureWeek: Architecture People & Places
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
The replacement Lath House (pictured above) has been completed at North Carolina State University’s JC Raulston Arboretum, in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Architects+Artisans: “A ‘Learning Rail’ at Woods’ Edge”
Friday, November 5, 2010
By Mike Welton
On what was, a decade ago, a toxic dumping ground in southeastern Raleigh, an urban wetlands center now triumphantly embraces nature while it hovers lightly near a creek-fed, 30-acre forest.
“Our goal was to return it to the people,” said architect Frank Harmon of the Walnut Creek Urban Wetlands Center. “We wanted to make it a symbol of environmental sustainability and accessible to everyone.”
Arch Daily: Walnut Creek Wetlands Center/Frank Harmon Architect
Sunday, October 31, 2010
By Andrew Rosenberg — Filed under: Educational ,Selected , Frank Harmon Architect, USA, Wood
The Walnut Creek Wetland Center is a 7,500 square foot Visitor Center that is part of a transformation of over 50 acres of abused, polluted wetlands in southeast Raleigh near the downtown urban center into a living, natural resource for the city. By reclaiming the wetlands area, the Center promotes understanding and protection of an urban wetland, enhances community pride, and encourages economic development in this area of the city. It also provides an accessible “quiet zone” for communing with nature while preserving the natural beauty of the wetland, protecting the habitat of numerous species, and lifting the spirits of those who visit it.
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The arts and sciences programs offered through the College of Public Service are designed for people with a passion for making a difference in the lives of others.
Whether you are on your way up the corporate ladder or just getting started, our business degree programs and certificates could help you prepare to take your business career to a higher level.
Whether you want to enter the field of criminal justice or need credentials to advance your career, Kaplan University's criminal justice degree programs are designed to help you achieve your goal.
The Kaplan University School of General Education courses support the academic, social, personal, and professional development of learners throughout their engagement with the University.
Our online education degree programs and certificates could help prepare you to teach diverse learners a broad range of academic content and educational foundations.
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Our programs in legal studies, paralegal studies, and environmental policy are designed to fit your educational goals.
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Kaplan University's IT programs are designed to prepare you with the knowledge and skills you need to start or advance your technology career.
Kaplan University offers over 180 degree and certificate programs all available to military, veterans, and spouses of active duty members. In addition, several programs have been developed to compliment specific military occupations or programs established by the military.
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Every day, talented individuals are proving it's never too late to think about the future.
Learn more about becoming an international student at US-based and accredited Kaplan University.
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Learning Center Experience
If you hold a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university, our Graduate Certificate in Human Resources program could offer you a convenient route to advanced career opportunities in this fast-growing industry.* Study to acquire the knowledge, skills, and confidence to build a brighter future.At Kaplan University, you can enjoy the convenience and flexibility of online learning. Our graduate certificate program offers targeted study that could enhance your professional expertise and help you stand out to employers.†The Graduate Certificate in Human Resources program consists of a minimum of 16 quarter credit hours. Upon successful completion of the program, you will be awarded a certificate.
The Graduate Certificate in Human Resources’ curriculum provides you with the opportunity to:
A graduate certificate could help you gain specialized knowledge to seek mid-level employment in the field of human resources.†
If you wish to pursue further studies, you may apply qualified credits earned from this certificate toward the requirements of certain Kaplan University degree programs. When the time is right, come back and earn your degree online.
The program could also help you prepare for the Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) certification exam.‡
Kaplan University offers multiple start dates, giving you greater flexibility with your education, life, and work schedules.
Online Start Date
Jun 12, 2013
We depend upon the law as well as ethics and common sense to help us make good decisions about issues surrounding employment that are routinely decided in workplaces every day. These issues can have devastating financial and productivity consequences if mishandled by the employer. Yet it seems as if few employers or their managers are equipped to handle them well. Employment law helps to regulate the workplace environment by protecting employees from discrimination and harassment, and providing a safer, fairer workplace where the rules provide for certain rights and responsibilities for both employees and employers alike. Those who choose to work in the business arena must understand basic legal concepts, plus have working knowledge of regulatory and compliance issues in order to effectively manage a business. In this course, students will analyze and evaluate legal concepts and learn to identify potentially troublesome employment-related legal and ethical issues in order to avoid liability as well as to develop an understanding of how to manage employees to maximize productivity.
Completion of all core courses
Total Program Credits: 16
Students will examine how organizations can incorporate employee training and development concepts and theories into their human resources strategy and will analyze the relationship between human resource development (HRD) and human resource management (HRM). Students will also explore the internal and external factors that affect employee behavior. Other topics covered include: maximizing employee learning, conducting a training needs assessment, writing training objectives, designing and delivering effective training programs, evaluating training effectiveness, employee orientation, workplace competencies, coaching, performance management systems, and online and computer-based learning technologies. In addition to covering HRD concepts and theories, the course considers organizational development (OD) concepts and the role of the HRD professional in creating intervention strategies to improve organizational effectiveness. HRD and OD challenges stemming from changing demographics and a more diverse, global workforce are identified and the strategic challenges presented to organizations of a changing workforce are explored.
Completion of all core
This course examines how an organization can
leverage their reward systems to sustain, motivate, and retain
its desired workforce to help achieve business objectives. The
course focuses on the complex variety of pay structures within an
organization and the relationship of those pay structures to
organizational performance. Students will be exposed to major
reward issues in the context of current theory, research, and
This course provides a solid foundation in the
fundamentals of attracting, hiring, and assessing talent. It
takes a closer look at the "war for talent" in the competitive
marketplace today, and provides the impetus for more proactive
and timely recruitment practices, effective and legally conscious
selection methods, and valid assessment techniques. This course
highlights the importance of refining talent-acquisition
strategies as organizations and HR practitioners seek to improve
the pipeline of new hire and job promotion candidates. By the end
of the course, students will be familiar with multiple
recruitment, selection, and assessment models and will synthesize
these approaches from a talent management
The 25% tuition reduction applies only to international students living outside of the United States. This discount does not apply to military students. Please check with your advisor to see if you are eligible.
Some programs have additional associated fees that are not included in the price of tuition. Click here or check with an Admissions Advisor for more information.
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Learn more about grants and Kaplan University Scholarships and that may help reduce the cost of your education.
Kaplan University tuition reductions (including active-duty, spouse, and veterans military tuition rates; scholarships; grants; vouchers; and alumni and alliance reductions) cannot be combined.
Kaplan University has significantly reduced many of our tuition rates and fees for active-duty servicemembers, their spouses, and veterans. Click here for more information.
* Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2012-2013 Edition, Human Resources, Training, and Labor Relations Managers and Specialists, on the Internet at http://www.bls.gov/ooh/Business-and-Financial/Human-resources-specialists.htm. (Accessed April, 2012). National long-term projections may not reflect local and/or short-term economic or job conditions, and do not guarantee actual job growth.
† Kaplan University cannot guarantee employment or career advancement.
‡ Although certain programs at Kaplan University are designed to prepare students to take various certification or licensing exams, the University cannot guarantee the student will pass those exams. In some cases, field experience, additional coursework, and/or background checks may be necessary to take or to successfully pass the exams.
§ This program is not eligible for Title IV federal financial aid.
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People For the American Way Foundation’s Twelve Rules for Mixing Religion and Politics is grounded in our commitment to religious liberty and church-state separation, and in the recognition that fundamental constitutional values sometimes come into creative tension. Where to draw the lines in any particular situation can be a challenge, and even people who generally agree on constitutional principles may disagree about how they should apply on a given policy question. Nothing demonstrates this complexity more than the Obama administration’s efforts to ensure that American women have access to contraception and reproductive health services while addressing objections that such requirements would violate the conscience of some religious employers.
Religious Right groups and their allies at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have for months been portraying the Obama administration’s proposed rules requiring insurance coverage of contraception as totalitarian threats to religious liberty, even after the administration adjusted its initial proposal to address those concerns. Some Religious Right leaders are sticking with their ludicrous “tyranny” message even after the Obama administration today released a further revision that broadens the number of religious groups that will be exempt from new requirements while still guaranteeing women access to contraception.
In describing the policy proposal, HHS Deputy Director of Policy and Regulation Chiquita Brooks-LaSure told reporters, “No nonprofit religious institution will be forced to pay for or provide contraceptive coverage, and churches and houses of worship are specifically exempt.” Under the plan, women who work for such organizations would have access to no-cost contraception coverage through other channels.
Here’s where it gets interesting: The new proposal won praise both from Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America – and from right-wing ideologue Bill Donohue of the Catholic League, who called it “a sign of goodwill by the Obama administration toward the Catholic community.”
In contrast, the proposal was slammed by the far-right Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America – and by Catholics for Choice, which said, “While protecting contraceptive access under the ACA is a win for women, the administration’s caving in to lobbying from conservative religious pressure groups is a loss for everyone.” Catholics for Choice warned that a broadened exemption for religious groups “gives religious extremists carte blanche to trump the rights of others” and that women working at Catholic organizations “are wondering whether they’ll be able to get the same coverage as millions of other women, or if their healthcare just isn’t as important to the president as their bosses’ beliefs about sex and reproduction.”
James Salt, executive director of Catholics United, portrayed the approach as a win-win. “As Catholics United said from the very beginning, reasonable people knew it was right to be patient and hopeful that all sides could come together to solve this complex issue. The White House deserves praise in alleviating the Church’s concerns.”
Leading advocates for women’s heath praised the new approach. Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood said the group would be taking a look at the details, but said “This policy makes it clear that your boss does not get to decide whether you can have birth control.” A statement from NARAL Pro-Choice America said the group“is optimistic that these new draft regulations will make near-universal contraceptive coverage a reality.”
Meanwhile, anti-choice advocates that have been pushing for rules that would exempt even individual business owners who have objections to providing contraceptive coverage for their employees complained that the new exemption would not extend to private businesses.
Concerned Women for America President Penny Nance said the new rules show Obama’s “intent to trample the religious liberties of Americans” and said, “When religious groups and individual Americans are forced to deny their deeply held religious convictions, it is not called “balance,” it’s called “tyranny.” The Family Research Council repeated Religious Right characterizations of the previous accommodation as an “accounting gimmick.”
People For the American Way believes that the government has a compelling interest in ensuring that women have access to family planning services. Indeed, Dr. Linda Rosentock, dean of the UCLA's school of public health and a member of the Institute of Medicine committee that was part of the review process on the HHS regulations, testified last year that the Centers for Disease Control has ranked family planning as one of the major public health achievements of the 20th Century.
People For the American Way is also deeply concerned about the efforts by Religious Right groups and its conservative Catholic allies to re-define “religious liberty” in unprecedented ways that would allow groups to take taxpayer dollars without abiding by reasonable regulations such as anti-discrimination requirements – and to allow private employers and others to claim exemption from all kinds of laws based on “religious” or “moral grounds.”
In this case, we believe the Obama administration has acted in good faith to promote the nation’s public health interests while addressing concerns that those policies might burden religious liberty. Our courts have long recognized that religious liberty, like the freedom of speech, is not absolute, and that policymakers must often balance competing interests. That is what the administration has done.
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Concrete Countertops: Home Projects
Project: New countertops
Cynthia First and Thomas Buckborough of Reading, Massachusetts, chose concrete for their countertops, an unusual material to use in a 250-year-old Colonial. Thomas, a certified kitchen designer, believes concrete reflects the character of their old house. “It has a look of age and wear that complements our exposed original beams,” he says. Compared with granite, marble, or soapstone, concrete can be dyed any color, is a warmer-feeling yet more durable material, and, above all, is moldable. Thomas admits another motivation for choosing concrete was “being able to show my clients how versatile it is.”
Dan Gobillot of Stone Soup Concrete in Florence, Massachusetts, captured the couple’s design using a template on-site in Reading. Back in the company’s shop, his partner, Mike Karmody, made a form. They mixed Portland cement powder with various sizes of stone aggregate (for durability) and poured the concrete into the form on a vibrating table to remove air bubbles, which can reduce stability. The counters took about 48 hours to harden, then cured for three weeks. After that, a nontoxic sealer for scratch and stain resistance was applied.
Estimates run around $110 per square foot, installed, a price comparable to granite.
What Do You Like Most?
The soft-green surface (“lichen,” Thomas calls it) was achieved by an acid-etching technique developed by Stone Soup. It is this patina that Cynthia and Thomas love. They enjoy entertaining and gourmet cooking, and they feel their counters reflect their flair for color.
What Would You Do Differently?
One (very) minor thing, reports Thomas: The sink splash is a bit low for him, so he can get damp when doing the dishes with gusto.
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2.4. CARBON MONOXIDE
2.4.1. IN SITU CARBON MONOXIDE MEASUREMENTS
In situ measurements of CO continued at BRW and MLO during 1994 and 1995. For the analysis, a Reduction Gas Analyzer (RGA) (Trace Analytical, Inc.) was used. This measures CO using the gas chromatography-mercuric oxide reduction technique (previously described in Peterson and Rosson, 1993). The instruments operating at both observatories are identical and provided CO concentrations for four to five air samples per hour. The CO content of air samples was quantified by comparison to standards that reflected the range of concentrations seen at each site: 80 to 220 ppb at BRW and 60 to 180 ppb at MLO. All standards were referenced to the CMDL CO reference scale [Novelli et al., 1991]. To account for a nonlinear detector response common to the RGAs, a 3-point linear calibration (three standards) was used. This approach fits a linear regression to the two standards closest in instrument response to that of the sample, the regression coefficient, then used to calculate the sample CO mixing ratio.
Preliminary CO hourly-average mixing ratios measured at BRW and MLO during 1994 and 1995 are presented in Figure 2.15. These data have not been filtered for instrument performance or selected for background conditions. Work is currently underway to develop an expert system, based upon chromatographic parameters, that will automatically identify and flag periods when the instrument was not operating satisfactorily. The unselected time series, show features of the local and regional atmosphere. The timing of the seasonal cycles agrees well with that previously reported at these sites [Seiler et al., 1976; Novelli et al., 1992]. Maximum CO mixing ratios occur in late winter/early spring and the minimum occurs in summer. Periods of low variability are interrupted by short-term increases or decreases. These events reflect both the impact of local sources and the transport of air parcels from other locations.
Fig. 2.15. Preliminary in situ hourly average CO mixing ratios during 1994-1995 at (a) BRW and (b) MLO.
The annual mean CO mixing ratio determined from the in situ measurements made at BRW during 1994 and 1995 were 141.9 and 138.6 nanomol/mol, abbreviated as ppb, respectively. The annual means at MLO were 88.9 and 88.4 ppb. Breaks in the time series of about 2 weeks extent, occurred at MLO in 1995 due primarily to problems related to data storage. In spite of the high frequency variation seen in the in situ record, the annual average CO mixing ratios agree well with those determined from weekly flask samples that are collected to represent background conditions (Table 2.8).
TABLE 2.8. Preliminary 1994 and 1995 Mean CO Mixing Ratios From Land Sites
|Annual Mean CO (ppb)|
|BRW||Pt. Barrow, Alaska||141.6||131.3|
|CBA||Cold Bay, Canada||139.5||126.5|
|CGO||Cape Grim, Tasmania||51.3||51.7|
|CHR||Christmas Island||73.9||[ ]|
|CMO||Cape Meares, Oregon||151.0||[ ]|
|EIC||Easter Island, Chile||55.6||57.7|
|GMI||Marianas Island, Guam||90.5||94.5|
|ICE||Vestmanaeyjar, Iceland||137.4||[ ]|
|ITN||Grifton, N. Carolina||182.0||171.6|
|KEY||Biscayne, Florida||103.1||[ ]|
|KUM||Cape Kumukahi, Hawaii||110.7||102.2|
|MBC||Mold Bay, Canada||140.0||129.3|
|MHT||Mace Head, Ireland||137.2||124.1|
|MLO||Mauna Loa, Hawaii||95.1||90.2|
|NWR||Niwot Ridge, Colorado||121.7||119.2|
|PSA||Palmer Station||[ ]||48.6|
|QPC||Qinghai Prov., China||131.2||127.8|
|RPB||Ragged Point, Barbados||93.9||89.7|
|TAP||Tae-ahn Peninsula, S. Korea||226.1||204.4|
|UUM||Ulaan Uul, Mongolia||161.6||141.4|
|ZEP||Ny-Alesund, Spitzbergen||[ ]||132.6|
Comparison of CO mixing ratios determined using the in situ measurements to those measured from weekly flask samples provide a means to assure the quality of the former. There is strong confidence in the flask measurements because CMDL has better control over the characteristics of the analytical system and the stability of the CO standards used for flask analysis. Figure 2.16 compares CO mixing ratios measured in weekly flask samples of air to the corresponding hourly mean mixing ratio determined in situ. The results from the two sampling approaches agree well (r values >0.97). There is no significant difference between the flask concentrations and those measured in situ at BRW. However, the slight positive Y intercept in the regression of the MLO data suggests a small positive offset. It is unlikely that this is due to the calibration gases, because all standards were referenced against the CMDL working standards. If the instrument zero has increased (as observed before with these instruments) and is not accounted for, the calculated in situ CO mixing ratios could be slightly underestimated.
Fig. 2.16. Comparison of CO hourly averages measured in situ to those measured using flask sampling at (a) BRW and (b) MLO.
2.4.2. FLASK MEASUREMENTS OF CARBON MONOXIDE
Carbon monoxide mixing ratios were measured in a subset of flasks collected as part of the cooperative air sampling network. It was previously reported [Novelli et al., 1992] that the stability of CO in a container is dependent upon the flask materials and geometry. Only glass flasks fitted with glass piston stopcocks were used to measure CO. Over the lifetime of the CO program, the number of sampling locations has gradually increased as new sites in the network are started and the type of flasks used at older sites are converted to glass flasks for CO measurements. Analysis of air from flasks for CO and H2 were made on a semiautomated RGA. The response characteristics of the instrument used for flask analysis were nonlinear for CO over the range of atmospheric values. Therefore, a multipoint calibration (six to eight standards) was used to quantify the sample CO content [Peterson and Rosson, 1993; Novelli et al., 1994]. The precision of the CO method, estimated as the difference of mixing ratios determined for each flask in a simultaneously collected pair of flasks, was typically better than 2 ppb. A data selection routine flagged flask pairs having a difference of greater than 3 ppb. As before, hydrogen was referenced to an arbitrary scale. A set of H standards was prepared using gravimetric methods in collaboration with the NOAH Group. The H working standards are now being evaluated against the gravimetric standards.
