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Located picturesquely on the water and hosting spectacular Manhattan skyline views, Brooklyn Heights is a coveted “suburb” to the city, stretching from Old Fulton Street by the Brooklyn Bridge to Atlantic Avenue in the south, and in the east, from the East River to Court Street and Cadman Plaza. Rich in history, the area was originally known as Ihpetonga by the Lenape tribe that lived there before the colonists arrived. During The Battle of Long Island, the Revolutionary War’s largest fight, George Washington brought his troops to this promontory, to retreat. In the early 1800s, Brooklyn Heights transformed into the first town for commuters in the state of New York, thanks to the institution of a ferry service that provided transportation to Wall Street. Additionally, the Brooklyn Dodgers’ offices were once located here.
Many of streets are graced with trees and sparkling renovations that have earned the area its title as the first historic neighborhood in Brooklyn. Rich brownstones in Italianate, Federal, Gothic Revival, Greek Revival, and Renaissance styles along with rowhouses, mansions, and romantic carriage houses grace the neighborhood, and walking tours have made it a destination for world-wise tourists. When the 1965 New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Law passed, it was the first neighborhood to be protected.
Brooklyn Heights’ blind alleys and short cobblestoned paths make for a lovely neighborhood feel. According to a 2005 Village Voice article, 60% of the homes average over $1 million apiece. It has housed famous authors such as Norman Mailer, Arthur Miller, and Truman Capote, who wrote “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “In Cold Blood” in his Brooklyn Heights basement apartment. Other famous people who live or once lived in the area include authors Andrea Dworkin, Carson McCullers and Thomas Wolfe, musicians Bob Dylan and Vasant Rai, poets W.H. Auden, Hart Crane, and Walt Whitman, the famous abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher, Brooklyn Bridge designers John A. Roebling and Washington Roebling, and actors Paul Bettany, Gabriel Byrne, Jennifer Connelly, Paul Giamatti, Marilyn Monroe, and Mary Tyler Moore. Brooklyn Heights is also famous for being the home of two fictional TV families—the Huxtibles on “The Cosby Show” and the Lanes on “The Patty Duke Show.”
Many a money manager calls Brooklyn Heights home due to it being a very easy commute to Wall Street. It is an extremely gentrified area and a yuppie neighborhood, graced with a gorgeous view of the Statue of Liberty’s sculpted beauty. Views from Brooklyn Heights’ Promenade, also known as the Esplanade is, as Kara Oehler writes, “probably the most popular postcard shot of New York City.”
One of Brooklyn Heights’ most famous landmarks is The Brooklyn Heights Promenade, technically an esplanade, which provides gorgeous, unobstructed views of the Manhattan skyline, as well as the Manhattan Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge, and the Statue of Liberty. Another is Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims, which is a National Historic Landmark, and was once a stop on the Underground Railroad. The area provides many other places for tourists to visit, such as the New York Transit Museum, The Toy Museum of New York, the Micro Museum, an artist-run institution that features interactive art, and the Brooklyn Historical Society.
There are a number of popular restaurants in the area, including Noodle Pudding, one of Brooklyn’s best Italian eateries, Teresa’s, which serves Polish food, Queen Marie Italian Restaurant, and La Lunetta Restaurant. Bars include Brazen Head, Last Exit Bar & Lounge, Boat Bar, and Floyd NY. Shopping in the area includes a branch of St. Mark’s Comics, Heights Books, which features quality used books and first editions, Housing Works’ Thrift Shop, Abitare, a housewares shop, Objective Affection, a pop-up shop, and Windows Portraits Studio.
Local hotels include the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge, St. George Hotel, Hotel Princess, Asia, Inc., and Hotel le Bleu.
Schools in the area include St. Joseph High School, St. Ann’s School, Packer Collegiate Institute, George Westinghouse Career/Technology High School, School for Global Studies, the Philip Livingston School (PS 261), and St. Francis College.
Brooklyn Heights is accessible to many adjacent famous neighborhoods, such as Downtown Brooklyn, Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, and DUMBO. It is accessible to Manhattan via numerous subway lines, including the 2, 3, 4, 5, A, C, F, M, and R trains.
For more information:
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About this site
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|Kids Sermon - Take a look at yourself|
|Written by Andrew Hewlett|
Children's Sermon on Spiritual Pride
Children's church - message for Lent
Look at yourself –When you point at others there are three fingers pointing back at you.
Themes: sin, self awareness, self examination, repentance, finger pointing, pride, spiritual pride
(The RCL scriptures for this day (Is 55:1-9, 1 Cor.10:1-13, Luke 13:1-9) seem to all contain warnings about out tendency to presume we are on a good footing because we are more righteous than others)
Kid’s sermon idea: Explain to the children that some people love to point out the bad things that others are doing. Get the children to point with their index fingers. Examine your pointing hand and explain to them that when they point out other peoples mistakes there are always three fingers pointing back. We need to be honest with our own mistakes and failures before we point them out in others.
Full Children’s sermon: Good morning children. I want to tell you something that I learned many years ago. I used to love to criticise others who were doing bad things. I would point my finger like this and say, “Look at that boy over there. He’s not being very kind.” Or I would say, “look at that person, he is being a bad person and he is making lots of mistakes.” But one day a friend of mine showed me something very interesting. (Hold out your pointing hand) She should me that whenever I a finger at another person I have other fingers pointing back at me. When I point like this, how many fingers are pointing back at me? Right! There are these three fingers pointing back at me. Try it yourself. That should be a good reminder that we need to look at our own lives. It’s more important to make sure we are living God’s way than spending too much time pointing our fingers at others. Remember, when you point your finger at another person there are three fingers pointing back at you!
Children’s prayer: God, we know it is so easy to point fingers at other people when they do something wrong. Help us to remember that when we point at others there are three fingers pointing back at us. May that remind us to make sure we are living the way you want us to live. In Jesus’ name – Amen!
Copyright sundaychildrensfocus.com Andrew Hewlett Feel free to use this story on Sunday morning but give credit to sundaychildrensfocus.com and consider putting link to this site. A.H.
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November Newsletter: Give Thanks for Scholarships
November is National Scholarship Month, so this month’s Financial Aid News brings you resources to help find scholarships that are right for you. Plus, you’ll get valuable tips and advice for filing your FAFSA form, information about financial aid for veterans, and more. Here’s just some of what’s included:
- Get in on our upcoming $10,000 Scholarship
- Important information about prepping for FAFSA
- Financial aid tips for high school seniors
- Find scholarships matched to your background
- Learn about options for student loan repayment
What Would a $10,000 Scholarship Mean to You?
The last $10,000 scholarship drawing of 2012 is now less than a month away. This drawing is your last chance to win a $10,000 scholarship from ScholarshipPoints in 2012. What would winning this $10,000 scholarship mean to you? Would you be able to transfer to your dream school? Would you be a lot less stressed about making those loan payments? Would it mean not having to work that third job just to afford school? Whatever it is, get over to ScholarshipPoints now to give yourself as many chances as possible to be the next $10,000 scholarship winner.
November is National Scholarship Month!
You probably didn’t know there was an entire month dedicated to scholarships! Want to know what we’re doing to celebrate? This month we’ll be sharing lots of scholarship tips, calling attention to some of the great scholarships out there, and hearing from some of our past scholarship winners about how their scholarships helped them. Read more on our blog.
Also, In the spirit of National Scholarship Month, why not take the time to search for some? Check out the Scholarship Matcher at StudentScholarshipSearch.com. By answering 5 easy questions you will instantly be matched to scholarships that fit you! Try the Scholarship Matcher.
Get Help Repaying Your Loans
If you graduated in May, then repayment is upon you! Make sure you have a plan in place to either make, lower, or postpone your student loan payments. Consolidating your loans can be a good start, helping you lower your payments and even your interest rate in some cases. Check out your options.
If you graduated before May, you may not know that you could be a candidate for student loan forgiveness. Forgiveness is available for those in various professions and fields such as public service or teaching. It’s even available for those who have been paying off loans for 25 years or more. Find out more about forgiveness programs.
Are You Prepping for FAFSA?
January 1 marks the beginning of a new year, and with it, a new FAFSA season. Whether you’re a first time student or returning to school, making sure you are ready to file your FAFSA should be a priority during these coming weeks. To help get you started, here are some tips:
- First-time filer or transfer students – Make sure you know your federal school code.
- Dependent students (and your parents) – Apply for your Federal Student Aid PINs.
- Returning students – If you’ve forgotten your PIN, you can request a duplicate at the federal PIN site.
Tips for High School Seniors
Besides filing your FAFSA, take some time this year to become familiar with the entire financial aid process. Don’t just let your parents do everything for you – understand where your school choices will land you financially. By taking control from the start, you won’t be surprised by what you owe 5 years down the road. Learn the basics of financial aid.
Here are some new scholarships to checkout over the Thanksgiving holiday!
- $1,000 Moolahspot Scholarship — Deadline: December 31, 2012
- ACLU of Utah Youth Activist Scholarship — Deadline: January 7, 2013
- Metro Scholarship — Deadline: March 31, 2013
- $1,500 College JumpStart Scholarship — Deadline: April 15, 2013
- Nursing Scholarship Program — Deadline: May 8, 2013
See more new scholarships
Happy Military Family Month!
President Obama recently named November as Military Family Month. To say thanks to veterans and their families, we’ve written a blog to aid in navigating the financial aid options available to veterans. Read it now.
- Locate your loans at NSLDS.ed.gov
- Calculate your consolidation savings
- Estimate your Financial Aid with the FAFSA4Caster
- Get your FAFSA PIN
- File your FAFSA
Your Opinion Matters
Is there a particular topic or interest you would like the Financial Aid News to cover?
Leave a comment on our suggestions page.
- Learn about Online Degrees
- Take a Class Online
- Online Education Degree Programs
- Earn your Bachelors Degrees
- Find Masters Degree Programs Online
- Consider a Doctoral Degree Program
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Overview Retinoblastoma is a disease in which malignant (cancer) cells form in the tissues of the retina. The retina is the nerve tissue that lines the inside of the back of the eye. The retina senses light and sends images to the brain by way of the optic nerve.
Although retinoblastoma may occur at any age, it usually occurs in children younger than 5 years of age. The tumor may be in one eye or in both eyes. Retinoblastoma rarely spreads from the eye to nearby tissue or other parts of the body. Retinoblastoma is usually found in only one eye and can usually be cured.
Symptoms These and other symptoms may be caused by retinoblastoma. Other conditions may cause the same symptoms. Consult a doctor if any of the following problems occur:
• Pupil of the eye appears white instead of red when light shines into it. This may be seen in flash photographs of the child. • Eyes appear to be looking in different directions. • Pain or redness in the eye.
Treatment Different types of treatment are available for patients with retinoblastoma. Some treatments are standard (the currently used treatment, often referred to as “standard of care”), and some are being tested in clinical trials. A treatment clinical trial is a research study meant to improve current treatments or obtain information on new treatments for patients with cancer. When clinical trials show that a new treatment is better than the standard treatment, the new treatment may become the standard treatment.
Because cancer in children is rare, taking part in a clinical trial should be considered. Some clinical trials are open only to patients who have not started treatment.
Six types of standard treatment are used:
Enucleation Enucleation is surgery to remove the eye and part of the optic nerve. The eye will be checked with a microscope to see if there are any signs that the cancer is likely to spread to other parts of the body. This is done if the tumor is large and there is little or no chance that vision can be saved. The patient will be fitted for an artificial eye after this surgery.
Radiation therapy Radiation therapy is a cancer treatment that uses high-energy x-rays or other types of radiation to kill cancer cells or keep them from growing. There are two types of radiation therapy. External radiation therapy uses a machine outside the body to send radiation toward the cancer. Internal radiation therapy uses a radioactive substance sealed in needles, seeds, wires, plaques, or catheters that are placed directly into or near the cancer. The way the radiation therapy is given depends on the type and stage of the cancer being treated. Methods of radiation therapy used to treat retinoblastoma include the following:
• Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT): A type of 3-dimensional (3-D) radiation therapy that uses a computer to make pictures of the size and shape of the tumor. Thin beams of radiation of different intensities (strengths) are aimed at the tumor from many angles. This type of radiation therapy causes less damage to healthy tissue near the tumor. • Stereotactic radiation therapy: Radiation therapy that uses a rigid head frame attached to the skull to aim high-dose radiation beams directly at the tumors, causing less damage to nearby healthy tissue. It is also called stereotactic external-beam radiation and stereotaxic radiation therapy. • Proton beam radiation therapy: Radiation therapy that uses protons made by a special machine. A proton is a type of high-energy radiation that is different from an x-ray. • Plaque radiotherapy: Radioactive seeds are attached to one side of a disk, called a plaque, and placed directly on the outside wall of the eye near the tumor. The side of the plaque with the seeds on it faces the eyeball, aiming radiation at the tumor. The plaque helps protect other nearby tissue from the radiation.
Cryotherapy Cryotherapy is a treatment that uses an instrument to freeze and destroy abnormal tissue, such as carcinoma in situ. This type of treatment is also called cryosurgery.
Photocoagulation Photocoagulation is a procedure that uses laser light to destroy blood vessels to the tumor, causing the tumor cells to die. Photocoagulation may be used to treat small tumors. This is also called light coagulation.
Thermotherapy Thermotherapy is the use of heat to destroy cancer cells. Thermotherapy may be given using a laser beam aimed through the dilated pupil or onto the outside of the eyeball, or using ultrasound, microwaves, or infrared radiation (light that cannot be seen but can be felt as heat).
Chemotherapy Chemotherapy is a cancer treatment that uses drugs to stop the growth of cancer cells, either by killing the cells or by stopping them from dividing. When chemotherapy is taken by mouth or injected into a vein or muscle, the drugs enter the bloodstream and can reach cancer cells throughout the body (systemic chemotherapy). When chemotherapy is placed directly into the spinal column, an organ (such as the eye), or a body cavity such as the abdomen, the drugs mainly affect cancer cells in those areas (regional chemotherapy). The way the chemotherapy is given depends on the type and stage of the cancer being treated.
A form of chemotherapy called chemoreduction is used to treat retinoblastoma. Chemoreduction reduces the size of the tumor so it may be treated with local treatment (such as radiation therapy, cryotherapy, photocoagulation, or thermotherapy).
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It seems like it has been awhile since I posted about my passion for eating local foods. Perhaps you were thinking it’s because it’s December?
Even in December, we can incorporate local foods into our diet to benefit the health of our ecosystems, our bodies, to reduce our carbon footprints, and to support small, friendly, community farmers!
Although the days of endless variety at the farmers’ market may have passed, there is still plenty of fresh, local, delicious food to eat! Squashes, potatoes, greens, onions, cheeses, and more abound! What more could you ask for?
And now on to a recipe for a sweet potato bake that I discovered (and then updated) several nights ago. It’s easy to make, very delicious, and a great way to taste the late fall!
To make it you’ll need:
- 3 large sweet potatoes
- 1 small onion, diced
- 2-3 Tbs. olive oil
- 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 pinches dried oregano
- 2 pinches dried rosemary
- Salt and pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 350*. Cut the sweet potatoes into 1″ pieces and toss with the oil, onion, and seasonings. Place into a glass baking dish and bake for 45 minutes – 1 hour. That’s it!
Yum! I love eating with the seasons!
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Xhale Inc. is working to develop a small mechanism similar to an alcohol breathalyzer to monitor med adherence. “You blow into it,” Xhale’s Elena Casson told POZ, “and it tells you whether you have taken the drugs.”
Casson says the adherence breathalyzer, which will send an electonic nudge if you’ve missed a dose, might be produced in about two years. One hurdle: If HIV meds aren’t breath detectable, drug companies may need to add special markers to enable drugs to register in the breath. Casson says researchers have found two drugs—acetaminophen (Tylenol) and valproic acid (Depakote, for epilepsy and bipolar disorder)—that are naturally detectable in breath; they haven’t tested others.
Xhale is also developing a breathalyzer for therapeutic drug monitoring—measuring blood levels of HIV meds to see whether your combo delivers enough (or too much) of each drug. “For this, we’ll need to correlate the levels of drugs in the breath with those in the blood,” Casson says. Until then, we’ll hold our breath.
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Posts Tagged metal pollutants
Tollymore Mountain Centre has been given a major boost with the completion of a new environmentally friendly paving system installed at the centre. With the help of Tobermore’s Hydropave Permeable Paving System and other energy saving and renewable energy technologies, Tollymore mountain centre has achieved a Breeam rating of excellent. The mountain centre is now a flagship building for sustainability, which exceeds current statutory requirements.
Tollymore Mountain Centre is Northern Ireland’s National Centre for mountaineering and canoeing activities. It is located in Tollymore Forest, on the edge of the Mourne Mountains, an area of natural beauty with a sensitive ecosystem.
With such as area of natural beauty it was very important for the centre to be as environmentally friendly as possible. The extensive paving installed at the centre is Tobermore’s pioneering Hydropave permeable paving system which is designed to help control flooding and reduce environmental problems.
The product allows water to escape below the paving to a gravel bed where, it is stored and released in a controlled manner back into the ground. The water is filtered as it goes through the system and harmful pollutants are also removed. Research has shown that Tobermore’s Hydropave can remove over 90% of Hydrocarbons and heavy metal pollutants which are highly dangerous to Flora and Fauna if they were allowed to enter the streams and waterways.
Tobermore’s Area Sales Executive for the project, Gareth Martin said: “We are delighted that Glasgiven Contracts were awarded the contract to use our Hydropave permeable paving system at the centre and that Andrew Boyd Landscapes finished the project to the highest standards“.
“In addition to its immense practical advantages, the Hydropave blocks used at the centre look fantastic and complement the attractive look of the new timber frame building and patio area/viewing gallery that is paved using our beautiful Sienna blocks. The external landscaping gives visitors an excellent first impression of the centre which is so important in the leisure industry“, Gareth concluded.Tags: harmful pollutants, metal pollutants, renewable energy technologies, sensitive ecosystem, timber frame building
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By Richard Wolf, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON Three months after taking office, President Obama will convene his first Cabinet meeting on Monday — still one seat short of a complete Cabinet.
Eager to promote budget-cutting efforts by all federal agencies, Obama will hold the meeting a day before the Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to vote on his last nominee, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, as secretary of Health and Human Services.
OBAMA'S CABINET: Who's who
Outside experts say Obama's Cabinet is among the latest to be filled since Inauguration Day was moved up six weeks, to Jan. 20, in 1937. The delays were caused by ethics problems that forced his first nominees for the Commerce and Health and Human Services departments to withdraw, and the more extensive vetting process that followed.
If she is confirmed by the Senate, Sebelius will complete a Cabinet that experts say is the most diverse in history. It will have seven women and nine racial and ethnic minorities among its 21 members — and only eight white men. Average age: 54.
"He has a majority-minority Cabinet," says Paul Light, an expert on presidential appointments at New York University. "In terms of white males, they're in the minority now."
Bill Clinton, the last Democratic president, had five women and six minorities in a first Cabinet that he said "looks like America" — one more in each category than George W. Bush had. Obama has shattered those numbers:
• There will be seven women with Sebelius, led by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
• There are four African-Americans, including the first as attorney general, Eric Holder. There are three Asian-Americans and two Hispanics.
• Seven Cabinet members are in their 40s, eight in their 50s and six in their 60s. The youngest is Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, who just turned 40. The oldest is Eric Shinseki, 66, who heads the Department of Veterans Affairs.
• The closest Obama comes to having a southerner is former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk, the U.S. trade representative. Three each hail from California, New York, the District of Columbia and Obama's home state of Illinois.
• The president has a preference for previous office-holders. His Cabinet includes four former governors, two ex-senators, and three former House members.
• Obama's effort to have a bipartisan Cabinet was set back a bit when his second Commerce secretary nominee, Republican Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, withdrew because of ideological differences. That leaves former GOP congressman Ray LaHood of Illinois as Transportation secretary and Robert Gates, a holdover from Bush's administration who considers himself a Republican, as Defense secretary.
The delay in completing the Cabinet hasn't stopped Obama's major initiatives. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's confirmation was stalled because he underpaid federal income taxes for several years, and his top deputies still aren't confirmed. Yet the administration pushed through a $787 billion economic stimulus package and other recession-fighting measures.
Obama called for overhauling the nation's health care system for the first time since Clinton's failed effort in 1994, without the benefit of a Health and Human Services secretary. His first nominee, former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, withdrew because of tax underpayments.
The delay is the longest in at least 20 years. Dick Cheney became President George H.W. Bush's Defense secretary in March 1989. Janet Reno became Clinton's attorney general in March 1993. "Any organization works better when there's somebody sitting in the first chair," says Calvin Mackenzie, government professor at Colby College.
Who's who in Obama's Cabinet
President Obama holds his first Cabinet meeting on Monday, but the Cabinet still isn't complete. Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' nomination as secretary of Health and Human Services is scheduled for a Senate committee vote Tuesday, which could lead to Senate confirmation this week. That would complete the Cabinet:
Source: USA TODAY research
Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more.
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The sacred dilemma of inoperosity. On Giorgio Agamben’s Opus Dei
by ANTONIO NEGRI
With this book, the journey Agamben began with Homo Sacer seems to have come to an end. It was a long road, from the early ‘90s until today, nearly twenty years. An archeology of ontology conducted (with a rigor that not even the bizarre and misleading game of little numbers put in order over different stages of his research could render opaque) – up to the reopening of the problem of Sein. A dig that not even Heidegger (in the words of the author who claims to be a young student of the German philosopher) was able to complete – because here ontology is freed from any remaining “operativity” of every illusion that can be tied to will and control. What is left? “The philosophical question that appears is that of conceiving of an ontology beyond operativity and command, and an ethics and a politics totally freed from the concepts of duty and will”.
The demonstration that the ontology criticized by Heidegger is still, in the end, a theory of operativity and will is undoubtedly a true idea. Already Schürmann developed this idea when he criticized Sein as being the same idea of “archè” and therefore as indistinctness of beginning and command. Following the development and successive organization of this ontology of operativity, that from the Neo-Platonists to the fathers of the Church, from the Latin philosophers to Kant, from Aquinas to Heidegger, that proposes an idea of being that is completely assimilated to will/command, is Agamben’s task – here accomplished with great skill.
Aristotle, first of all. In his theory of virtue as habit, he could have ripped being from any aporetic propulsion toward virtue, thus freeing himself of any valorizing operativity: he doesn’t manage to do it, even through he is the one who, at the origins of metaphysics, conceived virtue as the relationship with privation and as inoperative ontological determination. But from here on out – according to Agamben – things went from bad to worse. In Christianity (once again the immersion of the relationship between Neo-Platonism and Patrology calls Agamben to this path) action and will begin to take over. We’ll leave it to the medievalists to judge whether this Agambenian analysis is correct: it is sufficient for us to follow the thread that does show an indubitable coherence. Now, the Aristotelian aporia defined in the alternative of connecting (or not connecting) habit to virtue, being to duty, passivity to activity, doesn’t happen in Scholasticism. Critical habit is rather constitutively ordered to action and virtue no longer consists in being but in operating – and it is only through action that man can resemble God. So, in Thomas Aquinas: “It is this constitutive ordering of habit to action that the theory of virtue develops and is pushed to the extreme.” From now on, the history of metaphysics, stripped of critical archeology, shows a smooth continuity and reveals a sort of perverse anxiousness (according to Agamben) to play with and explore the operative principle of ethics and the concept of virtue as obligation and duty that medieval theology had granted it in heredity. The “infinite debt” which, according to the philosophers of the Second Scholasticism, consists in religious duty, is thus definitively planted into the metaphysics of modernity. With Kant the idea of an infinite task and duty appears for the first time, unreachable but not less dutiful for such. In an exemplary passage, Agamben summarizes: “Here it is clear that the idea of a ‘must-be’ is not only ethical nor merely ontological: rather, it aporetically ties being and praxis in the musical structure of a fugue where acting exceeds being not only because it always dictates new precepts to it, but also and above all because being itself has no other content than pure debt.” In the next pages, Agamben will polemically insist on interiorizing the idea of moral law, on its expansion in the form of self-control and even in the masochist pleasure of the law. “The substitution of the ‘glorious name of ontology’ with ‘transcendental philosophy’ means, in fact, that an ontology of ‘must-be’ has already lost its place as the ontology of being.”
A treatment and a conclusion that is wholly Heideggerian, one might say. And yet, we can feel it right away, this reference deludes Agamben. “Even Heidegger develops an ontology that is more complicit than one would think with the paradigm of operativity that he intends to critique.” This affirmation is shocking. Had Heidegger not gone far enough in his destruction of the ontology of modernity? Didn’t he strip the Sein of as much humanity as was possible to attribute it? No – Agamben insists – there is a point where Heidegger falls to the temptation of an operative ontology: the theory of technique and the critique of the Gesell show from this irresolution. “The metaphysical essence of technique cannot be understood if it is understood only in the form of production. It is also and above all government and oikonomia that, in their extremes, can also provisionally put casual production between parentheses in the name of more refined and diffused forms of the management of men and things.” Auschwitz teaches! Already in The Kingdom and the Glory, with a little attention, this conclusion could have been reached.
This is where I become suspicious. And what I mean is that this book, Opus Dei, although it summarizes and develops, like we’ve said, the analyses in The Kingdom and the Glory, in reality is not only the completion of the archeological thread of Agamben’s thought and work. This book rather marks Agamben’s definitive separation from Heidegger: ontological choice surpasses the archeological quality of the analysis and the clash reaches a fundamental level. Heidegger is here accused of having only managed to find a temporary solution to the aporias of being and of must-be (or rather operativity): indetermination more than separation, more than choice of another ontological terrain. I have to admit I felt a certain satisfaction in noticing this. But it was brief. What is the further inscrutable Sein that Agamben now, against Heidegger, proposes? Already once, in the 1990s, before venturing into the long adventure of Homo Sacer, in The Coming Community Agamben distanced himself from Heidegger: at that time, he had fallen to a Benjaminian, almost Marxist, solution, in promoting a challenge against the humanistic sense of being. Now, this is certainly not the direction that Agamben continues. On the contrary, he moves against any humanism, against any possibility of action, against any hope for revolution.
But how did Agamben get here, to this radicalized nihilism, where he swims delighting in the fact he has overcome (or concluded) Heidegger’s project? He has come across a long journey that is articulated in two directions: one a truly political-judicial critique, the other an archeological one (a theological-political dig). Carl Schmitt is at the center of this journey: he guides the two directions, the one that leads to qualifying power as exception and therefore as force and destiny, an absolute instrumentation without any technical quality and the sadism of finality; on the other hand, one that leads to the qualification of potency as theological illusion, i.e. impotency, in the sense of the impossibility of relying on its effectiveness. Therefore, he incites unproductiveness, thus denouncing the necessary frustration of will, of the masochism of duty. The two go together. It is nearly impossible, recovering the actuality of the Schmittian concepts of the “state of exception” and the “theological-political”, to understand if they represent the biggest danger or instead if they are simply an opening to their truth. Metaphysics and political diagnostics surrender to indistinctness. But that would be irrelevant if this indistinctness didn’t drown any possible resistance. Let’s go back to the two identified lines: the whole journey that follows Homo Sacer develops on this double track. The second track is summarized in The Kingdom and the Glory.
We insist: this second track is also moved by Carl Schmitt’s Political Theology and by confronting Heidegger’s ontology. We say this to avoid confusing Agamben’s archeology with Foucault’s archeology. Agamben is missing history, the history that Foucault treats not only as archeology of modernity but as an active genealogy of the present, of its coming and its unraveling, of its being and its becoming. History, for Agamben, doesn’t exist. Or rather, it is at most the history of law, the only place where the philosopher can become a grammarian and analyst of the grammar of control; but certainly it is also the place where biopolitics and genealogy can present themselves only in linear terms – just like destiny, in fact. Because here not even the shadow of subjectivity, of production, appears – and it rather seems that the latter is totally removed from acting, from technique, from operating and, above all, from resistance.
Thus the legal exemplifications Agamben presents in Opus Dei as definitive proof of his thesis come as no surprise. Rendering absolute the duty of law would have been introduced by Pufendorf more than Hobbes (and this process concludes with Jean Dormat). This could be. A distant seventeenth-century history, therefore, that marches in unison with the birth and development of the Second Scholasticism (that even Heidegger owes much to!) and the definitive stabilization of a metaphysics of operation, of effective virtue. But above all this is important because, as we’ve seen, it is Kant who picks up this motif and, after Kant, Kelsen renders it absolute in the fundamental figure of legal duty, of Sollen. Remember: it isn’t so much Kelsen’s conclusion that, although affirming the relationship between law and command as dutiful, is important here; the importance lies in the fact that it uses – a thousand miles away from its first affirmation, yet living throughout “European ideology” – the internal link to liturgy that goes from economic operativity to divine being, homogeneously articulated across legal deductions, up until the Sollen’s founding necessity: all this doesn’t represent anything less than the inscrutable command of divinity. Thus, Kelsen becomes the same as Schmitt and, as was supposed to be shown, the two open lines from Homo Sacer recompose: on one side the critique of exception and, on the other, the critique of Sollen, filtered in Christian oekonomia, unite in the end. But if we can accept this reduction – in general and in a space that is no longer legal nor political; if it is true that the practice of government founded on the law of exception and on the pretext of economic effectiveness have substituted every constitutional form of government; if, as Benjamin wrote a long time ago, “what is now effective is the state of exception in which we live and that we no longer know how to distinguish from the rule”: well, if all that is true, what can free us according to Agamben? (If that question even makes sense anymore!)