Table 2.8 provides the land-based sites at which CO was measured in 1994 and 1995, and, whenever possible, the 1994 and 1995 annual mean values for these sites are shown. Samples for CO were also collected on trans-Pacific and South China Sea cruises; the annual mean CO mixing ratios are presented in Tables 2.9 and 2.10. These mean values were calculated from a curve fit to the total time series [Thoning et al., 1989].
TABLE 2.9. Preliminary 1994 and 1995 Mean CO Mixing Ratios From Combined Pacific Ocean Cruises
|Annual Mean CO (ppb)|
TABLE 2.10. Preliminary 1994 and 1995 Mean CO Mixing Ratios From South China Sea Cruise
|Annual Mean CO (ppb)|
Over the past several years new sites located near areas of human activity have been added to the CMDL air sampling network and these are expected to represent the regionally-polluted atmosphere. Comparison of these sites to "background" sites located at similar latitude illustrates the impact of economic development on atmospheric composition and are important constraints on models of global trace gas budgets. The difference in CO levels at two sites in Europe: Mace Head, Ireland (MHT), and the middle of the Baltic Sea (BAL), show the effect of human activities on regional-scale surface CO levels. MHT is a coastal site (53°20'N, 9°54'W), and winds are typically off the north Atlantic. BAL, located about 2000 km to the northeast (55°30'N, 16°40'E), is polluted from combustion of fossil fuels in Europe. Carbon monoxide time series measured at BAL is much noisier and mixing ratios are consistently higher than at MHT. In winter, CO mixing ratios at BAL are often 100 ppb greater than those at MHT, while in the summer the difference is 25 to 75 ppb. At BAL carbon dioxide (CO), another combustion product, was also enhanced relative to mixing ratios observed at MHT. However, there are also times when the CO and CO differences between the two sites are quite small, suggesting that BAL experiences periods of relatively unpolluted air.
Similarly, comparison of CO mixing ratios measured as part of the shipboard sampling programs in the Pacific and in the South China Sea (Tables 2.9 and 2.10) show the effects of human activities on CO in the boundary layer. Whereas the Pacific cruises sample air representative of the background marine boundary layer, the SCS cruises encounter pollution from the highly developed coast of southeastern Asia. CO mixing ratios along coastal Asia are typically 50 to 100% greater than those found in the Pacific. At the lower latitude SCS sites, isentropic back-trajectories suggested that during periods in October 1994, air was transported to these sites from areas in the southern hemisphere where fires had been observed. The high levels of CO seen in these regions may then result from both fossil fuel combustion in industrialized areas plus emission of CO from biomass burning in less developed areas.
2.4.3. THE MAPS PROGRAM
As part of the CMDL collaboration with the Measurement of Air Pollution from Satellites (MAPS) program (National Aeronautics and Space Administration-Langley Research Center), nearly real-time data from BRW and MLO were provided to the MAPS team during April and October 1994. Because the MAPS instrument provides a maximum signal in the middle troposphere [Reichle et al., 1990], measurements from mountain sites above the boundary layer were used as a quick test of the radiances measured by the space-borne instrument and the associated retrieval calculations. During March to November 1994, a CO instrument was installed at Niwot Ridge, Colorado, and the CMDL aircraft program flew vertical profiles above the site during the MAPS missions. These data have proved very valuable in the validation of the MAPS measurements. The MAPS measurements have also been compared with other ground based and aircraft measurements supported by a program of reference gas standard intercomparisons (section 2.4.4). CMDL coordinated the correlative measurements team for the 1994 flights of MAPS. This team provided MAPS with CO data from more than 60 sites worldwide. These data were used to validate measurements made by MAPS and to provide a unique picture of CO in the lower troposphere during April and October 1994.
2.4.4. CARBON MONOXIDE STANDARDS
The primary CMDL CO standards were prepared gravimetrically during 1988-1989 and then propagated to a set of working standards [Novelli et al., 1991]. These working standards were re-evaluated using a new set of gravimetric standards in March 1992. Comparisons of values assigned to working standards using the original gravimetrics, those produced in 1992, and the working standards themselves, suggest that the accuracy of propagation and stability of the scale has been within about 1% [Novelli et al., 1994].
It is now well known that CO standards used by one laboratory can be significantly
different from those used in another [Weeks et al., 1989]. Therefore,
it has been difficult to combine CO measurements made by different laboratories.
Under the MAPS program, an inter-comparison of CO measurements made by 11 laboratories
in 8 countries was organized. The round-robin inter-comparison was organized
with four standards having approximate mixing ratios of 50, 100, 150, and 200
ppb in air (levels that represent the range of global CO mixing ratios in the
unpolluted atmosphere). The experiment began in July 1993 and was completed
in October 1995. The participating laboratories used either gas chromatography
with HgO reduction detection or gas filter correlation radiometry and standards
from several sources, including CMDL, National Institute of Standards Technology
(NIST), the Fraunhofer Institute (Germany), and the Chemical Instrument Testing
Institute (Japan). Differences between participants ranged to 20%. These could
not be explained solely by differences in calibration gases and indicate the
effect of different calibration procedures and instrument configuration on the
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Healing Childhood Ear Infections: Prevention, Home Care and Alternative Treatment
by Dr. Michael A. Schmidt
North Atlantic Books, Homeopathic Educational Services, 1996
Available from LLLI; No 3353, $16.95
LEAVEN Volume 34 No. 3, June - July 1998, p. 49
Thirty million trips to the doctor each year are attributed to ear infections. Nearly one-third of all children seen at doctor visits have this painful problem. In the US, the traditional treatment for ear infection has been a course of antibiotics. Many children with repeated ear infections have had tubes inserted in their eardrums in order to alleviate this condition. Dr. Schmidt's book empowers parents through a more thorough understanding of ear infections, the pros and cons of traditional treatments and a look at alternative treatments.
Although breastfeeding minimizes the incidence of ear infections, many parents and Leaders will, at some time or other, find themselves helping their own child deal with this condition. Dr. Schmidt's book is an excellent resource and educational tool for parents to use in their quest for answers. He begins with a helpful basic explanation of otitis media, the technical name for middle ear inflammation. He follows up with a discussion of symptoms, diagnosis, treatments, complications and a global approach to otitis media.
Traditionally parents have believed that bacterial infection causes ear infections. Dr. Schmidt believes only a fraction of ear infections are due to bacteria in the ear. Allergies, viral illnesses, yeast, mechanical obstruction of the ear due to swollen adenoids or structural abnormalities, nutritional insufficiencies, birth injuries to the head or spine are possible culprits. He has discovered links between ear infections and dairy allergy, inhalation of cigarette smoke, fetal alcohol exposure, the mechanics of drinking through a bottle and day care.
More than 300 pages long, this guide helps parents know when to call the physician as well as how to care for the child at home. By increasing their own knowledge, parents become more confident in dealing with this condition and consulting with a physician about treatment choices.
Prevention is the topic of another chapter. Prevention begins with breastfeeding. Alternative care such as homeopathy, acupuncture, acupressure, manipulation, herbal medication, allergy management and dietary management are also addressed.
Some mothers may be overwhelmed by Dr. Schmidt's recommendations for dietary supplementation for the nursing mother. These recommendations are detailed and go far beyond the LLLI philosophy of eating a well-balanced diet of whole foods. I hope that dietary recommendations will not discourage a mother from choosing to breastfeed by making it seem too complicated. Despite this concern, Healing Childhood Ear Infections is a helpful publication.
Dr. Schmidt encourages breastfeeding for preventing allergies and strengthening the immune system. He recommends breastfeeding for a minimum of six months but feels breastfeeding for several years is best for the child. He states that "Breastfeeding is perhaps the most effective means of preventing not only middle ear infections but infections of all types." We in LLL have always known that "babies begin better with breastfeeding." Now we have a thoroughly referenced book, written by a physician, that tells us why.
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This page on how to make a good powerpoint presentation is presented in a way that makes me think I shouldn’t trust it.
I honestly thought for a second it was a clever way to make its point.
Dec 6, 2008
My guess is it is from the last century. But most of it still holds true – #18 “When possible, run your presentation from the hard disk rather than a floppy disk. Running from a floppy disk may slow your presentation” can safely be ignored now.
Irving Isler says:
Dec 9, 2008
Kind of like what is art? Is it intended to be?
Click here to cancel reply.
© 2010 lightspeed chronicles. All Rights Reserved.Powered by WordPress.
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His dark hair has long since turned white. The years have accentuated his features, and sunken eyes surrounded by deep, dark circles betray a lifelong anguish.
But after 47 years, former Secret Service agent Clint Hill says he has become convinced that he could not have prevented President John F. Kennedy's assassination in Dallas.
A dozen years after Kennedy was killed, Hill expressed his guilt in a brutal, emotional 1975 interview with Mike Wallace on "60 Minutes" for not climbing aboard the president's limousine more quickly to shield him from the fatal shot.
"Had I turned in a different direction, I'd have made it," said Hill, who had just retired for health reasons at age 43. "It's my fault. ... And I'll live with that to my grave."
He subsequently withstood many difficult years, including bouts with alcoholism and pills, before taking hold of his life. After two trips to Dallas - with his wife in 1990 and fellow former agents last June - and spending hours in Dealey Plaza, Hill no longer feels that way.
"I came to the conclusion that I did the best I could and there was nothing more I could have done that day," he said during a panel last week at Georgetown University that previewed "The Kennedy Detail," a book and television documentary in which Hill joins other members of Kennedy's protective detail in telling their version of that day's events.
On Monday, the documentary will air on the Discovery Channel on the anniversary of Kennedy's death.
They're speaking out now, Blaine said, to counter the increasing belief that Lee Harvey Oswald was part of a larger conspiracy when he killed Kennedy.
"Over 47 years, there has not been a single bit of evidence to show that it was a conspiracy," said Blaine, who helped advance Kennedy's ill-fated Texas visit. "If we don't speak up and put a balance to this, history would never know exactly what happened."
The book contains previously unpublished nuggets, such as the incident at 2:15 the next morning when Blaine, on duty at Lyndon Johnson's Washington home, thought he heard an intruder and found himself pointing a loaded submachine gun at the new president.
But the heart of the story is their detailed description of one day in Dallas.
As Kennedy's car crept through downtown's crowded streets, Hill scanned the crowd from the running board of the follow-up car; Kennedy had barred agents from the back of his limousine. Suddenly, Hill heard "a loud, explosive noise to my right rear." He jumped down and ran toward Kennedy's moving car, never hearing Oswald's second shot.
"When I got to the president's vehicle, just as I approached it, the third shot rang out, hitting the president in the head, just above the right ear," he said. "It left a hole about the size of my palm."
He climbed aboard the trunk, pushing Jacqueline Kennedy onto the seat. Seeing the extent of the president's wounds, he signaled thumbs-down to the follow-up car "so that they knew the situation was dire."
At Parkland Hospital, the first lady initially refused to leave the limousine until Hill covered Kennedy's comatose body and bloody head with his jacket.
Though many details had been told before, the story remains riveting, especially for those of us who vividly remember that day.
The situation an inadequately staffed Secret Service faced in Dallas, Blaine notes, was one Kennedy himself once cited as when he'd be most vulnerable. "The one thing we always feared was somebody in a window hidden away with a rifle, which is what happened," he said.
For years, the agents never discussed the assassination among themselves. But after reconnecting at a 1990 San Antonio meeting, Hill returned to Dallas, where he says in the book he first "realized that, even had he been on the back of the president's limousine, Oswald would have hit the president."
It remains one of our era's seminal moments. "Everything changed," Hill noted last week. "The age of innocence just died right there."
• Carl P. Leubsdorf is the former Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News. Send e-mail to firstname.lastname@example.org.
Athens Banner-Herald ©2013. All Rights Reserved.
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Natural Science and Mathematics
The College of Natural Science and Mathematics offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in the physical and life sciences, statistics and mathematics. CNSM provides most UAF undergraduate courses in science and mathematics, including the baccalaureate core science curriculum and a variety of outreach programs. The college is known for use of modern teaching technologies, access to professors and quality undergraduate student advising. CNSM also offers minors in each of its major disciplines.
Academic programs are designed to provide a foundation for professional careers or advanced study. CNSM majors enjoy close working relationships with faculty and other students. The college provides opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to work with faculty on research projects. Unique opportunities are available through UAF research centers and institutes, including the Engineering, Science and Technology Experiment Station, the Geophysical Institute, the Institute of Arctic Biology, the UA Museum of the North and the International Arctic Research Center.
CNSM also hosts the Alaska Summer Research Academy, the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program and Girls on Ice. In these and other programs, high school and university students work with CNSM faculty on original research projects aimed at improving the qualify of life in Alaska. The fundamental knowledge gained through courses and working on practical, discipline-related projects provides CNSM graduates with the skills and experience they need to enter the job market or continue their education.
At the graduate level, CNSM offers master of science and master of arts in teaching degrees in the natural sciences and mathematics. These advanced programs provide students with research opportunities in laboratory and field settings throughout Alaska. Doctoral programs offered by CNSM departments provide opportunities for advanced study leading to academic and professional positions. For more information, visit www.uaf.edu/cnsm/ or call 907-474-7608.
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Austin Minor sat hunched over a table, cutting strips of copper into rectangles and pounding curves into the edges.
"I'm making thingies for the airfoil thingy to attach to the wind tunnel thingy over there," said Austin, 12, of Lee's Summit, Mo.
He was in a hurry. Time was running out. And the cameras were rolling.
Zachary Hopkins, Samantha Bates, Elizabeth Monier, Ryan Lee, and Austin Minor (from left to right) of the red team discuss their plans for designing airfoils.
Austin was one of 40 middle school students who participated in the Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge in Washington, D.C., last week. Selected from a pool of 7,300 nominated science fair winners, the finalists spent 4 days competing for thousands of dollars in scholarships, dream trips, and other prizes.
On the first day, participants displayed the projects that got them to the finals. Then, in assigned teams of five, they spent 2 days trying to solve six 90-minute challenges. Judges kept track of each student's problem-solving skills and his or her ability to work as part of a team under time pressure. In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the first flight by the Wright brothers, all of this year's challenges had a flight-related theme.
Austin and the red team were working on their first challenge of the competition, called "The Wright Stuff." Aerospace engineer Scott Bays stood by, in case anyone had any questions. "This is a replica of an apparatus the Wright brothers used in 1901," Bays said.
Using steel instead of copper, Wilbur and Orville Wright tested various wing shapes in a wind tunnel to find out which one would lift an airplane as high as possible. Two years later, they made the first powered, sustained, and controlled flight in a heavier-than-air flying machine.
Samantha Bates and Elizabeth Monier hammer on copper to make sure that the wing has the correct shape.
As soon as he finished shaping the wing, Austin rushed over to his teammates to put the copper thingy at the end of a wooden wind tunnel. Thirteen-year-old Ryan Lee of Hamilton, Ohio, pedaled a bicycle to power a fan that blew air through the tunnel. The rest of the team measured how far the copper strip moved as the wind blew by it. The more lift, the better. This time, it didn't move very much.
"The Wright brothers were really smart," Austin said, as the team scurried back to the drafting table to revise their design.
Afterwards, teammate Elizabeth Monier, a 15-year-old from Boerne, Texas, reflected on how hard it must have been to invent an airplane from scratch. "I'm much more appreciative of how flight happens," she said. "I didn't think much about it before."
Throughout the entire competition, a film crew followed the students around with enormous video cameras, bright lights, and broom-sized microphones. The Discovery Channel, which sponsored the event, will broadcast a show about the competition on Dec. 21, 2003.
Traveling to Washington and having cameras shoved into their faces all day long was more challenging for some participants than it was for others. John Reid, a 12-year-old from Redlands, Calif., for one, had, until the competition, never traveled farther than Carson City, Nev., just 400 miles from his home.
"I've never been on camera before," John said on the first day. "I've never been on an airplane before. I've never been on a train until now."
Still, all of the students kept up a high level of enthusiasm. They had to. Part of their score depended on how well they could explain what they were doing and their ability to maintain poise on camera.
"We're looking for science communicators," said head judge Steve Jacobs, also known as Judge Jake. "Anyone can memorize scientific content. Science is really about thinking, experimenting, predicting, observing, measuring. We designed the challenges to test those skills."
The Wright brothers' wind tunnel experiment was just one example. Other activities included a challenge called "Rocket Cars," which called for students to launch a go-cart as far as possible down a 900-foot course. A predetermined amount of carbon dioxide gas powered the car. Teams had to figure out how much air to put in the tires, how much fuel to use at which point on the course, and who to pick as a driver, among other variables.
Taylor Simpkins climbs out of the Rocket Car after her team successfully completed the challenge, with fuel to spare.
Another challenge, called "Super Sonic Tonic," presented the students with a 5-gallon water drum and a variety of different kinds of alcohol as fuel. Their goal was to get the drum to go as far as possible down a 60-foot track. Each team had 90 minutes to concoct various mixtures, which they put into the drum. A given mixture would be ignited, and the resulting explosion would launch the drum down the track.
Because it involved explosions and loud noises, this challenge was a particular favorite for many participants.
While they worked, the students learned some basic principles of science, including Newton's laws of motion and the physics of flight. They also learned a lot about the scientific process. "Trial and error," Ryan said. "That sums up our time here."
Perhaps most important of all, the competitors learned that teamwork could make or break a performance. Going into the last round on the second day, many of the groups had really started to gel. The black team, for instance, had reached a point where they could communicate without even talking.
Bobby Fisher of the black team prepares to launch a glider while his teammates try to figure out what's going wrong.
Joseph Stunzi, 13, of Watkinsville, Ga., pointed at his head, smiled wide, and nodded vigorously. "Your headache is gone!" said teammate Daniel Steck, 14, from San Antonio, Texas. Joseph laughed and pointed to show that Daniel was right. Pretty soon, all the team members were jumping up and down, and they started practicing a song they had made up together, while waiting for the next challenge to begin.
Forty-five minutes later, the singing had stopped. In fact, the black team was suffering a meltdown.
For their final challenge, "Earth, Wind, and Glider," the team members had to assemble two rubber band-propelled foam gliders and then throw the planes as far and as straight as they could. For every 25 feet of distance covered, the team earned one point. For every 25 feet the plane went off course, they lost a point. They had to throw in four different directions, one at a time, to deal with all possible wind conditions. They were allowed to make as many throws as they wanted during the 90-minute time slot. Their goal was to reach 50 points.
Halfway through the session, the team had accumulated just 12 points. Gliders were nose-diving into the ground, crash-landing on people's heads, and curving far off course. "You guys throw now," said 10-year old Bobby Fisher, from Laguna Niguel, Calif., after a particularly sour landing. "I'm stinking." The rest of the team was arguing too loudly to hear him.
At that point, judge Bill White stepped in. "Okay, guys, let's analyze," he said. "There's no such thing as a bad mistake in science."
Bill explained torque, a kind of force that makes things turn. Because the team was twisting the plane's propeller to the right to wind it up, torque kept pushing the plane to the left. Adjusting the rear rudder fixed that problem.
Suddenly, light bulbs started appearing above the heads of the black team as they pieced together some of the lessons they had learned throughout the week. In the wind tunnel experiment earlier that day, they remembered, they had learned about lift: Rapid airflow over the top of a curved wing makes the plane rise.
Sravya Keremane, 13, from Gainesville, Fla., suggested that they had been throwing the glider upward at too steep an angle. "You guys," she said, "what if we tilt it down?" As soon as they pointed the nose down toward the ground a little bit, the glider flew much farther.
With a little more practice and a few more adjustments, the team fell into a groove, and the points started piling up. With 10 minutes to go, Daniel launched one of the gliders on a beautiful 168-foot flight that stayed right on course and set a record for the longest flight of the entire competition. The team hit 50 points with 6 minutes to spare. They gave each other high-fives and danced around to celebrate.
At the awards ceremony the next day, the sleepy-eyed participants listened to words of advice and encouragement from Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, NASA astronaut Catherine "Cady" Coleman, and Discovery Channel star Dr. Mehmet Oz, among others.
"When I was your age, I had no idea where my interest in science would take me," said Aldrin in a taped interview. "Just imagine where we'll be flying 20 years from now. Can you?"
DCYSC 2003 winners Elena Ovaitt (left), Joseph Stunzi, and Elizabeth Monier.
Then, Judge Jake announced the winners. Third prize and a $3,750 scholarship went to Elena Ovaitt of Weston, Mo. Elizabeth Monier took second place and $7,500 in scholarship money. First place and a $15,000 scholarship went to Joseph Stunzi, who leapt from his seat and starting running toward the stage as soon as Judge Jake announced the name of his school. Specialty awards went to a dozen others.
Even those who didn't win a prize had a blast. Everyone wished they could stay and do more challenges. They also enjoyed getting to know each other. Bonded by a strong passion for science and learning, the students formed friendships fast. Four days flew by, and everyone was sad to go home. On the last night of the competition, they all exchanged e-mail addresses and vowed to keep in touch.
After the cameras are gone and everyone goes back to school, it's those memoriesnot the prizesthat will matter most, Joseph said. "I'm going to remember all my friends."
News Detective: Emily faces a challenge
Word Find: Young Scientists
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By Paulo Coelho
The warrior of the light knows that no one is a fool, and that life teaches everyone – even if that requires time.
So he treats his neighbor according to the qualities he sees, and seeks to show the whole world each one’s capabilities.
Several companions say: “some people are useless”.
The warrior is not thrown by this. And continues to stimulate others, for this is a way to stimulate himself.
In search of affection
A warrior of the light needs love. Affection and tenderness are part of his nature – as much as eating, drinking, and the taste for Good Combat.
When a warrior is unhappy as he watches the setting sun, something is wrong.
At this time, the warrior interrupts the combat and goes to seek company, in order to watch the sunset together.
If he has difficulty finding company, he asks himself: “was I afraid to approach someone? Did I receive affection, and did not notice?”
A warrior of the light uses loneliness, but is not used by it.
A warrior of the light often despairs.
He thinks that the feelings he had hoped to awaken are nowhere to be found. Many afternoons and nights he is forced to adopt a position of the defeated, and no new event can bring back his enthusiasm.
His friends comment: “perhaps your fight has come to an end.”
The warrior feels pain and confusion upon hearing these comments, for he knows that he has not come as far as he wished. But he is determined, and does not abandon that which he set out to do.
Then, when he least expects it, a new door opens.
Welcome to Share with Friends – Free Texts for a Free Internet
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SCIENCE - Almagest and Tetrabiblos, important works in the ancient scholarship of astronomy, astrology, and mathematics, were written in the 2nd c. AD by what Egyptian citizen of the Roman Empire? PTOLEMY
AMER HIST - When the Kent State massacre occurred in May of 1970, the assembled students were protesting the US role in the Vietnam War, and specifically what military operation? INVASION OF CAMBODIA
CURR EVENTS - Name any one of the six Senators who served on the United States Congress Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, a.k.a "Supercommittee", which concluded on November 21, 2011. MAX BAUCUS, JOHN KERRY, JON KYL, PATTY MURRAY, PAT TOOMEY, ROB PORTMAN
GEOGRAPHY - A detour in the north known as the Granby Notch, as well as a panhandle in the southwest corner, are distinctive features in the geography of which U.S. state? CONNECTICUT
LITERATURE - In this classic horror short story from 1902, the holder of a mysterious talisman -- which provides the story's title -- is granted three wishes, which come with terrible consequences for altering the course of fate. THE MONKEY'S PAW
Legend Avg. D: Average points assigned to that question by all players. % Correct: For each rundle (A, B, C, R), the percentage of players who answered the question correctly. (Green/Gray): Answered question correctly/incorrectly. Number is point value assigned by opponent.
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The Minor Law Books (SBE33), by Julius Jolly, , at sacred-texts.com
1. 1 (Because fathers desire offspring, to be released from debt by their sons), therefore should a son begotten (by his father) give up his own property and assiduously redeem his father from debt, lest he should go to hell.
2. 2 The interest is unlimited on thread, cotton, substances from which spirits may be extracted, tin, lead, weapons of all sorts, skins, copper, iron,
3. And all other articles of this kind, as well as bricks. This has been declared by Manu Pragâpati.
4. On oil of every sort, on intoxicating drinks, on honey, on butter, on sugar, and on salt, the interest shall cease when it reaches eight times the original amount.
5. 5 The debts of sick, mad, overaged, or long absent persons: such debts should be discharged by their sons even while such persons are alive.
6. 6 A wife, a daughter-in-law, a grandson's wife, and the presents bestowed on a wife (which constitute her separate property): if a man takes any of these, he shall be made to pay the debts (of such
women); and so shall he who lives on the landed property (of a stranger).
7. It is on the wife that the performance of religious acts depends in all (four) castes, one after the other. He who takes the wife of a man, takes his property (and debts) as well.
8. 8 Females are not entitled to bestow gifts, or to sell property. It is only while she is living together (with her family), that a woman may enjoy (the family property).
9. 9 It is by permission (of the owner) only that a female slave, cattle, or an estate may be enjoyed (by a stranger). He who enjoys that which had not been given up to him (by the owner), must pay for the (illegitimate) enjoyment of what he had been enjoying.
10. When a man forcibly enjoys property, such as a house, field, cow or the like, without authorization (from the owner), he deserves the same punishment as a thief.
11. He who uses a bull, or a milch-cow, or a boat, or a female slave, without authorization (from the owner), shall pay four Panas (as a fine).
12. A female slave, a boat, a beast of burden, and a pledge is not lost (to the owner) by adverse possession. The possessor is bound to give a compensation in money for his enjoyment of them.
13. (Let him give) two Panas a day for the use of a female slave; eight Panas for the use of a milch-cow; thirteen for the use of a bull; sixteen for the use of a horse or of an estate.
14. He who forcibly enjoys a boat, a horse, a milch-cow, or the plough of an agriculturist, shall be made to pay eight times (their value) each day.
15. (For the use) of a mortar, half a Pana; for the use of a pestle, two Panas; for the use of a winnowing basket, half a Pana. Thus has the sage Gaimini declared.
16. 16 A deposit which has been entrusted to a. friend, is called a deposit based on confidence.
17. Should a man, after entering the order of religious ascetics, violate the duties of his order, the king should cause him to be branded with a dog's foot and banish him quickly (from his realm).
18. 18 These two persons are (as contemptible as) Kandâlas for their acts, and should be kept entirely apart from the world: one who has forsaken the order of religious ascetics, and one who has entered an order prohibited in law.
19. 19 He is called Guru (a teacher) who instructs his pupil, duly addressing him in Prâkrit or Samskrit, or employing a local or other dialect.
20. 20 When a quarrel has arisen between prostitutes and the lovers frequenting their house, the principal prostitutes and the lovers shall decide the dispute in common.
21. 21 If other persons (than the neighbours) should give false evidence in a dispute concerning land, such low persons shall be condemned to pay the first fine each in his turn.
22. 22 A boundary is declared to be of five sorts, as it may be either marked by signs (such as trees), or by water (of a river), or by articles deposited underground, or subject to no quarrel (being determined by consent of both parties), or fixed by royal command.
23. 23 After having traced those (robbers) with the aid of able spies acquainted with their habits, he shall avoid frightening them, and shall cause them to be arrested by officials secretly set upon them.
24. 24 It is not from the air, from the sky, from the sea, or from other (such parts) that robbers will come; therefore one should act thus.
25. 25 (The king) shall endeavour to inveigle (thieves and robbers) through cunning spies who are anxious to catch thieves. Other skilful and reliable persons also, artful talkers and former thieves, shall (be appointed to) detect the thieves.
26. By giving them wealth and valuable presents,
by causing them to attend at public shows and festivals, and by pretending intended robberies, they shall cause (the thieves) to assemble together.
27. Those who fail to make their appearance on such occasions, though skilful spies have been set on them, shall be arrested together with their sons, kinsmen, and relatives.
28. He shall then arrest the thieves after having convicted and enticed them (to make their appearance), and shall inflict capital punishment on them in various ways, after having proclaimed (their deeds) everywhere.
29. Innocent persons also are seen to mingle with thieves (occasionally); let not the king inflict punishments indiscriminately on such.
263:1 VII, 1. Vîram. p. 340; Minor Nârada I, 3, 5. See Nârada-smriti, p. 47, note.
263:2 2-4. Minor Nârada I, 4 34, 35. See Nârada-smriti, p. 77, note.
263:5 Minor Nârada I, 3, 15. See Nârada-smriti, p. 50, note.
263:6 6, 7. Minor Nârada I, 3, 22, 23. See Nârada-smriti, pp. 53, 54, note.
264:8 Minor Nârada I, 3, 28. See Nârada-smriti, p. 56, note.
264:9 9-15. Smritik. uddishtam eva bhoktavyam strî pasur vasudhâpi vâ | anarpitam tu yo bhuṅkte bhuktabhogam pradâpayet || anuddishtam tu yad dravyam vâsakshetragavâdikam | svabalenaiva bhuñgânas koravad dandam arhati || anadvâham tathâ dhenum nâvam dâsîm tathaiva ka | anuddishtam tu bhuñgâno dadyât panakatushtayam || dâsî naukâ tathâ dhuryo bandhakam nopabhugyate | upabhoktâ tu tad dravyam panair eva visodhayet || divase dvipanam dâsîm dhenum ashtapanam tathâ | trayodasam anadvâham asvam bhûmim ka shodasa || naukâm asvam ka dhenum ka lâṅgalam kârmikasya ka | balâtkârena yo bhuṅkte dâpyas kâshtagunam dine || ulûkhale panârdham tu musalasya panadvayam | sûrpasya ka panârdham tu gaiminir munir abravît ||
265:16 16, 17. Vîram. pp. 406, 407.
265:18 Smritik. dvâv eva karmakandâlau loke dûrabahishkritau | pravragyopanivrittas ka vrithâ pravragitas ka yah ||
265:19 Vîram. p. 72.
266:20 Viv. p. 102; Col. Dig. III, I, 98; Ratn. p. 167.
266:21 Vîram. p. 459; Ratn. p. 212. 'Other persons,' i.e. hunters, foresters, and so forth. This text comes in between Nârada XI, 7 and 8.
266:22 Ratn. p. 214; Vîram. p. 452.
266:23 Ratn. p. 292.
266:24 Ratn. p. 335. This text should come in immediately after Nârada XIV, 25.
266:25 25-29. Ratn. p. 337. Read kauryâpadesais ka in 26.
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Risk but Also Rewards in Corporate Bonds: Pro
High-yield corporate bonds in Europe offer some good value investment, Patrick Legland, Societe Generale’s global head of research, told CNBC.
Speaking on “Worldwide Exchange” he explained he had an “overweight” outlook for the bonds despite the risk involved.
“The rationale is that even if the economic crisis is coming, the state of European or international companies is very good, with balance sheets that remain quite healthy,” Legland said. “Even if the economy slowdown wasn’t expected, the risk of default remains relatively limited and we find some good value in high yield.”
In a separate research note Societe Generale highlighted that corporate bonds had an excellent risk/reward ratio and that investors should have a high exposure to them. Legland continued by explaining that liquidity was a hurdle that should be overcome.
“We need to go to the energy market or the U.S. to find liquidity, if you want to make big trades on this asset class," he said.
While he was “overweight” with Europe and the U.S., he had a different approach when investing in emerging markets. He saw these as areas having to face short term financial pain and warned of a property bubble.
“They have been boosted by negative real interest rates over the last ten years and this bubble will have to burst before getting any better,” he said, but underlined his point that he still had a positive outlook in general for emerging markets.
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Andrew Wheeler of B&D Consulting and other energy experts predict that energy policy, which has been ignored during the Republican presidential primary contest, will emerge as an issue during the general election, according to the Politico article, "GOP Agenda: What Energy Debate?"
Energy "will grow in importance as more information comes out on Solyndra and other things like that," said Wheeler, a member of the energy, climate and environment group at B&D Consulting and former Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Republican staff director.
After cap-and-trade legislation died in Congress in 2010, the Obama administration began pushing clean energy initiatives instead. These included the Department of Energy stimulus program that gave the now-defunct solar manufacturer Solyndra a $535 million loan guarantee, framing it as jobs creation rather than a green issue, Politico reported.
Republican candidates have used the Solyndra situation as a talking point to argue that the government should stay out of clean energy investment and as a factor in their support of fossil fuels.
The Republican candidates share similar energy policy positions, including support for fossil fuels and offshore drilling, and opposition to environmental regulations. Because of the consensus among candidates, the primary contest has featured very little discussion of energy and environmental policies.
Political analysts predict that once a single candidate emerges from the primaries, energy issues will become increasingly prominent in the campaign as a way to attack President Barack Obama, according to Politico.
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Every time the provinces in the Yom River basin are severely flooded as a result of run-off flowing down from the North or are ravaged by drought, the first thing the people in government usually do is blame the lack of a dam such as the controversial Kaeng Sua Ten project.
They say this dam would store excess water in order to mitigate the problem of flooding and ensure there is sufficient water for irrigation purposes during the dry season.
Hence, it came as no surprise at all that the Kaeng Sua Ten dam project was revived and actively pushed by Deputy Prime Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong and Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Theera Wongsamut after Sukhothai municipality was flooded as a result of northern run-off last week.
And as usual, civil society and environmental groups have voiced fierce protests against the project, not to mention the Sa-iab locals in Phrae province who will fight to the death to protect their village homes from being submerged if the dam is built.
Due to this stout resistance, the controversy over the Kaeng Sua Ten dam has dragged on for more than two decades without any sign of it ever being harmoniously resolved to the satisfaction of all stakeholders.
Meanwhile, the people in the Yom River basin, especially in low-lying areas, continue to suffer the twin scourges of flood and drought which strike with a vengeance on a yearly basis, seemingly alternately.
Is there no alternative to the Kaeng Sua Ten dam? There is one at least _ and that is the building of a network of inter-connected reservoirs to store water. This approach has been recommended by His Majesty the King and civil society groups for quite some time. The only problem is that the suggestion has always been ignored by various governments _ past to present.
Royol Chitradol, head of the government's water situation assessment and management sub-committee, recently proposed that the government should abandon the Kaeng Sua Ten dam and consider the alternative recommended by the King which, he said, would help ease the conflict with the people in Sa-iab and civil society groups. However, Mr Royol said he had yet to consult with the other decision makers in the Water and Flood Management Committee headed by Plodprasop Suraswadi.
Although a lone voice in the government for now, Mr Royol's proposal for the government to drop the Kaeng Sua Ten project and explore other options should be seriously considered by the government with, of course, the active participation of the other stakeholders such as civil society groups and representatives of the Sa-iab villagers.
The government should accept the fact that the Kaeng Sua Ten project is economically and environmentally unsound.
This verdict is not just hearsay but has been confirmed by studies conducted by the Thailand Development Research Institute, the Good Governance for Social Development and the Environment Institute and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation.
The controversy over the dam has dragged on for far too long and has drained the energy of both the project's supporters and opponents _ all at the expense of the people living downstream of the Yom River such as the residents of Sukhothai who are struggling to cope with the flood problem there.
It is about time that the Yingluck government ditched the Kaeng Sua Ten dam and explored other alternatives to ease the hardships of everyone concerned.
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New CCTV technology senses aggression from sound
By Dave Lee|BBCNews
On CCTV, no-one can hear you scream, until now
Technology from a UK company now means cameras can tell if you’re being aggressive or calling for help – and will alert security guards straight away.
Our system picks out the most salient characteristics. These are things related to pitch, tone, intonation.” Chris Mitchell,CEO, Audio Analytic
Cambridge firm Audio Analytic has produced software which it said can analyse the pitch, tone and intonation of noises and work out if they pose a threat.
“A lot of incidents just can’t be picked up by video only systems,” said Chris Mitchell, Audio Analytic’s boss, on BBC World Service’s Digital Planet.
“For example in a hospital where somebody, or a nurse, is being threatened early hours in the morning – that’s a very difficult thing for CCTV guards who monitor hundreds of channels worth of video signals on 20 screens or so to pick up.”
The software goes beyond simply placing microphones onto cameras and listening in. By feeding hundreds of sample sounds into the system, the software can distinguish different threats from various sounds – and not just based on volume.
“We don’t work with volume at all in the system because it’s so related to how far somebody is from the microphone that it’s not a useful metric.