So we’ve reached the end of a complex journey. We should free ourselves from the concept and potency of will: thus Agamben starts to answer the question. We have to free ourselves from will that aims to become institution, that aims to be effective and actual. We know the reasons why. In Classical Greek philosophy, the concept of will has no ontological meaning; this disfigurement is introduced by Christianity, exaggerating elements that are embryonically present in Aristotle; so duty is introduced into ethics in order to give a foundation to control; thus the idea of will is elaborated to explain the passage from potency to the act. In this way, all western philosophy is put inside a space of insoluble aporias that triumph in full modernity, redefining the world as a technological and industrial product (what is more evident of the realization, of the becoming effective of power in contemporary reality – what more than this horizon?). Once again the question arises: how can we get out? How can a being without effectuality be regained? What great enigma Agamben has given us!
There might be a way that Agamben could still explore at this point. It is found in Spinoza, i.e. a way in which potency is immediately organized as a tool for action, where violence and pleasure are determined in the institutions of the multitude and constitutive capacity becomes an effort to construct, in history, freedom, justice and the common. Agamben perceives this perfectly atheist escape route. He in fact grasps it in the insulting refusal of Spinoza’s atheism that, in a critical moment in modernity, Pufendorf and Leibniz both declare. But the being that Agamben presents to us is, for now, so black and flat, the immanence so indistinct, the atheism so far from materialist, the nihilism so sad that Spinoza really can’t play his game – even if he considers superstition any ideology of the state that is not produced by the multitude and the body (the bodies of the multitude) an intransitive foundation of freedom. Nor can Spinoza, on the other hand, wait for the forms of life in the west to reach their historical consummation (refusing in the meanwhile to act so that will doesn’t bite effectiveness). Instead, he knows how to answer the questions of action, hope and the future.
What is the Enlightment? This is the question throughout Spinoza’s philosophy, but also in Machiavelli and Marx – and, more recently, was gloriously picked up by Foucault. Against Heidegger’s ontological Nazism. Really, the only place along Agamben’s long journey where the ontological threshold of potency could be reached is when, moving the accent from the linguistic forms of historical being, the form of life separates not from abstract law but from historically determined law (i.e. from property rights), not from command in general but from the command of capitalist production and its state. Working to dissolve property rights and the laws of capitalism is the only operative nihilism that virtuous men proclaim and act upon. But Agamben discards even this hypothesis – recently in his Altissima povertà [The Highest Poverty].
How will this story end? There is a question that, facing a discourse like Agamben’s, arises again: could the form – i.e. the action or the institution – save itself from the destruction of every dutiful content? Those who, in this regard, insists on tones and anarchic negations is just as irritating as those who think that the continuity of the institution or annulling all negative action represent the conditions for a radical step forward. Instead, it is probable that, against these extremists, just like in other revolutionary periods, Anarchism and Communism – in new forms, evermore often, in the struggles crossing our century – are getting closer and closer to one another. In any case, the only certain thing is that, as in Spinoza, “The man, who is guided by reason, is more free in a state, where he lives under a general system of law, than in solitude, where he is independent.”
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Updated 03/11/2013 06:20 PM
Harlem Robotics Team Advances To Championship Event
The Harlem Knights robotics team from the Frederick Douglass Academy took home one of the top honors at the FIRST NYC Regional Robotics Competition this week at the Javits Center.
FIRST, which stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, is a non-profit organization working to promote science and technology learning among young people, in partnership with Time Warner Cable's Connect A Million Minds initiative.
The Knights won the Chairman's Award at this week's regional FIRST competition, for their work on a robot that can throw flying discs and climb pyramids.
This year's FIRST competition, called Ultimate Ascent, involves teams of robots competing against each other on a 27'x54' field to see who can score the most goals with a disc and scale the tallest height on a pyramid structure.
The Chairman's Award allows the team to advance to the FIRST Robotics Competition Championship at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis on April 24–27.
It's the first time the Harlem Knights team has ever qualified for the FRC Championships.
Get more information on the Harlem Knights and help support the team's trip to the FRC Championships in St. Louis at facebook.com/hk1660.
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World life expectancy has risen by around 20 years in the last 50 years. This period has also witnessed rising happiness levels around the world suggesting that happiness might be one of the causes behind the decline in mortality. We investigate the relationship between happiness and mortality using the German Socio-Economic Panel. We consider doctor visits, self-reported health, and presence of chronic illness as health measures. After controlling for initial health conditions, we find that happiness extends life expectancy. Ten percent increase in happiness decreases probability of death by four percent, and this effect is more pronounced for men and younger people. Happiness plays a more important role for chronically ill people in decreasing mortality than for those who are not chronically ill. The positive influence of happiness on mortality can offset the negative impact of chronic illness. Marriage decreases mortality and this effect appears to work through increased happiness.
Source: Guven, Cahit and Saloumidis, Rudolph, ”Why is the World Getting Older? The Influence of Happiness on Mortality” (June 2009). SOEPpaper No. 198.
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From Autism Transition Handbook
General information for all families
Coverage for Children up to Age 21:
For specific information for your state, go to insure kids now.gov.
Medical Assistance has the broadest coverage of medical and mental health services for persons under 21 of any insurance plan. Even if you have private medical insurance, Medicaid may be available to cover services that are not covered under your plan.
New Information under the Affordable Health Care act:
According to the Judge Bazelon Center, the new Affordable Health Care act will impact eligibility for Medicaid for children, nationally, as follows:
- Eligibility is expanded to require coverage of all children with family incomes at or below 133% of the federal poverty level (as of 2010, $29,400 for a family of 4, or $14,400 for an individual).
- States may allow, at their discretion, certain families of children with disabilities to buy into the Medicaid program (this provision is from the Family Opportunity Act). Specifically, Medicaid coverage can be purchased by parents with family incomes of up to 300% of the federal poverty level for children under age 19 whose disabilities meet Supplemental Security Income (SSI) eligibility standards (Deficit Reduction Act).
- In addition, states will have the option starting in 2014 to extend Medicaid coverage—including all benefits and EPSDT—to former foster children who have aged out of the system, up to age 26 (Affordable Care Act).
Early Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment (EPSDT): Medical Assistance has a children’s health care benefit package called EPSDT. Every state is required to offer this program. Children and youth enrolled in EPSDT are entitled to regular check-ups and full physical and mental health care from birth up to age 21. Services that are considered medically necessary are covered under this program. Specifically, under its latest definition, EPSDT is intended to correct or ameliorate defects and physical and mental illnesses and conditions discovered by the screening process. Each state has latitude to create its own version of the medically necessary treatment definition, but all states must comply with the standard that the services are "sufficient in amount, duration and scope to reasonably achieve their purpose” (as defined by the prescriber, not a government employee or Managed Care Organization’s “reviewer”). For further information on these standards, refer to Title 42 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Chapter IV Part 440. EPSDT does not cover purely educational and vocational services, habilitation, environmental modifications and respite. These non-covered items are covered under Home and Community Based Waivers such as the Person/Family Directed Support and Consolidated Waivers.
Wrap Around Services: A Wrap Around Service is another name for Behavioral Health Rehabilitation Services (BHRS), which “wrap” around services already provided. BHRS is part of EPSDT and is a Medicaid-funded program that provides trained professional support for children under age 21 with a serious emotional or behavioral disorder to “reduce or replace problem behavior with positive, socially appropriate behavior.” BHRS services are medically necessary and not a substitute for speech and language, occupational, or physical therapies. Wrap Around services differ from education services designed to meet the goals of IDEA in that BHRS focus on community integration and skill development to increase the independence of individuals and their families. These services are defined by a Behavior Treatment Plan, or Behavior Care Plan. To access BHRS, contact the County MH/IDD office. Click on Wrap Around services for more information.
Coverage for Individuals Ages 21 and Older:
Medicaid is a complex system and varies widely by state. For a complete description of each state's services under Medicaid, refer to Health Insurance Finder, from Health.gov.
Coverage if Working Puts Individual over the Medicaid Limits (MAWD) Earning too much money can mean risking losing health care coverage. The Medical Coverage for Workers with Disabilities program (MAWD) lets individuals take a fulfilling job, earn more money and keep their full medical coverage. To be eligible for MAWD, you must:
- Be at least 16 years of age but less than 65
- Be employed and receiving compensation
- Have a disability that meets the Social Security Administration's standards (note: you do not need to be receiving SSA benefits)
- Have countable income below 250 percent of the Federal Poverty Income Guidelines
- Have $10,000 or less in countable resources (resident property and one automobile are not countable assets)
See Also: Medicaid which includes how to apply and eligibility requirements.
Other Publicly Funded Health Care Coverage
- CHIP Program. CHIP stands for the Children's Health Insurance Program. The Children’s Health Insurance Program enables states to provide health insurance to children from working families with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid, but too low to afford private health insurance. The program provides coverage for prescription drugs, vision, hearing and mental health services and is available in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Your state Medicaid agency can provide more information about this program, or you can get more information about coverage for your children at www.insurekidsnow.gov on the Internet or by calling 1-877-543-7669.
For specific information on your state's eligibility requirements for children and adults, the Kaiser Family Foundation has an excellent resource on Medicaid and CHIP coverage. The resource, which can be accessed at http://www.kff.org/medicaid/upload/8130.pdf covers Medicaid and CHIP eligibility, enrollment and renewal polices and procedures, premium and cost sharing requirements for all fifty states.
Private Health Insurance
According to the Affordable Care Act's 2010 provisions, private health insurance plans are required to allow parents to keep their dependent children on the family health insurance plan until the child turns 26 or works at a job that offers employer-sponsored insurance. Simply put, the ACA allows parents to continue carrying on their children on their health insurance policies up to age 26.
Insurance plans are also beginning to offer free preventive services like flu shots and blood pressure and cholesterol checks. Insurance companies can no longer put a lifetime cap on the amount of care they’ll cover or cancel your coverage over a mistake in your paperwork. By 2014, no one can be denied insurance due to a pre-existing condition.
An excellent article from the Autism Speaks Government Relations Division entitled "‘Aging Out’: How Does the New Federal Health Care Law Impact Coverage for Young Adults?" breaks down the health care reform to the fundamentals and on a state level basis. For example, individuals with autism in Pennsylvania can stay on their parents health insurance plan up to age 30, but only if the individual lives in PA and does not have any dependents.
Autism Insurance Reform
As of April 8, 2013, 35 states have passed autism insurance reform laws. For a full list of states that have passed legislation designed to eliminate marketplace discrimination on the basis of an autism diagnosis, please refer to the Autism Speaks website at AutismVotes.org.
Providing personal hygiene care to individuals with autism may be challenging, but adapting everyday skills to form individualized strategies and routines can prevent dental problems. The following guides present practical oral care methods and solutions for people with autism:
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Stork that ate babies, rather than delivering them
The fossilised bones of a giant stork big enough to devour human babies has been found on the Indonesian island of Flores, home of the miniature "hobbit" people who lived there more than 18,000 years ago.
The giant marabou stork grew up to 6ft tall, weighed 35lbs and would have towered over the adult hobbits, who were just 3ft tall. Although there was no evidence that it preyed on the tiny humans, scientists believe that it may well have dined on juvenile hobbits.
Bones of the stork, called Leptoptilos robustus, were unearthed from the floor of the Liang Bua cave, the same site where the bones of the hobbit, Homo floresiensis, were uncovered. Scientists believe that the stork may have lost its ability to fly, judging by the size and weight of its bones.
Hanneke Meijer, an expert in extinct bird species, made the discovery on a trip to Jakarta where the bones from the Ling Bua cave are kept in the national museum. "These big bones immediately stood out from the rest because of their large size," Dr Meijer said. "They clearly belonged to some big bird. I thought they must have belonged to a big raptor, such as a really big eagle, but to my surprise, when I was able to study them in more detail, I realised they were from a marabou stork. The leg bones are so thick, it must have spent much of its time on the ground."
Other than the human hobbits, who probably arrived on the island on boats, there were no large mammalian predators such as wolves or big cats on Flores at the time. This allowed many species to grow bigger, such as the stork and the giant rats that lived at the same time as the hobbits. "We think the stork moved into the position of being a top predator," Dr Meijer added. "It would have probably fed on the giant rats and even juvenile hobbits, which were the same size as the rats."
The giant stork most probably evolved from smaller storks that had flown to the island and, over time, lost the ability to fly away. The geographic isolation of Flores allowed the evolution of bizarre species, such as dwarf elephants, giant komodo dragons and miniature humans. Tests on the sediment around the bones suggest that the stork lived between 20,000 and 50,000 years ago. The hobbits were believed to have lived in isolation on the island for tens of thousand of years then vanished after a giant volcanic eruption about 17,000 years ago.
Despite its large size, the Flores stork was not the biggest to have existed; an even bigger flying stork once lived in what is now India.
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BMF is the UK’s biggest and best loved outdoor fitness classes
Find out what The Independent's resident travel expert has to say about one of the most beautiful small cities in the world
Nook is donating eReaders to volunteers at high-need schools and participating in exclusive events throughout the campaign.
Get the latest on The Evening Standard's campaign to get London's children reading.
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.
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For several minutes, we were there; in the cockpit of Flight 1549 as Captain Chesley Sullenberger calmly told the air traffic controller: “We’re going in the Hudson.” The dispatcher responded equally calmly: “Say again?” And Sullenberger responded with determination and fortitude: “We’re going in the Hudson.” The controller thought that certainly it would be the last time he would ever communicate with the man who has simply been dubbed ‘Sully’.
You could hear a pin drop as Captain Sullenberger played for the audience at the ASIS Keynote Speaker Session a NTSB voice transcript of the communication between the U.S. Air Force Academy graduate/veteran pilot Captain Sullenberger and air traffic controllers and the packed audience watched a recreated graphic of the flight path of the Airbus A320 bound from New York’s LaGuardia Airport to Charlotte, North Carolina.
Packed with 155 passengers, the jet hit a flock of birds shortly after takeoff, disabling both engines. Quickly and with calm resolve, Captain Sullenberger knew almost immediately that his life’s aspirations to become a pilot would be tested that day as never before and the decision to ditch the plane into the Hudson was the only choice to try to save the plane crowded with business travelers.
In a talk that was both heart wrenching and inspirational, Captian Sullenberger treated the audience to an inside look at what happened that day on January 15, 2009 and how it changed his life forever, thrusting him into the media limelight and making him a hero across every continent.
“In retrospect,” Sullenberger said, “my crew and I did our jobs exceptionally well—we came up with a plan in a matter of seconds. I was an ordinary person who found himself in extraordinary circumstances,” he said. He had some 20,000 hours of flight time logged and decades of experience.
Sullenberger said he thought that what really captured the imagination of the world with this story was that it came at a time when people really needed a reason to be hopeful again, seen as a life affirming incident. He said since that day he has received thousands of letters, one with five single dollars and a note that read: ‘Have a beer on me Sully.’
Captain Sully told of his childhood, his lifelong desire to become a pilot and who he looks to for inspiration—the nation’s Medal of Honor recipients, 26 of 87 who are still living.“Courage may be having the discipline to know what to do in spite of fear.”
He spoke of the value of education, of being a lifelong learner, of having aspirations and operating with civic duty. “Dedication matters and requires discipline. Integrity means doing the right thing even if it’s not convenient. You all have an opportunity to be a leader, to be a teammate, to make a difference. Ask yourself: ‘did I make a difference?’ and hopefully the answer is ‘yes.’”
– Deborah L. O’Mara, editor, SD&I magazine
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Address by the Commissioners of Indian Affairs for the United States to the Creek Nation concerning Native American support for the British Army
Galphin, George, d. 1780; Rae, Robert; Walker, John; Jones, Willie, ca. 1741-1801; Wilkinson, Edward
Volume 10, Pages 330-331
A Talk from the Rebel Commissioners to the Creeks.
Salisbury in North Carolina, 13th Novr, 1775.
Friends and Brothers,
We met here in consequence of our being chosen by the Provinces in America from East Florida to Canada as Commissioners to superintend Indian Affairs for the Southern District, and as we have
-------------------- page 331
taken a great fatigue and trouble upon ourselves in riding so far and leaving our Houses and Plantations to serve you all and to endeavour to keep you supplied with goods and ammunition as formerly, We hope you will continue our stedfast friends and brothers as you always have been. We have for the purpose of preserving peace & friendship between you and us, determined to hold a Congress at Augusta the first of May next, when and where we do request the pleasure of seeing a few of your beloved Headmen, such as you may think proper to send down in order that they may then send up a Talk from us to you.
From the Talks you have had from the Beloved Men in Georgia and Mr Galphin you have been repeatedly told the nature of the disputes between the father and his children. We hope it will soon be over, & we desire you to have no concern in it. Further, as you promised to Mr Rae and Mr Holmes when they were in the Nation that you would have no bad Talks, we beg you will punctually continue in that determination. You know well that there are bad people amongst us, as there are amongst you, and as we are chosen by all the Beloved Men to act as your Friends and Brothers, we accordingly do wish you may give credit to no other Talks but such as you from time to time get from some of us and signed with some of our names, by which means we shall always be able (we hope) to keep the path open between us and you.
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The answer to yesterday’s mystery is … Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (RMSF)! Great job A.M., Ashley, Erin, CB, Peaceable Traveller, Scott, Rich S, hellomolly, Donna A., ColorMaven, Meg, Gracie287, DG, O’B1, duhhh, Jen Smith, Angelita, Susan Schwartz, and JP.
RMSF is a bacterial infection with Rickettsia ricketsii that is transmitted by a tick bite. Ticks of the Dermacentor genus tend to live in the southeastern US and Rocky Mountain region, giving the disease its name. Though it is more common in spring through fall months, RMSF can occur in the winter. When an infected tick bites a human, the bacteria is transmitted from the tick’s salivary glands into the blood of the human host. This bacteria tends to latch on to the lining of blood vessels, causing inflammation. The bacteria is sneaky and can evade being killed by immune system cells, allowing it to spread throughout the body.
Our patient’s rash is due to the inflammation within the blood vessels. RMSF tends to cause a stereotypical rash which starts on the wrists and ankles and spreads to the palms and soles of the feet. The bacteria also pokes holes in blood vessels, causing swelling as seen in our patient’s feet. The body’s inflammatory response can cause a host of other symptoms, including fever, muscle aches, and joint pain.
RMSF is the most deadly tick borne illness. The patient should be treated with an antibiotic, doxycycline. He should also be monitored for complications of infection, some of which can be life threatening. The mortality when RMSF is treated is only 5%, whereas untreated 20% will die.
Hope you enjoyed this week’s medical mystery! Avoid ticks during your next vacation to the Rocky Mountains!
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Standardized assays for cellular functions are critical for health and disease diagnostics and for drug testing. Towards this goal, emerging technologies for microscale control can help reduce variability from external influences and reveal cellular heterogeneity. Measuring cell motility is one example of cellular function, considered to be inherently noisy, where technology could enable robust and reproducible measurements. Such measurements could help establish normal reference values for healthy cells, measure changes during disease, or compare the effect of various drugs and compounds. Ultimately, these achievements could pave the way for establishing a generally accepted and easy to use metric system for cell motility, and could lead to many more predictive in vitro systems for cellular functions relevant to health and disease.
The theme for the 2012 World Cell Race is “Speed and Persistence” during cell motility. The Race is organized in collaboration by the BioMEMS Resource Center at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and the Systems Cell Biology Group at the Institute Curie in Paris. At the end of the race, together we will:
• measure the fastest and most persistent cells migrating along channels
• have a chance to compare cells from various labs around the world and reference cells from cell repositories.
• stimulate interdisciplinary discussions between people developing assays for measuring cell motility and people using this information for science and clinical applications.
• increase the awareness of non-scientists to the major role cell motility in health and disease, from inflammation to cancer and from development to tissue regeneration.
The 2012 World Cell Race will take place at six selected Nikon Imaging Centers around the world. At the time of the race, early this Fall, you will send your “competition ready” cells to one of these centers. Images of cells migrating through small channels of the assay will collected automatically. Advanced imaging analysis will be employed to measure the migration speed and persistence parameters for these cells. Memorable prizes will be awarded to the teams that sent us the fastest, more persistent cells. For more details on how you could participate to the success of the 2012 World Cell Race, please visit regularly this website for more details and updates.
Daniel Irimia - Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School
Matthieu Piel - Systems Biology of Cell Polarity and Cell Division, Institute Curie
World Cell Race Buzz
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In April 1941, a Romanian census taker came to the home of a suspected Roma Gypsy working as a blacksmith in the picturesque town of Schaas. The senior Nazi statistical official observing the process wrote, “He did not dare to deny his ethnical descent as Gypsy.” The census taker instructed: “Now, please write: Gypsy.”
Shortly thereafter, that Gypsy blacksmith’s census questionnaire, filled out by simple pencil, joined thousands of similar questionnaires at the Romanian Central Institute for Statistics facility. This facility was equipped with the latest IBM Hollerith high-speed punch-card machines, specifically programmed for the Romanian census. IBM’s Hollerith punch-card system stored any information, such as ethnic type, profession and residential location, in the rows and columns strategically punched. The cards could then be counted and cross-tabulated at the rate of 24,000 cards per hour, yielding almost any permutation of data.
To help systematize the persecution and extermination of minorities, the Romanians used custom-designed punch cards, printed exclusively by IBM, which included special columns and rows for all ethnic groups, including Roma Gypsies. The printed census forms were approved for compatibility by IBM engineers, ensuring each of the numbered boxes on the printed census forms corresponded to the designated punch-card column. Because this was a state-of-the-art census, the women operating IBM equipment were all at least high school educated.
Within a year of being identified, an estimated 25,000 Gypsies were rounded up pursuant to the Romanian Interior Minister’s order #70S/1942. Typically, roadblocks were set up on the outskirts of town as gendarmes, with lists of names, fanned out to arrest the Gypsies. Gypsies were then deported in trains, which were scheduled and tracked by IBM’s leased and regularly serviced Hollerith machines. Their destination was a death of starvation, beatings or execution every bit as horrible as that experienced by the Jews of Romania.
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Soyuz TMA-O1M approaches International Space
Station for docking. Photo Credit/NASA TV
The Soyuz TMA-01M spacecraft carrying Russians Alexander Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka and American Scott Kelly docked smoothly with the International Space Station late on Oct. 9, restoring the orbital lab to a full complement of six crew members.
The linkup with the Poisk module unfolded with the Soyuz spacecraft, its avionics upgraded to digital components for the first time, in the automated mode at 8:01 p.m., EDT.
The newcomers joined the station’s Expedition 25 crew, Doug Wheelock and Shannon Walker, of NASA, and cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin.
The TMA-OM1 and its crew began their six-month mission early on Oct. 8, local time, when their Soyuz rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The Oct. 9 docking restored the station to six crew members for the first time since Sept. 25, when the Soyuz-TMA-18 descended to Earth with two Russians and an American.
The count is scheduled to hold at six until Nov. 30, when Wheelock, Walker and Yurchikhin are to depart for Earth in their Soyuz TMA-19 capsule.
At that time, Wheelock will relinquish command to Kelly.
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Northeast Elementary School 82 Scofieldtown Rd, Stamford, CT06903 Northeast Elementary School is one of 12 public elementary schools serving the city of Stamford. Its curriculum is based…More on the Responsive Classroom philosophy, which focuses on respecting the children and in turn having them respect each other, and serves its diverse group of students with a large bilingual program. Northeast takes advantage of its proximity to the Stamford Historical Society and the Stamford Nature Center by using these institutions to further enhance its curriculum.
Founded in 2004, Stamford Academy is the second public charter school in Stamford opened by DOMUS following…More Trailblazers Academy. Stamford Academy provides classes for students in grades 9-12 who have previously struggled in more traditional environments.</p>
<p>Stamford Academy's mission is "to re-engage and guide students in acknowledging and developing their educational strengths while acquiring the skills to contribute positively to themselves and their community." In addition to offering smaller classes and individualized instruction, Stamford Academy offers clinical services such as individual and group counseling, and support groups for teen mothers and fathers.</p>
City of Stamford Technology Management Services Office 184 Bedford St, Stamford, CT06901 Located on the ninth floor, Technology Management Services manages technological support and development for the…More Stamford Government Center, all city facilities and Stamford public schools through both in-house and outsourced technicians.
Toquam Magnet Elementary School 123 Ridgewood Ave, Stamford, CT06907 Founded in 1968, Toquam is one of Stamford's four magnet elementary schools where students in grades K through 5 come…More together from all areas of the city to learn. Located in the Glenbrook section of the city, Toquam offers an academic program based on The Bank Street College of Education philosophy and curricula model and has a focus on social studies. The school also participates in the Stamford Public Schools' Before & After School Care (ROSCCO) program.
Davenport Ridge Elementary School 1300 Newfield Ave, Stamford, CT06905 Opened in 1972, Davenport Ridge Elementary is one of 12 elementary schools serving the city of Stamford. Located on…More Newfield Avenue, Davenport holds classes for grades K through 5 and offers a comprehensive curriculum that includes math, social studies, language arts and science classes. Davenport Ridge also participates in the Stamford Public Schools' Before & After School Care (ROSCCO) program.
Founded in 2003, Stamford Achieves is an organization that was formed to help close the achievement gap within the…More Stamford Public School System through various programs for both students and parents. Stamford Achieves is responsible for creating Tutoring Achieves in 2007, which provides tutoring in reading for students at two pilot schools—Springdale and Davenport Ridge. Once the program received an endorsement from the state, the programs extended to the Yerwood Center, the Boys and Girls Club, CTE and Stark School.</p>
<p>Stamford Achieves also has a program called PEAK, which trains parents to become advocates for their children within the public school system. It has regular meetings with the superintendent of schools, Joshua Starr, to share and discuss ideas.</p>
<p>Stamford Achieves' office is located within the United Way of Stamford building.</p>
State Representative Gerald Fox III/146th Assembly District 66 Fairview Ave, Stamford, CT06902 State Representative Gerald Fox III is the Assistant Majority leader serving Stamford's 146th Assembly District. …More Mr. Fox is a Stamford native and graduated Westhill High School before attending Providence College and Marshall Law School in Chicago. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Stamford Public Education Foundation, CTE, Inc. and the Advisory Board for the Stamford Youth Foundation. Mr. Fox has helped make Stamford one of the safest cities in America by writing and supporting legislation to protect victims of violent crimes and strengthen penalties against offenders.
Roscco 641 Scofieldtown Rd, Stamford, CT06903 Founded in 1975, Roscco is the Stamford School Community Organization. The organization works with the public schools to…More provide Stamford children and parents with educational and family support programs and enrichment activities such as before and after-school programs. Support programs are offered in collaboration with Childcare Learning Centers, the School Readiness Council and the Department of Adult and Continuing Education. Roscco funds its programs through private and corporate donations, and receives grants from the Connecticut Departments of Education and Social Services and the Stamford Public Schools. The organization's registration office is located at Hart Magnet School, and its administrative offices are located at Scofield Magnet Middle School.
Laidlaw Transit Inc 11 Brown House Rd, Stamford, CT06902 When it comes to the way people get around throughout the greater Stamford area, Laidlaw Transit plays a large…More part. Managed by First Transit Inc. and one of the nation's largest bus transportation providers, Laidlaw provides local bus transportation for the Stamford public school system.
Dolan Middle School 51 Toms Rd, Stamford, CT06906 Founded in 1948, Dolan Middle School is one of five public middle schools serving the city of Stamford. Known as the…More home of the Raiders, Dolan offers students in grades 6 to 8 a quality curriculum that includes math, science, language arts, music, art and physical education. Dolan is also certified by College for Every Student (CFES) as well as the Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program. Dolan is equipped with a cafeteria, media center, an auditorium and science labs.
Stamford Public Schools Central Office 184 Bedford St, Stamford, CT06901 Located within the Stamford Government, the Stamford Public Schools Central Office handles the operation of the city's…More 20 public schools, which are attended by more than 15,000 students. The Superintendent of Schools Joshua Starr conducts business at the Central Office along with the Deputy Superintendent, the Director of School Improvement and Professional Development and ten additional members of the district administration. Through the Central Office, Stamford residents can contact the following departments: Alternate Routes to Success (ARTS) Program, Bilingual & ESL Programs, Curriculum & Instruction, Facilities Management, Office of Family and Community Engagement, Finance, GE Foundation Developing Futures Program, Grants and Funded Programs, Human Capital Development, Performance Management and Accountability, Public Affairs, Research and Evaluation, Safety and Security, Special Education Services, Student Support Services and Transportation.
Government Center 888 Washington Blvd, Stamford, CT06901 Located in Stamford, the town's Government Center is a community resource building that is responsible for the welfare,…More maintenance, preservation and well-being of all citizens and town matters. This establishment is responsible for licenses, permits, forms, charters, codes and ordinances, among other items. Government Center is also home to the Mayor's office, Board of Finance, Board of Representatives, Public Safety, City Operations, Legal Affairs, Stamford Public Schools and Administration.
Turn of River Middle School 117 Vine Rd, Stamford, CT06905 Opened in 1963, Turn of River is one of five public middle schools serving the city of Stamford. Located on Vine Road…More across the street from the Harry Bennett branch of the Ferguson Library, Turn of River serves a diverse group of students in grades 6-8 and is "dedicated to developing children into responsible and caring individuals." The school's curriculum includes classes in social studies, language arts and math, and through the Stamford Youth Foundation, students are given the chance to participate in intramural sports.