“Our system picks out the most salient characteristics. These are things related to pitch, tone, intonation.”
Essentially, Mr Mitchell explained, the software contains hundreds of audio fingerprints, and as soon as a sound resembles a stored sample, the alarm is raised.
However, like any software early in its development, it does not always get it exactly right.
“At a test site we did, someone got annoyed at the coffee cup machine because it swallowed their coffee cup money.
“From our point of view that’s a true positive – we really detected them getting genuinely aggressive at a coffee cup machine – but from the security point of view, it’s not a genuine detection.”
These mishaps aside, the Mr Mitchell’s team is confident the technology is ready to get out into the market.
“The false positive rates you get out of a system like ours are very low.
“Now, in security systems like a smoke detector we might have in our house, we know it has false positives – it goes off when you burn the toast.
“A certain number of false positives are beneficial so long as you have the security bandwidth to cope with them because you’d rather know about things that you think were an incident than just miss things you failed to be alerted to.”
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Demand for places has soared since dRMM's design transformed failing comprehensive
The Architecture Foundation initiative 'SchoolWorks' asked how school buildings relate to behaviour, morale and learning standards, and Kingsdale, a failing comprehensive, offered itself as a site for experiment.
Architects dRMM's decision not to replace, but to radically recycle, transformed the campus of this school. The building re-design and parallel changes in management created fundamental and sustainable improvements to education and academic performance, evident in the Department for Education table (see figure 6).
Kingsdale boasts several consultation, design and construction innovations, carried out over a number of phases up to 2008. The 1960s building was strategically edited and redefined by superimposing the world's largest variable-skin ETFE roof. The resultant space is naturally lit, heated, cooled and ventilated, and houses dining, circulation and an engineered timber geodesic auditorium, the new heart of the building. This social, film and performance pod features an integrated services sculpture by Atelier Van Lieshout.
"The architects are almost perfect partners for this project - creative and flexible enough to produce the high quality work that was asked for. We asked for a plane, they produced Concorde," says Steve Morrison, head teacher at Kingsdale. The completion date for this phase was May 2004.
The success of the first phase led to a secondary phase for the sports and music buildings which pioneered the use of carbon negative, cross-laminated timber panel construction. The sports halls are a necessarily functional single volume, large and high, as defined by strict sport guidelines. The design challenge was to turn a generic box into expressive architecture that offered maximum daylight and flexibility within, whilst adhering to the strict programme and budget constraints.
For the music school, dRMM adhered to the criteria of angular form whilst exploiting the possibilities of computer-aided fabrication to establish beautiful forms and inspirational spaces from flat-packed timber. The sculptural roof geometry, together with inventive cladding details, creates simultaneously large and small internal / external scales. The completion date for this second phase was January 2007.
Kingsdale School features in Tom Dyckhoff's series on Channel 4, The Secret Life of Buildings.
The series explores the impact that the design of buildings can have on us and showed Kingsdale as an example of how good architecture, along with a progressive design team, can turn an underachieving school into an outstanding one.
Kingsdale School was designed by Leslie Martin for the GLA in 1959. It was originally designed as a community school which formed part of a new educational campus, with the adjacent Langbourne primary school serving a socially diverse community of council housing estates and private suburban homes.
By the 1970s, Kingsdale had become part of a social engineering experiment to bring students from deprived inner city neighbourhoods to the relative calm of the leafy suburbs. Over time, rather than a beacon of social integration and opportunity, Kingsdale became a failure.
dRMM developed design proposals that sought to re-energise the school through radical transformation of the built environment, after winning a competition initiated by the Architecture Foundation. The effects of the transformation on the school community was profound: the oppressive atmosphere dissipated and a new era dawned.
Academic results support the apparent change in pupils' behaviour. Their behaviour is often exemplary in class, lessons are attended punctually and once in the classroom, pupils study hard (as shown in recent Ofsted Reports).
Truancy has disappeared and staff turnover is down. Bullying is rare and morale has gone up. The school has become desirable and with it, the demand for places is increasing. The social engineering experiment is over and Kingsdale has become a community school once more.
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The museum’s newest exhibit is called Native Voices: New England Tribal Families. Native Voices examines how various American Indian tribes preserve and hand down important values and traditions. The exhibit takes visitors through four New England seasons sharing stories, songs and cultural materials that illustrate strong and enduring connections between tribes and their traditional homelands. Photo credit: Clive Grainger
Stepping Stones Museum for Children, an award-winning children’s museum committed to broadening and enriching the lives of children, will open its doors to the public on Thursday, Oct. 4, from 5 to 8 p.m. for a free night of learning and playing made possible by First County Bank.
Get Into It! FREE is part of the museum’s Open Arms initiative that ensures every exhibit and program is accessible to all audiences regardless of financial, language or special needs barriers.
“This will be an exciting evening for parents and their children to gain lessons on improving their financial health while also being exposed to the museum’s focus on enriching their academic, physical and environmental health,” said Rhonda Kiest, Stepping Stones Museum for Children’s executive director. “First County Bank’s support for Get Into It! FREE provides the perfect opportunity to showcase our wonderful compliment of exhibits and activities for children and adults.”
The museum’s newest exhibit is called Native Voices: New England Tribal Families. Native Voices, which debuts on Saturday, Sept. 29, examines how various American Indian tribes preserve and hand down important values and traditions. The exhibit takes visitors through four New England seasons sharing stories, songs and cultural materials that illustrate strong and enduring connections between tribes and their traditional homelands.
“Stepping Stones Museum for Children is a wonderful place for families to explore and enjoy, as well as learn about energy conservation, architectural design and construction, and health and nutrition,” said Rey Giallongo, chairman and CEO of First County Bank. “This new exhibit offers a way for the entire family to share and discuss their values and traditions. And for those families who haven’t visited the museum, First County Bank’s sponsorship offers them the opportunity to experience the museum for free.”
Also new this fall is the Solar Express, a year-round train ride where conductors highlight the museum’s environmental initiatives, including a green roof, a wind turbine, rain gardens, the use of renewable resources and more. Weather permitting, the Solar Express will run as long as daylight permits, bringing passengers on a unique seven to 10 minute guided tour through historic Mathews Park. Tickets will cost $1 per passenger during the evening of Oct. 4.
“Stepping Stones Museum for Children is very grateful to First County Bank for its generosity,” added Kiest. “We are delighted to have the bank sponsor this special night and continue to be part of our family of community leaders who share the museum’s mission and commitment to enrich the lives of our children.”
Stepping Stones Museum for Children, located in Mathews Park, 303 West Ave. in Norwalk, is an award winning, private, nonprofit 501 (c)(3) children’s museum committed to broadening and enriching the lives of children and families. For more information about Stepping Stones, to book a field trip or schedule a class, workshop or facility rental, call 203-899-0606 or visit www.steppingstonesmuseum.org. For additional information on this event, call 203.899.0606.
First County Bank, headquartered in Stamford, Conn. for more than 160 years, is an independent mutual community bank with 15 branches in Stamford, Greenwich, Darien, New Canaan, Norwalk and Westport offering deposit products, mortgages, trust and investment services, business banking services and online banking. First County Bank has more than 220 employees and assets in excess of $1.3 billion. For additional information, please visit www.firstcountybank.com. Become a fan by clicking “Like” on the bank’s Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/firstcountybank. Follow it on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/firstcountybank or look for First County Bank on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/company/920207.
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A digest of important news from sources selected by our local editors. Delivered weekday mornings.
Mark Manary, the Helene B. Roberson Professor of Pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine, was awarded a $773,000 grant through the Biomarkers of Gut Function and Health program within the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative, the university announced.
The initiative was started by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and is one of seven grants announced Tuesday. Manary’s grant will help to develop a test that will detect asymptomatic inflammation of the gut, a condition associated with poor growth and development.
“The magnitude of the problem is huge, affecting hundreds of millions of kids worldwide, the problem is multifaceted, and the solution is not obvious," Manary said in a statement. "But despite the uncertainties, Gates is still moving ahead, demonstrating its commitment to its core values by this endeavor.”
Should the Obama administration be held responsible for the IRS targeting conservative tea-party groups?
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At the end of the XIXth Century, mankind was about to fulfill an old dream. The idea of a fast and autonomous means of displacement was slowly becoming a reality for engineers all over the world. Thanks to its ideal location on the Great Lakes Basin, the city of Detroit was about to generate its own industrial revolution. Visionary engineers and entrepreneurs flocked to its borders.
In 1913, up-and-coming car manufacturer Henry Ford perfected the first large-scale assembly line. Within few years, Detroit was about to become the world capital of automobile and the cradle of modern mass-production. For the first time of history, affluence was within the reach of the mass of people. Monumental skyscapers and fancy neighborhoods put the city’s wealth on display. Detroit became the dazzling beacon of the American Dream. Thousands of migrants came to find a job. By the 50's, its population rose to almost 2 million people. Detroit became the 4th largest city in the United States.
The automobile moved people faster and farther. Roads, freeways and parking lots forever reshaped the landscape. At the beginning of the 50's, plants were relocated in Detroit's periphery. The white middle-class began to leave the inner city and settled in new mass-produced suburban towns. Highways frayed the urban fabric. Deindustrialization and segregation increased. In 1967, social tensions exploded into one of the most violent urban riots in American history. The population exodus accelerated and whole neighbourhoods began to vanish. Outdated downtown buildings emptied. Within fifty years Detroit lost more than half of its population.
Detroit, industrial capital of the XXth Century, played a fundamental role shaping the modern world. The logic that created the city also destroyed it. Nowadays, unlike anywhere else, the city’s ruins are not isolated details in the urban environment. They have become a natural component of the landscape. Detroit presents all archetypal buildings of an American city in a state of mummification. Its splendid decaying monuments are, no less than the Pyramids of Egypt, the Coliseum of Rome, or the Acropolis in Athens, remnants of the passing of a great Empire.
This work is thus the result of a five-year collaboration started in 2005.
Michigan Central Station
Atrium, Farwell Building
18th floor dentist cabinet, David Broderick Tower
David Whitney Building
Bagley-Clifford Office of the National Bank of Detroit
Metropolitan & Wurlitzer Buildings
United Artists Theater
Fort Shelby Hotel
Ballroom, American Hotel
William Livingstone House
Melted clock, Cass Technical High School
Former Unitarian Church
Piano, Saint Albertus School
East Methodist Church
Classroom, St Margaret Mary School
Biology classroom, Wilbur Wright High School
St Christopher House, ex-Public Library
Jane Cooper Elementary School, Spring 2008
Jane Cooper Elementary School, Spring 2009
Highland Park Police Station
Packard Motors Plant
Fisher Body 21 Plant
Room 1504, Lee Plaza Hotel
Ballroom, Lee Plaza Hotel
Packard Motors Plant
"The Ruins of Detroit" book, published by Steidl - Introductions by Robert Polidori and Thomas Sugrue
230 pages, 186 colour plates, 38 cm x 29 cm - more info here
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The Jack Rogers Story — from Inspiration to Icon
Jack Rogers shoes had an inspired beginning on the isle of Capri in the early 60s. It was the heyday of the international jet set, a swirl of famous faces and names, lounging poolside in colorful caftans, wearing sherbet shades against the Mediterranean backdrop. Chic as it was, one person stood out as the most vibrant of all: Jackie Kennedy. The First Lady, known for her impeccable style, never looked better than when she was off-duty—with her innate charisma, she had a way of making simple pieces look absolutely sublime.
It was on one of these Italian holidays that Jackie first met Jack. She also met the shoe style that would become the Jack Rogers Navajo, a flat sandal characterized by whipstitched leather and an iconic rondelle. On her return to Palm Beach, Jackie brought the shoe to a local cobbler and an icon was born. Easy and elegant, it quickly became a warm weather essential for women of all ages—not to mention their sisters, best friends and daughters.
Over the past half century Jack Rogers has evolved beyond the Navajo and, in recent years, was inducted into the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute. Today, Jack Rogers continues to channel the effortlessly luxe spirit of its origins in a complete range of accessories.
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Diapers - cloth or disposable
Since the average child is diapered 7,000 times before being toilet trained, this is not a trivial question. One recent study found that 18 billion disposable diapers had been dumped in landfills in one year. But another report, issued by the Minnesota Extension Service, said there is no clear answer to which type of diaper is better. Besides impact on the environment and effect on baby's skin, you must also consider cost (disposables cost twice as much), health requirements of child care centers (most require disposables), and convenience.
Regarding the environmental impact, two primary concerns are raised about disposable diapers: the impact of nonbiodegradable materials used in the diapers, and the health risk from untreated feces remaining on the diapers when they are disposed. Experts recommend emptying the waste from disposables into the toilet, but few people do. On the other hand, studies also point out that laundering cloth diapers has environmental costs, too. A large load of diapers requires 45 to 50 gallons of water, half of which is heated and all of which is treated as waste.
As for the impact on your baby, he or she can have healthy skin with either type of diaper. Superabsorbent disposables keep skin dry, but it's important to check often to see if baby needs changing. Since these diapers don't leak as readily, parents are not alerted to change them as frequently. Among cloth diapers, those that are made of layers of different fabrics work best, wicking the moisture away from baby's skin. Also, while it is important to clean the baby's skin carefully when changing the diaper, it's wise to avoid alkaline soaps and diaper wipes that contain alcohol, which can dry the skin. Zinc oxide ointment is especially effective in controlling diaper rash.
So, how do you decide? Since there is no clear environmental or comfort differences between cloth and disposable diapers, use what works best for your child and the circumstances of your family.
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Volume VII - 2002-03
Shakespeare for ESL? “Hamlet” through Imaginative Writing
by Todd Heyden
Todd Heyden, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of English at Pace University in New York City, where he teaches composition and literature to immigrants and international students. He taught ESL in Japan and Mexico prior to completing a doctorate in English Education at NYU in 1996.
Shakespeare for ESL?
In terms of themes and characters as well as of particular speeches, sentences and phrases, Shakespeare has left a linguistic imprint on the English that is sharper and more memorable than that of any other writer.Who can imagine an English without Hamlet, Romeo, Juliet, Macbeth, and Lady Macbeth? Although his language seems peculiar,even to contemporary native speakers, it is nothing less than a cultural privilege and obligation to make oneself familiar with at least a selection of Shakespeare.We are touching on a whole argument that holds that culture is part and parcel of language.According to this position, unless we give ESL students a strategy for accessing the cultures of the English speaking world,we have not quite done our job as English teachers. Of course,this holds true with the teaching of any second —or first —language.
As unlikely as it may
seem,pleasure and interest are keys to engaging non-native speakers in reading
Shakespeare.One of the first things we do is rewrite the famous “To
be or not to be ” soliloquy, working in small groups. This demonstrates
to students that there can be a sense of play and fun in reading in a literary
text.It relieves them of the oppressive feeling that they will sit silently
all term listening to lectures. Confidence is another key.It initially feels
daunting to non-native speakers to read Hamlet. But, by beginning
with the rewriting of the soliloquy,they quickly come to feel that Shakespeare
is something they can undertake. They feel their own power as learners as
they set about changing words in the speech. The other key is to reduce students'
anxiety and resistance to reading a text that is not in modern English. As
they rewrite the soliloquy, they start to identify many words that they already
understand, and to realize that reading is not going to be a solitary activity
done with a dictionary: they and their group partners read and write about
it together. Along with rewriting speeches, students send letters to characters,
invent dialogs and create simplified scripts for enacting a scene from the
play. No less an English playwright than Tom Stoppard has essentially done
this exercise and successfully expanded it into a whole play —e.g.,
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. These activities work best when
students write in pairs or small groups on computers,but they are suitable
for any classroom setting.
The activities are effective
for two main reasons: they stimulate students' intrinsic motivation to learn
(Rogers,1990); and they provide a sense of security (Krashen,1991). In terms
of motivation,the writing is purposely student-centered, with students working
in pairs or small groups where they can benefit from their peers' insights
(Vygotsky,1978). The tasks require active collaboration (Lefevre,1987), or
as one student characterizes it: “We 're doing Hamlet —not
just reading it.” In terms of security, writing in groups builds a sense
of community (Tobin,1992), and engaging together in the activities is less
intimidating than encountering the play by oneself. The underlying intention
is not to cover the entire play, but to engage students in activities that
make Hamlet more accessible. In particular,writing enables them to
explore their own interpretations and express emotional reactions to the experience
of reading it. Ultimately, the aim is for students to develop a genuine connection
to what they are reading (Rosenblatt,1983). Best of all,they come away feeling
empowered. One student characterizes her experience this way: “Hamlet
is not something I would normally read,but now I know can.”
Rewriting a Speech
Rewriting a speech encourages students to read closely.As they work with the “To be,or not to be” speech, replacing some of Shakespeare's words with their own,they have to consider how the original speech is constructed. They notice such factors as how words sound,where they are placed on the page,the number of syllables,and the rhythm and intonation of the speech. Furthermore,what might look like sacrilege,tampering with a sacred text,is in fact a first step in understanding what the speech means and appreciating the beauty of its words. Ultimately,when students work directly with the language of Hamlet's speech, it gives them an opportunity to claim something of Shakespeare as their own (Widdowson, 1992 ). Following is an example of how we proceed in gaining access to the language of the 17 th Century in which Shakespeare wrote. Revised is the “To be or not to be ” speech.
To be or not to be
That is the question
Whether it is nobler in the mind
The slings and arrows
of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms
against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them
Sending a Letter to a Character
Students write a letter to a character whose speech they are currently reading. This activity is meant to elicit what they are experiencing as first-time readers of the speech. This is an opportunity to interact with a character,to ask him or her a question, offer a suggestion, or give the character a piece of their mind.Addressing a character lets students know that Hamlet is not sacrosanct, and that there is a place in the course for their own reactions as readers. Sharing the letters in class is often entertaining,and can provide a welcome bit of comic relief before proceeding to study the rest of the play. Most importantly,by expressing their first reactions and tentative interpretations concerning Hamlet, students begin to develop a genuine connection to the play (Rosenblatt,1983).
EXAMPLES OF LETTERS TO SHAKESPEARE 'S CHARACTERS
I am getting really tired of studying your long speech that begins with “To be,or not to be.” I
can 't even find some of your words in my dictionary. But what really bothers me is your tone of
voice. Why are you are whining and complaining? You know what you sound like?Like this : “ I
don 't know if I can do what my Dad said. I am so confused. And I am really mad at my Mom for
getting married again so soon.” What a cry baby.Get over it,will you?Be a man.