Julia A. Stark School, located in the Glenbrook section of Stamford, is one of the 12 elementary schools serving the…More city. Known as a "true neighborhood" school, Stark has a mission to "educate all students to become responsible and productive learners." Stark serves a very diverse group of students where 28 languages and numerous nationalities are represented.</p>
<p>Stark provides students in grades K - 5 with a comprehensive curriculum that includes math, reading and science. It also participates in the Stamford Public Schools' Before School Care (ROSCCO) program. The campus includes a cafeteria, gym, auditorium and a media center.</p>
<p>Stark opened 83 years ago as an expansion of Glenbrook School on Crescent Street, which now is the site of the Glenbrook Community Center. It was named after Julia A. Stark, who taught in Stamford schools for nearly 50 years.</p>
Known as "the green school for global citizens," Rogers International School is one of four magnet elementary schools…More serving Stamford, as well as students from Darien, Norwalk, Weston, Ridgefield and Monroe. All students come into Rogers through a lottery conducted by the Stamford Public Schools.</p>
<p>Rogers is an authorized International Baccalaureate Program school with a mission "to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect." The school's curriculum offers a strong focus on areas such as environmental studies and foreign language instruction, in an atmosphere that encourages students to ask challenging questions.</p>
<p>In 2009, Rogers moved into a new 105,000-square-foot building award-winning energy-saving features. The school currently has classes for students in kindergarten though sixth grade, but by the 2011-12 school year, Rogers will also have classes for seventh and eighth graders.</p>
Rippowam Middle School 381 High Ridge Rd, Stamford, CT06905 After serving as a public high school, a cluster middle school and then a magnet middle school, Rippowam became a public…More middle school in 2001. Located on High Ridge Road in front of the Academy of Information Technology + Engineering, Rippowam is equipped with its own auditorium, cafeteria and media center. Headed by Principal George Giberti, Rippowam is committed to "promoting academic excellence within a safe, nurturing environment that is responsive to the social, emotional, and intellectual needs of the adolescent child."
Trailblazers Academy is Stamford's first charter school serving students in grades six to eight. The school is…More operated in a partnership between DOMUS, Stamford Public Schools and the City of Stamford, and provides an alternate learning environment for students may not have thrived in traditional classrooms. The classes are kept small, allowing students to receive more personal attention. Enrollment into Trailblazers is based on a lottery process. During the 2009 to 2010 school year, Trailblazers' student body was approximately 65 percent black, 30 percent Latino and 5 percent white.</p>
<p>Students of the Trailblazers Academy are invited to stay after school to participate in the Lion's Den, which offers programs such as sports, games, field trips, workshops and homework help. Trailblazers also offers a summer program for returning sixth and seventh graders.</p>
Weekly Reader Corporation 200 Stamford Pl, Stamford, CT06902 The Weekly Reader is an industry leader in educational magazines and has 12 different publications. The material is read…More by children everywhere in pre-school through 12th grade. It also has magazines that are geared toward older audiences. Topics covered include science, technology, mathematics and many other interesting issues. The offices are located in the business complex of 200 Stamford Place only a short drive from downtown and close to the Metro North. The company also makes available classroom magazines, digital products and curriculum-based publications. Visit the website for more details.
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- Aquatic Plants
- Terrestrial Plants
- Aquatic Animals
- Terrestrial Animals
- Pathogens & Parasites
- Agricultural Invaders
SearchResources Materials Related Sites
Hydrilla (Hydrilla verticillata (L.f.) Royle)
[Profile revised October 3, 2012]
Hydrilla (Hydrilla verticillata), also commonly called water thyme, is a submersed perennial herb. The plant is rooted in the bed of the waterbody and has long stems (up to 25 feet in length) that branch at the surface where growth becomes horizontal and forms dense mats. Small (2 - 4 mm wide, 6 - 20 mm long), pointed, often serrated leaves are arranged around the stem in whorls of 3 to 10. Southern populations are predominantly dioecious female (plants having only female flowers) that overwinter as perennials. Populations north of South Carolina, including populations in New York, are essentially monoecious (having both male and female flowers on the same plant) that set some fertile seed, and depend on tubers for overwintering. These monoecious plants produce female flowers with three translucent petals 10 - 50 mm long by 4 - 8 mm wide, and male flowers with three white to red narrow petals about 2 mm long.
Close-up of Hydrilla. Photo: Chris Evans, River to River CWMA, Bugwood.org
The dioecious form of Hydrilla is believed to originate from the Indian subcontinent, specifically the island of Sri Lanka, although random DNA analysis also indicates India's southern mainland as a possible source location. The monoecious form is believed to have arrived on our shores from Korea.
Hydrilla can be found infesting freshwater lakes, ponds, rivers, impoundments and canals.
Hydrilla infestation of small lake. Photo: Tim Murphy, University of Georgia, Bugwood.org
The dioecious strain of H. verticillata was imported as an aquarium plant in the early 1950s. Discarded (or intentionally planted ) colonies were found in canals in Miami and Tampa shortly after. The monoecious strain was introduced separately decades later in the Potomac Basin.
Both dioecious and monoecious Hydrilla propagate primarily by stem fragments, although turions (buds) and subterranean tubers also play an important role. The main means of introduction of Hydrilla is as castaway fragments on recreational boats and trailers and in their live wells. New colonies can often be found near boat ramps as such stem pieces become rooted in the substrate (even very, very small fragments can become the start of new populations). Boat traffic through established populations can shatter and spread Hydrilla throughout the waterbody, similar to the spread of Eurasian watermilfoil.
Hydrilla is often a contaminant on popular watergarden plants and may be unwittingly transported and established in private ponds in this manner. As with most invasive aquatic plant species, Hydrilla is a very opportunistic organism and can often be found taking over waters that have had populations of Eurasian watermilfoil chemically removed without a management plan for reestablishing native vegetation.
Hydrilla can invade deep, dark waters where most native plants cannot grow. The plant’s aggressive growth (hydrilla’s 20 - 30 foot stems can add up to an inch per day) can spread into shallow water areas and form thick mats that block sunlight to native plants below, effectively displacing the native vegetation of a waterbody. Major colonies of hydrilla can alter the physical and chemical characteristics of lakes:
- It is one of the world's worst aquatic invasive plants
- It blocks sunlight and displaces native plants below with its thick, dense surface mats
- Stratification of the water column and decreased dissolved oxygen levels can lead to fish kills
- The weight and size of sportfish can be reduced when open water and natural vegetation are lost
- Waterfowl feeding areas and fish spawning sites are eliminating by dense surface mats
- Thick mats of vegation can obstruct boating, swimming and fishing
- The value of shorefront property can be significantly reduced, hurting both homeowners and the communities that rely on taxation of shoreline property
- In severe infestations, intakes at water treatment, power generation, and industrial facilities can be blocked
Emergent stems and leaves of Hydrilla. Photo: David J. Moorhead, University of Georgia, Bugwood.org
Hydrilla has pointed, bright green leaves about 5/8 inches long. The leaves grow in whorls of 3 - 10 along the stem, 5 being most common. The margins of the leaves are serrated (toothed). Thin stalks from the stem end in a single, small, floating white flower at the water's surface. A key identifying feature is the presence of small (up to half inch long), dull-white to yellowish, potato-like tubers which grow 2 to 12 inches below the surface of the sediment at the ends of underground stems. These tubers form at the end of the growing season and serve to store food to allow Hydrilla to overwinter.
Illustration: Cayuga Lake Watershed Network (Rev. October 3, 2012, CCE ISP)
Close-up of H. verticillata stem and leaves. Photo: Robert Vidéki, Doronicum Kft., Bugwood.org
|Hydrilla is often confused with the common native water weed, Elodea Canadensis, which has whorls of 3 smooth-edged leaves as opposed to whorls of 4 to 10 serrated and spined leaves.|
Line art: University of Florida Center for Aquatic Plants
The best way to help prevent the spread of Hydrilla is to follow basic clean boating techniques:
For All Types of Watercraft:
- Be aware of and, if possible, avoid passing through dense beds of aquatic vegetation
- Inspect your watercraft, all equipment, and trailers after each use for any plant material
- Remove and dispose of all plant matter, dirt, mud and other material in a trash can or above the waterline on dry land well away from where it might get washed back into the lake
- Clean and dry all equipment thoroughly before visiting other water bodies (including anything that got wet, such as fishing gear and the family dog)
For Non-Motorized Craft Such as rowing shells, canoes, kayaks, and sailboards:
Open airlocks on shells or air bladders on kayaks after use and allow to dry thoroughly, as plant fragments can survive moist conditions for many days
Around Docks, Launch Sites, and Other Areas:
If plant fragments are piling up around dock areas, use a rake to remove plant material and dispose in the trash
Mechanical harvesting and herbicide spraying are common control methods of controlling Hydrilla. Both are expensive and only moderately effective.
- Power weed cutters mow underwater weeds below the water surface and gather them onto a conveyor. The harvesting process is expensive, costing over $1,000 per acre. Because of Hydrilla’s rapid growth, mechanical harvesting needs to be performed several times per growing season. Since the mowing and removal process cannot capture every single fragment of Hydrilla stem and leaf, water and wind currents moving away from the harvest area can easily carry these fragments to uninfested areas of a waterbody and result in new populations taking root.
- Chemicals are easier to apply, but also costly. Herbicide spraying works best in small, enclosed bodies of water, and does not work at all in larger bodies the size of a Finger Lake, or in moving water such as a stream, river or canal. Herbicides can also have unintended impacts on native flora, as well. For those reasons, permits for chemical control of Hydrilla are difficult to obtain in New York.
- Biological control insects as part of efforts to control Hydrilla have been attempted in Florida with mixed results. Leaf-mining flies from Australia and India and a tuber-feeding weevil from India have been used overseas. The insects released are not native to NY, nor are they currently permitted for release in the State. The use of non-native species to attempt to control another non-native species can be risky if the newly released species out-competes native insects, causing a new invasive species problem. The use of sterile grass carp has been used with some success in small lakes in the southern US but would be impractical in lakes the size of the Finger Lakes.
- Another method of dealing with Hydrilla infestations is the control of water levels. Temporary control of Hydrilla has been shown to result from large-scale, long-term water drawdowns. However, since new plants can grow from the buried tubers, regrowth can take place when water levels are allowed to return to normal. Drawdowns also can have negative environmental impacts on native plant species and on fish populations.
- Suction harvesting of Hydrilla growth by divers using very strong vacuum hoses can be used to remove Hydrilla from confined areas. However, as with drawdowns, if the underground tubers are not removed by dredging following the suction harvesting, regrowth can take place from the tubers during the next growing season. Further, any fragments that might escape during vacuum activities can float away to root and start new infestations.
The “best”, most effective way to control Hydrilla is the prevention of new Hydrilla infestations.
Waterbodies infested with Hydrilla can be found in 70% of Florida's freshwater drainage basins, making it the most abundant aquatic plant in that state’s waters. Hydrilla is also widespread throughout Alabama; impoundments on the Tennessee River; eastern Mississippi; southeastern Tennessee; southwestern Georgia; South Carolina; eastern North Carolina; in Virginia’s Potomac, Rappahannock, and Appomattox Rivers and into the piedmont, in the tidal freshwater reaches of the Potomac River on the Virginia/Maryland border; along the western and northeastern shores of the Chesapeake Bay, including the Pautuxent River, where it is the most abundant plant species; Pennsylvania (in the Schuylkill River near downtown Philadelphia); eastern Kentucky; in ponds in Delaware; southeastern Connecticut; in a Cape Cod pond in Massachusetts; in southwestern Maine; in New Jersey’s Lower Delaware drainage; Indiana's Lake Manitou; Wisconsin; and since 2008, in three New York lakes in Suffolk and Orange Counties, and in Cayuga Lake in NY's Finger Lakes.
Hydrilla can also be found at numerous sites west of the Mississippi River.
H. verticillata was detected in the Cayuga Lake Inlet in Ithaca, New York in mid-August 2011 by staff of the Cayuga Lake Floating Classroom. A follow-up survey by Robert L. Johnson, a former researcher with the Cornell University Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, now with Racine-Johnson Aquatic Ecologists, located extensive Hydrilla populations in several areas of the Inlet. As of early-September 2011, the Hydrilla appears to be localized to the Inlet, with no evidence of the plant in Cayuga Lake proper. This is the first detection of Hydrilla in upstate New York. The risk of the plant spreading to the rest of Cayuga Lake and other regional waterbodies in the Finger Lakes region is considered to be substantial. State, regional, and local officials and organizations, along with biologists from Cornell University are developing plans to control, manage, and prevent the spread of the invader, as well as outreach efforts to enlist the public's help in preventing the plant's spread.
Menninger, H. 2011. Hydrilla verticillata in the Cayuga Inlet: A science‐based review to guide management actions. NY Invasive Species Research Institute, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. 11 pp.
Northeast Aquatic Nuisance Species Panel. 2013. Monoecious Hydrilla – A Review of the Literature
Northeast Aquatic Nuisance Species Panel. 2013. Cited Articles and Abstracts
NOT WANTED! Hydrilla verticillata, Rev. 3. NY Invasive Species Clearinghouse and Cornell Cooperative Extension Invasive Species Program. Rev. October 5, 2012. 6-panel, tri-fold brochure for statewide distribution. General information brochure for boaters statewide
Hydrilla verticillata: What Marinas Need to Know. NY Invasive Species Clearinghouse/Cornell Cooperative Extension Invasive Species Program/New York Sea Grant. April 4, 2012. 2-page factsheet. Specific information for marinas
NOT WANTED IN THE ERIE CANAL! NY Invasive Species Clearinghouse and Cornell Cooperative Extension Invasive Species Program. Rev. 2, October 17, 2012. 4-page, bi-fold brochure. Erie Canal/Tonawanda Creek specific.
NOT WANTED! Hydrilla verticillata in the Cayuga Inlet. NY Invasive Species Clearinghouse and Cornell Cooperative Extension Invasive Species Program. August 30, 2011. 4-page, bi-fold brochure. Cayuga Lake Inlet specific.
Lake George Invasive Species Fact Sheet 34: Hydrilla. Lake George Waterkeeper. January 2010. Two-page general information publication.
Stop The Invasion: Hydrilla. August 2010. State of Washington Invasive Species Council. Two-page general information publication.
HEADING OFF HYDRILLA: Another invasive species is heading towards the Great Lakes: Hydrilla verticillata. 2006. Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. Two-page general information publication.
Invasive Weed Identification Guide: Weeds Watch Out!. A guide to identifying aquatic invasive weeds in the Central New York region and how to recognize the difference between the invaders and their native look-alikes. Cayuga Lake Watershed Network and Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association. 2005
Vermont Invasive Exotic Plant Fact Sheet: Hydrilla. Spring 1998. Departments of Environmental Conservation and Fish & Wildlife, of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, and The Nature Conservancy of Vermont. Two-page general information publication.
C.C. Jacono, M.M. Richerson), and V. Howard Morgan. 2011. Hydrilla verticillata. USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database, Gainesville, FL. US Geological Survey, US Department of the Interior. http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/factsheet.aspx?speciesid=6
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The arrest of Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) founder, Jean-Claude Mas, in January, brought 2 years of investigations to its logical, albeit protracted, conclusion. However, the story goes back much farther, and there is much more work to do.
Poly Implant Prothese – PIP
PIP was founded in 1991 as a manufacturer of silicone breast implants covered with a polyurethane foam. When the US FDA restricted the use of silicone gel breast implants in 1992, the silicone breast implant market shrank. In 1995, France too placed restrictions on silicone filled breast implants. PIP expanded its market through innovation, and began offering pre-filled saline breast implants in 1996. It was with these pre-filled saline implants that PIP moved into the US market. 1996 was the first time I heard the name PIP.
PIP’s Short Lived Stay in the US – Thank You FDA
After a few years of use, it became clear to US plastic surgeons that PIP breast implants where not the same quality that US Board Certified Plastic Surgeons were used to with Inamed (formerly McGahn and now Natrelle under Allergan) and Mentor (now Johnson & Johnson). In general, breast implant failure rates are low in the first year and are more likely to leak the older they get, but the PIP saline implants seemed to leak much sooner and more often. Moreover, all PIP pre-filled saline implants experienced volume loss, even without obvious holes. A study published much later, in 2006, confirmed this. PIP’s popularity wained.
The FDA Goes to France
In May 2000, a decade before the current PIP silicone filled breast implant crisis, the US FDA performed an inspection of the PIP factory in La Seyne-sur-Mer (Southern France). The finding led to the immediate halt of all US PIP breast implant sales. The FDA issued a warning letter to PIP owner, Jean-Claude Mas, declaring its saline implants “adulterated.” The report sited 11 questionable manufacturing practices that were outside industry recognized best-practices. Whether the French Health Authority (AFSSAPS) was informed about the results of the FDA’s inspection or not, is unclear. If only the AFSSAPS had taken action then…
Silicone Gel Breast Implants are Back
By 2001, France removed its restrictions on silicone filled breast implants. PIP was still in business in Europe, and was expanding into South America, so again PIP innovated. In 2002, PIP launched an asymmetrical silicone filled breast implant. Fortunately, for all US women, the FDA had already given PIP the boot.
The Center of the Problem
On paper, these new breast implants were filled with NuSil, manufactured in California by NuSil Inc., a company founded by McGhan breast implant founder, Donald McGhan. In reality, PIP was not using NuSil to fill its breast implants. Instead, Monsieur Mas had his own recipe for a silicone filler, which I will call PIP gel. PIP more often used PIP’s non-approved silicone gel to fill PIP breast implants. The main reason, price. It cost about $23 to fill an implant with NuSil, but only $3 if PIP’s gel was substituted. This saved PIP about two million dollars in 2009. But the cheaper implants were also inferior in quality. The real cost was to come to the women receiving PIP breast implants, because PIP gel is made with industrial grade silicone, rather than the required medical grade silicone. Moreover, the failure rate of the PIP silicone filled breast implants, like the saline filled breast implants, seemed to come sooner and more frequently.
Knowing When to Duck
Although PIP was a French company, it was certified by TUV Rheinland in Germany. The approval came in 1997, and yearly inspections where performed in accordance to regulations. Unfortunately, guidelines also required TUV Rheinland to give PIP 10 days advance notice of their arrival. PIP used this time to hide all evidence of PIP gel. The paperwork was filed to look legit, and the regulators where none the wiser.
The European system had no requirements for unannounced inspection of the manufacturing facilities or even the breast implants. Once approved, the silicone filling of PIP implants was never retested.
More Acronyms – AFSSAPS
The AFSSAPS (Agence Francaise de Securite Sanitaire des Produits de Sante), does not certify medical products, but it can remove defective or dangerous products from the French market. In 2001, when silicone breast implants were reintroduced to France. The AFSSAPS tested the contents of PIP implants prior to approval. After that, private companies LEMI and LNE, to over. While strength and toxicity test were performed, no results are available about whether NuSil or PIP gel was used. The first random test was not performed until 2010, after PIP was under police investigation. The finding in the 2010 AFSSAPS report reads, “this one does not reach the degree of quality of a silicone gel intended for breast implants.”
European Regulators Blissfully Unaware
The FDA’s warning never reached Europe. Although the AFSSAPS watches the FDA site, it missed the PIP posting warning of problems in PIP’s breast implant manufacturing. There was, and still is, no system in place for sharing the information. Perhaps, this will now change, and countries can share information proactively. For a global economy, it makes sense.
It wasn’t until March of 2010, that two French health inspectors, acting on a tip, discovered six discarded plastic containers of Silopren along the outside wall of the PIP breast implant production facility. Silopren is a line of liquid silicone used mostly for industrial use, there are some medical uses for some of the Silopren product line, but externally for scar modification, and not as a filler for breast implants. PIP was not supposed to be using Silopren. Pip was supposed to be using NuSil. A week later, the factory was raided. It took another 8 months to track down Mas. The picture above is from the Interpol website.
European Regulators Under Scrutiny
French and European safety regulators now find themselves in an untenable position. European and South American governments are offering to pay for the removal of the estimated 300,000 defective PIP implants, before further harm is done. It is estimated that 10% of these implants have already leaked.
There is much to be learned from the PIP problems. Regulating medical devices is hard. It is a balance between allowing innovation and protecting from harm. In the elective surgery arena, the balance is tipped toward protection. However, in the case of PIP, there were many warning signs. Poor manufacturing, poor quality control, poor oversight and ignorance of the warnings from the FDA led to 10 years of inaction.
Low Price and Low Quality Often Go Together
Since in the US, PIP breast implants never achieved FDA approval, I never used them. I have not use the saline filled PIP breast implants either. I have, however, had to remove them. There were cheaper, but when it comes to enhancing one’s body cheaper is not better. Reputable, experienced and dedicated count, and this comes with a price. When it comes to plastic surgery, the lowest price is rarely the right answer.
What to do With PIP Breast Implants
If you had Breast Augmentation surgery in the US, with a reputable plastic surgeon, you do not have to worry about PIP silicone gel filled implants. However, if you had breast augmentation outside the US, you should check which implants were used. All PIP silicone breast implants should be replaced with new, FDA approved, breast implants, or at a minimum removed before they cause problems. If they have leaked, the sooner they are removed the better. If they haven’t leaked, it is recommended that you replace or remove them before they do. Either way, if you have PIP breast implants, find a Board Certified Plastic Surgeon today.
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Simply begin typing or use the editing tools above to add to this article.
Once you are finished and click submit, your modifications will be sent to our editors for review.
...the presence of lignin, a hardening substance that reinforces the cellulose cell wall. The living sieve elements that comprise the phloem are not lignified. Xylem and phloem are collectively called vascular tissue and form a central column (stele) through the plant axis. The ferns, gymnosperms, and flowering plants are all vascular plants. Because they possess vascular tissues, these plants...
The final tissue system of the primary plant body is the vascular tissue, a continuous system of conducting and supporting tissues that extends throughout the plant body. The vascular system consists of two conducting tissues, xylem and phloem; the former conducts water and the latter the products of photosynthesis. In the stems and roots the vascular tissues are arranged concentrically, on the...
What made you want to look up "vascular tissue"? Please share what surprised you most...
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The Sephardic Community of Rhodes was established in 1523 by victims and children of the expulsion of Jews from Spain. It was destroyed by the Nazis in 1944. Although relatively small, the Rhodian Jewish community was important, far out of proportion to its size, due to the considerable influence of its rabbis and scholars. This is a comprehensive study of the Rhodian Jewish community, tracing not only its history but also its economic and cultural life, customs and traditions, its rabbis and scholars, its folklore and literature. Although unique in many respects, the Sephardic Community of Rhodes may be viewed as a microcosm of Sephardic life throughout the Ottoman Empire and thus this study provides a basis for understanding the history and culture of the Judeo-Spanish speaking Sephardim in general.
by Marc D. Angel
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"Drawing is very central to the way that I work because it can be blown up, taken apart.... You can just keep on pushing it, like this infinite machine...."
What makes something utopian? Technology has opened up new ways to consider and define the components of an idealized society. Watch Cao Fei's segment and discuss how technology can help provide a platform to experiment with different utopian ideals.
Discuss the concept of utopia. What is the origin of the word, and what makes something utopian? How does technology contribute new ways of defining and imagining utopia?
List the examples of role-playing presented in Cao Fei's work and her segment. What kinds of characters and avatars does she create? How do they interact with their environments?
Cao Fei says that she thinks it is very common in human nature to dream of establishing one's own rules of the game. How does Cao Fei's work in Second Life or in her videos illustrate this observation? How does her work provide a platform to experiment with utopian concepts or political ideals?
Write a short story or choose a favorite work of literature. Fashion a character from this work as an avatar, using Second Life or another application. Using images of the avatar, create a digital profile that includes photographs or drawings of the avatar in relation to the story.
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Reach in, pick a card, and start talking! The box holds 86 stimulating prompt cards that spark children's imagination with "would you rather" and "what's your favorite" questions, real-life pictures, and more. Fourteen blank cards are also included so children can add their own favorite topics to talk about. These 2 1/2" x 2 1/2" write-on/wipe-off cards come in a 5" x 5" box with a hole in its lid, which allows children to reach in, take a card at random, and start practicing their oral language skills. Instruction Guide included. Grades 1 and up.
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We all would like to believe that, ultimately, intellectual honesty is not only an expression of, but also good for your mental health. My dangerous question is if one can be intellectually honest about the issue of free will and preserve one's mental health at the same time. Behind this question lies what I call the "Forbidden Fruit Intuition": Is there a set of questions which are dangerous not on grounds of ideology or political correctness, but because the most obvious answers to them could ultimately make our conscious self-models disintegrate? Can one really believe in determinism without going insane?
For middle-sized objects at 37° like the human brain and the human body, determinism is obviously true. The next state of the physical universe is always determined by the previous state. And given a certain brain-state plus an environment you could never have acted otherwise — a surprisingly large majority of experts in the free-will debate today accept this obvious fact. Although your future is open, this probably also means that for every single future thought you will have and for every single decision you will make, it is true that it was determined by your previous brain state.
As a scientifically well-informed person you believe in this theory, you endorse it. As an open-minded person you find that you are also interested in modern philosophy of mind, and you might hear a story much like the following one. Yes, you are a physically determined system. But this is not a big problem, because, under certain conditions, we may still continue to say that you are "free": all that matters is that your actions are caused by the right kinds of brain processes and that they originate in you. A physically determined system can well be sensitive to reasons and to rational arguments, to moral considerations, to questions of value and ethics, as long as all of this is appropriately wired into its brain. You can be rational, and you can be moral, as long as your brain is physically determined in the right way. You like this basic idea: physical determinism is compatible with being a free agent. You endorse a materialist philosophy of freedom as well. An intellectually honest person open to empirical data, you simply believe that something along these lines must be true.
Now you try to feel that it is true. You try to consciously experience the fact that at any given moment of your life, you could not have acted otherwise. You try to experience the fact that even your thoughts, however rational and moral, are predetermined — by something unconscious, by something you can not see. And in doing so, you start fooling around with the conscious self-model Mother Nature evolved for you with so much care and precision over millions of years: You are scratching at the user-surface of your own brain, tweaking the mouse-pointer, introspectively trying to penetrate into the operating system, attempting to make the invisible visible. You are challenging the integrity of your phenomenal self by trying to integrate your new beliefs, the neuroscientific image of man, with your most intimate, inner way of experiencing yourself. How does it feel?
I think that the irritation and deep sense of resentment surrounding public debates on the freedom of the will actually has nothing much to do with the actual options on the table. It has to do with the — perfectly sensible — intuition that our presently obvious answer will not only be emotionally disturbing, but ultimately impossible to integrate into our conscious self-models.
Or our societies: The robust conscious experience of free will also is a social institution, because the attribution of accountability, responsibility, etc. are the decisive building blocks for modern, open societies. And the currently obvious answer might be interpreted by many as having clearly anti-democratic implications: Making a complex society work implies controlling the behavior of millions of people; if individual human beings can control their own behavior to a much lesser degree than we have thought in the past, if bottom-up doesn't work, then it becomes tempting to control it top-down, by the state. And this is the second way in which enlightenment could devour its own children. Yes, free will truly is a dangerous question, but for different reasons than most people think.
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It’s the replay of 1H of 2008, only with more severity. If were not for Lehman’s collapse, the prices of commodities would have shot to the roof more than two years ago. Now the still-the-same super easy monetary policy made commodity prices, especially food prices, come back again, evident everywhere in the world.
(click to enlarge, source: BOE)
China just reported its latest CPI number of close to 5%, but food prices jumped over 10% year over year. The food inflation forced China’s Bureau of Statistics to adjust down the weight of food in the CPI calculation. Isn’t this ridiculous! — The government wanted to you to believe as if inflation does not exist!
At the same time, various signs show that the huge excess reserves are being gradually unleashed from banks’ balance sheets — one indicator is that the yield on junk bonds has almost reached historical lows; another sign is that banks now started to relax their lending standards to both consumers and small businesses.
What we are seeing is exactly the divergence of traditional inflation measure (CPI) and asset inflation. Let’s call it “biflation”.
(click to enlarge, source: BOE)
Ronald McKinnon, an expert of exchange rate and US dollar at Stanford University, labels inflation as America’s latest export:
What do the years 1971, 2003 and 2010 have in common? In each year, low U.S. interest rates and the expectation of dollar depreciation led to massive “hot” money outflows from the U.S. and world-wide inflation. And in all three cases, foreign central banks intervened heavily to buy dollars to prevent their currencies from appreciating.
When central banks issue base money to buy dollars, domestic interest rates are forced down and domestic inflationary pressure is generated. Primary commodity prices go up quickly because speculators can easily bid for long positions in organized commodity futures markets when interest rates are low.
The world saw a surge in the dollar prices of primary commodity prices in 1971-73 following the Nixon shock of 1971 when the U.S. abandoned the gold standard. There was also a commodity price surge during the Greenspan-Bernanke shock of 2003-04, when the federal-funds rate was reduced to an unprecedented low of 1% followed by a falling dollar.
Now we have what one might call the Bernanke shock. The Fed has set U.S. short-term interest rates at essentially zero since September 2008, followed in 2010 by quantitative easing to drive down long-term rates. Predictably, primary commodity prices in 2009-10 surged. In 2010 alone, all items in the Economist’s dollar commodity price index rose 33.5%, while the industrial raw materials component soared a remarkable 37.4.%.