Basically,I think you are a cool character and I like your argument with Hamlet in Act III that
starts with: “Hamlet,thou hast thy father much offended.” Two things bother me, though. Are
you innocent,or did you and Claudius plan the murder of King Hamlet together? I can 't really
tell. Secondly, you kiss your son Hamlet like a lover, which is really creepy. You two are way too
close if you ask me. We are also reading Oedipus the King in our class, and I think you should
check it out.
Converting a Scene into Modern English
Writing a scene in modern English is an effective means of getting students to articulate their understanding of characters' emotions and motivations. Putting words in the characters' mouths lets the students connect with the emotional content of the scene. They may not know what every word in the original scene means,but the words they give a character to say must be plausible in terms of the character's emotional state at a particular point in the plot. Students often write what the characters are thinking in parenthesis. This helps them to refine their understanding of the motivations for the actions of the characters (Widdowson, 1992).
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
Mother, you have my father much offended.
Have you forgot me?
You are the queen,your husband 's brother 's wife. And, would it were not so,you are my mother.
Inventing a Scene
In addition to writing a scene in contemporary English, students can invent a new one. This activity permits them to take on the creative role of scriptwriter, which they tend to do enthusiastically. Here again,any changes made to the original scene must be plausible in terms of each character's emotional state and motivation. In this example, the ghost of King Hamlet appears and directly confronts Claudius, something he does not do in the original text.
Shakespeare “Lite ”: Simplified Acting Scripts
It is difficult for ESL students to maintain a sense of the emotions of the characters and the movement of the plot when they try to enact a scene from Hamlet.The length of the speeches is as much of an impediment as the unfamiliar language. In order to facilitate acting out a scene,students create simplified scripts in which some of the language in the longer speeches is removed. This works best with scenes that contain a great deal of action, where it is more apparent which lines of a speech can be deleted. Working with these simplified scripts students can, with greater ease,have a direct experience of speaking the words in the play. In this example, students simplify and enact the dramatic, bloody scene that concludes the play.
Little has been written
about using Shakespeare with ESL students, which suggests that this is new
territory that is well worth exploring further. Despite the reservations some
teachers may have, approaching Hamlet through imaginative writing
can be effective and enjoyable. ESL students have a remarkable capacity to
learn,and can do more than we, or they, think possible when given the right
circumstances. These writing activities are meant to provide an optimum balance
of security and stimulation, an environment in which students can have a positive
experience with a Shakespeare play.
Lefevre,Karen.(1987).Invention as a Social Act.Carbondale: Southern
Rogers,Carl.(1990).Freedom to Learn .NY: Bell and Howell.
Rosenblatt,Louise M.(1983).Literature as Exploration.NY: Noble &Noble.
Tobin,Lad.(1992).Writing Relationships.Portsmouth,NH: Boynton Cook.
Vygotsky,Lev S.(1978).Mind in Society.MA: Harvard University Press.
Widdowson,Henry.(1992).Practical Stylistics .Oxford University Press.
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Joanne Kennedy on The Yee-haw Spirit
Comment to win a Print copy of Cowboy Tough. Ends 3/15/2013.
1. Comment = 1 Entry
2. Tweet = 1 Extra Entry*
3. Like = 1 Extra Entry*
* Make mention of this in your comment for extra entry / (Important: Full Contest Entry Rules) - Updated NOR Contest Passport required for entry.
What is it about cowboys? Women love them. Just look at the romance rack at any bookstore, and you’ll see cowboys with ropes, cowboys with saddles, cowboys with horses, but mostly, you’ll see cowboys with their shirts off. And nobody’s complaining.
When I moved out West, I knew a little bit about cowboys. Tombstone and Son of the Morning Star gave me a taste for Western history, so I knew all about the Earps and Wild Bill, the gold rush and the land rush and every other kind of Wild West rush you could think of.
But I didn’t know about today’s cowboys. Here in the heart of cow country, cowboys aren’t shadows from history, or inventions from novels.
As a matter of fact, they’re about as real as a man can get. Westerners are quirky individualists who have a strong sense of regional identity, plus a unique quality I can only define as the Yee-Haw Spirit.
Yeehaw or Yee-haw: an interjection expressing joy or exuberance that is stereotypically associated with Cowboys … —Wikipedia
That wild cry, often shouted from the back of a bucking horse, defines what makes cowboys different from other men. They’re wild and free, they live life to the fullest, and they seem to need a daily dose of adrenaline to stay sane.
Today’s cowboys are often third- and fourth-generation Westerners who come from pioneer stock. Cattle ranching started here in the mid- to late-nineteenth century, and many of the huge spreads here in Wyoming have been passed down through the generations. It’s likely that a cowboy’s grandparents or great-grandparents left their settled, ordinary lives back East and braved unimaginable danger and difficulty on the path to an unknown future. Some came for the riches of the gold rush, some came for the promise of land ownership. Others were simply drawn by the promise of adventure.
It took something beyond courage to make that move; it took a spirit of reckless adventure and a willingness to take risks. Like ranching, it required an unfailing conviction that no matter how rocky the trail, how heavy the load, or how dismal the weather, things would work out somehow. It’s the spirit that drives a man to rush into danger. NASCAR drivers have it; fighter pilots have it; and cowboys have it in spades.
Yeehaw (interjection): Cowboy/cowgirl talk for “Yeah Baby!” —Merriam Webster website
Lots of women are attracted to risk-taking men, including me. It doesn’t make a lot of sense. Most attraction between the sexes is based on survival of the fittest, but loving men who endanger their own lives on a daily basis is hardly a sound Darwinian strategy.
Maybe we believe men who take risks in their daily lives will be willing to take risks with their hearts. Or maybe we’re just drawn to people who represent the Yee-haw Spirit, living life to the fullest and catching adventure wherever they can—in a fast car, in a faster plane, or on the back of a bucking bull in a red dirt arena.
I live with the Yee-haw Spirit every day, since I’m married to a fighter pilot who’s always ready for trouble. Do you know anyone who has the Yee-haw Spirit and lives for adventure?
COWBOY TOUGH BY JOANNE KENENDY – IN STORES FEBRUARY 2013
She’s hardly a cowgirl…
Cat Crendall left a successful advertising job in New York to teach art workshops in the wild west. The Boyd Ranch is hardly her dream destination, but if the outing’s a success, the company will send her to more exotic locations.
But once a cowboy…
Mack Boyd was in the middle of the best bronc-riding season of his life when his mother asked for help with an artists’ retreat at the ranch. Mack might be able to ride a wild stallion to a standstill but he can’t say no to his family.
Cat and Mack are complete opposites…but when the ranch is threatened financially, can they set aside their differences and work together?
Joanne Kennedy’s lifelong fascination with Wyoming’s unique blend of past and present inspires her to write contemporary Western romances with traditional ranch settings. In 2010 she was nominated for a RITA award for One Fine Cowboy. At various times, Joanne has dabbled in horse training, chicken farming, and bridezilla wrangling at a department store wedding registry. Her fascination with literature led to careers in bookselling and writing. She lives with two dogs and a retired fighter pilot in Cheyenne, Wyoming. For more information, please visit http://joannekennedybooks.com and on Facebook.
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Brief History of the Department
With the end of World War II, the Duluth State Teachers College was transformed into a University of Minnesota Campus. That expansion in 1947 brought a more ambitious and demanding student body and led to recruitment of a larger and more specialized history faculty. In the following decades the Department contributed to the liberal education of undergraduates and trained History majors and minors with specialized courses, seminars, and other research opportunities. History graduates have frequently gone on to law school and graduate school. They have found careers in the law; government at the local, state and federal level; in journalism, both in print and electronic; in teaching and museum work.
In the last four decades further expansion has occurred with the addition of an honors program, a History Club, an Honor Society, and the teaching of history in overseas programs in England and Russia. History faculty participate in graduate programs at UMD and at the Twin Cities campus.
The Department's special ability to support regional history resulted in the establishment of the Northeast Minnesota Historical Center http://www.d.umn.edu/lib/nemhc/, hosting of important regional conferences, and the sponsorship of the professional journal, Upper Midwest History. Yet its faculty is global in reach: it includes specialists in U.S., European, Russian, African, and East Asian history.
History Dept. Faculty, 1952 UMD Chronicle (UMD Yearbook)
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If average weather returns, look for a record 2013 corn crop—and for corn prices to drop $2 per bushel, says a University of Missouri economist.
Pat Westhoff said corn prices are projected at $5 per bushel, down from $7 for the crop harvested last fall. Those were among thousands of numbers in the annual MU FAPRI baseline sent to the U.S. Congress today.
The MU Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute analyzes the U.S. farm economy, said Westhoff, director.
The FAPRI corn price depends on expected planting of 96.9 million acres, second highest since the 1930s and just under the 2012 record.
FAPRI assumes average weather and a return to trend yields of 162 bushels per acre. That contrasts with 123 bushels in drought-stricken 2012. Last year, yields ran 23 percent below trend, the third year in a row below trend.
More corn cuts revenue, as record yields are offset by lower prices. Corn revenue drops in 2013 and 2014.
At the end of the 10-year baseline, corn prices stay just under $5 per bushel, still above pre-2007 levels.
With lower corn prices, demand returns for livestock feed and ethanol production. Both fell with high prices last year.
While FAPRI assumes average conditions, expect price volatility, Westhoff warned.
In a stochastic analysis, FAPRI computers draw 500 potential outcomes. Those show yearly corn prices that are below $3.50 per bushel 10 percent of the time and above $6 per bushel 10 percent of the time. Actual volatility and uncertainty may be greater, Westhoff said.
A rebound in global grain and oilseed supplies sharply lowers prices for soybean and wheat crops in 2013. Cotton prices stagnate in the face of large global stocks.
Soybean production was cut by drought, but not as much as corn. Late-season rains helped yields. For 2013, FAPRI estimates new highs in soybean production, exceeding the 2009 record. Prices drop sharply.
Despite crop revenue drops, two measures suggest 2013 will be the third straight year of high income for farmers, Westhoff said.
Net farm income in 2013 could reach the highest level since the early 1970s, even after correcting for inflation.
The other indicator, net cash income, declines in 2013. The two measures differ because net farm income includes changes in the value of inventories, and bigger crops should boost the amount of grain owned by farmers at year-end.
Federal crop insurance plays into a bump in income. The drought coverage payments exceed usual program payments from the federal Commodity Credit Corporation.
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California voters will be asked to make a decision on two propositions in the June 5 election. Our policy on state propositions has always been, "When in doubt, say no." There are just enough questionable things in each proposition for us to endorse rejection.
Proposition 28 is about term limits for state legislators. Proposition 29 is about increasing the tax on cigarettes and tobacco products.
Proposition 28 is just the latest attempt to alter voter-approved term limits. Some say that longer terms help lawmakers develop a deeper understanding of their office, the issues and their constituents.
But longer limits don't seem to accomplish that. Instead, it seems politicians drift away from their constituents, and head down a path of their own making.
Proposition 28 isn't going to improve what happens at the Capitol. A law written by politicians, controlling what politicians do, should be automatically suspect.
Current law allows politicians to spend just six years in the Assembly (three terms) and eight years in the Senate (two terms) for a total of 14 years. Proposition 28 would cap service at 12 years, but would allow a politician to serve all 12 years in one house — either six terms in the Assembly or three terms in
While it sounds good, the new longevity rules in each house would allow veteran legislators to become kings and queens in the House and Assembly. Voters have shown many times that they prefer more turnover and fewer career politicians.
Vote no on Proposition 28. There's no need to change term limits.
Proposition 29 would add an additional $1 tax to every pack of cigarettes, bringing the amount of tax on one pack to $1.87.
The added tax will likely cause some smokers to quit because they can't afford it, and that's a positive outcome to be sure. But we're not certain that extra revenue would be put to the best use.
Only 60 percent of the millions to be gathered under Proposition 29 will go to researching cancer. The rest pays for other things — like new buildings, new equipment, a new committee and all the trappings that go along with it.
We're not in favor of smoking but we're not in favor of hiking taxes just because it can be done. Vote no on Proposition 29.
Sunday: Butte County supervisor, District 1.
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Learn something new every day More Info... by email
As the name suggests, a mandolin banjo is a cross between the two instruments and is a member of the banjo string family with distinct characteristics of a mandolin. It is often confused with a banjolin, which is an entirely different instrument. The instrument has a perfectly round belly made from a drumhead with a neck that is shorter than a banjo's extending from the center out. The sound it produces is similar to the twang of the banjo often heard in bluegrass music, but it is quieter than a banjo and louder than a mandolin. In America, W.A. Cole made the instrument known in 1918 when he perfected the art of playing it.
A mandolin banjo looks just like a banjo at first glance, but it is quite different upon closer examination. The body of the instrument is round like a banjo’s, and the top profile is made from similar materials used on the heads of drums. The backside is made from a light weight wood, and it may be open or constructed with a resonator which is similar to a banjo. Its difference from a banjo lies in the neck of the instrument, which is designed like the neck of a mandolin. The fixed and fretted neck is the same length and has eight strings that are arranged in pairs over four courses like a mandolin.
The mandolin banjo produces a rich, full sound suitable for songs with clearly identifiable melodies. It is not suitable for harder-sounding tunes, such as an Irish jig, because the instrument has as many strings as the mandolin. The mandolin produces a much softer tone than the four-string banjo, and it is tuned in the same manner as a mandolin. The size of the head, or belly, also plays an important role in the amount of sound produced by the instrument. Smaller-sized heads produce softer sounds while larger heads are louder.
The mandolin banjo gained popularity in the 1920s when banjo orchestras became part of mainstream American music. It was created by the mandolin manufacturer W.A. Cole for mandolin players requiring an instrument with more volume than the mandolin. Other manufacturers of string instruments, such as Gibson and Windsor, began the mass production of the mandolin banjo. In recent years, the number of people who play this instrument has fallen drastically. For a brief period between 1970 and 1980, it was used as a replacement for the banjo in studio recordings of popular music.
I have an old mandolin banjo that was passed down to me from my mother. It doesn't get used anymore and just sits in the case in my house.
Ever since I received this instrument, I have been fascinated by it and wanted to learn how to play it. I saw a man playing one at a state fair contest one time, and loved the sound of it.
I know how to play the piano, but have never played a string instrument like this. Most people really enjoy the sound of a banjo or mandolin, especially the fast songs that you hear them play.
One of these days I need to dust off that case and find someone who can give me some lessons.
I come from a family who has always loved music. As long as I can remember there have been musical instruments around the house.
My father grew up in a large family, and many of them played a string instrument. When we would get together for family gatherings, at some point we would all get around the piano, whoever had an instrument would grab it, and the whole family would sing.
I remember my grandfather had a mandolin banjo that he loved to play. My uncles would also have musical instruments that included the fiddle and the banjo. There are a lot of good memories with that foot stomping music and the whole family enjoying time together.
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(Revised from original 2003 version)
Investigates the "controllability problem" inherent in bonus systems. Ideally, an incentive system accurately measures performance in areas that the individual can control. But most measures are either too broad, including factors outside the influence of the employee, like team or industry performance, or they are too narrow. That is, the performance measures are too easily controlled, and thus gamed by the employee. In this case, Production Manager Phil Evans' initial bonus plan is based on plant profitability, treating the plant as a profit center. But revenues are outside his control, leading him to protest when sales fall. In the revised bonus system, where Evans is rewarded for controlling costs, the plant is treated as a cost center. However, accidents in the plant and a new inspection policy increase his costs. His renewed protests create a dilemma for Regional President Sarah Clark.
Barro, Jason R., Brian J. Hall, and Aaron Zimmerman. "Hearthside Homes." Harvard Business School Case 904-003, September 2004. (Revised from original September 2003 version.)
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Washington - The Obama administration injected billions of dollars into Medicaid, the nation’s low-income health program, as the recession deepened two years ago. The money runs out at the end of this month, and benefits are being cut for millions of people, even though unemployment has increased.
From New Jersey to California, state officials are bracing for the end to more than $90 billion in federal largess specifically designated for Medicaid. To hold down costs, states are cutting Medicaid payments to doctors and hospitals, limiting benefits for Medicaid recipients, reducing the scope of covered services, requiring beneficiaries to pay larger co-payments and expanding the use of managed care.
As a result, costs can be expected to rise in other parts of the health care system. Cuts in Medicaid payments to doctors, for example, make it less likely that they will accept Medicaid patients and more likely that people will turn to hospital emergency rooms for care. Hospitals and other health care providers often try to make up for the loss of Medicaid revenue by increasing charges to other patients, including those with private insurance, experts say.
Neither the White House nor Congress has tried to extend the extra federal financing for Medicaid, even though the number of beneficiaries is higher now than when Congress approved the aid as part of an economic recovery package in February 2009.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that federal Medicaid spending will decline in 2012 for only the second time in the 46-year history of the program. But states say they will have to have to spend more on Medicaid as they struggle to make up for the loss of federal money.
State officials say they are resigned to the loss of the extra federal matching payments, given the climate in Congress, where deficit reduction is a paramount goal.
“We all see the reality of what’s going on in Congress,” said Mark W. Rupp, director of the Washington office of Gov. Christine Gregoire of Washington State, a Democrat who is chairwoman of the National Governors Association. “It’s more about cutting than spending. Why put a lot of effort into something that did not seem likely to have a positive outcome? It would have been fairly futile.”
Although Medicaid provides health insurance to one in five Americans at some point in a year, it is more vulnerable to cuts than Medicare and Social Security, which have broader political support.
“Medicaid is very much on the chopping block,” said Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia and chairman of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Health Care. “Seniors vote. But if you are poor and disabled, you might not vote, and if you are a child, you do not vote — that’s a lot of Medicaid’s population. They don’t have money to do lobbying.”
Medicaid is financed jointly by the federal government and the states, with the federal government paying a larger share in poorer states like Mississippi and West Virginia and a smaller share in higher-income states like New York and Connecticut.
The aid ending next month increased the federal share of Medicaid spending in all states, with additional help for states where unemployment rates had risen sharply. The extra aid was scheduled to expire last December, but Congress extended it for six months at the urging of the White House and state officials.
The additional money pushed the average federal share of Medicaid spending nationwide to 67 percent. It will revert to 57 percent next month. The cutback in federal Medicaid money has put pressure on states to cut the budget for other programs, including education and social services.