The longer-term inflationary and economic consequences over the next decade of this most recent U.S. loose money shock remain to be seen. But we can glean useful hints by looking at the aftermaths of the two earlier shocks. In the 1970s, “stagflation” (inflation combined with cyclical bouts of unemployment and wide swings in exchange rates) seemed intractable. Productivity growth in mature industrial countries fell sharply.
The Greenspan-Bernanke interest rate shock of 2003-04, followed by a weakening dollar into the first half of 2008, created the bubble economy. Primary commodity prices began rising significantly in 2003-04, then flattened out before spiking in 2007 into the first half of 2008.
But the biggest bubble was in real estate, both commercial and residential. With low mortgage rates and no restraining regulation on mortgage quality, average U.S. home prices rose more than 50% from the beginning of 2003 to the middle of 2006. This led to an unsustainable building boom—with echoes around the world in countries such as the U.K, Spain and Ireland. The bubbles in primary commodity prices collapsed mainly in the second half of 2008. But the residue of bad debts, particularly ongoing mortgage defaults, led to the banking crisis and global downturn of 2008-09.
So what lessons can we draw from these episodes of U.S. easy money and a weak dollar for the stability of the American economy itself?
First, sharp general price increases in auction-market goods such as primary commodities or foreign exchange (i.e., a weakening dollar) is an early warning sign that the Fed is being too easy—a warning that the Fed is again ignoring as we enter 2011.
Second, beyond the rise in primary commodity prices, general price inflation in the U.S. only comes with long and variable lags. After the U.S. monetary shock, hot money flows into countries on the dollar standard’s periphery cause a loss of monetary control and general inflation to show up there more quickly than in the U.S.
In 2010, consumer price indexes shot up more than 5% in major emerging markets such as China, Brazil and Indonesia, while the consumer price index in the U.S. itself rose only 1.2%. Similarly, after the Nixon shock of 1971, there was much more explosive inflation in Japan in 1972-73 than in the U.S. But by December 1979, inflation in America’s producer and consumer price indexes was more than 13%.
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Patrol with the Silent Service
Published: Friday, February 8, 2013 at 9:52 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, February 8, 2013 at 9:52 a.m.
George Hume enlisted in the Navy after graduating from college in his hometown of Detroit, Mich., and was assigned to the Pacific Theater during World War II. Serving aboard the USS Guardfish and on a submarine tender, he toured Guam, Midway, Saipan and the Mariana Islands, helping to prepare torpedoes, but never encountering any direct attacks. Post-service, Hume worked at the Detroit Edison Co. for 34 years before moving to Sarasota to become a volunteer and humanitarian. Now 88, he is a widower and lives in the Sunnyside Manor retirement community in Sarasota.
'I enlisted, but they would have taken me right out of college. I had just graduated and I was sent to the Pacific for a couple of years. I went on the USS Guardfish. I went to Pearl Harbor first and did a tour there.
Afterward, I went on a submarine tender for close to two years, touring the Pacific — Guam, Midway, Saipan, the Marianas and a few other places.
There were close to 100 people in the sub.
You don't carry a crew of that many in non-war times, but that was how many we had then. It was close quarters. I slept between the torpedoes. You had to slide in to sleep because you only had 18 inches of room. You couldn't turn over while sleeping. You were just stuck in there.
It was crowded, and three guys kept the bunk warm all the time. One got in to sleep every eight hours.
It was a good place to be, though. We got extra pay. We had the best food, too. We loaded up a store of fresh food for 90 days, so we always ate well.
We could be in there for a few months sometimes. We would play checkers for fun.
Tokyo Rose was known to all sailors, and she named our sub at one point and where we were and she said that we would never get out of there, but here I am.
It was pretty calm where I was. If they fired any torpedoes, they didn't hit us. The sub could go 500 feet down, but you were usually 200 or 300 feet down.
We rarely got into action. I was lucky.
In the sub, you'd go under, come back up at night and charge your batteries.
I was a torpedo man, so I didn't do a lot of sea duty on the sub itself. I spent more time on the sub tender and that was a big ship. I would get the torpedoes ready and load them and unload them.
The torpedoes were about 18 feet long. They were heavy, so you had to have a crane to lift them.
The warhead alone holds 300 pounds of TNT. You couldn't pick up that warhead. There was a guy with a crane, and I guided him.
When I got out, I went to school and got a job at Detroit Edison, and I stayed there for 34 years. I got married in 1952. When I came down to Sarasota, I became the head usher at Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, and I had about 160 ushers to keep track of.
I worked at the YMCA in the racquet club and played a lot of racquetball.
In 1985, when Hurricane Elena hit here, I co-chaired the whole operation for the Red Cross. We furnished all the hot food for people, opened 18 shelters and housed 5,000 people in Sarasota.
I coordinated ushers for Circus Sarasota, too.
You could say I retired several times."
Abby Weingarten may be contacted via email at Abby_Weingarten@yahoo.com.
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.
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Waiting for Dr Barber
This 1950s child's chair is taken from the waiting room of Dr F. Barber at 38 Brookfield Park in Dartmouth Park. Many of Dr Barber's patients were children from immigrant families. This is one of several plywood chairs for children that came from his surgery. As they waited for their appointment, children could play with dolls dressed in their national costume. The dolls were donated to Dr Barber by his patients, many of whom were Jewish.
New to London
Dr Barber was a Jewish immigrant who escaped Czechoslovakia during the Second World War. He arrived in London in 1949 with his wife and set up his own doctor's surgery. In 1956 he and his family moved to Brookfield Park.
Life as a busy doctor
Until 1978 Dr Barber also worked at a doctor's surgery on Essex Road in Islington. He later moved back to work full-time at Brookfield Park.
Museum number 2002.10/6
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TAC (Transport Accident Commission) in Victoria, Australia, launched a visual effects-laden television commercial in March 2006, demonstrating in reverse slow motion the dynamics of an accident in which a woman is knocked over by a speeding car. Police investigator Sergeant Peter Bellion walks the viewer through the accident. “Our job is to reconstruct serious crashes to get evidence that may be used in court. This young woman landed here with serious head injuries following a huge force that threw her over six metres. And the impact here. We can work out that she was hit at 32 kilometres per hour by analysing the car, these tyre marks. So he started braking here. He first saw her when he was traveling at 65. Well let’s change one small thing. Now he’s doing 60 when he sees her. This time he hit her at only five kilometres per hour. She’d just have a bruised leg and we’d never have been called to this incident.” The super: “Wipe Off 5″.
Click on the image below to play the video in YouTube (HD)
Minister for the TAC, John Lenders, said an extra five kilometres per hour was enough to turn a minor incident into a fatality. “There have been a number of high profile road incidents this year which have reminded us all of the agony that road trauma can cause our families,” Mr Lenders said. “It is never safe to speed. Since the first Wipe off 5 campaign was launched in 2001 travel speeds in 60 kilometre per hour zones have dropped by almost 3 kilometres per hour, showing some improvement in driver behaviour. Fatalities in low speed zones have dropped by 34 per cent in the same period. While Victorians are beginning to improve their driving behaviour there is still room for improvement.”
Mr Lenders said over-confidence was still a problem on Victoria’s roads. “People are too quick to assume that going five kilometres per hour faster is safe because they’re skilled drivers,” Mr Lenders said. “Driving just five kilometres per hour over the speed limit in a 60 zone is as dangerous as driving with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.05. When you speed you have less time to react, when you brake it takes longer to stop, and if you crash you’ll hit harder. Travelling at 65 kilometres per hour instead of 60 won’t get you to your destination much quicker – at best you’ll save just 46 seconds over a ten kilometre trip.”
TAC Reconstruction was created at Grey Worldwide, Melbourne, by creative director/art director/copywriter Nigel Dawson, with agency producer Sandi Gracin.
Editor Drew Thompson, at Guillotine, Sydney, was shortlisted at the Clio Awards 2007.
Sound was designed at Song Zu, Sydney, by Simon Kane. Music was composed by Ramesh Sathiah at Song Zu.
Visual effects and animation were developed at Fin Design, Sydney, by animator Stuart White, visual effects producer Emma Daines, visual effects editor Richard Lambert.
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More than 60 percent of Loyola students participate in the University's extensive study abroad program. Loyola sponsors study abroad opportunities in 13 countries, and participates in exchange programs with eight. Loyola also assists students in applying to a variety of non-Loyola-affiliated international study programs each year.
Most students go abroad in their junior year, usually for a single semester, although summer and holiday study tours may also be available. There are study abroad programs and exchanges taught in English, total immersion programs taught in the native language, or combinations of the two. Loyola has developed study abroad programs to accommodate all majors, but you should begin planning for your international study experience as soon as possible, especially if you plan to major in business, math, or science.
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As I have mentioned in another thread, I am currently reading a Dutch book called 'Eko Eko' by Jan de Zutter. Although I think the book is a wonderful read, there is much in it I disagree with. Today I'm only addressing one of those points; the influence of popular media on the perception of Neopaganism.
Zutter takes a few pages to discuss the influence of the journalistic media and then moves on to children's books, both positive and negative. As all examples are typically Dutch I will not relate them here. Those interested may ask me in the comments and I will provide the names. I'm making a note here that Zutter continually uses the term 'Wicca' to describe either Neo-Wiccan practices or Neopaganism in general. Terminology used in quotes is all his.
Finally, Zutter moves on to discuss Harry Potter and television shows featuring 'Wicca'.
“Wiccans have never really liked the Harry Potter books. Not because they aren't fun to read but because they feel their religion is unjustly linked to the fantasy world created by J.K. Rowling. The Potter books may have caused the traditionally evil image of a witch to fade but it has nothing to do with a Paganistic religion. This is different with the film The Craft (1996) or American television shows like Charmed, Sabrina The Teenage Witch and Buffy The Vampire Slayer. These images flirt openly with the Neopaganistic legacy. In Charmed the Halliwell sisters use a magical book they call the Book of Shadows, a name directly taken from Wicca. In Buffy The Vampire Slayer, a teenager battles vampires and demons alongside Willow and Tara who are called Wiccans on the show.”
Zutter explains that research has shown that children between the ages of 11 and 16 feel highly drawn to 'the occult' because of these shown and that many young women (especially women) find their feminist roots in these shows. “The witch has become an avatar of glamour, power and style”. In a world where the demand on teens is high and the steps to adulthood need to be taken fast, 'Wicca' offers them a way to ease their mind into their responsibilities.
Today I will not bring you an essay; this is a sharing of thoughts.
I have heard this reasoning before. This one and many others. Television shows like Charmed and BtVS seem to be attributed many positive and negative powers of persuasion by not only journalists and researched but also by us as Neopagans themselves.
- They empower young women
- They encourage thought of the occult
- They bring teens to Satan
- They send positive messages about witches
- They send negative images about witches
- They create fluffbunnies and whitelighters
- They create teens looking to learn how to shoot fireballs from their hands
- They could possibly lead people to Neopagan paths.
There are more, I'm sure, but the idea is clear; ask a certain someone about the influence of these series and films and you'll get a dozen answers. If not more. I've heard of those vehemently against these shows, I have heard those who think these shows can help and I have heard those who don't care either way because all these shows influence is the stereotypical image of a witch and that stereotype is not related to the Neopagan path.
Now, television is a glamorized medium, we are all aware of this. Because of the thrilling stories, it's not hard to want to sink into the worlds portrayed on the screen. It would be cool is I was able to shoot fireballs out of my hands and it would be awesome if I was able to solve a triple homicide in two days tops or save a patient in concrete from dying.
I have doctor friends who can't stand watching any hospital series because of the ludicrous cases and solutions presented to the viewer. I'm not talking solemnly about Scrubs here, this also means ER and, of course, Grey's Anatomy.
I'm sure it's the same for cops who cringe at the work done in Hawaii Five-0 and Law & Order series, or Marshall’s who sure as heck don't have the experiences of the characters on Chase and In Plain Sight.
With every new series come teens who wish to be just like that, be it cop, doctor, witch or vampire. Some people keep that dream and put it to action, others eventually let it go. Those who put it into action can and will eventually find out if this path is for them and either grow into the real-world version of the profession of spiritual path or they drop out, disillusioned.
So why are we more prissy when it comes to television shows about witches? Everyone has seen cops spend boring days on the street in ridiculous outfits that are either too hot or too cold for the season. Most people have seen doctors and hospitals and realize it's not the same as television shows. The problem with portrayals of witches is that the Neopagan paths closest to that image are largely unknown to the general public.
Because of the initiatory nature of the basic Neopagan paths, teens can only get their hands on fluffed up outer circle stuff and can continue to 'practice' in this vacuum for a long time before either dropping it or growing into their own Pagan path, abandoning what they saw on TV. While in this vacuum they are, however, the most destructive to the reputations of actual practitioners.
It's my opinion this is not their fault. As an often closed and closeted religious path, it's hard for teens to find proper information and even harder for the general (uninterested) public to get a proper feel for the Neopagan paths.
We are creating our own fluffbunnies. We leave them no place to turn to but those fluffbooks and Yahoo groups. If they come to forums like these, they generally find their bubbles bursted at the earliest opportunity and often without an opportunity to step further into their path. They books they read are wrong and there is no one to teach them so the choice is to hang around and see if something clicks, continue their practice on their own in the vacuum or drop a path they have become invested in. When imagining myself in their shoes, none seem attractive to me.
Of course there are training programs online and mentors who are willing to take these youngsters under their wing should they ask for it. This is a good step and one encouraged by me. It keeps the young ones with potential interested and educates them tot he point where they have enough information to start developing their own path in a constructive and coherent way. I'm just not sure if it's a solution.
I feel these shows are not the problem, not more than the CSI's and NCIS's are. They're not trying to represent us, after all, they use The Witch as a stereotype to tell their story and make a boatload of money. I'll write more about the difference between The Witch and the Neopagan faiths in another post but let me suffice for now in saying that The Witch was not and will never be based off of us. She is a construction of myth and desire and can and will not operate in our world.
As long as we continue to mystify our practices, we will have those interpreting The Witch as truth. They have nothing to offset it with. That is why my greatest concern about the influence of popular media the one it has on us.
The popular media are causing a divide; one to come out of the broom closet,t he other to hide our practices even more. The fluffbunnies will work themselves out but we have the power to destroy this beautiful way of life from the outside-in. If we should be worried about the influence of television on the perception of Neopaganism at all, it should be because of this. The rest follows suit.
Add a Comment
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Stabilization problem for a wheeled robot following a curvilinear path on uneven terrain
Authors: Pesterev, A.; Rapoport, L.
Source: Journal of Computer and Systems Sciences International, Volume 49, Number 4, August 2010 , pp. 672-680(9)
Publisher: MAIK Nauka/Interperiodica
Abstract:A control synthesis problem for a wheeled robot moving on uneven terrain is studied. The terrain is assumed to be described by a sufficiently smooth function that does not vary too much at distances of the order of the platform size, which makes it possible to employ a planar robot model. The terrain model is not a priori known, and the information on the local terrain configuration is made available for the robot through measuring its pitch and roll angles. The control goal is to bring the robot to a given curvilinear path and to stabilize robot's motion along it. A change of variables is found by means of which the system of differential equations governing controlled motion of the robot reduces to the form that admits feedback linearization. A numerical example presented demonstrates advantages of the synthesized control compared to that derived without regard to the terrain unevenness. It is shown that the latter is generally not capable of stabilizing robot's motion with a desired accuracy.
Document Type: Research article
Publication date: 2010-08-01
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Updated at: 11/18/2012 2:35 PM
By JIM KUHNHENN
(AP) BANGKOK - Even in the temples of Asia, President Barack Obama cannot escape thoughts of that fiscal cliff back home.
Touring the Wat Pho Royal Monastery in Bangkok, a sprawling compound of temples, gardens and man-made waterfalls, Obama was overheard chatting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and with their monk guide.
Clinton made a reference to budget negotiations back in Washington, where a damaging series of tax increases and spending cuts loom.
"Yes," Obama replied. "We’re working on this budget. We’re going to need a lot of prayer for that."
At a news conference later, Obama said he was not joking about the need for prayer.
"I always believe in prayers," he said. "I believe in prayer when I go to church back home, and If a Buddhist monk is wishing me well, I’ll take whatever good vibes he can give me to try to deal with some challenges back home."
Obama and Clinton were led by a monk in saffron robes as they walked around a golden statue of a sitting Buddha.
Clinton later remarked about how peaceful it was in the temple, an iconic cultural landmark popular with tourists. The tour’s high point is a giant statue of a reclining Buddha that extends for 46 meters (150 feet).
Obama observed that when there are 80,000 people visiting the temple, "it’s probably not as peaceful."
Both visitors noted how lucky they were to get a private tour.
Obama and Clinton met with King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who turns 85 in December and has been staying at a hospital since 2009 because he is ill.
Obama entered a hospital meeting room with Clinton behind him. The king remained seated as Obama greeted him and grasped his hand. "It’s a great honor," Obama said.
Obama said he brought greetings from the American people "who are so grateful for the friendship of our two countries and are great admirers of yours _ your wisdom and your leadership."
The king responded in a soft tone.
Obama smiled and said, "Elections in the United States are very long, but it’s very gratifying to know people still have confidence in me. I thought it was very important that my first trip after the elections was to Thailand, which is such a great ally."
During his visit, the king gave Obama a few gifts, including one for first lady Michelle Obama.
"She’ll look very good in that color, Mr. President," Clinton said. Reporters could not see the gift.
Obama then picked up a photo album, which he said contained photos of all the U.S. presidents and first ladies the king has met, starting with Dwight Eisenhower and continuing through George W Bush.
"We left the last page blank" so a photo of Obama’s visit could be added to the book, Obama said.
A framed lithograph was on an easel nearby depicting the Thai and U.S. flags. Obama said it was specially commissioned for the king, who is an art lover, "to symbolize friendship" between the two countries.
Later, Obama was asked during a news conference with Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra what his favorite Thai food is. He replied that he likes it all and was pleased when he saw the menu for the state dinner.
"It looks very good," said Obama, who had traveled about 19 hours from Washington, where it was early Sunday morning as the news conference took place. "I’m also very hungry. I saved my appetite and I am looking forward to some authentic Thai food."
The dinner took place in a large dining hall in the same government house complex, where a dozen circular tables were set up under a glittery chandelier.
The prime minister gave the first toast, congratulating Obama on his election victory. She said the dinner was "a celebration for your second term in office. I believe your presidency will be a successful one and fruitful" for fostering Thai-U.S. relations.
Obama said his visit to Thailand was far too brief, but said he has already felt the warmth of the Thai people and their dignity and strength. "This is the `Land of Smiles,’ and I’ve felt it everywhere I’ve gone," Obama said, calling Thailand the United States’ "oldest friend" in Asia.
Obama said he told King Bhumibol, who was born in Massachusetts, that his friend Tammy Duckworth of Illinois was the first Thai-American elected to Congress. Duckworth won election on Nov. 6.
In a hand-written message in the guest book at the Thailand Government House, Obama said it was "an honor to visit Thailand _ America’s oldest treaty ally in Asia. The bonds between our peoples have endured for nearly 180 years. Grounded in mutual respect and guided by our common aspirations for peace and prosperity, may the bonds and friendship between us endure for many years to come."
Associated Press writers Julie Pace in Bangkok and Matthew Daly in Washington contributed to this report.
(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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I just finished reading a really terrific empirical study by Joanna Shepherd (Emory Law), Fred Tung (Emory Law), and AlbertYoon (Northwestern Law), entitled Cross-Monitoring and Corporate Governance. In a nutshell, the authors show, after controlling for a wide variety of relevant control variables (most importantly corporate governance), that companies that rely on bank loans, as opposed to equity or public debt, post higher market returns. Presumably, these results flow from the heightened monitoring and positive market signaling supplied by loan agreements. Their multiple specifications do a nice job of ruling out alternative hypotheses.
This is quite an important paper for thinking about manager and director agency costs, especially in a world where portfolio diversification has reduced the incentives for shareholders to pay attention to annual elections for directors. (It also is a excellent example of methodology for large panel data.) Here is the article abstract:
We take the view that corporate governance must involve more than corporate law. Despite corporate scholars' nearly exclusive focus on corporate law mechanisms for controlling managerial agency costs, shareholders are not the only constituency concerned with such costs. Given the thick web of firms' contractual commitments, it should not be a surprise that other financial claimants may also attempt to control agency costs in their contracts with the firm. We hypothesize that this cross-monitoring by other claimants has value for shareholders.
We examine bank loans for empirical evidence of the value of cross-monitoring. Our approach builds on prior empirical work on the value of good corporate governance, to which we add data on the presence of bank loans and their interactions with free cash flow, governance indices, and individual corporate governance provisions. We find strong evidence that bank monitoring adds value. In effect, bank monitoring can counteract somewhat the value-decreasing effects of managerial entrenchment. Bank monitoring may substitute for good corporate governance.
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These two bush camps operate slightly upstream of their parent camp, Tafika, on the opposite bank of the Luangwa. This is around the spot where David Livingstone crossed the Luangwa in 1866, and little seems to have changed since then; it's still a beautiful corner of the Valley with excellent game densities.
Being in a wilderness area, there are no roads to these camps and all the luggage and supplies are carried by porters. From Tafika this means a brief drive along the river, followed by a quick crossing by canoe and then a short walk. There are two small bushcamps here: Chikoko and Crocodile.Chikoko Walking Camp
is only about 10 minutes' walk from the Luangwa, beside the small, seasonal Chikoko Channel. The simple grass-walled chalets are raised about 3m off the ground, and topped by a canvas shade to keep the sun, and any rain, off. This also gives the nervous an added sense of security, and provides a good vantage point for spotting wildlife. Private flush toilets and showers (hot on request) are downstairs.Crocodile Walking Camp
is further from the river, about a 40-minute walk, and stands on an old river bank, overlooking a large and usually dry ox-bow lagoon. It's a great location and the three double chalets have en-suite flush toilet and showers (hot on request), open to the air.
At both you'll find a very busy and relaxed air, solar lighting and efficient refrigeration. But to focus on the camps themselves is to miss the point; Remote Africa's guides are amongst the Valley's most experienced – so though simple, these are amongst the Valley's very best bushcamps.
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1. Day Camp
Day camp is a less expensive than overnight camp, but frequently includes the same types of activities. Look for an established summer camp in your area that offers a variety of program options, includes transportation, and employs qualified, motivated staff members.
2. School Camp
Programs that offered through area schools provide an affordable summer camp option for families. Activities include sports, arts and crafts, games, and more. Look for day camps based at your child's school or within your school district. Don't forget to ask around, too, to see if any of your kids' friends will also be attending.
3. Summer Enrichment
Summer enrichment camps gives kids the opportunity to explore new interests, reinforce existing academic skills, and have fun while participating in an affordable summer camp program. Contact your local rec center, school district, or community college to see whether they offer a summer enrichment program for kids in your area.
4. Gymnastics Camp
Gymnastics camp is another fun option for kids in the summer. One of the primary benefits is, of course, physical exercise. But gymnastics camp can also have a significant impact on your your child's overall self-confidence.
5. Dance Camp
Dance camp gives kids an opportunity to learn new routines, develop athletic and balance skills, and make new friends. Find out whether your local dance studio offers a summer camp program.
6. Art Camp
Art camp allows participants to hone their artistic abilities while also learning new techniques and building friendships. In addition, participating in a summer camp that is focused the arts can have a positive impact on your child's self-confidence and creativity.
7. Cooking Camp
Cooking camp is another affordable summer camp option and allows kids to explore new recipes and culinary techniques, while also learning valuable life skills they can apply at home. Contact restaurants and culinary institutes in your area to see whether they offer a summer camp option.
8. Museum Camp
Museum camp offers kids the opportunity to explore academic interests while also building social connections in a unique learning environment.
9. Zoo Camp
Zoo camp gives kids the opportunity to learn about many different animals and their natural habitats, while also building friendships in a camp setting. Look for a summer camp option at your local zoo or animal sanctuary.
10. Humane Society Camp
Do your kids love dogs, cats, and other small animals? Your local Humane society or ASPCA may offer an affordable summer camp program. Animal-based camps allow kids to learn about different breeds and how to care for various pets. Contact your local humane society or SPCA to find out whether they offer a summer camp option.
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TE DEUM AND FIRST VESPERS
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
St Peter's Basilica
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
At the end of a year full of events for both the Church and the world we are meeting this evening in the Vatican Basilica to celebrate First Vespers of the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God and to raise a hymn of thanksgiving to the Lord of time and history.
It is first of all the words of the Apostle Paul that we have just heard which shed a special light on the conclusion of the year: "When the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman... so that we might receive adoption as sons" (Gal 4: 4-5).
The concentrated Pauline passage speaks to us of "time... fully come", and enlightens us as to the content of these words. In the history of the human family, God wanted to introduce his eternal Word, making him take on a humanity like our own. With the Incarnation of the Son of God, eternity entered time and human history was opened to absolute fulfilment in God. Time was, so to speak, "touched" by Christ, the Son of God and of Mary, and received from him new and surprising significance: it became a time of salvation and grace. In this same perspective, we must consider the time of the year that is ending and of that which is beginning so that we may put the most different events of our life important or small, simple or undecipherable, joyful or sad under the sign of salvation and hear the call God is addressing to us in order to lead us toward a goal that lies beyond time itself: eternity.
The Pauline text also means to underline the mystery of God's closeness to all humankind. It is the closeness proper to the mystery of Christmas: God makes himself man and man is given the unheard-of possibility to be a son of God. All this fills us with great joy and leads us to offer praise to God. We are called to say with our voices, our hearts and our lives "thank you" to God for the gift of the Son, the source and fulfilment of all the other gifts with which divine love fills the existence of each one of us, of families, of communities, of the Church and of the world. The hymn of the Te Deum which today rings out in churches in every corner of the earth is intended as a sign of the joyful gratitude with which we address God for all that he has offered us in Christ. Truly "from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace" (Jn 1: 16).
In keeping with a happy custom, this evening I would like to thank the Lord with you in particular for the superabundance of graces he has lavished upon our diocesan community of Rome in the course of the year that is coming to a close. I would like first of all to address a special greeting to the Cardinal Vicar, to the Auxiliary Bishops, to the priests, to the consecrated people, as well as to the many lay faithful who are gathered here. I likewise greet the Mayor and Authorities present with respectful cordiality. I then extend my thoughts to all who live in our city, particularly those who are in situations of difficulty and hardship: I assure to each and every one my spiritual closeness, strengthened by constant remembrance in prayer.
As regards the progress of the Diocese of Rome, I renew my appreciation of the pastoral decision to dedicate time to review the ground covered in order to increase the sense of belonging to the Church and to foster pastoral co-responsibility. To emphasize the importance of this reappraisal, I too wished to make my own contribution by addressing the Diocesan Convention at St John Lateran, in the afternoon of last 26 May. I rejoice because the diocesan programme is proceeding positively, with a far-reaching apostolic action. It is being carried out in the parishes, the prefectures and the various ecclesial associations in two essential contexts for the life and mission of the Church: the celebration of the Sunday Eucharist and the witness of charity. I would like to encourage the faithful to participate in large numbers in the assemblies that will be held in the various parishes so as to make an effective contribution to building up the Church. Today too, the Lord wants to make his love for humanity known to the inhabitants of Rome and entrusts to each one, in the diversity of ministries and responsibilities, the mission of proclaiming his word of truth and of witnessing to charity and solidarity.
Only by contemplating the mystery of the Incarnate Word can human beings find the answer to the great questions of human existence and thus discover the truth of their own identity. For this reason the Church, throughout the world and also here in the City, is working to promote the integral development of the human person. I was therefore pleased to learn that a series of "cultural meetings in the Cathedral" have been planned, whose theme will be my recent Encyclical Caritas in Veritate.
For some years many families, numerous teachers and parish communities have been dedicated to helping young people build their future on firm foundations, especially on the rock that is Jesus Christ. I hope that this renewed educational commitment may increasingly achieve a fertile synergy between the ecclesial community and the City so as to help young people plan their own lives. I likewise express the wish that a precious contribution in this important area may come from the Convention promoted by the Vicariate that will be held next March.
To be authoritative witnesses of the truth about the human being prayerful listening to the word of God is essential. In this regard, I would like above all to recommend the ancient tradition of lectio divina. The parishes and the various ecclesial realities, also thanks to the booklet prepared by the Vicariate, will be able to promote this ancient practice and put it to good use so that it becomes an essential part of ordinary pastoral care.
The word, believed, proclaimed and lived impels us to acts of solidarity and sharing. In praising the Lord for the help that the Christian communities have been able to offer generously to all who have knocked at their door, I would like to encourage all to persevere in their commitment to alleviating the difficulties besetting many families, sorely tried by the economic crisis and unemployment. May the Nativity of the Lord which reminds us of how God came to save us of his own free will, taking on our humanity and giving us his divine life help every person of good will to understand that it is only by opening oneself to God's love that human action is changed and transformed, becoming the leaven of a better future for all.
Dear brothers and sisters, Rome needs priests who are courageous heralds of the Gospel and, at the same time, reveal the merciful face of the Father. I invite young people not to be afraid to respond with the complete gift of their lives to the call that the Lord addresses to them to follow him on the path of priesthood or of consecrated life.
I hope, from this moment, that the meeting next 25 March, the 25th anniversary of the institution of the World Youth Day and the 10th anniversary of the unforgettable Day at Tor Vergata, may be for all the parish and religious communities, and for the movements and associations, a strong moment of reflection and invocation, to obtain from the Lord the gift of numerous vocations to the priesthood and the consecrated life.
As we take our leave of the year that is ending and set out towards the new one, today's Liturgy ushers us into the Solemnity of Mary Most Holy, Mother of God. The Blessed Virgin is Mother of the Church and Mother of each one of her members, that is, Mother of each of us, in Christ. Let us ask her to accompany us with her caring protection, today and for ever, so that Christ may one day welcome into his glory, into the assembly of the Saints: Aeterna fac cum sanctis tuis in gloria numerari. Alleluia! Amen!
© Copyright 2009 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana
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The origins of disco are actually local, stemming from the club-going counterculture in late ’60s and early ’70s Philadelphia and New York City. In many ways, the genre was an adaptation of classic soul with features of psychedelia as interpreted by the black, Latino and gay communities of these cities. The genre quickly evolved beyond its roots, as DJs developed the “remix” and started to define the disco sound every weekend in the clubs. The fundamental instrumentation — four-on-the-floor drum pattern, eighth-note open hi-hat, syncopated bass line and lavish orchestral or keyboard accompaniment — is iconic, and its influence and innovation can still be heard on the radio. Yet even before that sound crystallized, the genre was gaining commercial traction with songs such as “Soul Makossa” and “Kung Fu Fighting” in the early ’70s, and the television show “Soul Train” featured the disco sound. Still, the genre was underground music, only popular within an urban subculture. In order to achieve true popularity, an act more marketable needed to bridge the gap.
Enter the Bee Gees, a pop trio of brothers who rode a danceable disco style to commercial success in the mid ’70s. “Saturday Night Fever” producer Robert Stigwood, who needed a hit disco soundtrack for his movie to be a blockbuster, approached the Gibb brothers (Barry, Maurice and Robin) to write original material for his movie, which was already in post-production.
The Bee Gees agreed, and with only a vague idea of the movie’s concept, they quickly wrote four No. 1 hits, including “Stayin’ Alive,” “Night Fever,” “How Deep Is Your Love” and Yvonne Elliman’s “If I Can’t Have You.” The Bee Gees-led soundtrack skyrocketed to the top of the charts, spending 24 weeks at No. 1 in 1978. The album’s terrific track listing, as well as John Travolta dancing in his white jumpsuit, signaled the beginning of disco’s mainstream popularity. In a matter of months, disco went from a bubbling undercurrent to a major pop-culture phenomenon.
All the popularity aside, “Saturday Night Fever” is a brilliant move on the part of Stigwood. As he predicted, the movie introduced the extravagant and escapist disco sound and lifestyle to a much larger audience. It was a bold move for the artists involved, especially the Bee Gees. Defining a genre is no easy task, but the artists involved and included on the soundtrack provided a terrific gateway. The true achievement of the soundtrack is that it shows both disco’s star power and its compelling diversity.
There are disco versions of classical pieces (“A Fifth of Beethoven” and “Night on Disco Mountain”) that seamlessly integrate orchestral arrangements into the main framework. On the other hand, syncopated salsa rhythms and dramatic horn sections reverberate through tracks such as “Open Sesame” and “Salsation.” MFSB’s “K-Jee” even manages to combine these two disparate influences, creating something both lush and funky.
Thankfully, “classic” long-form four-on-the-floor disco closes the album with The Trammps’ blistering 11 minute “Disco Inferno.”
Of course, the work of the Bee Gees on this album cannot be ignored. While not pure disco, the strutting “Stayin’ Alive” and the slinky “Night Fever” brought fresh new fervor to an already innovative genre.
Though the Gibb brothers were never a part of the original community that defined disco, they inhabited its musical territory convincingly. The genre would fall out of favor by the end of the ’70s, but “Saturday Night Fever” is a timeless distillation of disco that ensures it will live forever.
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From Feb 11-22, Havana is the center of the 19th International Book Fair. Then, the Book Fair will tour the major Cuban cities for a month.
The Book Fair will take place at the Fortress of San Carlos de la Cabaña. This is a building in the form of a polygon, composed of numerous bulwarks, moats, barracks, and warehouses. Its construction was started in 1763, and finished 11 years later in 1774. Of the military buildings Spain constructed in America, it is the largest. As well as lodging for the best units of the Spanish Army in Cuba, it served to protect Havana from pirate attacks.
By order of Fidel Castro on January 3, 1959, Ernesto Che Guevara occupied La Cabaña and established his command headquarters there. From that date, it was transformed into a military unit for the guerilla fighters. And also into a giant prison. In its humid cells, the same ones where they happily sell literary titles, hundreds of political and common criminals used to be crowded together.
Serial executions took place in the yards where now the fascinated children run and play hide-and-seek behind the solidly built canons of the 18th century. Stories are told that in the first days of the revolution, Che personally supervised the executions of the Batista party members accused of crimes. In those same pits, the opponents of Castro were executed. In 1991, after various years of remodeling, the old fortress was converted to the Military Morro-Cabaña Historical Park.
The 19th edition of the Book Fair is devoted to Russia. In various pavilions, a heap of books by authors like Tolstoy, Chekov, Gogol, and Pushkin are sold. I didn’t see books from Solzhenitsyn, Pasternack, or Nabokov. If there is one whose books should have been sold, it is Yevgeny Yevtushenko, symbol of the post-Stalinist thawing, because the controversial poet is one of the more than 200 Russian intellectuals, writers, and artists, among them the Bolshoi Ballet, that traveled to the Island like special guests, purposely for the Fair.
Eighteen Years ago, Russia said goodbye to the communist ideology, but in Cuba, such a trustyworthy ally of Moscow that in 1976 a paragraph was included in the Constitution highlighting the “indestructible relations between both nations,” certain Russian literature, music, and movies are still considered dissident.
Having been dedicated to Russia, this Fair has brought loads of nostalgia to supporters of the Castro brothers. Opened by the president, who has never hidden his veneration for the Soviet feat during World War II. According to professor Jaime Suchlicki, from the University of Miami, “the Soviet army seemed to have always fascinated Raul, who exhibits photos and statues of soviet generals in his office in Havana.”
Together with the Russian Chancelor Sergei Lavrov, the general Raul Castro presided over the inauguration on Thursday, the 11th. In subsequent days, people turned out en masse to the different areas of The Cabaña.
Havana – Book Fair 2010
With an impressive and unique view of Havana, and a multitude of books and kiosks with an ample gastronomic offering in the two currencies that circulate on the Island (the Cuban Peso and the Convertible Cuban Peso), thousands of people crowded the pavilions in search of literary novelties.
In pesos, the national currency, they sold a few tattered books. More of the same. At the entrance, they gave out the title Niños del Milagro (Children of the Miracle) published April 2004, about the eye operations of Venezuelan children, written by the Cuban journalists Katiuska Blanco, Alina Perera, and Alberto Ñúñez. By means of a human wall and with a little luck, you could acquire novels from universal pens or police procedurals from the Spaniard Juan Madrid.
There were ample offerings in strong currency. Above all, for children. Ricardo Rojas, 43 years old, seated with his back to the sea and with his daughter, under a bright sun and an irritating wind commented: “I spent 54 Cuban Convertible Pesos (some 50 dollars) in books for my daughter. When I got back home, I will have to put up with the argument from my wife, for the money wasted only on books. But they are didactic works that will serve in her education.”
At least Rojas can give himself this luxury. The majority think about it twice when it comes time to open the wallet. The books are expensive, even the ones sold in pesos, as well as those sold in convertible currency. Nora Diaz, spent five hours with her 3 kids spinning like tops by all of the pavillions. In her purse she had 120 pesos (4 dollars) and 6 convertible pesos (5 dollars) to spend between books and something to eat.
At the end she bought a pair of infant stories from a Russian author, a cookbook, and 4 apples that she and her kids ate seated on the heights of the Fortress of the Cabaña, looking at the still intense blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean and scant anchored boats, waiting to enter the Havana port. Nora does not believe that it was a lost day. ”It is an oasis of tranquility to see from the city from here. We will go back with few books, but hopeful,” she said captivated by the splendid scenery.
In spite of its shady past, the vision offered from the grounds of La Cabaña offers is fabulous. If only to look at Havana from the other side of the bay it is worthwhile to challenge the lines, the empty wallets, the daily disgust, and the deficient public transport. Book Fair or no Book Fair.
Photos: CalQBN, Flickr and Iván García
Translated by BW
They don’t have the charm of the “jineteras”(prostitutes seeking foreign tourists) who work for hard currency.* They don’t wear brand-name clothes, or high-heeled shoes. They don’t use Chanel perfumes, or wear gold jewelry. They are the poorer type, who at most smother themselves with large quantities of Cuban-made Suchel talcum powder, and smell of cheap eau-de-cologne. They wear short tight skirts. And they tend to plaster on the make-up.
These are the local currency whores. Many of them get off the train at daybreak and before the sun has fully risen they are already busy at work. Like Yanelis, 28 years old, an Indian mulatta, born in an eastern province 800 km from the capital.
Her life is a small hell. She never knew her parents and doesn’t have fond memories of her childhood. Her maternal grandparents did what they could. But Yanelis only managed to get as far as finishing seventh grade. And yet her round and shapely backside, her firm breasts and her skin, the colour of coffee with cream, would get men aroused. Especially some of her male relatives.
One night, a cousin invited her to the fair and he plied her with an excessive quantity of a bog standard and insipid brew which is sold loose as draught beer. When she had passed out from drinking so much alcohol, he repeatedly raped her.
She was only twelve years old. Her first customers were her own family members. For 5 pesos (a quarter dollar) she let them fondle her breasts or masturbate and then ejaculate on her face.
“The most perverted of my relatives was also the one with the most money, because he worked in a hotel exclusively for tourists. He forced me to sleep with animals and on more than one occasion I got sick. I’ve tried everything. I’m bisexual and for as long as I can remember, I’ve never known what it’s like to feel in love with someone. That only happens in movies.”
Prematurely aged by a tough life and an even worse diet, Yanelis gulps down a can of Bucanero beer and goes on with her story.
“I came to Havana because business is good here. It’s my third trip. I’ve been caught by the police a couple of times and they sent me back to the province where I’m from. I even spent a year and a half in jail. But I always come back. Things are very tense in my home town. I don’t have, nor do I want, any other way of making money. Perhaps this is the most difficult way, but it’s the easiest for me. I don’t have many options unless it’s coffee picking in the mountains or wiping tables in a café,” says this girl, prematurely aged by a tough life and an even worse diet.
In the capital, Yanelis and some other prostitutes rent an extremely shabby room. They have to fetch their water in containers and live by candlelight because they don’t have electricity. Each one pays 5 convertible pesos for the room. On a good day, she makes the equivalent of 50 or 60 convertible pesos (about 1200 or 1500 regular pesos). If you do the math, to make this amount Yanelis is having to sleep with ten or twelve men. For a quick half hour ‘screw’ they make 100 regular pesos or 5 convertible.
She started working as a prostitute in the area around Fraternity Park, in the heart of Havana. Her stroll was Monte and Cienfuegos streets, the first marketplace to emerge on the island for cheap sex bought with regular pesos, back around 1996. Things didn’t go too badly for her. But every now and again there was a police raid.
When she got out of jail, she thought she needed to be more discreet. She’s a fixture now in a spot on the fringes of the National Freeway. Guys in cars and on motorbikes pass by, drunk and looking for a woman to satisfy their sexual appetite.
That is where you’ll find girls like Yanelis, ready to offer you their a la carte menu: 50 pesos for a blow job, 40 for a hand job, and 100 for the full works, in other words, for penetrative sex. Paying a bit more gets you anal sex. And if you’ve got 20 convertible pesos or 500 of the regular kind, you can head off with two sad and pale girls who’ll offer you a moonlight lesbian show in the middle of a banana field with some dirty bits of cardboard for a bed.
There are at least a dozen such places in the city. In Havana slang they are known as chupa-chupa [suck-suck].
The young women who prostitute themselves for local currency don’t come close to the beauty and silhouettes of the splendid hookers that have dazzled the Iberian and Italian men who have taken them under their wing and married them. No. These are poor lost souls who stoically endure being penetrated by more than ten men in a single day in order to make a few pesos.
Yanelis doesn’t want to think about the future, which is a bad word for her. She lives fast and for the present. Night has fallen. She looks up at the cloudy sky and comments despondently:
“Uh oh. It’s going to rain. Bad for business.”
She prefers picking up men when she’s drunk or after smoking a couple of joints. Sometimes she takes a few parkisonil tablets to get high. When she gets back to her wretched room she sometimes feels guilty.
This is when she remembers that she’d like to have children, a good husband, and to start a family. She soon abandons the idea. That stuff is only in movies. Or romantic novels by Corín Tellado. Then she comes back down to earth. To the reality which is her lot in life. And she has neither the energy nor the desire to change it.
Translated by BW and RSP and ANB
* Translator’s note: There are two kinds of pesos in circulation in Cuba, one which can be exchanged for dollars and Euros, the Convertible Peso, and one which can’t, the regular kind. One convertible peso (officially worth $1.08) is equivalent to 24 regular pesos (referred to as moneda nacional (national money) by Cubans, and translated in this text as local currency).
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Christmas is just around the corner and it’s time to think about almonds.
Why almonds, you ask?
Well, here in Norway all kinds of almondy goodness are on the menu this time of year, in the form of marzipan and kransekake. Kransekake is simply ground almonds, egg whites and powdered sugar shaped into circles of different sizes and baked, then put one on top of the other into a gooey, scrumptious tower. I’ve seen it translated as Garland Cake, Tower Cake and Wreath Cake.
When I was an exchange student in Oklahoma a million years ago, I was given cards and presents from everyone in the neighbourhood (even people I didn’t know – Americans are generous like that) – and heaps of a white sweet. Nom nom, I thought, marzipan. But it wasn’t. Instead it was divinity. I had never heard of it before – and haven’t since. Like marzipan, divinity is made with egg whites and sugar. Lots of sugar. But no almonds.
Nothing wrong with divinity. But it isn’t marzipan.
…and almonds aren’t just almonds.
This summer, my daughters took a cruise in the Baltic. The girls (my 11-year-old in particular) think I’m an absolute bore on cruises (probably because I’m bored), so this time they decided to go on their own. One of their ports of call was the capital of Estonia – and as a small consolation, they brought me a burlap bag of roasted almonds from Tallinn.
As it turns out, almonds aren’t just yummy. They come with other benefits as well, at least these almonds do. These almonds, you see, ‘have reached Tallinn on the vessels of Hanseatic merchants’, and according to this quote from 1470
dried almonds keep one from getting drunk if you eat five pieces of them. The frying oil of almonds nourishes the weak and tired.
Happy Christmas all!
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System is one of the country's most energy-efficient
Named for the city's first Parent Teacher Association president, the Minnie Howard campus of T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va., has been helping ninth-grade students transition from middle school to senior high school since 1993.
In 2008, Alexandria City Public Schools hired the Leesburg, Va., office of Hayes Large Architects LLP and Leesburg-based B2E Consulting Engineers to help turn the Minnie Howard campus into a laboratory for green-building technologies that could be implemented districtwide.
Hayes Large and B2E devised an innovative package of technologies to form one of the most energy-efficient systems in the country. This includes a creative combination of solar and ground-source geothermal energy to significantly lower heating and cooling costs, a water-source variable-refrigerant-flow (VRF) zoning HVAC system to simultaneously cool and heat the building, water-source heat pumps, solar heat exchangers, low-flow plumbing fixtures, and tubular skylights to bring sunlight to classrooms, corridors, and bathrooms.
Synchronizing all of these sophisticated technologies was a challenge.
Forty-two solar collector panels were placed in front of the school to provide active solar water heating and serve as a sun shade, reducing glare and cooling costs. For the new geothermal system, a field of 60 wells was drilled 300 ft beneath the school parking lot.
Well drilling began in April 2009. General contractor Caldwell and Santmyer Inc. of Berryville, Va., first removed the building’s 50-year-old HVAC system, which included two locomotive-sized boilers and chillers. Caldwell and Santmyer brought in Shapiro & Duncan Inc. of Rockville, Md., to install six Mitsubishi Electric water-source VRF zoning units next to the backup boilers, solar heat exchanger, and makeup outside-air unit. Shapiro & Duncan also set up the complex plumbing network, which connected 8,000 ft of piping joining the geothermal closed-loop water system to six Mitsubishi WR2-Series inverter-driven units.
The W-Series units fit into the mechanical room’s tight spaces.
"The school went from an antiquated chiller that was keeping water at 40 degrees and two huge, inefficient boilers maintaining 180-degree water all the time—even if it wasn’t needed—to a variable-speed condensing unit coupled to a geothermal well system that only runs if an indoor air handler needs cooling or heating," Chris Ott, project manager for Shapiro & Duncan, said. "Add to this the ability to cool and heat simultaneously and to zone with multiple condensing units—another energy-saving milestone."
Ott was impressed with the W-Series system's use of water as a heat-exchange medium and the use of the W-Series system in conjunction with the geothermal wells.
"It was a very logical solution for energy conservation," Ott said. "I also like the reduced cost of labor and materials needed for installation because Mitsubishi is the only two-pipe system in the industry. The installation was hassle-free, and the system started up the very first time with no glitches. When you consider there are 8,000 ft of piping, that’s amazing."
Information and photographs courtesy of Mitsubishi Electric.
For Design Solutions author guidelines, call Scott Arnold, executive editor, at 216-931-9980, or write to him at firstname.lastname@example.org.
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February 7, 2013 - 9:40am
BY CHARLENE LERNER
Throughout the country, public universities use resident tax dollars for funding. This fact partially explains the stark differences between in-state and out-of-state tuition prices, since residents in the state help pay for the university all along. Yet many states continue to pull resident tax dollars away from their public universities, while out-of-state students are charged more and increasingly sought out by public universities.
However, research has shown that out-of-state students are being sought out not because of a lack of state funding, but rather because they boost the quality of the student body. Even so, they are held to higher admissions standards than in-state applicants.
So, what we’re seeing is disproportionately higher tuition and higher acceptance standards for out-of-state students. But if both out-of-state and in-state students receive the same quality of education at the end of the day, how is that fair? Even if an out-of-state student receives financial aid, they still pay significantly more than in-state students.
Quality of students on campus is something we should strive for — it enhances classroom learning and enriches our community by cultivating differing views and backgrounds. However, this doesn’t make it right for public universities to seek out-of-state students while continuously burdening them with a higher price for their education.
What if out-of-state students were instead rewarded for their contributive presence? If public universities offered non-financial compensation to their out-of-state students, would that bring us fairness? Better housing arrangements, recruiting opportunities, amenities and special classes could be offered to these students. Yet somehow, when we start listing benefits like that, our logic starts getting iffy. Those things won’t provide for the right sense of equality, and they might instead act as unwanted dividers among students.
For a few years, there has been talk about our university going private. Do you think that would balance out the differences between standards for in-state and out-of-state students?
Charlene can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.org.
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about the author
Public Information Officer
David Orr is based in Nairobi as a WFP spokesman for East and Southern Africa.
The World Food Programme has joined a new action plan by the Mozambican government to bring down one of Africa's highest rates of chronic malnutrition.
MOAMBA, MOZAMBIQUE -- Tina Sergio is 11 months old but looks half that age. Fragile, malnourished and battling constant diarrhea, she was taken by her mother to a health center in the southern Mozambican village of Moamba, about an hour's drive from the capital, Maputo. Her condition was so severe that she was immediately admitted to hospital.
"I feed her maize mash at home because that's all I can afford," says her 21-year-old mother Alcinda Armaral. "All we have is what we grow on our plot - maize, sweet potato and cassava. My husband works in the mines in South Africa but he doesn't send much money home."
Tina was born malnourished because her mother was herself malnourished during pregnancy. Both are HIV positive. Nor is her debilitating condition unique. At an alarming 44 percent, chronic malnutrition levels in Mozambique are among the highest in Africa.
Now, the World Food Programme and other United Nations agencies have joined the Mozambican government in developing a new, multi-sectoral action plan to tackle chronic malnutrition, recognized as the leading problem in the nation. The aim: to halve chronic malnutrition here by the year 2020.
Tina is already getting treatment. During the week she spends in hospital, she will receive daily doses of a vitamin supplement to build up her strength.
Once she is ready to leave, her mother will take home a supply of nutritious corn-soya blend (CSB) to make healthy portions of porridge for her baby. Then each month, Armaral will collect a ration of CSB which WFP supplies to the health centre.
A hidden problem
But in many other cases, chronic child malnutrition -- whose main causes include poor diet and disease -- goes untreated and largely unseen. Stunted growth is the main indicator.
The condition has debilitating long-term effects: decreased cognitive function affecting performance at school; reduced productive capacity and poor health as adults; and an increased risk of degenerative diseases like diabetes.
Under the multi-sectoral action plan, a range of new interventions will be rolled out in the coming months and years. The priorities include greater access to fortified foods and micronutrients and improved health and sanitation facilities in rural areas.
As chronic malnutrition frequently begins while the child is still in the mother’s womb and often follows early pregnancy, the target groups will be teenage girls, pregnant and breast-feeding women, and children under the age of two.
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Yvonne Bivins has written extensively about her multiracial roots, and I am delighted to share her stories, insights, and family photos here on Renegade South. Because of the towering historical presence of Newt Knight, we’ve heard much about the children he fathered with former slaves Rachel and George Ann Knight, but very little about the multiracial families with which the descendants of these two women blended their family lines.
I’ve learned so much from reading Yvonne’s essays and notes. For example, I learned that Davis Knight, famous because of his 1948 miscegenation trial, was descended not only from Newt and Rachel Knight, but also from Martha Ann Ainsworth through his mother, Addie. Martha Ann was the slave of Sampson “Jeff” Ainsworth and also the mother of several of his children.
Martha Ann and Jeff Ainsworth’s daughter, Lucy Jane, forged the most extensive link between the Ainsworths, Smiths, and Knights. According to Yvonne, after the war “Lucy married a nearly white man named Warren Edward Smith, who was born in Smith County to a mulatto slave named Jennie McGill.” Warren deserted Lucy around 1882, leaving her to raise their children alone.
Historically, impoverished women have been forced to look to men as protectors and providers. It was no different for Lucy, who also suffered the disability of race in segregated Mississippi (despite her white appearance). Writes Yvonne: “left with five children to support, Lucy began a relationship with Calhoun Anderson, a white man. . . . Anderson was the father of two of Lucy’s children, Quillie Calvin and Necia Abigail. “
As they reached adulthood, Lucy’s children intermarried extensively with the children of Newt and Rachel. According to Yvonne, “Lucy’s son Louis married Ollie Jane, daughter of Jeffrey Early Knight [son of Rachel] and Martha [Mollie] Knight, Newton Knight’s white daughter.” Her daughter, Mary Florence Magdaline (Maggie), married John Madison (Hinchie), Newt and Rachel’s son. Yvonne further notes that Newt and George Ann Knight also had a son together, John Howard, who married Lucy’s daughter, Candace Martha Jane. To top it all off, at the age of 38, Lucy Ainsworth Smith herself married a Knight: Floyd, another of Newt and Rachel’s sons, further entwining the Ainsworth, Smith, and Knight family networks.
What makes Yvonne’s stories so valuable is that she LISTENED when her elders went on about the past—she particularly listened to her grandmother, Jerolee Smith. But she also asked questions of them, to the point that she was sometimes told to quit “digging.” Yvonne has also conducted her own research in federal manuscript censuses, court records, and old family manuscripts and photographs. Most important of all, she wrote down what she learned.
There is much more to be learned about this network of families, and I’ve incorporated some of Yvonne’s research into chapter six of The Long Shadow of the Civil War. What I hope is that Yvonne will one day soon publish her own full-fledged history of the Ainsworth-Smith-Knight connections.
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Here’s a simple piece of arithmetic to keep in mind after Wisconsin voters overwhelmingly supported Gov. Scott Walker and California voters backed pension cuts for retired municipal workers. I reviewed some of these numbers last October in this space, and add some state-level detail below. Back on Jan. 24 I insisted that “Obama is toast” because of the rotten economy. It’s sure starting to look that way.
State and local property tax collections (blue line in the graph below) have risen by 10%, from $400 billion to $440 billion, since 2008, even though the price of homes in most American markets (red line) has fallen by 30% since 2008. Your house is worth less and your property taxes have gone up. Most of the $440 billion in property taxes is paid by homeowners. That compares with the $380 billion a year or so that homeowners pay on the $10 trillion in outstanding home mortgage debt. Homeowners now pay roughly as much in property taxes as in mortgages interest. It used to be a quarter to a third as much. No wonder home prices remain depressed.
Things are even worse in Wisconsin than in most American states. As shown in the chart below, property tax collections have risen by nearly $25 billion, or almost 20% in Gov. Walker’s state, compared to a 10% increase nationally. No wonder Wisconsin voters backed Walker by a margin of nearly 3:2. There are a lot more people paying property taxes to pay the salaries and benefits of government workers than there are government workers.
California is the worst of all: Despite one of the weakest housing markets in the country, property tax collections in California spiked by nearly 50% since 2008.
State and local government spending doubled since the property boom began in 1998:
The federal government’s spending rose even faster, but it is borrowing $1 out of every $3 it spends, but state and local governments can’t do that by law. So they have pushed up tax collections even while federal tax collections have fallen.
Federal (Left-hand scale) vs. State+Local (Right-hand scale) Tax Collections
Source: Census Bureau
Because it’s easier to push up property tax rates than to pass new sales or income taxes, that’s where the incremental tax burden has fallen.
Property Taxes as a % of Total State and Local Tax Collections
Source: Census Bureau
State and local governments are standing on the sore toe of the American middle class–the housing market. It’s much worse than under the Carter administration. During the 1970s, home prices tripled while consumer prices doubled, so the net worth of the middle class actually rose. Now the 30% collapse in housing prices has wiped out the net worth of perhaps half of American middle-class families, at a moment when less of the population is working than at any time since the data have been kept:
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Part of Brookings's new Advanced Industries Series, this report finds that the Colorado space economy is a critical driver of economic growth and explores how Colorado can defend and extend its current position as one of the most multidimensional space economies in the nation. Directly employing over 66,000 workers across the military, civil, and private domains, the full space enterprise in Colorado contributed some $8.7 billion in value-added output in 2011, in a performance that generated some 3.8 percent of Colorado’s private-sector gross domestic product.
Note: This report was released at an event on Tuesday, February 5, at the History Colorado Center. The Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings presented a dynamic public forum focused on the significance and future of the Colorado space economy as an exemplary advanced industry. The forum explores ways the Colorado space cluster can build and sustain regional and national economic competitiveness. See event details.
With the Great Recession receding but disruptive change in the air, Colorado has been moving to reassess its economic positioning and identify the most promising sources of long-term growth and competitiveness.
Most notably, the administration of Gov. John Hickenlooper—alert to calls that the United States must reorient its drifting economy away from consumption activities and imports and more toward high-value innovation, production, and exports—has been carrying out a major economic planning initiative aimed at engaging the state’s key industries and regions in a “bottom-up” effort to explore and seize on the best opportunities for economic expansion. Through this Colorado Blueprint process, the state has come to focus—with support from the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program—on its extraordinary space/aerospace cluster, which it quickly recognized stands as a classic “advanced industry.”
Three major findings about the Colorado space economy:
- Colorado possesses one of the most diversified, multidimensional, and high-potential space economies in the nation.
- However, while significant opportunities are emerging, a set of disruptive forces at work in the global space market have exposed a number of competitive challenges for the Colorado industry.
- Given these challenges as well as its many strengths, Colorado should commit itself to preeminence in the space through a collaborative partnership of industry and government along six dimensions.
Read the report » (PDF)
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A First Look | 2014 Porsche 911 GT3
Less is more! That was the concept behind this 2014 Porsche 911 GT3. While its rival Lamborghini is trying to figure out what else it can do, Porsche decided to keep it simple and sleek with the GT3. Instead of the conventional manual transmission of the previous model, the 2014 model gets a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission with more closely spaced gears which allows for easy shifting. Tapping out at speeds of 195mph, the GT3 can take us from zero to 60 in just three seconds.
Since these specifics are leaked, it is safe to say that there is a lot more to this car than meets the eye. The sleek design of the outside is for aerodynamic purposes for sure which means that this car is mean on and off the track. Check out the picture gallery below and see what all the hype is about.
Signed, Tamika Frye
Short URL: http://stupidDOPE.com/?p=161133
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Can Desiree Rogers Make Washington Fun Again?
No previous White House Social Secretary has had a Harvard M.B.A. Nor have any talked openly about “branding” the Presidency. But Desirée Rogers, the glamorous Chicago businesswoman, social figure, and friend of the Obamas’, is a change agent. As she told me two days after the inauguration, she wants to be the producer of an inclusive show-and-tell from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
One of the first events Rogers organized was a White House ceremony to honor Lilly Ledbetter, whose fight for equal pay for women led to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which President Obama signed into law last Thursday. “You have to think of the social office as a conduit by which we bring to life the ideals of the Obama Presidency,” Rogers says. One of those ideals is service, and according to Rogers, “If we have an artist in the White House at night, we would inspire them to do community service in the daytime.”I asked Rogers if she would look for inspiration to John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy, the most socially adept First Couple in memory. “I don’t believe we are going to recreate Camelot,” she says. “Certainly there are very valuable lessons to learn from Camelot. Our hope is we will have our own administration…. The American people have spoken. They want new ideas.” Clearly that implies reaching out beyond Georgetown, which since the time of the Kennedys has been the center of the capital’s social life. This is not your mother’s Camelot. Rogers’s goal, she says, is “to create an environment of inclusiveness so that all Americans feel like the White House is their home.” Diversity is a major theme, and it was no accident that a Cuban immigrant, Isabel Toledo, designed Michelle Obama’s inaugural outfit, and a young Asian-American, Jason Wu, created her Inaugural Ball gown.