Toby J. Douglas, director of the California Department of Health Care Services, said the federal Medicaid cut was causing “very consequential reductions in health care and other public programs.”
California is cutting Medicaid payments to doctors and many other providers by 10 percent; has established new co-payments for drugs, doctors’ services and hospital care; and will limit beneficiaries to seven doctor’s office visits a year unless a doctor certifies a need for more.
With 7.6 million Medicaid beneficiaries — 50 percent more than any other state — California faces bigger problems, but its response has been typical. A survey issued this month by the National Association of State Budget Officers found that 24 states were reducing Medicaid payments to providers, while 20 were limiting benefits in some way.
R. Andrew Allison, who is executive director of the Kansas Health Policy Authority and president of the National Association of Medicaid Directors, said Medicaid was gobbling up new revenues as states recovered slowly from the recession.
Kansas illustrates the predicament most states are facing. Federal Medicaid payments in Kansas are expected to decline by more than $250 million, or 13 percent, in the state’s new fiscal year, which starts July 1, Mr. Allison said. But the amount of state revenue spent on Medicaid is expected to increase by more than $300 million, or 39 percent.
New York has just imposed a cap on state Medicaid spending, with a separate limit for each sector like hospitals, nursing homes and managed care plans. Under a new state law, if it appears that the state share of Medicaid spending will exceed the cap, New York officials must devise and carry out a plan to reduce spending, by modifying benefits, provider payment rates or other features of the program.
“This is an enormous sea change for Medicaid,” said Jeffrey Gordon, a spokesman for the New York State Health Department.
In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, said, “Medicaid’s growth is out of control,” and he has proposed numerous changes “to fill in the hole created by the loss of over a billion dollars of federal stimulus money” for the program. He would tighten eligibility, reduce Medicaid payment rates for nursing homes, move older and disabled Medicaid recipients into managed care, and charge co-payments for medical day care services.
The New Jersey Legislature appears likely to accept some of the changes in a budget to be adopted this month.
Connecticut has avoided major cuts in Medicaid, but the State Legislature has set new limits on vision and dental coverage for adults.
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I’ve seen at least three sources of transparency.
the first source is a lack of self awareness.
This kind of transparency comes from a place that fails to account for the real world. Without a sensitivity to the perceptions of others, this kind of transparency happens automatically, without much thought or, worse yet, without consideration of how others may interpret one’s innermost thoughts. This transparency may feel endearing at first, but quickly becomes offensive.
Second source: a lack of self control.
This transparency is like a bull in a china shop, causing destruction at nearly every turn. The justification of this transparency is shrouded, as, it says, “I am only processing verbally, what’s the problem with that?” The problem is a lack of self control, not everyone needs to hear your every thought. Process is important, but not everyone needs to know the process. Often, the process is not the final product, yet others are not following along your every word, and they tend to only latch on to a few (destructive) stops along the way.
The final source of transparency, that I have observed, comes from a lack of selfishness.
This is a good transparency. It’s intentional and deliberate; calculated in such a way as to build relationships and reveal vulnerability. When a person is transparent in this way, for this reason, he or she is not interested in PROTECTING self, but carefully admitting weakness to offer true hope to others.
Let us be transparent–the world needs our authenticity! — but let’s not let it happen because we are clueless or because we lack self control. Instead, let us BE ABSOLUTELY REAL in order to connect with others…
Last time you were open, authentic, what was moving you? What do you think about all of this? sound off in the comments below.
If you liked this article, forward it to a friend.
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Request Matt to speak at your next event HERE.
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3:am magazine (yes, that’s what it’s called) has a very good interview with Craig Callender, philosopher of physics at UC San Diego and a charter member of the small club of people who think professionally about the nature of time. The whole thing is worth reading, so naturally I am going to be completely unfair and nitpick about the one tiny part that mentions my name. The interviewer asks:
But there is nothing in the second law of thermodynamics to explain why the universe starts with low entropy. Now maybe its just a brute fact that there’s nothing to explain. But some physicists believe they need to explain it. So Sean Carroll develops an idea of a multiverse to explain the low entropy. You make this a parade case of the kind of ontological speculation that is too expensive. Having to posit such a huge untestable ontological commitment to explain something like low entropy at the big bang you just don’t think is worth it.
There is an interesting issue here, namely that Craig likes to make the case that the low entropy of the early universe might not need explaining — maybe it’s just a brute fact about the universe we have to learn to accept. I do try to always list this possibility as one that is very much on the table, but as a working scientist I think it’s extremely unlikely, and certainly it would be bad practice to act as if it were true. The low entropy of the early universe might be a clue to really important features of how Nature works, and to simply ignore it as “not requiring explanation” would be a terrible mistake, even if we ultimately decide that that’s the best answer we have.
But what I want to harp on is the idea of “ontological speculation that is just too expensive.” This is not, I think, a matter of taste — it’s just wrong.
Which is not to say it’s not a common viewpoint. When it comes to the cosmological multiverse, and also the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, many people who are ordinarily quite careful fall into a certain kind of lazy thinking. The hidden idea seems to be (although they probbly wouldn’t put it this way) that we carry around theories of the universe in a wheelbarrow, and that every different object in the theory takes up space in the wheelbarrow and adds to its weight, and when you pile all those universes or branches of the wave function into the wheelbarrow it gets really heavy, and therefore it’s a bad theory.
That’s not actually how it works.
I’m the first to admit that there are all sorts of very good objections to the cosmological multiverse (fewer for the many-worlds interpretation, but there are still some there, too). It’s hard to test, it’s based on very speculative physics, it has a number of internal-consistency issues like the measure problem, and we generally don’t know how it would work. I consider these “work in progress” types of issues, but if you take them more seriously I certainly understand. But “wow, that sure is a lot of universes you’re carrying around” is not one of the good objections.
When we’re adding up our ontological commitments (i.e., the various beliefs about reality we are willing to hypothesize or even accept), the right way to keep track is not to simply add up the number of objects or universes or whatevers. It’s to add up the number of separate ideas, or concepts, or equations. There are an infinite number of integers, and there are only a finite number of integers between zero and a googol; that doesn’t make the former set somehow ontologically heavier. If you want to get fancy, you could try to calculate the Kolmogorov complexity of the description of your theory. A theory that can be summed up in fewer words wins, no matter how many elements are in the mathematical structures that enter the theory. Any model that involves the real numbers — like, every one we take seriously as a theory of physics — has an uncountable number of elements involved, but that doesn’t (and shouldn’t) bother us.
By these standards, the ontological commitments of the multiverse or the many-worlds interpretation are actually quite thin. This is most clear with the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, which says that the world is described by a state in a Hilbert space evolving according to the Schrodinger equation and that’s it. It’s simpler than versions of QM that add a completely separate evolution law to account for “collapse” of the wave function. That doesn’t mean it’s right or wrong; but it doesn’t lose points because there are a lot of universes. We don’t count universes, we count elements of the theory, and this one has a quantum state and a Hamiltonian. A tiny number! (The most egregious version of this mistake has to belong to Richard Swinburne, an Oxford theologian and leading figure in natural theology, who makes fun of the many-worlds interpretation but is happy to accept a completely separate, unobservable, ill-defined metaphysical category into his ontology.)
The cosmological multiverse, while on much shakier empirical ground than the many-worlds interpretation, follows the same pattern. The multiverse is not a theory, it’s a prediction. You don’t start with the idea “hey, let’s add an infinite number of extra universes!” You start with our ideas of general relativity, and quantum mechanics, and certain plausible field content, and the multiverse comes out, like it or not. You can even get a “landscape of different vacua” out of very little theoretical input; Johnson, Randall and I showed that transitions between states with different numbers of macroscopic spatial dimensions are automatic in a theory with just gravity, vacuum energy, and an electromagnetic field, while Arkani-Hamed et al. showed that the good old real-world four-dimensional Standard Model coupled to gravity supports a landscape of different vacua that depends on the masses of the neutrinos. The point is that these very complicated cosmologies arise from very simple theories, and it’s the theories we should be judging, not their solutions.
The idea of a multiverse is extremely speculative and very far from established — you are welcome to disagree, or even better to ignore it entirely. But please disagree for the right reasons!
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Green Production Building - Moving Ducts Inside
Click here to read more articles about HVAC
This article originally appeared in the May/June 2008
issue of Home Energy Magazine.
May 01, 2008
Savvy builders can finance green features with the money homeowners would have spent on higher utility bills.
The green production builder is responding to clients’ wishes to build with the new goals of promoting better occupant health and environmental stewardship. The best part? Savvy builders can finance green features with the money homeowners would have spent on higher utility bills. The utility bill savings are generated by what is possibly the greenest building practice of all—energy efficiency. The Building Industry Research Alliance (BIRA) is focused on supporting the design and construction of near zero energy homes as part of DOE’s Building America program. As a member of BIRA, I have the privilege of working with some of the brightest building industry professionals to study advanced technologies and designs that promote Building America’s ideal of net zero energy homes. Even when energy-saving features do in fact save energy, additional work is needed to make them cost–effective in production home construction. The first step is to move from design to practice. The second step is market transformation. And market transformation is taking hold in Washington State, as two production builders implement a highly efficient, yet underutilized, design concept: moving ducts inside conditioned space (see “Chasing Interior Ducts,&...
To read complete online articles, you need to sign up for an Online Subscription.
Once an order has been placed there is an automatic $10 processing fee that will be deducted with any cancellation.
The Home Energy Online articles are for personal use only and may not be printed for distribution. For permission to reprint, please send an e-mail to email@example.com.
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Worried About a Student?
Faculty and staff members are in an excellent position to recognize students in distress and to initiate appropriate action. The Student Development & Counseling Center (SDCC) recommends that all become familiar with Recognizing Students in Distress and Responding to Students in Distress.
If you’re concerned about the immediate safety or well-being of a student in crisis, contact WPI Campus Police at +1-508-831-5555. If you feel the situation is not an emergency, we encourage you to call the SDCC at +1-508-831-5540, or e-mail us for a consultation.
WPI CARE TEAM
If you learn of or observe troubling student behavior, the WPI Care Team is available to help with concerns for non-immediate student safety, welfare, and academic success. To learn more, or to submit a concern, visit I’m Concerned About a Student, or contact the Dean of Students Office directly at +1-508-831-5201.
Help for Classroom or Project Teams
Working with teams and leading groups can be challenging for students, so the SDCC is available to bring team development workshops to your classroom to complement your course curriculum. Workshops last up to 90 minutes and involve a practical discussion of group dynamics, sources of group conflict, and conflict management strategies.
The SDCC staff can also assist project teams experiencing significant group dynamic issues. These consultations are arranged by faculty referral, with a brief assessment and intervention aimed at maximizing the group’s functionality.
To schedule a workshop, or for more information about SDCC consultations, email us, or call +1-508-831-5540.
Make a Positive Impact
Recognizing and Responding to Students in Distress
Faculty & Staff Training
WPI offers a 90-minute interactive training session for faculty and staff members. We examine ways students may struggle, discuss effective strategies for reaching out, and identify available resources for further assistance. The SDCC will email notifications of upcoming workshops. Call the SDCC to learn more.
Student Support Network
Faculty & Staff Training
The Student Support Network (SSN) is a six-week training series covering the nature of good mental and emotional health, warning signs that someone may be struggling, ways to approach and talk to those in need, and resources for more help. SSN training is available for both students and faculty members. The faculty track, also open to WPI staff members, is scheduled in C-Term during the academic year. If interested, email us, or call +1-508-831-5540 for more information.
Community Development Committees
The SDCC chairs campus committees made up of students, faculty, and staff who are committed to promoting a safe environment on campus. Consider joining as a committee member.
Looking for Counseling Services for You or Your Family?
WPI’s Employee Assistance Program (EAP) offers services for employees and their families. EAP counselors provide assessment, referral, and brief counseling services that are free and confidential. More information: Employee Assistance Program.
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Eric Wemple at the WaPo reports that George Zimmerman has filed suit against NBC. The network edited his 911 call on the night of February 26, snipping out portions of the conversation in a way that made it appear as if he had racially profiled Trayvon Martin, the black 17-year-old whom Zimmerman killed in a struggle after he placed the call. Zimmerman claims he acted in self-defense. The NBC edit of his 911 call suggested racism and malice. But the edit presented a false picture of the events of that night.
Lawyers for George Zimmerman filed suit today against NBC Universal Media over a well-publicized editing error that portrayed their client in racist terms in his pursuit of Trayvon Martin on a drizzly evening in February.
Flag on the play. This was no “editing error” as Wemple indicates. It was an internal content edit of audio that had to have been done deliberately. NBC cannot reasonably argue that it was merely editing the call to shorten it for broadcast. The network’s edit, which aired nationally on the Today show, materially changed the substance of the call. The edit added a racial angle that was not present at all in the original conversation. As we demonstrated here at PJM/PJTV, the edit as it was done could not have been an accident. NBC apparently agrees with our assessment, because it eventually fired producers who were involved in the edit.
So the Washington Post and Eric Wemple lead their story with a basic error in fact, which needs to be fixed. The basis of the lawsuit is that the NBC edit was not an error, but was deliberate. Wemple even quotes the lawsuit saying exactly that in the following paragraph.
“NBC saw the death of Trayvon Martin not as a tragedy but as an opportunity to increase ratings, and so to set about the myth that George Zimmerman was a racist and predatory villain,” states the civil complaint in its opening salvo against NBC.
Wemple later notes:
Zimmerman thus didn’t volunteer a racial profile of Martin; he was asked to provide it, a point that the lawsuit makes in colorful fashion: “NBC created this false and defamatory misimpression using the oldest form of yellow journalism: manipulating Zimmerman’s own words, splicing together disparate parts of the recording to create illusions of statements that Zimmerman never actually made.”
Following a public uproar over the tape-doctoring, NBC News issued a statement on the matter saying this: “During our investigation it became evident that there was an error made in the production process that we deeply regret. We will be taking the necessary steps to prevent this from happening in the future and apologize to our viewers.”
Such contrition didn’t impress the Zimmerman camp. “Only after the defendants’ malicious acts were uncovered and exposed by other media outlets … did defendant NBC ‘apologize’ and terminate some of those in its employ responsible for the yellow journalism identified in this Complaint.” Zimmerman himself never received an apology from the defendants, according to the suit.
This was not contrition, it was backside-covering. NBC did not even publicly name anyone who was fired, leading to reasonable speculation that, in reality, no one was fired. The Zimmerman lawsuit might finally expose that, and expose the chain of producers and editors who approved airing the dishonest edit.
Additionally, despite what it now says, NBC evidently did not put any measures in place to prevent similar crimes from happening in the future. Just a few months after its Zimmerman edit, MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell used a doctored video to smear then GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Eric Wemple of the Washington Post even reported on that incident. Curiously, he does not mention it in today’s report. Surely it’s relevant? Is the Post helping NBC minimize its actions? If so, why?
NBC says it intends to “vigorously” defend itself in court. Let’s hope the network does that, and let’s hope that Zimmerman’s lawyers mine the Internet for all of the instances in which that network has engaged in gross media malpractice. NBC’s bad habit of engaging in yellow journalism goes back several decades.
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Facilitation Tools: Spice-Up a Transition with "New Personality Research"
Is your participant group in need of a little energy boost? Want to add some fun to a specific transition within your facilitated session? Tired of using the same, old, boring, facilitation stuff, like "everyone stand up and stretch?" Here's a quick, collaborative and fun transition tool that always gets a laugh and serves to re-engage participants.
If you're familiar with the Myers-Briggs "Preferences Test" (different from the full assessment instrument), you already know most of what you need to know. The basic "Preferences Test" is to simply ask people to fold their hands with alternating fingers interlocked. Everyone will naturally end up with either their right thumb or their left thumb on top. Then, participants are asked to change their interlocked fingers so that the "other" thumb ends up on top. The ensuing discussion in the Myers-Briggs application is all about "preferences" and how neither way is "wrong," just "different." This is typically used in Myers-Briggs talks, so generally their is a significant number of participants who are familiar with this test.
This transition suggestion is a slight variation of the Myers-Briggs interlocked fingers test. With a big smile, a fun disposition, and positive posture, have your participants shake out their hands, do a little stretch, and then bring their hands together with interlocking fingers. Briefly reference the Myers-Briggs "Preferences Test" and then reveal that NEW PERSONALITY RESEARCH is now available regarding preferences.
Have people raise their hand if their RIGHT thumb was on top. Announce that new research indicates that these people are INCREDIBLE THINKERS. Let this group hoop and hollar it up.
Have people raise their hand if their LEFT thumb was on top. Announce that new research indicates that these people are AMAZINGLY SEXY. Let this group hoop and hollar it up.
Then, give the participants a chance to bring their hands together with interlocking fingers one last time. Ask if anyone has both thumbs next to one another (several always do!!). Announce that new research indicates that these people THINK they are AMAZINGLY SEXY.
Have fun with it !!
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Last week, a House subcommittee invited ordinary citizens, consumer advocates and credit card issuers to testify on a proposed credit card bill of rights that would ban abusive practices, such as arbitrary rate hikes or charging interest on balances already paid off.
Four consumers never got to testify, when they declined to sign waivers allowing credit issuers to make public their information.
They had flown in from around the country with their credit card bills in hand, only to learn that they couldn’t talk unless they would sign a waiver that would permit the credit card companies to make public anything they wanted to tell about their financial records, their credit histories, their purchases, and so on. The Republicans and Democrats had worked out a deal “to be fair to the credit card lenders.” These people couldn’t say anything unless they were willing to let the credit card companies strip them naked in public.
One consumer, Steven Autrey, planned to tell the legislators how he applied for a Capitol One card with a fixed rate only to discover that his so-called fixed rate had jumped to 16.9 percent several years later. Warren posts what Autrey would have said had he been allowed to testify here (PDF, 2 pp). Also, Autrey’s wife paid her bill on 9 p.m. the day it was due, but later learned that any payment that didn’t make the 3 p.m. cutoff was considered late.
Consumerist also has a discussion of the debate here.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), prime sponsor of the bill, said she postponed the panel of consumer testimony “in the interest of having the fairest hearing possible and protecting the privacy concerns of our consumer witnesses.” Others said the waiver was only fair to allow credit issuers to respond.