O.K., but what about Michelle Obama’s definition of her role as First Lady. She says she’ll serve as the “Mom-in-Chief,” but what does that really mean? “Mom-in-Chief means she will set her own course,” Rogers says. “It means we can all think about what is important to us, and we don’t have to follow anyone else. We can be for us, it’s O.K.” Mrs. Obama has identified military families and the D.C. schools as two of her early interests, and Rogers insists that the choice between being an active First Lady and being a wife and mother is not an either-or proposition. “You don’t have to be one way or the other. You can be a mom and put your family first, and you can see what you put your mark on.” After all, Michelle Obama forged a high-powered career for herself while raising two children, and her guiding philosophy is a good work-life balance for both men and women. “Our goal is to work extremely hard,” Rogers says, “but there also needs to be time to celebrate, to visit, and to socialize.”
And so very, very many in Washington hope that Desirée Rogers chooses them to socialize with.
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The commercial craze surrounding iPad gave us the impression that this nifty machine is small enough to trot yet packed with superior apps that would put an ordinary smart phone to shame.
Apple has made it a point, in fact, a selling point, that thousands of apps were designed specifically to iPad consumption. These apps range from the leisurely and educational to the business centered. At present, additional apps are still in the process of been developed to ensure that all kinds of processes are possible to be accomplished in the iPad.
Interesting apps are present in the iPad, which may not appear to be immediately useful, but to some extent, is on a good-to-know basis. For instance, there exists a table of elements app called The Elements that has absolutely no use for corporate individuals and just about everyone else. Unless we are still attached to academic Chemistry or have great propensity to create our own potions, the Table of Elements seems like a whimsical addition to iPad’s list of apps. But it does not hurt to find this app, for one, it could come in handy in the face of an alien take-over.
One useful app would be the Epicurious, a comprehensive indexed cookbook. The user could randomly search for a recipe by simply using one of the ingredients names as the search keyword. It will return a list of recipes that includes the key ingredient and the user can further narrow down the search by adding more key recipes.
Other lifestyle apps are offered too that can supplement the Epicurious app such as the Grocery IQ and Mcormick Recipes apps among others.
Games and entertainment apps have a wide array of selection from scholarly to mundane to high speed racing. Even the game apps have been specially redesigned for iPad. Gaming is such a great experience on the iPad because of its rich display, ultra fast processor and multi-orientation screen. The user can flip the tablet from portrait to landscape to better enjoy the gaming activity.
Scrabble and Soduko are two of the most popular educational game puzzles that were integrated into the iPad apps. Puzzle games such as Labyrinth, Monkey Flight, Traffic Rush, Superstar Chef, Bloons Light and more. For the puzzle addict, iPad sounds like a stairway to arcade/puzzle games heaven.
Racing games have so many incarnations in the list of iPad apps such as Real Racing HD, Asphalt 5, F1 2010, Fast Lane Street Racing Lite, Fast and Furious The Game Test Drive, Need for Speed: Undercover among others. There are about hundred of racing games to choose from.
The iPad owner can decide which apps to download on the iPad depending on his lifestyle or tastes. Everything is available on the App Store and almost all of it has been rehashed to adapt to the iPad’s specifications. With over a hundred thousand of apps to choose from, it would be impossible not to find one that will spark one’s interests.
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In the rock above, layers have peeled from the outside caused by exfoliation.
Photo by Phil Medina
Exfoliation on Granite. Photo by Phil Medina, Mojave Desert
Rocks formed deep in the Earth are made under high pressure.
When the pressure is released the rocks expand & crack.
May also be caused by alternate heating and cooling of rocks by weather conditions.
Abrasion- rubbing by other rocks.
Abrasion in loose sandstone.
The gouges were made by hikers rubbing their fingers against the rock.
Photo by Phil Medina, Utah 2010
Chemical weathering is where the rock material is changed into another substance by reacting with a chemical.
- Oxygen in the atmosphere chemically reacts with minerals.
- ex.: rusting of a nail
Photoshop drawing by Phil Medina
- Minerals are dissolved in water.
- ex.: Halite, calcite
- Carbonic acid:
- C02 dissolves in rain water forming a weak acid (seltzer).
- Acid Rain: Sulfur Dioxide in the atmosphere dissolves in rain water forming a strong acid (sulfuric acid).
Rates of weathering will be influenced by...
Surface area exposed - weathering occurs on the surface. More surface exposed, the faster the weathering will occur.
Surface Area photoshop drawing by Phil Medina
Mineral composition- some minerals are more resistant than others.
ex.:Quartz is resistant to chemical and physical weathering.
In the diagram above the different layers of the rock are weathered at different rates depending on the minerals within the rock. The layers sticking up most are the most resistant.
- Cold and/or dry climates favor physical weathering.
- Warm and wet climates favor chemical weathering.
- Frost action works best in areas where the temperature fluctuates wildly.
Soil - The product of weathering
Soil is made from rocks, minerals (mainly sand and clay), and organic material (regolith and organic matter)
Soil forms layers of different characteristics called horizons.
Residual soil is located above the rock that it is formed from (parent rock).
Transported soil has been moved from another location.
Most soil on the Earth's surface is transported.
||Small sediments and organic material
||Lighter in color, no organic material
Erosion- the process of moving sediment from one location to another.
The most important FORCE of erosion is GRAVITY. The most important AGENT of erosion is WATER.
The amount of erosion by a stream depends on the velocity and volume of water flow.
Velocity is influenced by the slope & volume of a stream.
As the velocity increases the size of the particles transported will get bigger. (See chart in Handy Dandy Earth Science Reference Tables)
Volume (amount of water flowing) is influenced by rainfall.
The shape of a stream will determine where erosion will occur.The fastest water goes to the outside of the curve. The outside curve gets eroded away.
In a straight run of water, the fastest water runs above center of the stream.
The rate of erosion increases where the velocity increases. (Direct Relationship)
Deposition- the process of dropping material out of transportation.
Kinetic and Potential Energy
- Kinetic Energy is the energy of motion.
- The faster an object moves, the higher its kinetic energy.
- Wherever the KE is high (fast water), there is a lot of erosion.
- Wherever the KE is low (slow water), there is a lot of deposition.
- Potential Energy is the potential to move.
- The high an object is, the higher its potential energy.
The characteristics of deposited particles give information about the erosion and deposition environments.
- sediments get rounded and polished. Sorting occurs.
- particles can be fairly large.
- deposition occurs where the water slows down.
- ex.: where the river widens or where it dumps into a large body of water.
- As water slows gradually, smaller and smaller particles drop out causing horizontal sorting.
Crossbeds are formed when several horizontal sorting events happen on top of each other such as in a river delta as the stream meanders back and forth.
Graded bedding in a glacial esker.
-Photo by Phil Medina, NY July 2004
Graded Bedding comes from repeated vertical sorting events such as annual spring thaws.
Crossbeds caused by the wandering mouth of a stream.
Crossbeds in a glacial esker.
-Photo by Phil Medina, NY July 2004
Vertical Sorting- caused by larger, rounder, denser sediments settling first.
- sediments are rounded and have a frosty appearance (tiny pits from impacts of flying sand) sorting occurs.
- particles are small
- Sand Dunes will be made
- Sand dunes have gently sloped windward sides and steeper leeward sides
Sand dune at sunset.
Photo by Phil Medina, Kelso National Park, Mojave Desert 2008
Sand dune field.
Photo by Phil Medina, Armagosa Valley, Nevada 2008
- Sediments are sharp-edged
- May have scratches or a polished side where they came in contact with the ground
- Deposits are unsorted and can be very large.
Parallel scratches in bedrock caused by the passage of a glacier.
Gravity by itself can transport sediments.
- no limit in size
- often causes “mass wasting” such as landslides and downhill creep
A living tree trunk
bent by downhill creep.
-Photo by Phil Medina, Seattle August 2004
Glaciers- There are two types of glaciers: Alpine (or valley) and Continental (Ice Caps).
A side view of an alpine glacier.
The slow motion flow of a glacier is similar to that of a river- fastest in the middle and slowest along the banks.
An alpine glaciated area
showing many of the typical features.
The same area after the glacial ice has melted away.
An alpine glacier in Alaska. Note the racing stripes of the medial moraines.
-Photo by Phil Medina, Aug 2004
A diagramatic view showing how medial moraines form.
This picture taken on the way to Mt. Marcy (See Reference Tables) shows classic U-shaped valleys of a glaciated region.
-Photo by Phil Medina 1994
Another U-Shaped Valley in Alaska.
-Photo by Phil Medina, August 2004
The U-shaped Valley on the left was made by a glacier while the V-shaped valley on the right was made by running water.
Continental Glaciers as they were at the peak of the Last Ice Age.
The the current continental glaciers on the planet. Note that the cross section at the bottom left shows that the weight of the glacier has pushed the center of Greenland below sea level!
Diagram showing an active ice sheet and many of the features found at its edge.
The same are after the glacire retreated.
In a straight section of a stream, the fastest water is in the middle above center.
On a curve, the fastest water gets thrown to the outside and that's where erosion will happen. The slowest water huggs the inside of the stream and that is where deposition takes place.
The meander widens from erosion on the outside and deposition on the inside.
The two sides of the meander erode into each other.
Water slows in the outside loop causing deposition . The loop gets cut off into an “Oxbow Lake” while the stream returns to a straighter course.
A Youthful Stream
- Narrow V-shaped
- Swift water
- Steep gradient
- Erosion is dominant
Valley continues to deepen.
- Lateral Erosion begins
- Meanders develop
- Floodplains develop
- Gradient lowers
- Wide meanders and oxbow lakes
- Wide floodplain
- Low velocity
- Low gradient
- Dynamic equilibrium between erosion and deposition
Wave action as seen under the waves
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The people from this town are called Riudomenc/riudomenca.
Riudoms was a Roman rural settlement (some archaeological remains and coins were discovered), that was depopulated when the Muslims dominated the region in the 8th century. Conquered by the Norman Robert d'Aguiló under the orders of the Catalan count, the lordship of Riudoms was granted to Arnau de Palomar on 24 January 1150. A castle was constructed and a town born at side.
Although it is widely accepted that he was born in Reus, this village is considered by some people the place of birth of the architect Antoni Gaudí i Cornet, designer of the Sagrada Família church in Barcelona and the most famous creator of the artistic movement of Modernisme.
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Mon November 7, 2011
Organic Isn't Always Safer When It Comes To Botulism
Organic Italian olives are the unlikely suspects in a new botulism outbreak, which has sickened two people in Europe. The Food and Drug Administration has urged people not to eat Bio Gaudiano organic olives stuffed with almonds, and the United States distributor has recalled the product.
Scientists say that the case is a good reminder that just because a product is organic, that doesn't mean it's pristine. In some cases, organic products may be even more vulnerable to certain toxins than conventionally grown foods.
That's because organic food is often fertilized with manure, which can carry dangerous spores that occur naturally in soil. And if clostridium botulinim, the bacteria that causes botulism, makes it as far as a jar packed with oil and not much oxygen, it can flourish.
"It's the perfect environment for botulinum to grow," says Eric Johnson, a professor of microbiology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The Salt tracked down Johnson in Rome, where by coincidence he'd just given a talk at the Italian research institute that was investigating the botulism outbreak. He said the case reminded him of an outbreak in the 1980s, which was caused by chopped garlic packed in oil. "Garlic is from the soil, so it has spores of botulinum in it," Johnson says. The oil floats on top of the jar and seals out air, leaving water to collect at the bottom, where it acts like a Petri dish for botulism.
Though most of the recent food safety scares have come from fresh foods like cantaloupe, sprouts and ground turkey, the olive outbreak as well as a French tapenade and dried tomato paste scare make it clear that pricey imported treats are not immune to processing slip ups. And organic foods are as vulnerable to botulism as other foods — if not more so because farmers so often use manure to grow them.
Food processors are generally diligent about fighting botulism. Salt is used to cure olives, but the food would have to be unpalatably salty to stop the bacteria. And Johnson, who has studied the deadly bacterium for three decades, says that some strains can survive boiling for hours.
After the outbreak in chopped garlic, the FDA told garlic processors add phosphoric acid. The higher acid level thwarts bacterial growth. Another strategy used by big commercial processors is a "bot cook", which involves cooking foods at high temperatures under pressure to wipe out spores.
About 145 cases of botulism are reported in the United States each year, but only about 15 percent of those are caused by food. Most of those are caused by home-canned food. Canning enthusiasts should fear not, however. There are plenty of easy ways to prevent foodborne illness when preserving fruits and vegetables. For more on how to can food safely, check out April Fulton's Q & A with a home-canning expert.
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The debate between cyclical and structural unemployment arose last year. At this point, it looks like Federal Reserve policymakers increasingly favor the structural side of the debate. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, speaking at Jackson Hole, suggested that cyclical unemployment remains the primary economic challenge:
Normally, monetary or fiscal policies aimed primarily at promoting a faster pace of economic recovery in the near term would not be expected to significantly affect the longer-term performance of the economy. However, current circumstances may be an exception to that standard view–the exception to which I alluded earlier. Our economy is suffering today from an extraordinarily high level of long-term unemployment, with nearly half of the unemployed having been out of work for more than six months. Under these unusual circumstances, policies that promote a stronger recovery in the near term may serve longer-term objectives as well. In the short term, putting people back to work reduces the hardships inflicted by difficult economic times and helps ensure that our economy is producing at its full potential rather than leaving productive resources fallow.
Note that he does not conclude the long-term unemployed are by definition structurally unemployed. Still, he continues to suggest that cyclical unemployment can turn structural:
In the longer term, minimizing the duration of unemployment supports a healthy economy by avoiding some of the erosion of skills and loss of attachment to the labor force that is often associated with long-term unemployment.
But, as is well known, he throws the ball to the fiscal authorities:
Notwithstanding this observation, which adds urgency to the need to achieve a cyclical recovery in employment, most of the economic policies that support robust economic growth in the long run are outside the province of the central bank. We have heard a great deal lately about federal fiscal policy in the United States, so I will close with some thoughts on that topic, focusing on the role of fiscal policy in promoting stability and growth.
But is it already too late? Has the cyclical unemployment turned strutural? This week, serial-dissenter Philadelphia Federal Reserve President Charles Plosser embraced the structural view:
These numbers are troubling, especially when more than 40 percent of the unemployed, or some 6 million people, have been out of work for 27 weeks or longer. This underscores that we should not expect any easy solution. Millions of unemployed workers may take longer to find jobs because their skills have depreciated or they may need to seek employment in other sectors. These structural issues will take time to resolve. Jobs and workers will need to be reallocated across the economy, which is a long and slow process.
Plosser takes the rise in long-term unemployment as an indication of structural unemployment. He then extends the point to fight the last war:
We have provided a great deal of monetary accommodation to the economy, and given the stubbornness of the unemployment rate in responding to these efforts, we should be cautious and vigilant that our previous accommodative policies do not translate into a steady rise in inflation over the medium term even while the unemployment rate remains elevated. Creating an environment of stagflation, reminiscent of the 1970s, will not help businesses, the unemployed, or the consumer. It is an outcome we must carefully guard against.
Likewise, the centrist Atlanta Federal Reserve President Dennis Lockhart also speaks of structural factors with respect to the long-term unemployed, even invoking a comparison with Europe:
I was concerned by not only the persistence of high unemployment but also the complicated internal dynamics of the current labor market. To me, it is not clear to what degree structural factors are impeding the filling of job vacancies. And with some 43 percent of the unemployed out of work for more than six months, it is not clear to what extent the long-term unemployed are becoming a class of permanently unemployed, creating a problem resembling the so-called structural unemployment of some European countries. Further, it is not clear why participation in the labor force continues to fall. Finally, it is not clear what level of unemployment should be considered the natural or equilibrium rate under current circumstances.
Not to be outdone, the difficult-to-categorize St. Louis Federal Reserve Chairman James Bullard also looks to Europe for guidance. From his presentation this week:
- Unfortunately, unemployment rates have a checkered history in advanced economies over the last several decades.
- In particular, “hysteresis” has been a common problem, in which unemployment rises and simply stays high.
- This occurred in Europe during the last 30 years.
- If such an outcome happened in the U.S., and monetary policy was explicitly tied to unemployment outcomes, monetary policy could be pulled off course for a generation.
Now, it seems to me premature to be looking to Europe as an example. It seems reasonably obvious the unemployment problem is the result of a severe negative shock to spending. You might say no, it is structural in that we can no longer rely on housing to support incomes. But that just boils down to a spending problem – unemployment was at the natural rate as long as households and firms had the ability and willingness to spend. Moreover, I am a bit hard pressed to see how America was transformed into Europe in just three years. That said, I am not the policymaker. It appears Federal Reserve members increasingly embrace the structural unemployment story, and that suggests they will hesitate to bring out substantial additional stimulus until they see greater evidence of deflation. Of course, the longer we drag our heels on the unemployment crisis, the more easily it will be for policymakers to wash their hands of the issue, as the cyclical unemployment eventually will become structural.
This post originally appeared at Tim Duy’s Fed Watch and is reproduced with permission.
One Response to “Too Late for the Unemployed?”
The Fed is run by and for bankers. They're only enforcing one side of their mandate, preventing inflation. The other side, reducing unemployment is being totally ignored. They do the oligarchy's bidding, workers be damned. It's time for some protests outside the Fed. That's the only thing that will get their attention. It's time for economists to join the protests and stop arguing about the nuances of cyclical vs. structural unemployment. It's just a destraction from the solution to the unemployment problem.
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Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 1588-08-08 by Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg, painted 1796, depicts Drake's fire ship attack on the Spanish Armada
A fire ship was a ship that is filled with combustibles, deliberately set on fire and steered (or, if possible, allowed to drift) into an enemy fleet in order to destroy ships or create panic and make them break formation. Ships used as fire ships were old and worn out or inexpensive vessels. An explosion ship was a variation on the fire ship, intended to cause damage by blowing up in close proximity to enemy ships.
Warships of the age of sail were highly vulnerable to fire. With seams caulked with tar, ropes greased with fat, and holds full of gunpowder, there was little that would not burn. Accidental fires destroyed many ships, so fire ships presented a terrifying threat.
With the wind in exactly the right direction a fire ship could be cast loose and allowed to drift onto its target, but in most battles fire ships were equipped with skeleton crews to steer the fire ship onto the target (the crew were expected to abandon ship at the last moment and escape in the ship's boat). Fireships were most devastating against fleets at anchor or otherwise restricted in movement. At sea, a well-handled ship could evade a fireship and disable it with cannon fire. Other tactics were to fire at the ships boats and other vessels in the vicinity so that the crew could not escape and therefore might decide not to ignite the ship, or to wait until the fireship had been abandoned and then tow it aside with small maneouverable vessels, such as galleys.
Notable fire ship attacks include:
Greek fire ships were manned and sailed alonside a big turkish ship (the flagship, if possible) attached to her with hooks, ropes and grips, and set on fire by the captain alone when the crew was in the escape boat. As the small fire ships were more easy to handle compared with enemy ships of the line, especialy in the coasts of Aegean Sea with the islands, islets, reefs, gulfs and straits which restrain big ships from easily moved, were a big danger in for the ships of the Turkish fleet. Many naval battles of the Greek war of indepedence won by the use of fire ships.
Nikiforos Lytras, burning of a turkish ship by Kanaris 1866-1870). 143 cn x 109 cm , 1866/1870
The use of fire ships was discontinued after the end of wooden fighting ships. An extension of the concept was however used in Operation Chariot of World War II, in which the old destroyer HMS Campbeltown was packed with explosives and rammed into the dry dock at Saint-Nazaire, France, to deny its use to the battleship Tirpitz, which could drydock nowhere else on the French west coast.
"Soon the proud fleet of the Capitan Pashaw was seen coming down toward Samos, and the Greek vessels advanced to meet it. And here one cannot but pause a moment to compare the two parties, and wonder at the contrast between them. On one side bore down a long line of lofty ships whose very size and weight seemed to give them a slow and stately motion; completely furnished at every point for war; their decks crowded with splendidly armed soldiers, and theirsides chequered with double and triple-rows of huge cannon that it seemed could belch forth a mass of iron which nothing could resist.On the other side came flying along the waves a squadron of light brigs and schooners, beautifully modelled, with sails of snowy white, and with fancifully painted sides, showing but a single row of tiny cannon. There seemed no possibility of a contest; one fleet had only to sail upon the other, and by its very weight, bear the vessels under water without firing a gun.
"But the feelings which animated them were very different. The Turks were clumsy sailors; they felt ill at ease and as if in a new element; but above all, they felt a dread of Greek fire-ships, which made them imagine every vessel that approached them to be one. The Greeks were at home on the waves,--active and fearless mariners, they knew that they could run around a Turkish frigate and not be injured; they knew the dread their enemies had of fire-ships, and they had their favorite, the daring Kanaris, with them."
Succesfull burning of ships : Place (commander):
Dar Bogaz, Gerontas and Samos (G. Batikiotis), Tenedos ( G. Bratsanos), Souda (A. Vokos), Methone (A. Dimamas), Gerontas (G. Theocharis), Mytilene (D. Kalogiannis), Ag. Marina, Samos, Tenedos, Chios (K. Kanaris), Ithaca, Messolonghi (A. Karabelas), Cavo D' Oro, Karpathos (G. Matrozos), Samos (Lekas Matrozos), Gerontas, Cavo D' Oro, Miletus and Samos (L. Mousos), Alexandria, Cavo D'Oro, Messolonghi (M. Boutis), Mytilene (K. Nikodimos), Eressos (D. Papanikolis), Methoni (A. Pavlis or Bikos), Athos, Gerontas, Spetses, Chios (A. Pipinos), Methoni, Messolonghi (G. Politis), Samos (D. Rafalias), Alexandria, Methoni, Messolonghi (M. Spachis), Methoni, Dar Bogaz (D. Tsapelis)
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Using Steam from Nuclear Power Plants for Ethanol Production
22 March 2007
|Nuclear reactors and ethanol plants in the Corn Belt. Click to enlarge.|
Researchers and engineers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the US Department of Energy are suggesting using the steam from existing nuclear power plants in the Corn Belt to reduce the costs of producing ethanol from corn and other biomass.
While current corn-to-ethanol plants provide the near-term market for nuclear steam, future cellulose-to-ethanol plants represent a much larger and longer-term market for nuclear steam. The ethanol market could require hundreds of gigawatts of thermal energy and thus may become the dominant cogeneration market for nuclear heat, according to the authors of a paper on the topic to be presented at the upcoming International Conference on Non-Electrical Applications of Nuclear Power.
The cost of low-pressure steam from nuclear power plants is less than that of natural gas, which is now used to make steam in corn-to-ethanol plants. The use of steam from nuclear power plants reduces greenhouse gases compared with the generation of steam from fossil fuels. Last, in cellulose-to-ethanol plants the liquid fuel produced per unit of biomass can be substantially increased if the ethanol plants also have the capability to convert lignin to liquid fuels. Lignin is the primary non-sugar-based component in cellulosic biomass that can not be converted to ethanol. It is planned to use this lignin as boiler fuel in these ethanol plants; however, if there are other sources of steam it may be feasible to also convert the lignin to liquid fuels and thus increase the yield of liquid fuels per unit of cellulosic biomass. In several decades, this market may become the largest market for cogeneration of steam from nuclear electric power.—from “Fuel Ethanol Production Using Nuclear-Plant Steam”
Although the concept of using steam from nuclear power plants in ethanol production is not new, up until recently the economics and the scale of ethanol production were not particularly compelling.
From a lifecycle perspective, the greenhouse gas releases from consuming fossil fuels—from growing the corn through the conventional production of ethanol—are only about 20% less than from the alternative of producing gasoline from crude oil with an equivalent energy value, according to the authors.
If nuclear energy is used to support ethanol production, however, fossil fuel inputs can be dramatically reduced. The conversion of corn to ethanol primarily requires low-quality, low-cost steam—something nuclear power plants are very good at producing. Using low-quality steam from nuclear power plants in the corn-to-ethanol production process would reduce fossil fuel inputs and the resultant greenhouse gas emissions for the entire process of growing the corn and converting it to ethanol by almost half.
Steam provided by the reactor would be condensed at the ethanol plant, and warm water would be returned to the nuclear power plant. Almost all of the heat required by the production process could come from condensing the steam. Modern steam systems would allow more than a mile of separation between the reactor and the ethanol plant.
Based on the price of electricity, the cost of low temperature steam from a nuclear power plant is about half the cost of steam from natural gas.
(A hat-tip to Charles!)
Producing ethanol from corn using nuclear-generated steam (Nuclear News)
“Fuel Ethanol Production Using Nuclear-Plant Steam”;Charles W. Forsberg, Samuel Rosenbloom, Richard Black; IAEA Conference/Paper Number: IAEA-CN-152-47
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- About CEI
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Cooler Heads Digest
Cooler Heads Digest
October 10, 2007
A new watchdog Web site on the Center for Climate Strategies, an environmental front group that is manipulating the climate policy process in more than 20 states, is now officially ready to be recognized, reviewed and linked from your Web sites:http://climatestrategieswatch.com/Feel free to send in your comments, criticisms, or thoughts on anything else you’d like to see on the site, through the “Contact” option on the top menu.The site is designed to maintain as complete information as possible on CCS, with up-to-date developments as well. A few more areas need to be populated with content, but right now there is a lot to chew on.
To learn more about the CCS, read Paul Chesser’s article, “Beware Climate Control,” below.
John Kay, Financial Times, 9 October 2007
Reuters, 8 October 2007
Nao Nakanishi, Reuters, 8 October 2007
Chris Horner, Human Events, 8 October 2007
Ron Baily, Reason Online, 8 October 2007
Bjorn Lomborg, Washington Post, 7 October 2007
New Party, 5 October 2007
Roy Cordato, Carolina Journal, 5 October 2007
Paul Chesser, DC Examiner, 5 October 2007
Weather Watch, Imperial Valley News, 2 October 2007
Inside the Beltway
CEI’s Myron Ebell
Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) along with Senator Hilary Clinton (D-N.Y.) is a co-sponsor of the Lieberman-McCain cap-and-trade bill. As a presidential candidate, Obama has now pledged to do more. In a speech in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on October 8, Senator Obama laid out a comprehensive program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions dramatically. Obama’s goal is to reduce emissions 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. This is in line with the prescription of former Vice President Al Gore and many radical environmental pressure groups of what is necessary to save the planet.
Obama’s plan includes a cap-and-trade program covering all sectors of the economy. Unlike most other similar proposals, Obama would not allocate any of the emissions credits or permits for free. Instead, permits would be auctioned to emitters. The powerful special interests that believe that when a cap-and-trade program is enacted they will be able to push to the front of the trough and get more credits than less powerful special interests are not going to be pleased by Obama’s auction approach.
Another refreshing aspect of Obama’s speech was that he recognized that global warming policies have costs. According to a story in the Washington Times, “Mr. Obama said the transition would be costly in the short run for U.S. consumers, taxpayers and businesses, requiring the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars. ‘It will not come without cost or without sacrifice,’ he said.
Around the world
CEI’s Iain Murray
The British government decided that it would be a good idea to send copies of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth to all schools, with then Environment Secretary (now Foreign Secretary) David Miliband declaring that “the debate over science is over.” Well, it may be, but not in the way Gore portrays it. A truck driver and school governor, Stuart Dimmock, took the government to court, alleging that the film portrays “partisan political views,” the promotion of which is illegal in schools under the Education Act 1996.
The judge has decided that this is indeed the case and that the Government’s guidance notes that accompanied the film exacerbated the problem.
In order for the film to be shown, the Government must first amend their Guidance Notes to Teachers to make clear that 1.) The Film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument. 2.) If teachers present the Film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination. 3.) Eleven inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.
A full listing of the noted inaccuracies may be found here.
This is a far better result than refusing to allow the film to be shown at all. It requires that students be told by teachers that Al Gore is factually inaccurate, misleading and - in one case - making things up. These inconvenient truths for the former Vice President have been covered up or obscured by the hype surrounding his film. Students will now realize that there are significant shortcomings and inaccuracies in the way the global warming scare has been presented to them. This is a victory for honest debate, a victory for science and a victory for education.
The comprehensive guide to Gore's innacuracies is, of course, Marlo Lewis' "Al Gore's Science Fiction."
Hypocrite of the Week
Connie Heidegaard, Denmark’s Environment Minister, last week claimed to be an increasingly impatient emissary on behalf of “the planet”, demanding that the U.S. make the same promise as Europe to reduce its greenhouse gas (principally CO2) emissions.
That same week, Denmark released figures showing that it increased its 2006 CO2 emissions by 16.1% over 2005 levels, citing their growing economy (which relies on coal-fired power, it seems).
U.S. emissions, however, dropped 1.3% over the same time, while the economy grew by 3.3%.
Call for Content
Have stories we may want to include in our weekly news roundup? Is your organization working on something other members of the Coalition might be interested in? Let us know by contacting William Yeatman at email@example.com.
If you or your organization is working on energy or global warming policy, please use CEI as a resource. Contact William Yeatman at firstname.lastname@example.org.
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August 17, 2009
As the first two public hearings on the potential for consolidating elementary schools in the Gateway District are being held next week, I thought it important to review the information collected to date. No information will be provided by the School Committee or by the Elementary Advisory Committee (EAC) at the public hearings, rather they are a means to accept public comment and additional questions to be answered. In order to see what has already been researched on this subject by the district you would need to visit the district’s website at www.grsd.org.
Once you’re on the district’s website you need to merely click on the website for the Elementary Advisory Committee located first under the Announcements section of the website. Once you’ve entered the EAC website you’ll find a section of Frequently Asked Questions (including the current best answers and information from the Worthington Charter School Committee), all presentations and information that has been shared with the EAC and School Committee, a section containing all of the articles from the press as well as letters sent regarding consolidation, a section of the EAC members, a calendar of activities related to the consolidation process and a section containing some related research on small schools.
The EAC has also developed a significant number of questions related to the consolidation of elementary schools. While we don’t currently have all of the answers to these questions, the questions and preliminary responses will be posted to the website after the EAC group has a chance to review them next week. These questions range from the generic (what are the reasons for and against consolidation) to the specific (how much more would busing cost for two verses five schools). Wherever possible specific questions have been answered using data from state agencies such as the Department of Revenue to ensure a consistency in reviewing information collected from difference sources (i.e., stabilization and free cash funds for each town, property values and levy capacity). Questions that do not lend themselves to such specific detail have been answered using currently available research. Many of the unanswered questions relate to position statements such as under what circumstances towns would support school budgets. The EAC plans on using surveys to collect some of this data as well as getting input from the public hearings.
The intent of all of this is to create a body of information related to the options that the school committee has in funding and operating the district in order that they can make an informed decision that will be in the best interests of our students. I realize that for some people it will not matter what the data shows as they are operating on their perceptions and feelings, others will weigh the best interests of students against their own interests or the perceived interests of the towns and still others will care less about student or district interests and be primarily concerned with the ability to save money and limit taxes. I also understand that no matter what level of research and planning go into this decision there will be individuals who disagree with whatever decision the school committee finally makes in December. This decision, like those relating to what to cut, is not an easy decision for anyone and is particularly difficult as it forces the school committee to weigh what appears to be almost contradictory information, concerns, feelings and perceptions in order to make a decision that is in the best interest of nearly 1,300 students. I have every confidence that whatever the decision, the members of the school committee will have spent much time and gone through hours of angst in reaching the decision that they feel is best for the district. Whatever that decision may be, I hope that the district can then pull together to provide our children with the best education possible under those conditions.
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Samuel Barber (Born 9 March 1910 in West Chester, Pennsylvania; died 23 January 1981 in New York, New York) was an American composer of orchestral, opera, choral, and piano music. Barber was born into a comfortable, educated, social, and distinguished Irish-American family. His father was a doctor, and his mother was a pianist. His aunt, Louise Homer, was a leading contralto at the Metropolitan Opera and his uncle, Sidney Homer, was a composer of American art songs. Louise Homer is noted to have influenced Barber's interest in voice. Through his aunt, Barber had access to many great singers and songs. This background is further reflected in that Barber decided to study voice at the Curtis Conservatory.
Barber began composing seriously in his late teenage years. Around the same time, he met fellow Curtis schoolmate Gian Carlo Menotti, and the two would form a lifelong personal and professional relationship. At the Curtis Institute, Barber was a triple prodigy of composition, voice, and piano. He soon became a favorite of the conservatory's founder, Mary Louise Bok. It was through Bok that Barber would be introduced to his one and only publisher, the Schirmer family. At the age of 18, Barber won a prize from Columbia University for his Violin Sonata (now lost or destroyed by the composer).
At Curtis, Barber met Gian Carlo Menotti with whom he would form a lifelong personal and professional relationship. Menotti supplied libretti for Barber's operas Vanessa (for which Barber won the Pulitzer) and A Hand of Bridge. Barber's music was championed by a remarkable range of renowned artists, musicians, and conductors including Vladimir Horowitz, John Browning, Martha Graham, Arturo Toscanini, Dmitri Mitropoulos, Jennie Tourel, and Eleanor Steber. His Antony and Cleopatra was commissioned to open the new Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center in 1966.
Barber was the recipient of numerous awards and prizes including the American Prix de Rome, two Pulitzers, and election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His intensely lyrical Adagio for Strings has become one of the most recognizable and beloved compositions, both in concerts and films ("Platoon," "The Elephant Man," "El Norte," "Lorenzo's Oil").
Works for Winds
- Adagio (from Adagio for Strings) (arr. Calvin Custer)
- Adagio for Young Concert Band (arr. Paul Jennings)
- Commando March
- First Essay, op 12 (arr. Joseph Levey)
- Intermezzo (from “Vanessa") (arr. Walter Beeler)
- Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (arr. Kenneth Singleton)
- Medea’s Dance of Vengeance, op 23a (arr. Frank M Hudson)
- Mutations from Bach
- Overture to “The School for Scandal” (arr. Frank M Hudson)
- Second Essay
- Summer Music, op 31, for Woodwind Quintet (1956)
- Sure on this Shining Night, op 13 no 3 (arr. Richard L. Saucedo)
- Symphony No. 1, op 9 (arr. Guy Duker)
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Adoption apology reopens old wounds
Kim Menta says she has been searching for her birth mother for 39 years and has welcomed changes to Victoria's Adoption Act which could help her find her family.
The Victorian Government has officially apologised to those who were affected by the forced adoption policies that were institutionalised by the state between the 1950s and 1970s.
An estimated 19,000 Victorian infants were forcibly removed from their young, unwed mothers and given up for adoption.
Ms Menta is still searching for her birth parents and longs to have a birth certificate, passport and to know what her real name is.
She was raised under an assumed name after being taken from the Winston Private Hospital in Malvern in 1959 by people who she says had a criminal record.
"If someone sees my face and recognises me, well then you know some mum out there might think that ... I was dead," Ms Menta said.
"Here I am. This is my face and I hope to find a face that looks like mine one day.
"Mum come and get me. Dad come and get me."
Victoria is the only state which prevents birth parents gaining access to documents about the children they gave up.
The Government has promised to change the Adoption Act to allow them identifying information in line with other states and territories.
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Wed April 25, 2012
LG&E Plans Dust Screen at Cane Run; Residents Skeptical
As complaints over coal ash near the Cane Run power plant continue, Louisville Gas and Electric has begun construction of a 50-foot tall dust screen which the company hopes will resolve neighborhood concerns about dust emissions.
The screen will be 223 feet long—or about 2/3 the length of a football field—and will shield nearby houses from the company’s sludge processing plant. The processing plant has malfunctioned several times in the past year and released clouds of dust into the neighborhood.
LG&E has already taken several steps to reduce dust at Cane Run—like cutting vehicle traffic and using more water. This screen is an additional effort.
“We have decided that this would be another measure that we could install at the plant to further reduce emissions coming from the site,” LG&E spokeswoman Chris Whelan said. “We think this is just one more step in the process.”
Neighborhood residents are skeptical. Kathy Little lives across the street from the power plant. She said she hopes the screen helps resolve the neighborhood’s fugitive dust issues, but she’s also worried the new structure might be meant to keep people from seeing what’s going on at the plant.
“If they’re trying to do something that might eliminate some dust, fine,” Little said. “If they’re just trying to pull up a screen so they can continue to do what they do, I’m not impressed.”
LG&E reached a settlement with the Air Pollution Control District last week over several previous coal ash violations, but this new screen isn’t part of the settlement and the district isn’t endorsing it.
“We didn’t ask LG&E to install this screen,” spokesman Tom Nord said. “We can’t say what effect it will have on the dust over there.” He added that there’s no regulation that says the company can’t install the screen.
Residents have videotaped two additional incidents over the past 10 days, and the APCD continues to monitor the situation.
The screen is made by a Florida-based company called Action Sports Netting. The company primarily provides netting for golf courses, tennis courts and landfills, and this is its first power plant project. Weather permitting, the screen should be finished by Friday.
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Wikipedia is the largest and most comprehensive encyclopedic work ever created in the history of mankind. It's common to draw comparisons to Encyclopedia Britannica, but they are hardly comparable works—Wikipedia is dozens of times larger and covers many more subjects. Accuracy is a more debatable topic, but studies have suggested that Wikipedia is not as much less accurate than Britannica as one might naively suppose. Project Gutenberg is a less well known, but much older part of the free culture movement, having been started in 1971. Today it contains over 24,000 e-texts.
"Even if you can do large things with bazaar methods, corporations are always going to do bigger and better work."
Unlike the previous myth, this one is largely unchallenged. Even inside the free culture community there is a strong perception of the community as a rebel faction embattled against a much more powerful foe. Yet, some projects challenge this world view!
It's actually a bit hard to say what the exact size of Wikipedia is today, because the log engine that the site used to measure its size started to fail in 2006, due to the enormous size of the database! Since then, there is no direct data available on the total size of Wikipedia, nor on the English language version (the largest language version, unsurprisingly). There is data on some of the less highly populated language versions, simply because they haven't grown so large yet.
However, we can make some estimates based on the evidence before 2006 and the somewhat less complete statistics which continue to be available. 2006 was a pivotal year for Wikipedia, it was the year it surpassed the Yong-Le Encyclopedia, the former largest encyclopedic work ever created, commissioned by the Emperor of China in 1403 and so large it was only ever possible to make two copies of it (including the original). It was bound into approximately 23,000 volumes, and unfortunately does not survive intact into the present day, although there are still some volumes in existence.
It was also the year in which Wikipedia apparently finally transitioned from "exponential" to approximately "linear" growth, which can be regarded as an important maturation step. Instead of growing explosively, as it did in its first few years of existence, Wikipedia is now moving into a more sustainable growth pattern, with an increasing effort being put into improving the quality of existing articles rather than adding new ones (which is not to say that new articles aren't being written: the growth may be linear, but it's linear at something close to adding a whole new Yong-Le Encyclopedia per year!) Figure 2.1 illustrates the growth and size of Wikipedia, compared to some significant other works.
Wikipedia's growth may be linear, but it's linear at something close to adding a whole new Yong-Le Encyclopedia per year
This is an expected pattern for growth: the entire curve is typically a "sigmoid" (so named, because it is "S-shaped"), with an initial period of exponential growth when there is no retarding force whatsoever, followed by linear growth, and finally an asymptotic taper as the phenomenon runs into environmental limits. Thus far, Wikipedia appears to have exhausted the potential for rapidly increasing labor and has already picked all of the "low-hanging fruit" of encyclopedic entries.
Now, it is moving into a phase of growth represented primarily by the effort of the existing interested "Wikipedians" (now a fairly stable population, with growth balanced by attrition). Thus the growth rate now represents a fairly constant effort put into improving the encyclopedia. Also, evidence suggests that maintenance and quality-control now represent a much larger fraction of the work as more edits are now dedicated to revisions (and reversions) of existing pages rather than adding new ones. There is also, of course, continuing exponential growth among the less-well-represented languages in Wikipedia, which contributes to the total growth.
Quantity and quality
Of course, if Wikipedia is, as some have suggested, just an "enormous pile of rumors", then the size is not necessarily a good thing. But in fact, Wikipedia is surprisingly accurate. A Nature study in 2005 demonstrated that in the area of science, Wikipedia was only slightly less accurate than Britannica, though it found a number of mistakes in both publications. It is interesting to note that all of the articles objected to in the study were quickly edited to fix the problems, while the same cannot be said for Britannica, since it is harder to change.
There are many areas of knowledge which Wikipedia covers, such as popular culture, which other encyclopedias cannot possibly hope to keep up with (try looking up episode summaries for Buffy the Vampire Slayer in Britannica!). It is understandably particularly complete in computer-related subject areas.
Probably the weakest thing about Wikipedia is its susceptibility to intentional bias: many individuals, organizations, and governments have been known to edit Wikipedia articles to put themselves in a more favorable light. On the other hand, critical organizations may edit them to be more harsh, and in the end, these effects appear to balance out for all but the most controversial topics. Even there, we have to acknowledge that Wikipedia's coverage fairly depicts controversial topics in all of their controversy (try looking up "Evolution", "Creationism", or "George W. Bush" in Wikipedia for interesting examples of what happens with controversial topics).
A study at Dartmouth concluded that anonymous contributors improved articles roughly as much as signed-in users
These weaknesses describe what might be dubbed the "editorial bias" of Wikipedia, which represents the collective bias of the society of people willing to contribute to the project. It has to be remembered, though, that conventional encyclopedic works are also subject to editorial bias, and usually the bias of one organization. As it stands, researchers using Wikipedia have to take the same kind of critical approach that they've always applied to encyclopedias as sources of information, and they must follow up the sources themselves for serious scholarly work.
Although there has always been a concern with the problems caused by intentional vandalism—especially by anonymous contributors, this is not as much of a problem as many would imagine. A study at Dartmouth concluded that anonymous contributors improved articles roughly as much as signed-in users. Thus, it appears likely that the Delphi effect is out-competing vandalism and intentional bias in Wikipedia. In other words, distributed, community-based editorial review works, just as distributed debugging does for free software. Biases and judgement calls are a problem, but in the end they appear to balance out for almost all articles.
Started in 1971, Project Gutenberg is the grand-daddy of free culture projects. It predates much of the thought about the "intellectual commons" and it came thirteen years before the GNU Manifesto was written. As such it does not reflect modern ideas about free-licensing, and instead focuses on public domain works. That, along with the insistence on "plain text" representations of the works included reflect attitudes some may regard as dated. This situation has been mollified somewhat in recent years.
Project Gutenberg measures its size in terms of numbers of e-texts, which can be somewhat confusing since e-texts are of many different lengths. However, a rough estimate of the size of the repository in number of words suggests that it probably is now larger than the fabled Library of Alexandria and it is certainly larger than many modern community libraries.
The size of Project Gutenberg today is probably more limited by the availability of public domain works than by the labor pool willing to digitize them
The collection started fairly small, limited by the relatively small amount of networking and human labor available to the project in its early years. This behavior offers no serious challenge to the conventional wisdom about projects of this type.
However, as the internet and the web matured, so did the community supporting Project Gutenberg. Today, there is a significant volunteer scanning and distributed proof-reading effort going on which has accounted for the tremendous growth that the project has seen over the last decade or so (see Figure 2.2).
The size of Project Gutenberg today is probably more limited by the availability of public domain works than by the labor pool willing to digitize them. The public domain has been starved multiple times in the last few decades by copyright term extensions which have effectively frozen the public domain in the mid 1920s. As more works do move into the public domain, Gutenberg will certainly be capable of capturing them.
The sheer scale of the thing
The size of Wikipedia and Project Gutenberg present serious challenges to our understanding of the relative scales of these works compared to the great works of individuals, corporations, or governments. As a means of grounding our perception in reality, it is useful to construct a logarithmic chart, spanning many orders of magnitude. Such a chart is not useful for making fine comparisons (because even a factor of two difference between two objects can seem quite close on a log chart), although by the same token, it's quite forgiving with respect to estimation errors, so we can afford to be fairly daring in our estimation process. What it is useful for is giving us an idea of what sort of things we ought to be comparing to. Figure 2.3 is such a chart, illustrating works on vastly different scales, from individually authored works up to the entire U.S. Library of Congress.
The US Library of Congress is the largest modern library, and indeed, it is unsurprisingly several orders of magnitude larger than Project Gutenberg. But there are two caveats to consider: One is that whereas the Library of Congress contains every work which has a copyright registered in the United States (because submitting a copy to the library is a part of the registration process), while Project Gutenberg is limited (almost entirely) to those works whose copyrights have expired. The other is that we are comparing a collection of print books to an electronic collection. It would be interesting to compare the output of Project Gutenberg to government-sponsored digitization projects, which would be a much more fair comparison.
In a few short years, a new player—the Commons Based Enterprise—has far out-produced some of the greatest works of both corporations and governments
It's especially hard, though, to look at this chart and not be a little stunned by Wikipedia! The greatest encyclopedic work of corporate production is probably the Encyclopedia Britannica, yet it falls far behind in this comparison (by well over an order of magnitude!). The greatest encyclopedic work of government production was the Yong-Le Encyclopedia commissioned by the Emperor of China in 1403. Yet even that is several times smaller than the whole of Wikipedia (note that the Wikipedia numbers are the last reliable numbers from 2006, not the later estimates—Wikipedia is considerably larger today).
Our conventional wisdom is that the most powerfully productive organizations are corporations and governments: institutions we regard with awe, reverence, and even fear. But in a few short years, a new class of player—the commons based enterprise—has far out-produced some of the greatest works of both corporations and governments (at least in the area of encyclopedias).
Clearly, the conventional wisdom needs adjusting.
"Internet encyclopaedias go head to head". Jim Giles. Nature 438, 900 - 901 (2005).
A Dartmouth study found that contributions from anonymous visitors to Wikipedia show a similar quality to those from logged-in, named contributors.
Delphi effect
This statement is difficult to test because no one really knows exactly how big the Library of Alexandria was, and there are estimates that are probably huge exaggerations. However, based on the most reliable estimates I could find, Project Gutenberg is now larger. The Library of Alexandria was measured in numbers of scrolls, but it turns out that scrolls were generally somewhat shorter than books (and therefore than the typical e-texts in Project Gutenberg), but both can be estimated in terms of number of words, to make comparisons possible.
Distributed proof-reading is a collaborative system for sharing the load of proof-reading optical character recognition scans of original works.
Commons based enterprise: Large scale commons-based peer production efforts may be regarded as a new kind of enterprise-scale institution, alongside corporate and government enterprises.
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In the past week, little chances of rain have sneaked into the forecast when no one has been looking.
I’ve been looking, because I sense it whenever a cloud floats into our patch of the world, and I don’t want one moment of a chance of rain to go by without my enjoying some hope. I start the prayers going right away, and I start haunting the radar for a splotch of rain shower. I scowl at the Internet weather page when it hasn’t changed its sunny icon to note the fact that clouds have momentarily, mercifully shaded our town.
The fact that a chance can materialize out of seemingly nothing gives me hope. And now a real, predicted chance hovers over the weekend. Thirty percent chance, don’t let me down.
We all have our challenges in the garden this summer, and whenever I write something about one of them, other questions pop up around it like weeds.
One was from a woman who has an extremely mature cottonwood, with roots growing 10 to 14 feet out from the base of the tree. Does sticking a hose on trickle at the base of the tree catch enough of it? she asked.
Ward Upham of K-State has addressed this with some good advice about using a soaker hose. Some of it will be a review of last week:
Trees should be watered to a depth of 12 to 18 inches if possible. Water from the trunk out to the edge of the branches.
You can use a soaker hose for this. And you can make it provide a more uniform watering if you connect it to a Y-adapter. Use a female-to-female connector on the female end so that both the beginning and ending of the hose are connected to the Y-adapter. This will equalize pressure. It also is helpful if the Y-adapter has shut-off valves so the volume of flow can be controlled. Too high a flow rate can allow water to run off rather than soak in.
On larger trees, circle the tree with the soaker hose, pulling it out from the trunk at least half the distance to the dripline, farther out if possible. The dripline of the tree is the outermost reach of the branches.
Though this will not reach all the roots of a tree, it will reach enough of them to make a difference. Trees normally have at least 80 percent of their roots in the top foot of soil.
On smaller trees, you can circle the tree several times so that only soil that has tree roots will be watered.
Shrubs should be watered to a depth of 8 to 12 inches, Upham says.
Check the depth of watering by pushing a wooden dowel or metal rod into the soil. It will stop when it hits dry soil.
Another reader has young trees that he has recently planted, watered and fertilized. When they didn’t perk up, he replanted, watered and fertilized. They’re still not looking so good.
First of all, I wouldn’t fertilize in the heat, with the exception of annuals that are getting plenty of water.
Second, you have to get to know your soil by checking the depth around each to make sure they’re getting enough water. If they’re getting enough and are still droopy, they may be getting too much water.
“New trees do need more careful attention,” extension agent Bob Neier says. The rootball needs to be kept moist and not allowed to be either too dry or flooded. Apply enough water to wet the rootball and a little around it several times a week during the first season if we are not getting enough rain, Neier says.
“Don’t depend on the lawn sprinkler for this water. Sprinklers may apply too little or too much. You have to dig a little with your finger and a screwdriver in the rootball to check moisture levels occasionally.
“The first year you do not expect much growth, but be happy when they leaf out with a good bunch of leaves and hold them through the summer. More growth will come in the second year, and normal growth patterns usually start in year three.”
Apart from water, the heat alone can play a factor in the health of some plants, said Jason Griffin, director of K-State Research and Extension’s John C. Pair Horticulture Center in Haysville. I almost had forgotten this from last year. (If you are experiencing deja vu at any point in this column, you’re in good company.)
Griffin says that some plants can benefit from being shaded. I remember a few years ago when some people put umbrellas over hostas. The umbrellas looked like large versions of the tiny umbrellas you might get in a cocktail. They added a splash of color that was not unattractive.
“You can directly affect the temperature of a plant by shading it,” Griffin says. “Obviously, this is a labor-intensive step. But I’ve seen people use everything from bedsheets to screening to umbrellas in order to reduce the temperature of leaves. And, as ridiculous as this sounds … it’s worked.”
Occasionally misting foliage during the mid-afternoon also can help, he said.
“Nurseries with overhead irrigation sometimes turn on the water for five minutes per hour through the day’s peak heat. This lowers the air temperature surrounding the plants without overwatering.”
Reader Tom Waldschmidt reminded me of another reader last year who picked tomatoes through the heat wave because she had a 10-foot misting line on them when the temps soared into the upper 90s to 100. Waldschmidt found the mister equipment at Menards and has his own going this year, with success.
For the long term, Griffin recommends that homeowners shop for plants with heat- and drought-resistance, plus take advantage of any microclimates in their yard that provide wind and sun protection for more sensitive plants.
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This section provides a brief overview of several tax strategies and other considerations that can help you and your Investment Advisor decide where to place your investments for maximum tax efficiency:
Recognizing how gains from stocks, bonds, mutual funds and other investment income (interest, dividend and foreign) are taxed differently is key to optimizing your after-tax rate-of-return. While evaluating investments based on their after-tax return is important, you should also consider such factors as the investment’s risk, the opportunity for capital appreciation, liquidity, and so on. It is also important to note that in most cases, you will retain more after-tax income from capital gains than either Canadian-sourced dividends or interest income.
Talk to your Investment Advisor about steps you can take to maximize your after-tax investment income.
When interest rates are low, you may be attracted by the strategy of borrowing to invest, also known as leveraged investing.
Unfortunately, when deciding whether to use leverage, many people simply consider the current interest-rate environment and past market performance without evaluating their complete financial situation. Borrowing money to purchase investments is definitely not a strategy for the faint of heart. It involves significant resolve as well as various factors that should be considered and adhered to.
Discuss the benefits vs. the risks with your Investment Advisor before deciding whether borrowing to invest is right for you. Tax implications will depend on your individual situation and the type of investment you choose.
Income splitting is the reallocation of income among family members (including spouse, minor and adult child) to reduce the total amount of money paid by the family unit. A well-accepted tax-planning method, shifting income from a family member in a high tax bracket to one in a lower tax bracket can result in greater after-tax income. And although income attribution rules restrict the number of income-splitting opportunities available, there are still a number of effective ways of splitting income with family members.
Note: To ensure the desired results are achieved, income-splitting methods should be discussed with a qualified tax advisor prior to implementation.
There are two types of savings plans many investors consider when putting aside money for a child’s post-secondary education:
Although income earned in a RESP is tax deferred until withdrawn, annual contributions are limited and are not tax deductible. In contrast, income earned in an In-Trust Account is taxable each year. However, there are no limits to the amount of contributions, making it a flexible alternative.
For more information on education savings plans, please speak with your Investment Advisor.
There are numerous types of registered investment vehicles available to help you save on a tax-efficient basis: Registered Retirement Savings Plans (RRSPs), Registered Retirement Income Funds (RRIFs), Locked-in Retirement Accounts (LIRAs), Life Income Funds (LIFs), and Locked-In Retirement Income Funds (LRIFs). Of the available registered vehicles, the RRSP is by far the most utilized tax-planning tool.
For details on RRSPs, including benefits, strategies and more, please see:
A tax shelter is an investment that provides significant deductions against your other taxable income. By taking these deductions, you can reduce your total taxable income and thereby reduce the amount of tax payable to the Canada Revenue Agency.
Investors generally view the reduction in taxes payable as a tax savings, but it is more accurately viewed as a tax deferral, since ultimately either income derived from the investment or upon the sale of the investment will incur a tax liability.
Many tax shelters are considered long-term investments, and most are typically set up as either a limited partnership or as a flow-through share. Tax shelters sometimes require large investments, present a bigger degree of risk and may become subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).
In addition, tax shelters are most appropriate for investors in the top marginal tax bracket, since the value of any tax deduction is maximized.
Consult a qualified tax advisor prior to purchasing a tax shelter to ensure it is appropriate in your situation.
Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) is designed to target high-income individuals who have significant deductions such as write-offs from tax shelters. Items that can lead to an AMT liability include stock option deductions, limited partnerships losses and Capital Cost Allowance (CCA) claimed on tax shelter investments.
Deductible interest expense and business losses can effectively reduce your taxable income without triggering AMT. However, deductible interest expenses related to tax shelters will affect the AMT calculation.
As a result of changes to the Canadian tax system over the last several years, the tax advantages associated with Canadian investment holding companies have all but been eliminated. It is no longer possible to defer taxes through an investment holding company and, in general, the combined corporate/shareholder tax rates on investment income now exceeds the personal taxes paid on the same income.
Despite the changes in the tax system, investing through an investment holding company can still provide some benefits. For example, an investment holding company can be used to:
Split income with adult children - Assets can be transferred into the holding company on a tax-deferred basis and the adult children can subscribe for shares of the company. Dividends can then be paid to the adult children and taxed in their hands.
Freeze an estate - The primary goal of an estate freeze is to “freeze” a company’s share value for the original shareholders, while ensuring that future increases in the fair market value of the company pass to the next generation or to other desired individuals. This way, the amount of income taxes at death and probate tax can be minimized.
U.S. Estate Taxes - Another reason for using a bona fide Canadian investment holding company is to hold U.S. situs investments in order to shelter a Canadian resident shareholder from U.S. Estate Taxes. The pros and cons of this type of strategy are complex and you should seek a professional tax consultant well versed in this area.
For many Canadians, investing in the United States presents an opportunity for greater rewards and higher returns on their investments. However, it is important to understand how investments in the U.S. can affect your tax situation today and in the future.
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Most often when I tell someone I am an artist, I hear something like, “How wonderful! I wish I could draw, but…” and then a string of statements about how they would LOVE to be able to draw but can’t even draw a stick figure, how someone else in the family is the artist, their 5th grade art teacher really embarrassed them and they’ll never do that again, etc.
I taught high school art, and some of these statements were already in my students’ minds. My response was and is, “Have you ever learned to play a sport? Baseball, tennis, bowling, whatever…? How’d you do the first time you threw the ball, swung the bat/racquet/golf club, rolled a ball down the alley?” Most people have a good laugh remembering those early attempts to learn something new.
My proposal is that art is like a sport. Some people are more gifted initially and may learn faster than others, true. But even Babe Ruth had to learn how to hold that bat the first time.
How artists have somehow been stuck into a category where they must produce Rembrandts and Van Gogh’s the first time they hold a pencil or paintbrush is a mystery to me…but that idea is out there in a big way.
Handling the tools of art is learned through practice, often with the guidance and support of a good teacher. Then, lots of practice, hopefully focused, messy, and fun. A good teacher gives you clear instruction, step by step, and plenty of time and space to play with what you are learning. When you’re ready, they are there to offer pointers about how you might do something better.
With time and good support, every person can find their own voice. An atmosphere of adventure, exploration, and fun…a safety zone for creativity…allows anyone with the interest to learn and grow, and keep getting closer to creating the masterpieces they may see or sense in their creative heart.
When I was five, I collected a series of rocks, laid them all out, and proceeded to mix a variety of “colors” with dirt and water. Who knows how a child’s eyes really see…mine were seeing the most magically beautiful colors, with which I carefully painted my rocks, then laid them in the sun to dry.
I came back later, and was stunned to see that all my rocks looked the same dull brown. I put my fantastic project away, never showing it to anyone. In fact, I have only remembered this little adventure in the last couple of years.
What does that have to do with believing that you can learn an art form, and create beautiful works of art?
I never gave up. I have always had the urge to make something beautiful. I have had some equally disastrous results, but--I have also made some drawings and paintings that fulfill my inner vision and more. And I keep on going.
It seems harder as we become “adults” to realize that yes, we still have LOADS of things that we don’t yet know how to do…I see that as good news! Those five year olds can really show us how to dive in, have fun, make a mess, and learn how to create beauty out of it.
Every student I have worked with has had their doubts, and not wanted to feel embarrassed. But they have also each had their own amazing, personal way of seeing, drawing, and painting, and a deep yearning to do so.