Maloney’s bill would do away with abusive practices, including double billing and requiring consumers to pay off balances with lower interest rates before those with higher rates. I blogged about it last month.
Needless to say, credit card issuers are opposed to it. John Finneran, general counsel for Capitol One, testified that:
[t]he consequence of so sweeping a bill would be to force the industry to raise the cost of credit for everyone, including those who present less risk of default to the lender, and reduce the availability of credit for those customers who present a greater risk of default.
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Who would have thought that one small piece of papyrus could stir so much explosive debate?
I'm referring, of course, to the recent discovery by a historian of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School, professor Karen King, of a papyrus fragment that identifies Jesus as referring to Mary Magdalene as "my wife."
The papyrus fragment is hardly the first piece of evidence that Mary Magdalene was — or may have been — more than just a disciple or a reformed prostitute. An exhibit at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia on the Dead Sea Scrolls includes two bone-storage boxes that once contained the remains of a married "Jesus son of Joseph." In addition, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the boxes also contained the remains of a woman whose name resembled that of Mary Magdalene.
The reason there's so much controversy surrounding this discovery is manifold. Archaeologists and church elders have debated over the centuries whether Jesus was celibate, and if not, what impact that would have on his purity and on his designation as the son of God.
Of course the Catholic Church's attachment to Jesus as a celibate is most integral to church teachings. It's why priests, bishops and all church leaders can only be men (in Jesus' image) and why they must also be celibate.
To an outsider, this debate is specious. It is as incapable of being settled definitively as is the location of the Ark of the Covenant (at least as of now) or the very existence of God.
My favorite take on why this debate continues was written by the Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault, who is a guest blogger for The Washington Post.
She said: "Nowhere in the (Nicene) creed does it specify as an article of belief that Jesus is a celibate, or that his divine status depends on his presumed celibacy. This is all later Christian mid-rash, the product of an increasingly patriarchal and misogynist hierarchy, which for the past 1,600 years has conducted its theological discourse in the hallowed halls of celibates speaking to other celibates. Not only does it not reflect the authentic message that Jesus is teaching; it actively distorts this message."
The gospels in the New Testament were chosen by politically-motivated church and state leaders who rejected dozens of gospels with which they disagreed. This was completed centuries after Jesus' death, early in the fourth century. What gave them the power to decide what should be included in the Bible and what should not?
The answer is nothing: They had political power and used it.
I hope King's discovery will create a flurry of people rushing to learn more about how church doctrine came about in the first place.
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Wind Industry at Risk of Massive Layoffs With Impending Tax Hike; Oil Companies Continue to Defend Billions in Breaks
WASHINGTON (May 24, 2012) –As President Obama tours a wind facility today in Iowa, pushing Congress to extend vital incentives for wind energy and other clean energy manufacturing, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) called on his colleagues to support his legislation that would aid U.S. clean energy businesses while ending unnecessary subsidies for the biggest oil companies.
“Congress can help save tens of thousands of wind energy jobs, create thousands more in manufacturing, and cut the deficit, all in one bill,” said Rep. Markey. “If we want to make a positive impact on our economy right now, we should pass the IMPACT Act right now.”
The bill, H.R. 5187, is called the IMPACT Act (Investing to Modernize the Production of American Clean Energy and Technology) and was introduced last month by Rep. Markey and is co-sponsored by Representatives Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), John Larson (D-Conn.), Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-N.J.), Lois Capps (D-Calif.), and John Carney (D-Del.).
It would end subsidies given to the largest oil companies, and instead extend incentives for onshore and offshore wind and other renewable energy production, electric vehicle and clean energy manufacturing, energy efficient appliances and homes, and a new era of natural gas-powered vehicles. The bill would also reduce the deficit by $11 billion over the next decade.
President Obama today called specifically for the extension of the 48c clean energy manufacturing program, for which the IMPACT Act would provide $5 billion in tax credits, as well as the Production Tax Credit, which the IMPACT Act would extend for 8 years.
A summary fact sheet of the bill is available HERE.
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The essence of Henry Hazlitt’s great book Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics is:
The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups… the bad economist sees only what immediately strikes the eye; the good economist also looks beyond. The bad economist sees only the direct consequences of a proposed course; the good economist looks also at the longer and indirect consequences. The bad economist sees only what the effect of a given policy has been or will be on one particular group; the good economist inquires also what the effect of the policy will be on all groups.
Looking at the revamped Global Warming Solutions Act, now repackaged as the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act complete with Governor O’Malley’s imprimatur, we see that he and those who support this bill are the bad economists Hazlitt had in mind. In the short run, passing this legislation will salve their misplaced conscience about doing something to “save” the planet, and line the pockets of a small group of rent seekers, like former Maryland Democratic Party Chair Wayne Rogers. In the long term, what this legislation would do is create a regulatory tax on all sorts of goods and services and raise the cost of living for Marylanders.
According to Baltimore Sun reporter Timothy Wheeler (past president of The Society of Environmental Journalists) the bill commits the state to reducing “climate warming pollution”—I guess its global warming again not climate change anymore—25% by the year 2020. Last year’s bill failed due to union and industry opposition. This year the watermelons co-opted their opponents and now they are on board.
The bill O'Malley is pushing is a carefully crafted compromise worked out in recent weeks among proponents and opponents of last year's legislation. It would commit the state to achieving a 25 percent reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases - mainly carbon dioxide - by 2020. The state would have until 2012 to develop a plan for reaching the goal.But here is the key:
But in deference to manufacturers and labor leaders, the bill says the state's plan must ensure that no manufacturing jobs would be lost, and it essentially exempts industry from state regulation of greenhouse gas emissions until 2016.
Environment Secretary Shari T. Wilson said proponents did not see that as a major concession because manufacturing accounts for only about 4 percent of all
the greenhouse gases released in the state. Electricity generation and transportation are far bigger sources of carbon dioxide, which is a byproduct of burning fossil fuels.
Wheeler says the bill is likely to pass the General Assembly. Its nice to know that a small cadre of special interest groups can commiserate to raise taxes and energy costs for a state of nearly six million people. There’s your “One Maryland” in Action.
The state will levy new regulatory taxes on energy and transportation. One would think that O’Malley, who failed to deliver on his promise of “stop the BGE rate increase,” would not openly support legislation that directly increases the energy and transportation costs of Maryland’s working families—you know the folks who he supposedly champions.
Of course, these green house gas reduction schemes do not work. Even if Maryland ceased all GHG emissions it would produce a climatically meaningless two thousandths of a degree reduction in global temperature. The new bill calls for reduction not cessation, so we are left with all cost and no benefit. The Beacon Hill Institute analyzed Maryland’s Climate Action Plan (CAP) of which the GWSA is part, and the underlying economic methodology. They found:
The Beacon Hill Institute has previously reviewed the cost-benefit methodology employed by CCS in four other states: Washington, Colorado, Minnesota, and North Carolina. The Institute found three serious problems with the CCS cost-benefit analyses:
1. CCS failed to quantify benefits in a way that they can be meaningfully compared to costs;
2. When estimating economic impacts, CCS often misinterpreted costs to be benefits; and
3. The estimates of costs left out important factors, causing CCS to understate the true costs of its recommendations…
The CAP report provides zero guidance to policy makers regarding the desirability of policies aimed at reducing GHG emissions. It fails to perform the most basic task of any cost-benefit analysis–quantifying both the costs and benefits in monetary terms so that they can be directly compared. The analysis mistakes costs for benefits. Astonishingly, the report posits net economic savings from policies intended to reduce GHG emissions without counting the value of those reduced emissions. Unfortunately for Maryland policy makers, these same three problems plague the CAP report,rendering it unsuitable for making any informed policy decisions.
Predictably, O’Malley referred to the CAP in his press release supporting the GWSA. Specifically he warned of Maryland’s vulnerability to rising sea levels in his press release supporting the bill. Only we are not as vulnerable as he and the other doomsayers would have you believe. As I said in the Examiner last summer:
The IPCC estimates potential global sea level rise between 7 and 23 inches. Given a lower rate of warming, the increase actually tracks more toward 7inches. Taking this into account, the Science and Public Policy Institute observed that the “reasonably expected rate of sea level rise in the coming decades is not much different to the rate of sea level rise that Maryland coastlines have been experiencing for more than a century.”
Furthermore,Richard Alley, the author of the IPCC chapter on sea level rise, told Congress that on this issue, “we don’t have a good assessed scientific foundation right now.”
Even if all developed countries met Kyoto targets by 2010 and sustained them through the rest of the century, the effect on global temperatures would be a barely detectable 0.07 degrees.In terms of mitigated sea level rise, that translates to 1 inch.
The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act is bad economics, bad public policy, which cannot possibly achieve its stated goals. Enactment of this bill will serve the narrow interests of a small set of special interests and deleteriously affect the rest of us. Given that 44% of Americans believe that man is not the cause of global warming and they are losing on all fronts in the court of public opinion its easy to understand why the alarmists are pulling out all the stops,
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Your microwave is wasting money
When I first thought up this experiment, I didn’t have too much optimism. I thought this would be a boring article to write. After all, the energy consumption sticker / UL rating at the back of my microwave read 1.2kW, which translates to 1200 watts. It’s a typical, mid size microwave oven.
Obviously, having studied home energy usage and trends, I know the microwave used energy when I wasn’t using it. The little LED on the front that conveniently showed me the time didn’t come at no cost. But I didn’t actually know how much.
Tonight I was curious enough to find out. And I found out a few more things along the way.
Here’s the energy consumption of my microwave oven at typical “phases” of the usage cycle.
- Standby – 4 watts. Therefore, the microwave always uses this amount of energy unless it is unplugged.
- Door Open – 24 watts. The light bulb, when turned on, draws 24 watts of power. Add this to the 4 watts that is “always there” and you have 28 watts.
- Full “Duty” or Heating Cycle – 1280 watts. So much for the 1200 watt sticker. If we subtract the energy cost of the standby/LED, the light bulb that is turned on, the fan and the motor to turn the plate, we get about 1200 watts. Eureka!
- End cycle (no microwave radiation) – 70 watts. This energy cost of the motor, fan, LED, and light.
So what does it mean?
It means the 1200 watts you’re thinking your microwave is using is actually only the energy cost of the microwave/radiation generating unit itself. This component draws the wattage advertised. The actual unit itself draws more, possibly 100 watts more during full cycle. You have to take this into account when figuring out your energy usage and not take the energy rating of a microwave at face value only.
The power level doesn’t matter.
Armed with this evidence, I decided to extend the experiment. What if I decreased the power from 100% to 50%? Would I see a decrease in power consumption from the unit?
- At full 100% power, the microwave drew 1282 watts of power.
- At 50% power, the microwave drew 1280 watts of power.
- At 75% power, the microwave drew 1283 watts of power.
According to this study, the power level doesn’t seem to affect the power consumption at all. The unit draws the same energy whether being used at 50% or 100% power. Therefore, given the choice, use the unit at 100% power because it will cook/do the job faster and use less energy.
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Does price per kilobyte equal price per kilo? Normal rules of distribution and cost of raw materials don’t apply in the land of ones and zeros which means only one thing – pricing of digital goods needs a proper shake up.
Long time ago in a not so faraway land people didn’t sell or buy stuff but relied on simple trade. I’ll give you sack of wheat, you give me three chicken. Boom! Valuation was made.
Value would probably wary quite much from day to day depending on supply and demand. To make trade more universal we added money into the equation as a “middleman” that made it possible to store value for later use.
Bear with me here…
One day one clever person had an epiphany: “It would be so much simpler if I charged the same amount for the stuff every time someone wanted to buy it. No more haggling!”
So he put up a price sign and fixed price was born. And large portion of the world today is using fixed prices. Yes, there are countries where it’s possible to negotiate prices and some countries where seller even expects you to haggle as it’s part of the culture but in most modern world there are fixed prices.
Mass production has certainly helped and for all practical purposes we seem to have figured out the perfect way to price physical goods.
Digital goods are… digital
Digital goods are something that can be made / copied without additional cost indefinitely. Creating 2 isn’t cheaper or more expensive than creating 200, 2000 or 2 million.
Use torrent to spread whatever you’ve made (be it music, ebook, video, software…) and your distribution cost is a big fat zero so that scales indefinitely as well.
What happens if you sell digital goods as if they were physical goods and put a fixed prize on it? Depending on your belief system (and assuming whatever you offer has value to people) you either get filthy rich or you create a setup that does not follow normal laws of value.
|Physical goods||Digital goods|
|Scarcity||The less the pricier||Can be copied indefinitely, can’t be scarce|
|Demand||Higher demand, higher prices||As distribution scaled indefinitely demand doesn’t affect price|
|Raw materials||More materials, more exotic materials drive cost up||Bytes don’t cost anything|
|Production cost||Time, manpower, machinery, producing more costs more||Additional copy has 0 cost|
If none of the normal rules apply then how do you value digital goods, how do you put a price tag on them?
Answer is simple: You don’t because it’s not possible!
That is why Flattr is a big supporter of pay-what-you-want (or for some it’s pay-what-you-can-afford) approach and why we think more sellers of digital goods should adopt it. Enough success stories exist that prove it’s not utopian hippie dream but a solid approach to “selling” stuff online.
I’ll stop here and next week will look into why fixed price is still the most common way to pay for digital goods.
Disclaimer: Yes, I left the cost of research and initial creation out of this train of thought, that was intentional. I’ll come back to this in one of the future posts.
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Streptococcal Infections (cont.)
Charles Patrick Davis, MD, PhD
Dr. Charles "Pat" Davis, MD, PhD, is a board certified Emergency Medicine doctor who currently practices as a consultant and staff member for hospitals. He has a PhD in Microbiology (UT at Austin), and the MD (Univ. Texas Medical Branch, Galveston). He is a Clinical Professor (retired) in the Division of Emergency Medicine, UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, and has been the Chief of Emergency Medicine at UT Medical Branch and at UTHSCSA with over 250 publications.
Mary D. Nettleman, MD, MS, MACP
Mary D. Nettleman, MD, MS, MACP is the Chair of the Department of Medicine at Michigan State University. She is a graduate of Vanderbilt Medical School, and completed her residency in Internal Medicine and a fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Indiana University.
Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD
Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD, is a U.S. board-certified Anatomic Pathologist with subspecialty training in the fields of Experimental and Molecular Pathology. Dr. Stöppler's educational background includes a BA with Highest Distinction from the University of Virginia and an MD from the University of North Carolina. She completed residency training in Anatomic Pathology at Georgetown University followed by subspecialty fellowship training in molecular diagnostics and experimental pathology.
In this Article
- Group A streptococcal infections facts
- What is group A Streptococcus (GAS)?
- How are group A streptococcal (GAS) infections contracted?
- What diseases are caused by group A streptococcal infection?
- What are the symptoms and signs of GAS infections?
- What is invasive group A streptococcal disease? Who is most at risk for getting invasive GAS disease?
- What are the symptoms and signs of necrotizing fasciitis?
- What are the signs and symptoms of toxic shock syndrome (TSS)?
- How are group A streptococcal (GAS) infections diagnosed?
- What is the treatment for invasive group A streptococcal disease?
- What complications are seen with group A streptococcal infections?
- Can group A streptococcal infections be prevented?
- What is the prognosis for group A streptococcal infections?
- Where can people find more information about group A streptococcal infections?
What is group A Streptococcus (GAS)?
Group A Streptococcus is defined as a gram-positive bacterial genus composed of Streptococcus pyogenes strains. Group A Streptococcus strains have a similar surface antigen recognized by Lancefield serogrouping tests, termed the Lancefield group A antigen. Lancefield groups (there are about 18 Lancefield groups) are composed of different Streptococcus species groups that have specific antigens and are distinguished by specific Lancefield antibody tests. In addition, group A Streptococcus strains are beta hemolytic (beta hemolytic means the bacteria lyse red blood cells suspended in agar plates with secreted substances, see for example, Fig. 3). These tests are mentioned because they are frequently used to distinguish group A Streptococcus bacteria from group B, group C, and other Streptococcus groups. Group A Streptococcus bacteria appear as pairs and chains when gram-stained (see Fig. 1); these bacteria are also termed "beta strep, GAS, and GABHS." Although these bacteria can harmlessly colonize people on their throat and skin, sometimes they can cause mild to serious diseases. GAS bacteria have been causing diseases in humans probably since humans first developed.
Streptococcus pyogenes (GAS) bacteria have many components that contribute to the pathogen's ability to cause disease:
- Lipoteichoic acid on its surface helps the GAS bacteria to bind to epithelial cell membranes.
- M proteins (over 100 types on the GAS bacterial strains) help the bacteria resist immunologic host defenses.
- Exotoxins (for example, DNAses A, C and D, streptolysin S, proteinase, streptokinase, and pyrogenic exotoxins [A-D])
- Human immune system stimulators (for example, streptolysin O, DNAse B, and hyaluronidase)
Exotoxins cause the scarlet fever rash, damage organs, may cause shock, and inhibit the human immune system, while the human immune system stimulators may stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies that likely play a role in the development of autoimmune responses that can lead to glomerulonephritis or acute rheumatoid arthritis. S. pyogenes (GAS) has over 100 serotypes that may vary somewhat in their ability to produce the above components that contribute to the pathogenicity of each strain of the bacteria.
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Ten Broeke, William H.
The following data is extracted from Sketches of Addison County, Vermont.
Ten Broeke, William H., Panton, was born in Vergennes, Vt., in 1832. He is a farmer, and occupies the old homestead. He was a town clerk for twenty-three years, and has held many of the town offices. He also has been a music teacher. He was married in 1857 to Sarah Hayes, of Ferrisburgh, Vt. She was a daughter of Alanson and Parmelia (Roberts) Hayes, and died in 1873 on August 4, leaving a family of five children, three of whom are now living -- James, Sarah E., and Isabella. William H. Ten Broeke then married for his second wife Ella Adams, of Addison, Vt., in 1874. She was a daughter of Edrick Adams, of Addison, Vt. James graduated from Middlebury College in 1883, and is now a student at the Theological College at Rochester, N. Y. William H. Ten Broeke was a son of Rev. James and Mary M. (Tappan) Ten Broeke. She was born in Panton, Vt., in 1804, and James was born in Surrey, England, in 1800. He left England in 1813 and settled in Addison, Vt., where he died in 1855. They had a family of five children born to them --Jane A., William H., Charles O., Sarah Elizabeth, and Mary E. Rev. James Ten Broeke was a teacher for many years of his life. He was ordained as a Baptist minister on June 4, 1835, and preached for many years in Port Henry, Vergennes, and Panton, Vt. He purchased his farm homestead in March, 1826. He was married in 1822, by Squire Samuel Shepard, of Panton, Vt.
Source: Sketches of Addison County, Vermont
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Harold Charles Deutsch
Harold C. Deutsch was born in Milwaukee in 1904. He received his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin in 1924 and the M.A. a year later. Transferring to Harvard University he completed a second M.A. in 1927 and was granted the Ph.D. in 1929. His original academic specialty was French history and his first monograph, The Genesis of Napoleonic Imperialism (1938), remains a standard work. In 1929 Harold joined the faculty at the University of Minnesota, where he spent the first stage of his distinguished career, rising to full professor and serving as chair of the History Department from 1960 to 1966.
In addition to helping literally dozens of doctoral candidates begin their careers, Harold established a reputation as a teacher that endures to this day in University legend. It remains a point of pride to him that he never missed a class from weather or illness. His students remember classes and seminars meticulously prepared, dynamically presented, and consistently updated. He was among the first professors to utilize electronics. Beginning in the early 1960s, his consistently popular course on World War II was offered on television. Yet he remained a master of personal contact, demonstrating by example to successive generations of teaching assistants both the importance of respecting their students and the ability to conduct a class without depending on visual aids.
Harold’s academic interest in the Third Reich was enhanced by a year spent in Europe as a social science research fellow in 1935-36. During that time he began cultivating the acquaintance of German officers and politicians who had participated in World War I. This experience shaped his role in World War II as well. After serving in 1942-43 on the Board of Economic Warfare, Harold was assessed to the Office of Strategic Services. He served as chief of its research and analysis branch in Paris and Germany during 1944 and 1945. In 1945 he was a member of the State Department’s Special Interrogation Mission, collecting information on the Third Reich from high-level participants and establishing the comprehensive network of contacts and friendships that made him a world authority on the human dynamics of Nazi Germany. His definitive studies of the military opposition, The Conspiracy against Hitler in the Twilight War (1968) and Hitler and His Generals: The Hidden Crisis, January-June 1938 (1974), were among the major academic products of this stage of his career.
At a period when even the most distinguished scholars are usually content to rest somewhat on their laurels, Dr. Deutsch began a new phase. Intellectually, he played a major role in integrating in to the general history of World War II information made available with the revelation of the Ultra secret. Retiring from the University of Minnesota in 1972, he joined in 1974 the faculty of the U.S. Army War College. New generations of students, this time military officers, profited from his insight. The War College curriculum profited as well. Dr. Deutsch played a major role in the institution’s progress towards developing a broad-gauged perspective on questions of war fighting and policy making.
Harold’s professional activity has been personal as well. Even before his second retirement from the War College, he was familiar participant in academic conferences, where his incisive questions vitalized panels as much as his captivating personality enlivened social hours. He was one of the original members of the American Military Institute. When the Society for Military History honored him with its Samuel Eliott Morison Award in 1994, it offered no more than token acknowledgement of a career that remains an inspiration to his many friends and colleagues. In 1995 an anthology of alternative perspectives What If? Might-Have-Beens of World War II will be published by Emperor’s Headquarters, Chicago, Illinois. The editor is Harold Deutsch who was going strong into his tenth decade.
written by Dennis E. Showalter, Colorado College
kindly provided by Ms. Elisabeth Deutsch
from the folder distributed at Dr. Deutsch’s funeral
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View your list of saved words. (You can log in using Facebook.)
About Our Definitions: All forms of a word (noun, verb, etc.) are now displayed on one page.
Definition of SHAD
: any of several fishes (especially genus Alosa) of the herring family that differ from the typical herrings (genus Clupeus) in having a relatively deep body and in being anadromous and that include some important food fishes of Europe and North America
Any of several saltwater food fishes of the herring family (Clupeidae) that swim up rivers to spawn. Shad eggs (roe) are a delicacy in the U.S. Adult shad are toothless. The lower jaw of shad in the genus Alosa fits into a notch at the tip of the upper jaw. The American shad (A. sapidissima), an Atlantic fish introduced into the Pacific, is a migratory plankton eater and a good game fish. The Allis (or Allice) shad (A. alosa) of Europe is about 30 in. (75 cm) long and weighs about 8 lbs (3.6 kg). See alsowhitefish.
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Dreaming of living life on your terms? Here's how to get one step closer now. more
Polio, or poliomyelitis, is a serious virus that causes death in up to 5% of people who contract the virus. Up to half of all people who get sick with polio will be permanently paralysed.
What causes polio?
Polio is caused by one of three polio viruses. It is spread through contact with the body secretions of an infected person. The virus can spread via faeces, coughing and sneezing, and even via food and water. People who get polio are contagious about a week to ten days before symptoms begin and for about a week to ten days after symptoms begin.
Is polio serious?
Polio is very serious. Polio can cause muscle paralysis of the arms and legs, deformities of the hips, ankles, and feet, and even death. The muscle paralysis that can affect the arms and legs, can also affect the diaphragm (the muscle that helps you breathe), meaning that your lungs won't be able to work on their own.
Can I prevent polio?
Polio is best prevented through vaccination. Kids are vaccinated against polio at two, four and six months of age, and then again at age four. If you haven't had at least three doses of polio vaccine, you should get vaccinated too. If you and your family travel frequently, get a booster.
How do I know if my child has polio?
Many kids who get polio don't have any symptoms. Those who do, show symptoms may take up to three weeks after exposure to the virus to do so. Mild polio infections include:
- Flu-like symptoms such as fever
- Tiredness and weakness
- Nausea and vomiting
- Muscle stiffness
A severe polio infection is one that has spread to the nervous system and might include such symptoms as:
- Severe muscle pain
- Stiffness of the neck and back
- Swallowing and breathing problems
- Long-term disability
How do I treat polio?
There is no treatment for polio. The only thing you can do is manage the symptoms. If your child gets polio, you will need to make sure that they gets lots of rest and eats a good diet. They may also need antibiotics for secondary infections (antibiotics will not cure polio), painkillers, a ventilator to help him breathe, and other medications to manage symptoms. They will also need regular physical therapy to combat muscle weakness and deformities.
Should I call the doctor?
You should always call the doctor if you believe that your child has, or has been exposed to, polio.
What you need to know about polio
- Polio is a life-threatening disease.
- Polio is preventable through vaccinations.
- Mild polio can cause flu-like symptoms.
- Severe polio can cause deformities, paralysis, and even death.
Find more relevant articles and information about polio
- Learn more about viral infections
- Learn more about fevers
- Learn more about childhood vaccinations
- What are flu-like symptoms?
Written by Rebecca Stigall for Kidspot, Australia's parenting resource for family health. Sources include Better Health Channel, NSW Health and Health Insite.
Last revised: Sunday, 17 January 2010
This article contains general information only and is not intended to replace advice from a qualified health professional.
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"If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, Then what are we to think of an empty desk?" ~ Albert Einstein
Overflowing ashtrays, piles of books, coffee-stained napkins scribbled with half-baked theories, mangled envelopes, semi-scribed journals, purloined pens, dog-eared dailies, notebooks, piles of paper and mountains of unopened letters...the strictness of order and the opposing efficiency of chaos? Well, I dunno' about that. Albert Einstein may have been brilliant, but to this neat-nick, I think he must have been a complete and total slob. (And turns out his birthday was March 14.)
Theories of relativity aside -- nobody needs to drop an apple onto my head for me to notice both sides of the tidiness fence: those who see the advantage of having a messy desk and those who slip into flames when a pen is left askew. (Okay. I admit it. I just described myself.)
While revealing your true inner being, if your desk is nasty maybe you're just disorganized by nature, maybe your productivity skills are rusty, you've decided to cozy up to your own special brand of disorder or perhaps you're the kind of person who -- when finished with something - lets it spiral into a whirling abyss of invisibility. Although your mass-of-mess is mounding into Mount St. Helens, Mount Fuji or even Mount Everest, you've become blinded - and to your delusional sightless eyes, your chaos ceases to exist.
Finding the middle ground between what's tidy and untidy can be slippery. A study at Columbia Business School found that people who keep a dashing desk actually spend more time shuffling through stuff than those who keep it mildly messy -- systematizing and salvaging stuff takes time. And when it comes to a messy desk, time is of the essence -- for it was our sloppy scientist who once said, "The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once."
Ebbing and flowing like the tide, when your desk is out of control, wrestling your stack of stuff can be absolutely aggravating. Slob that he was, our birthday boy also once said; "Out of clutter find simplicity; from discord find harmony; In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity."
When your messes reach maximum density, make a hole into your Himalayan-sized-hysteria, a gap into your Alpine-shaped-mishap, by keeping your tidying trouble-free. Simply commit yourself to digging through your disaster for just five minutes a day.
And once you've reached China, umm errr your desk top, consider this simple, eco-friendly way of polishing it: Use two parts olive oil mixed with one part lemon juice. Pour just a few drops on a soft cloth, wipe away the dust, scuffs, and fingerprints, and make your wooden desk shine. No sprays, aerosols or chemicals needed. Just two natural ingredients, and voila, a clean and polished surface.
Although a clean desk to some may symbolically resemble a blank slate (Yoo-hoo! Is anybody home?) I find peace when my desk is shipshape and tidy. While cleaning yours, you may not find Amelia Earhart or Jimmy Hoffa, some missing masterpieces by Rembrandt, Manet or Vermeer, or even the meaning of life. But hopefully you'll discover a newfound semblance of order and -- ultimately -- the long-lost surface of your desk.
Enter your city or zip code to get your local temperature and air quality and find local green food and recycling resources near you.
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Extremes more likely as warming slows planetary air flows: report
Winds of change.
Global warming may have caused extreme events such as a 2011 drought in the United States and a 2003 heatwave in Europe by slowing vast, wave-like weather flows in the northern hemisphere, scientists said on Tuesday.
The study of meandering air systems that encircle the planet adds to understanding of extremes that have killed thousands of people and driven up food prices in the past decade.
Such planetary air flows, which suck warm air from the tropics when they swing north and draw cold air from the Arctic when they swing south, seem to be have slowed more often in recent summers and left some regions sweltering, they said.
"During several recent extreme weather events these planetary waves almost freeze in their tracks for weeks," wrote Vladimir Petoukhov, lead author of the study at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.
"So instead of bringing in cool air after having brought warm air in before, the heat just stays," he said in a statement of the findings in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
A difference in temperatures between the Arctic and areas to the south is usually the main driver of the wave flows, which typically stretch 2,500 and 4,000 km (1,550-2,500 miles) from crest to crest.
But a build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, blamed on human activities led by use of fossil fuels, is heating the Arctic faster than other regions and slowing the mechanism that drives the waves, the study suggested.
Weather extremes in the past decade include a European heatwave in 2003 that may have killed 70,000 people, a Russian heatwave and flooding in Pakistan in 2010 and a 2011 heatwave in the United States, the authors added.
"Here, we propose a common mechanism" for the generation of waves linked to climate change, they wrote.
Past studies have linked such extremes to global warming but did not identify an underlying mechanism, said Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute and a co-author.
"This is quite a breakthrough," he wrote. The scientists added that the 32-year-period studied was too short to predict future climate change and that natural variations in the climate had not been ruled out completely as a cause.
The study only considered the northern part of the globe, in summertime. Petoukhov led another study in 2010 suggesting that cold snaps in some recent winters in Europe were linked to low amounts of ice in the Arctic Ocean.
Almost 200 governments have agreed to work out by the end of 2015 a deal to combat rising global greenhouse gas emissions that will enter into force from 2020.
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Matching 2 Tags
Naming 'the God Particle'
The discovery of the Higgs boson would certainly be a breakthrough for particle physics and cosmology, but would such a finding also radically redefine theology’s understanding of God or challenge the existence of such a deity? Is there actually any theological or religious significance in Higgs physics at all?
What is Scientism?
Scientism is a rather strange word, but for reasons that we shall see, a useful one. Though this term has been coined rather recently, it is associated with many other “isms” with long and turbulent histories: materialism, naturalism, reductionism, empiricism, and positivism.
The (Lack Of) Conflict Between Science and Religion in College Students
Media-hungry atheist, creationist and religious fundamentalist provocateurs have dominated the science and religion narrative for the past decade. A recently published large-scale survey of college students, however, finds that the call to arms has fallen on deaf ears.
Series: Recovering the Doctrine of Creation: A Theological View of Science
Robert C. Bishop explains that many believe two things about creation: that the universe was created out of nothing by God and that he accomplished this in six days. This overly simplistic view does not do the robust Doctrine of Creation (DoC) justice, and it unnecessarily hinders much of the dialogue between evolution and Christianity. Bishop “recovers” the DoC by exploring the limitations of creation, God’s sovereignty in the process, God’s Trinitarian activity and ongoing purpose for his creatures, and the salvation of creation in space and time.
I was raised in a household of atheists. My parents were card-carrying members of the American Communist Party, and therefore the atheism in my household was quite close to the militant anti-theism of the so-called “new atheists”.
Series: Miracles and Science
In this five section series, Ard Louis explores the relationship between science and miracles. He indicates the self-imposed limitations of science to discover knowledge while warning against the God-of-the-Gaps explanations. Then, he explains the two types of miracles seen in Scripture: those that are divine timing and those that are violations of the natural. Overall, God sustains natural processes, but, as the master composer, he has the ability to perform miracles as well.
How is BioLogos different from Evolutionism, Intelligent Design, and Creationism?
We at BioLogos believe that God used the process of evolution to create all the life on earth today. While we accept the science of evolution, we emphatically reject evolutionism. Evolutionism is the atheistic worldview that says life developed without God and without purpose. Instead, we agree with Christians who adhere to Intelligent Design and Creationism that the God of the Bible created the universe and all life. Christians disagree, however, on how God created. Young Earth Creationists believe that God created just 6,000 to 10,000 years ago and disagree with much of mainstream science. Supporters of Intelligent Design accept more of evolutionary science, but argue that some features of life are best explained by direct intervention by an intelligent agent rather than by God's regular way of working through natural processes. We at BioLogos agree with the modern scientific consensus on the age of the earth and evolutionary development of all species, seeing these as descriptions of how God created. The term BioLogos comes from the Greek words bios (life) and logos (word), referring to the opening of the Gospel of John. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made.” (Updated on March 1, 2012)
Series: Maker of Heaven and Earth
In his sermon, Dave Swaim discusses the early chapters of Genesis that seemingly contradict scientific evidence, and he suggests that Christians have simply asked the “wrong questions” about this ancient text, which has led to warfare between the two. In light of this, Swaim wraps up his sermon with the three concluding points that he feels sums up the Biblical truth of creation: there is an all-powerful God, he has a perfect plan, and he has given us his love through Jesus Christ.
Scientific Fundamentalism and its Cultural Impact
Giberson's essay makes the case that scientific fundamentalists are not merely arguing for the supremacy of science but also presenting science as a quasi-religious replacement. The agenda of the "New Atheists" is not merely to refute mainstream religion but to replace it. Unfortunately, the scientific community is poorly represented by these aggressive public figures.
Recovering the Doctrine of Creation: A Theological View of Science
Philosopher Robert Bishop explores the Biblical doctrine of creation, which he describes as "perhaps one of the most helpful pieces of theology for thinking about science", and describes why the doctrine needs to be recovered from narrower, contemporary interpretations of creation.
America’s Culture Wars: A Different Perspective
In this video Conversation, Rev. N.T. Wright responds to the controversy in evangelicalism about evolution. Is this a “culture war” issue?
Science, Scripture, and the Creation Narrative
In these two brief video Conversations, John Walton discusses the problem of trying to integrate ancient scripture with our modern worldview.
Series: Accommodationist and Proud of It
In the series, Michael Ruse focuses on his involvement in the science-and-faith controversy, introducing himself as “accommodationist and proud of it”. Ruse’s posts give a personal account of his experiences as an author and public speaker on the compatibility of Christianity and biological evolution.
On Genesis 2 and 3
In this video Conversation, N.T. Wright explores how the ancient Jewish audience read Genesis before and up to the time that Jesus arrived. He asserts that readers of Genesis today who focus simply on the number of days of creation and whether there is evidence in the text pointing to an old or new earth—are in effect not reading the complete text.
Why I Think the New Atheists are a Bloody Disaster
Let me say that I believe the new atheists do science a grave disservice. I will defend to the death the right of them to say what they do, but I think first that these people do a disservice to scholarship.
Reconciling Science With Scripture
In the ancient world people were inclined to be much more interested in issues like order, functions, roles and general operations than in the material stuff of the physical world. Because of this, even their thinking about creation is more focused on the functional rather than the material.
An Evangelical Geneticist's Critique of Reasons to Believe's Testable Creation Model
Biologist and BioLogos Senior Fellow Denis Venema examines the interaction between RTB literature and several lines of genetics-based evidence for common ancestry. In so doing, he also addresses the scientific robustness and reliability of the RTB model.
If God created the universe, what created God?
Many arguments claiming to prove the existence of God have been proposed throughout the centuries. The response to many of these arguments, however, is: “If God created the world, what created God?” It suggests that certain arguments for God’s existence only push the question of beginnings one step farther back. The Bible and Christian doctrine address this question by defining God as eternal and uncreated, but such answers rarely satisfy nonbelievers. A philosophical response is that God is the ultimate first cause; the atheist is left with a dilemma of what or who that first cause might have been. In the end, an uncaused creator may simply be a more plausible explanation for the universe we live in. Our universe appears to have had a beginning, to be finely tuned for life, and to have a place for love and purpose. These appearances affirm as plausible a prior belief in God.
Matching 1 Tags
A Plea to My Shepherds
... I would exhort these, my fellow conservative evangelical shepherds and thinkers, to set aside all reticence and fear, emerge from anonymity, and storm the forum of discourse, engaging this most pressing matter with vigor, equanimity, and humility. In doing so, know upfront that there will be few handrails to guide; you will not be building upon an extensive precedence of published conservative thought.
Denis Alexander on Understanding Creation Theology
In this video Conversation, Denis Alexander asserts that contemporary Christians are not taking the early chapters of Genesis seriously enough.
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