Try listening to that small voice inside asking to do something new…watercolors, pottery, drawing, collage…whatever. Step past that little, “I can’t” …and give yourself the experience of creating something with your own hands, eyes, and heart. No one else in this world could possibly create what you make, simply because you did it yourself.
For those of us who have already said, “Yes,” and are working away at our art…I am reminded of the value of play, of enjoying the practice and the process as well as aiming as high as possible for results.
Read about the best of them…the masters were all learning, enthralled with their personal adventure of creating.
Here’s to Art, straight from the heart.
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Last week I noted in a post that according to “a report of the Secretary-General to the Security Council” the “so-called Gaza buffer zone imposed by Israel” – essentially anything close to 300 meters from the northern fence area – is like no man’s land.
In 2010, 40 boys and 4 girls were allegedly injured by Israeli fire in or near the buffer zone. Of those, 26 boys, some as young as 13, were shot while collecting gravel within 800 metres of the fence. In cases where sworn affidavits were taken, 19 children were shot in the leg, 2 in the arm and 1 child was shot in the head.
A much newer report from the spokesperson of the Higher Committee for Medical and Emergency Services In Gaza, now says that “in 2011, Israeli soldiers killed 19 children, and injured more than 200, in Air strikes and bombardment targeting the Gaza Strip.” Some details:
Abu Salmiyya added that the youngest of the slain children were identified as Malak Shaath, 2, and Islam Qreiqe’, 3, adding that most of the slain children faced horrific deaths as Israeli military shells mutilated their bodies.
He further stated that more than one-third of the wounded Palestinians in 2011 are children, adding that Yousef Bahjat Az-Za’lan, 10, is still in the intensive care unit after a shell fired by the Israeli army on Thursday killed his father, Bahjat, 42, and his brother Ramadan, 12 years old; at least 17 residents were wounded in the shelling, seven of them were children.
Abu Salmiyya accused the Israeli Army of deliberately targeting the civilians during the illegal and random bombardment of civilian areas in the Gaza Strip, especially during late night hours and at dawn.
He added that the repeated offensives against the Gaza Strip are impacting the psychological conditions of the children in Gaza, and called on different international humanitarian groups to ensure the protection of the Palestinian children and civilians in the coastal region in particular, and in Palestine in general.
This is not just another brutal regime America supports. This is the preeminent American ally. And this is only one aspect of a much larger story, of course; as this WAFA report explains, “About half of the Palestinian households were directly exposed to violence by occupation forces and settlers before July 2010, the highest in Gaza Strip, 49.1% compared to 47.8% in the West Bank.” This is the status quo Republican candidates last week squabbled to praise higher and louder than each of their counterparts. These are the policies of the highest priority judging by U.S. aid (over $16 billion dollars since 2007, if we include their allotted aid for 2012). When it comes to the various dictatorships the U.S. government avidly supports, political elites at least some of the time pay gentle lip service to an improved future: “We’re working with the Bahraini government on issues of democracy and human rights” and so on. They’re lies, but at least its acknowledged these places are hell holes. In contrast, Israel is a haven of democracy and human rights, a lone advocate of these principals in a sea of tyranny and extremism.
Ron Paul (R-TX) was excluded last week from making a speech in front of the Republican Jewish Coalition, as every other candidate for president did. The reason, the Coalition explained, was that Paul has “misguided and extreme views,” regarding Israel-Palestine. Unwavering support for a government which commits, according to findings from U.N. Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices just last month, “systematic human rights violations against the Palestinian people, including ‘countless acts constituting war crimes and State terrorism‘” is mainstream, fair-minded diplomacy. Advocating we pull that support is “extreme” and “misguided.”
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Monday, December 17, 2012
Here are 10 ways to have fun and spread holiday cheer without breaking the bank.
This year’s holiday season can be special for you and your family regardless of your budget. Here are some fun tips for creating new holiday traditions while saving money. 1) Make your cards from recycled materials. Cards can be made from paper grocery bags, cereal boxes, used file folders and even last year’s holiday cards. Feature your family’s artwork and use recycled wrapping paper or paper from catalogs and magazines for backgrounds. A great resource for making cards from recycled materials is "Creative Correspondence" by Michael and Judy Jacobs, at local bookstores or on Amazon.com. 2) Have fun together and create a festive decoration by making a gingerbread house. You can bake the gingerbread yourself and use royal icing to …
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Take our poll at the end of the story: Do you mail holiday cards?
The White House Christmas card this year features a painting of Bo, the Obamas' four-year-old Portuguese water dog. The reproduction of an oil painting by Des Moines, Iowa artist Laressa Kabel features the pooch prancing through the snow on the South Lawn of the White House wearing a winter scarf. Each year the coveted cards are created by work commissioned by an artist or from a photograph taken at the White House. In her book "Season's Greetings from the White House," published in 2007, historian Mary Seeley delves into the details of the annual White House Christmas card, from Calvin Coolidge to George W. Bush. (Seeley runs White House Holidays and A Presidential Christmas.) She notes that the first season's greetings was sent by …
Did you decorate your house for the holidays this year? Enter our "Deck the House" contest and you could win $100,000 for your local school district and $500 to pay your electric bills!
Sunday, December 16, 2012
We’re launching our annual Deck the House Contest to find the most over-the-top holiday decorations in America — the best “decked” house in the country —the one home so spectacularly decorated that everyone in town jokes your holiday decorations could rival Rockefeller Center’s. If this sounds like your house, upload a photo or video of your home to our contest page from Nov. 26 to Dec. 16 (check the site Monday for a direct link to our contest page so you can enter). Only residents of Patch towns are eligible to enter. We’ll select 24 regional finalists, and from them, pick one grand prize winner. Patch will pay up to $500 of the utility bill for each finalist, while our national winner will have $100,000 donated to his or her local …
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Have you outdone yourself this year with holiday lights? Show the world!
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Enter our holiday lights contest here! If you have a fabulous light display you want to show the world, you could win $500 toward your light bill and $100,000 for your school district. Find out all the contest details here. Good luck!
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Unique gifts for all ages available at Sugarloaf Crafts Festival at Dulles Expo Center.
Looking for unique gifts this holiday season? There are alternatives to "store-bought" goods. A holiday tradition continues Friday through Sunday when 300 artists and craftspeople gather for the seventh annual Sugarloaf Crafts Festival at the Dulles Expo Center in Chantilly. Hours are: The festival takes place right in the middle of prime shopping season for the holidays. Anyone looking for a unique gift will likely find one among the more than 300 craftspeople who will be on hand showcasing their one-of-a-kind pottery, sculpture, glass, jewelry, fashion, wood, metal, furniture, home accessories, photography and fine art. Many of the artists on hand (see photos of their work in the photo gallery here on the site) are from the area, …
Friday, December 7, 2012
Friday, Dec. 7 through Sunday, Dec. 9
The holiday season is in full swing with a variety of local events happening this Friday through Sunday. Annandale Holiday Lighting Ceremony Del Ray Holiday Tree Lighting and Luminaries Rockapella: A Rockapella Holiday Drumming with Dishes: The Holiday Edition Celtic Christmas 5K and 1-Mile Fun Run Super Science Saturday Holiday Ice Show Plantation Christmas Punjabi Masti 2012 Jane Austen’s Regency Christmas All I Want for Christmas Historic Alexandria Candlelight Tours Mason Symphony Orchestra and Choruses: Handel’s Messiah Sing-Along! Holiday Shops and Craft Fairs: Library Events: Nature Highlights:
Which camp are you in?
In addition to ringing bells, ho, ho, hos and holiday lights, the holiday hoopla in recent years has added inflatables. You know what we're talking about: Enormous Santas bobbing in the wind or more sadly, deflated Santas, reindeers and elves. Where do you fall on this slightly new holiday fad? Love 'em or hate 'em? Got a great photo to share of a gynormous candy cane or an elf? Post it here!
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Cinema Siren's top picks for 2012.
Last year I offered my top 10 Christmas cartoons for the first time. As an animation art gallery owner of 25 years, and an animation historian, I have been studying and enjoying them a long time. What an uproar I caused! I got a veritable avalanche of emails about the cartoons I "couldn't possibly overlook." While I stand by all last year's excellent offerings, I do have some amendments this year. Here is the list with some considered additions and subtractions. The cartoons listed below are all classics and are wonderful opportunities for holiday viewing with friends and family. You can enjoy them while chomping down highly caloric peppermint bark, or swilling down highly spiked eggnog! #10. Arthur Christmas - 2011 Such a new movie…
Fun events for you and your family Sunday, Dec. 2
Check out Patch’s list of local events happening Sunday. Holiday Model Train Display and Show Toys for Tots Benefit Square Dance Holiday Shops and Craft Fairs: Library Events: Nature Highlights:
Sunday, November 25, 2012
County officials want shoppers to be savvy during the biggest online spending day of the year.
After millions of people across the nation line up outside retailers for Black Friday, millions more will plop down at their work computers for Cyber Monday, Nov. 26. According to BusinessWeek, digital specialists at the National Retail Foundation created Cyber Monday in 2005. The shopping holiday was meant to entice office employees who were still riding the high of Black Friday and were able to shop from their work computers. It has since become the centerpiece of online holiday shopping. In 2005, shoppers spent a total of $484 million nationwide, comScore reports. In 2011, they spent $1.25 billion, making it the biggest online spending day in history. Retailers like Wal-Mart are going one step further, advertising Cyber Monday bargains …
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Where were the OCA and the ROCOR? Our stricken brothers and sisters called out for our aid… and we did NOTHING. This happened to our blood kin… that’s showing a total lack of common human decency and love.
The lack of response from the OCA is particularly insensitive, reprehensible, and despicable. Many of our people and parishes trace their ancestral roots to Byelorussia. The OCA had close fraternal relations with the BOC/MP and Metropolitan Philaret of Minsk, going back to Soviet times when “Belarus” was the Byelorussian SSR. Metropolitan Philaret and delegations accompanying him visited the USA; Metropolitan Theodosius and the OCA hosted them officially over the years. What happened?
Of course, you remember when a BOC/MP priest visited a Protestant gathering and “laid out the case” for Orthodoxy without mincing his words? You ran the story. That same priest met with JP, and extended an invitation to him on behalf of Metropolitan Philaret for the former to visit Byelorussia and the BOC/MP. How many Orthodox bishops, let alone a Metropolitan heading a major MP Exarchate, wanted JP around? Answer… not many. This is how JP treats Metropolitan Philaret, the BOC/MP, the victims, and our brothers and sisters by faith and blood? It’s shameful.
Paffhausen, on behalf of himself, the Holy Synod, and the OCA at large, should have sent a letter of condolences to Metropolitan Philaret IMMEDIATELY and posted it on oca.org. This type of terrorism is the number one security problem confronting the Russian world (Russia, the Ukraine, Byelorussia, and the Near Abroad) today. He should have asked the OCA faithful, and all parishes and institutions to offer aid to Metropolitan Philaret to alleviate the suffering of the injured and the grieving. As far as the candle “ad” on the ROCOR site is concerned, that speaks for itself. ROCOR is desperate and broke. I’m surprised and disappointed in Metropolitan Hilarion on this…
Maybe, JP is listening to Fr Victor Potapov on this matter. After all, he has extensive ties to the US government circles and they have it “in” for Byelorussia and its beloved President… remember, Lyonyo Kishkovsky is a Council on Foreign Relations member. He has many ties to the US State Department, most of the Foggy Bottom crowd detest Byelorussia and its President for daring to defy the new global world order…
At this point, I am so fed up all I can do is quote the American civil and voting rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer… “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired”. This horrid nightmare of a tragedy in Byelorussia displays the true colours of both the OCA and ROCOR. Your Holiness, please disband these self-absorbed obsolete institutions and re-constitute a united Russian Orthodox Church in North America! Congratulations JP and Syosset! You hung one of the best friends of the OCA out to dry. Nice going! Great job! You embarrassed the OCA and its members! Keep up the good work!
This touched a nerve out there… there was one good result of it all. It showed us that the present OCA and ROCOR are Tweedledee and Tweedledum. I’m touched that others feel as I do. This is too much of a muchness. When one doesn’t offer succour and aid to one’s own… that’s a sign of advanced decay, and I’m not the only one to see that. God DO help us all.
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The Washington Post reports that more airports are considering whether to hire private contractors to replace TSA personnel for airport security. Such a shift would not alter the screening protocols — these requriements are imposed by federal regulations independent of whether TSA personnel man the security checkpoints — but could alter the efficiency and attitude with which screening is conducted.
For airports, the change isn’t about money. At issue, airport managers and security experts say, is the unwieldy size and bureaucracy of the federal aviation security system. Private firms may be able to do the job more efficiently and with a personal touch, they argue.
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|Ellen Jane Willis|
December 14, 1941|
New York City, New York, U.S.
|Died||November 9, 2006
Queens, New York, U.S.
Willis was born in Manhattan to a Jewish family, and grew up in the boroughs of the Bronx and Queens in New York City. Her father was a police lieutenant in the New York City Police Department. Willis attended Barnard College as an undergraduate and did graduate study at University of California, Berkeley, where she studied comparative literature for a semester but left graduate school shortly afterwards.
In the late 1960s and 1970s, she was the first pop music critic for The New Yorker, and later wrote for, among others, the Village Voice, The Nation, Rolling Stone, Slate, and Salon, as well as Dissent, where she was also on the editorial board. She was the author of several books of collected essays.
At the time of her death, she was a professor in the journalism department of New York University and the head of its Center for Cultural Reporting and Criticism. She lived in Queens with her husband Stanley Aronowitz and her daughter, Nona Willis Aronowitz.
On November 9, 2006 she died of lung cancer. Her papers were deposited in the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, in the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University in 2008.
Writing and activism
Willis was known for her feminist politics and was a member of New York Radical Women and subsequently co-founder in early 1969 with Shulamith Firestone of the radical feminist group Redstockings. She was one of the few women working in music criticism during its inaugural years, when it was predominantly a male-dominated field. Starting in 1979, Willis wrote a number of essays that were highly critical of anti-pornography feminism, criticizing it for what she saw as its sexual puritanism and moral authoritarianism, as well as its threat to free speech. These essays were among the earliest expressions of feminist opposition to the anti-pornography movement in what became known as the feminist sex wars. Her 1981 essay, Lust Horizons: Is the Women's Movement Pro-Sex? is the origin of the term, "pro-sex feminism".
She was a strong supporter of women's abortion rights, and in the early 1980s was a founding member of the pro-choice street theater and protest group No More Nice Girls. A self-described anti-authoritarian democratic socialist, she was very critical of what she viewed as social conservatism and authoritarianism on both the political right and left. In cultural politics, she was equally opposed to the idea that cultural issues are politically unimportant, as well as to strong forms of identity politics and their manifestation as political correctness.
In several essays and interviews written since the September 11 attacks, she cautiously supported humanitarian intervention and, while opposed to the US invasion of Iraq, she criticized certain aspects of the anti-war movement.
Willis wrote a number of essays on anti-Semitism, and was particularly critical of left anti-Semitism. Occasionally she wrote about Judaism itself, penning a particularly notable essay about her brother's spiritual journey as a Baal Teshuva for Rolling Stone in 1977.
She saw political authoritarianism and sexual repression as closely linked, an idea first advanced by psychologist Wilhelm Reich; much of Willis' writing advances a Reichian or radical Freudian analysis of such phenomena. In 2006 she was working on a book on the importance of radical psychoanalytic thought to current social and political issues.
Rock criticism
Willis was the first popular music critic for The New Yorker, between 1968 and 1975. As such, she was one of the first American popular music critics to write for a national audience. She got the job after having published only one article on popular music in the underground magazine Cheetah, "Dylan," in 1967. In addition to her "Rock, etc." column in the New Yorker, she also published criticism on popular music in Rolling Stone, the Village Voice, and for liner notes and book anthologies, most notably her essay on the Velvet Underground for the Greil Marcus "desert island disc" anthology Stranded (1979). Contemporary Richard Goldstein characterized her work as "liberationist" at its heart and said that "Ellen, Emma Goldman, and Abbie Hoffman are part of a lost tradition-radicals of desire."
She was a friend of many contemporary critics, including Robert Christgau, Georgia Christgau, Greil Marcus, and Richard Goldstein. Christgau, Joe Levy, Evelyn McDonnell, Joan Morgan, and Ann Powers have all cited her as an influence on their careers and writing styles. In 2011, the first anthology exclusively devoted to Willis's popular music writing, Out of the Vinyl Deeps (University of Minnesota Press), arrived. Willis "celebrated the seriousness of pleasure and relished the pleasure of thinking seriously," a review in The New York Times said. It was announced that a conference at New York University, Sex, Hope, & Rock 'n' Roll: The Writings of Ellen Willis, celebrated her anthology and pop music criticism on April 30, 2011.
- Margalit Fox, Ellen Willis, 64, Journalist and Feminist, Dies, New York Times, November 10, 2006.
- Official page on the site of the Department of Journalism, New York University, accessed 7 July 2007
- Ellen Willis, "Radical Feminism and Feminist Radicalism", 1984, collected in No More Nice Girls: Countercultural Essays, Wesleyan University Press, 1992, ISBN 0-8195-5250-X, pp. 117–150, especially pp. 119 and 124.
- Ellen Willis, Lust Horizons: The 'Voice' and the women's movement, Village Voice 50th Anniversary Issue, 2007. This is not the original "Lust Horizons" essay, but a retrospective essay mentioning that essay as the origin of the term. Accessed online 7 July 2007. A lightly revised version of the original "Lust Horizons" essay can be found in No More Nice Girls, pp. 3–14.
- Ellen Willis, Ellen Willis Responds, Dissent, Winter 2003. Accessed online July 7, 2007.
- Why I'm not for Peace, Radical Society, April 2002, pp. 13–19; copy formerly posted on Willis's NYU faculty site was archived on the Internet Archive, December 23, 2005. Accessed online 7 July 2007.
- March 27, 2003 broadcast, Doug Henwood's radio archives, Left Business Observer.
- Ellen Willis, Next Year in Jerusalem, originally published in Rolling Stone, April 1977.
- Willis, Ellen (2011). Out of the Vinyl Deeps. University of Minnesota Press. p. xiii. More than one of
- Willis, Ellen; Nagy, Evie (2011). "Afterword". Out of the Vinyl Deeps. University of Minnesota Press. More than one of
- McDonnell, Evelyn (June 10, 2011). "Ellen Willis's Pioneering Rock Criticism". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 November 2011.
- "Sex, Hope, & Rock 'n' Roll". website.
- Willis, Ellen (1962). Questions Freshmen Ask: A Guide for College Girls. New York: Dutton. LCCN 62007824.
- Willis, Ellen (1981). Beginning to See the Light: Pieces of a Decade. New York: Knopf : distributed by Random House. ISBN 0-394-51137-9.
- Willis, Ellen (1992). Beginning to See the Light: Sex, Hope, and Rock-and-Roll. 2d ed. Hanover: Wesleyan. ISBN 0-8195-6255-6.
- Willis, Ellen (1992). No More Nice Girls: Countercultural Essays. Hanover, NH: Published by University Press of New England [for] Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 0-8195-5250-X.
- Willis, Ellen (1999). Don't Think, Smile!: Notes on a Decade of Denial. Beacon Press. ISBN 0-8070-4320-6.
- Willis, Ellen (2011). Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-0-8166-7283-7.
- Echols, Alice (1989). Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America 1967-1975. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-1786-4. Willis wrote the foreword to a book by Alice Echols
|Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Ellen Willis|
- "Ellen Willis, 64, Journalist and Feminist, Dies" by Margalit Fox, New York Times, November 10, 2006.
- "My Ellen Willis" by Michael Bronski, The Boston Phoenix, November 30, 2006.
- "Sex, Hope and Rock and Roll: A Conversation with Ellen Willis" by Chris O'Connell, Pop Matters, January 8, 2007.
- tumblr page on Willis
- Papers of Ellen Willis, 1941-2006. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
Essays by Ellen Willis
- Ellen Willis Tumblr Page - large collection of Willis's writings.
- "Ellen Willis's Reply", 1968.
- "Women and the Myth of Consumerism", Ramparts, 1969.
- "Hell No, I Won't Go: End the War on Drugs", Village Voice, September 19, 1989.
- "Vote for Ralph Nader!", Salon, November 6, 2000.
- "The Realities of War" (A response to Elaine Scarry's “Citizenship in Emergency”), Boston Review, October/November 2002.
- "The Pernicious Concept of 'Balance'", The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 9, 2005. Note: scroll down page.
Reviews and critiques of Ellen Willis
- Review of Don't Think, Smile! by Marcy Sheiner, San Francisco Bay Guardian, March 29, 2000.
- Bully in the Pulpit? (Discussion of Ellen Willis "Freedom From Religion"), The Nation, February 22, 2001.
- "Ellen Willis, Feminist and Writer", Fresh Air, November 10, 2006 (originally broadcast February 14, 1989). (page links to RealAudio audio file)
- Interview with Ellen Willis and others on Implicating Empire by Doug Henwood, Left Business Observer (radio), March 27, 2003. (page links to MP3 audio)
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Guests of The Denver Zoo are in for a rare, new site — a young male Amur leopard cub was recently born at the zoo and is now viewable by the public.
The critically endangered Amur leopard cub named Makar (Mah-car) is the first birth of this species at The Denver Zoo since 1996, according to a Denver Zoo press release.
Since his birth, Makar has been spending a lot of time with his mother, Dazma (Dazz-mah), behind-the-scenes, but just received a clean bill of health from zoo veterinarians and is now viewable in the zoo’s Feline Building.
Makar was born to his mother Dazma and father (Hari-Kari (Harry Care-ee). Dazma was born at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in 2001 and came to Denver Zoo in 2004, Hari-Kari was born at El Paso Zoo in 2003 and came from there in 2005.
Amur leopards take their name from the Amur region of Asia located along the Chinese-Russian border, according to The Denver Zoo. Although the Amur leopard is currently considered critically endangered and are nearly extinct in the wild, they once flourished throughout the region — from South Korea to north of China and into southern Russia. Now, less than 40 Amur leopards are estimated to remain in the wild.
Poaching for fur, loss of habitat and trophy hunting are the primary reasons cited for their decline.
When Makar grows up he could reach nearly 120 pounds and measure up to two-and-a-half-feet tall at the shoulder and eight-to-nine feet-long from head to tail, like other males of the species.
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Prof. Alyosha Molnar received a BS in engineering with highest honors from Swarthmore College in 1997. After working as a deckhand on a fishing boat, he joined Conexant Systems in Newport Beach in 1998. At Conexant he worked as an RFIC design engineer and co-led the design of their first-generation direct-conversion GSM transceiver, which has sold more than 20 million parts. He entered graduate school at UC Berkeley in 2001 and received his MSEE in 2003 for his design of an ultra-low-power RF transceiver for "Smart Dust" working with Prof. Kris Pister. He then joined Frank Werblin's neurobiology lab where he completed his doctoral work (still in electrical engineering), focusing on dissecting the neuronal circuitry of the rabbit retina using a combination of electrophysiology, pharmacology and anatomy. After receiving his PhD in May 2007, Alyosha joined the ECE Department at Cornell University as an Assistant Professor where he will continue his interdisciplinary research in integrated circuits and neurobiology. His research interests include nanoscale circuitry of all sorts, including transistor circuits manufactured in silicon and biological circuits of the nervous system. In silicon, he is especially interested in RF and mixed-signal integrated circuits, especially focusing on highly-integrated, low-power system design. On the biological side, he is presently focusing primarily on understanding the neuronal code of the mammalian retina and uncovering the neural circuitry that underlies that code. He plans to bring these interests together in several ways. One is to work on developing the circuits and systems for improving the acquisition and subsequent handling of large quantities of data from massive multi-electrode arrays. This could be combined with low-power wireless design to build chronic wireless implants handling data from hundreds of electrodes. At the same time, understanding the workings of neuronal circuits can inspire new silicon circuit ideas.
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When the Works Progress Administration commissioned murals for Harlem Hospital Center in 1936, it easily approved the sketches submitted by seven artists, which depicted black people at work and at play throughout history. The hospital, however, objected, saying four of the sketches focused too much on “Negro” subject matter and that blacks “may not form the greater part of the Community” in years to come.
Protesters rallied around the art, though, lodging complaints as high as President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the murals ultimately prevailed.
Over the years, those wall paintings deteriorated or were obscured by plaster. Now they have been restored and brought front and center as part of a new, $325 million patient pavilion for the hospital, on Lenox Avenue at 135th Street that will be unveiled on Sept. 27.
The WPA’s Federal Art Project, created in 1935 to support and employ artists, commissioned more than 500 murals for New York City’s public hospitals. Harlem Hospital’s were perhaps the first major federal government commissions awarded to African-Americans.
The artists — the last of whom, Georgette Seabrooke, died last year — were not well known and their murals portrayed ordinary people going about their daily lives. Vertis Hayes’s “Pursuit of Happiness” panel traces the African diaspora from 18th-century African village life to slavery in America to 20th-century freedom; from agrarian struggles in the South to professional success in the industrialized North.
Ms. Seabrooke’s “Recreation in Harlem” depicts children roughhousing, a couple dancing, a group of women chatting. After decades of renovations and building changes, some of the murals had all but disappeared. But they were rediscovered in 2004 during a campus modernization project by the architecture firm HOK. At that point, all conservators could see of the Seabrooke mural was the left-hand corner where the artist had signed her name.
The murals’ new home is a 192,000-square-foot building — called the Mural Pavilion — that connects the existing Martin Luther King Jr. Pavilion to the Ron Brown Building. The Mural Pavilion contains new intensive care units, surgery rooms, clinics, imaging spaces and an emergency department.
Part of the hospital’s mandate to the architects was to save the murals, and the cost has been considerable, topping $4 million, which had to be raised privately.
“We were going to preserve these national treasures,” said Deborah Thornhill, the hospital’s associate executive director for strategic planning. “They’re an important part of the history of the hospital, the community and the country.”
Where the murals had been visible only to staff members and patients, now they have a gallery all to themselves, visible from the street. Digital enlargements of three of the murals adorn the building’s 12,000-square-foot glass facade. These color images — printed on the glass using ceramic ink — are a city block long and five stories high.
“All the murals tell wonderful stories,” said Chuck Siconolfi, HOK’s senior principal for health care. “We said, ‘Let’s go beyond displaying these murals and make them emblematic of the whole community and its role in American life.”
“This was not only a cultural device but a therapeutic device,” he added. “They are as much a tool in the delivery of care as any radiological device or any scalpel.”
Because the digital copies of the murals are backlit, the facade essentially becomes a light box, “to the point,” Kenneth Drucker, HOK’s director of design, said jokingly, “where there could be some traffic accidents on the street.”
The facade can also be appreciated from inside the building, the architects said, since column-free corridors are directly behind it, and patients can look into the gallery from adjoining waiting areas and hallways. “When you talk to people about the murals, they listen politely,” Ms. Thornhill said. “It’s only when they walk in the gallery and see how awesome they are that you get the ‘wow’ moment.”
The other murals include Charles Alston’s “Magic in Medicine” and “Modern Medicine,” a diptych that highlights both traditional and modern healing practices in Africa and the United States. A ritual Fang reliquary sculpture from Gabon, in Central Africa, for example, is juxtaposed with a microscope. Ms. Thornhill said Mr. Alston featured Myra Logan, whom he would later marry, as a nurse in the painting; she was an intern at the time and eventually became a surgeon. Mr. Alston also included the microbiologist Louis Pasteur and a surgeon modeled after Louis T. Wright, the first African-American physician appointed to the hospital and a friend of the artist.
“The artist wanted to share the importance of African-American and white physicians working together toward a common goal,” Ms. Thornhill said.
More than 75 years ago, in response to the initial rejection of the murals by the hospital superintendent, the Harlem Artists Guild issued a statement with the Artists Union — copies of which were sent to Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia and members of President Roosevelt’s cabinet in addition to the president himself.
The hospital had rejected the murals, citing the extent of the “Negro subject matter,” the possible demographic change in the neighborhood in years to come and the hospital’s perception that the murals would offend some blacks. Publicity about the controversy aroused support for the artists. The hospital’s commissioner eventually reversed his decision after determining that “there was no offense to Negroes in these paintings.”
The current restoration of the murals was overseen by the city’s Public Design Commission, which questioned whether it was appropriate to display the murals so prominently because, as a matter of history, they had previously been located largely out of public view.
The surviving son of Ms. Hayes testified before the commission that it was not only appropriate “but the correction of an injustice to have hidden them in a back corridor,” Ms. Thornhill said.
Although the hospital raised $4.2 million to restore the murals, it is still seeking funds to finish the work; Ms. Seabrooke’s mural — the most conservation intensive — still needs $400,000 worth of work.
“It was a struggle for the artists to create them,” said Denise C. Soares, the hospital’s executive director. “And it was our honor to conserve their legacy.”
- Harlem Hospital April 18, 1887 (harlemworldmag.com)
- Create A Mural Contest at Corner Social in Harlem (harlemworldmag.com)
- Harlem Enlivened By Summer Jobs Program (harlemworldmag.com)
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I was recently working on a web site and wanted to make it work across several mobile devices. In my case I was testing on an iPhone 4, Android Tablet and an Android phone. So no big deal, I created three different CSS files to cover the range of devices, namely phones, tablets and PC. The low level details are that you create the different CSS files and then specify which one to use based on the screen size using CSS media queries, like so:
<link rel="stylesheet" media="all and (max-width: 320px)" href="site-max320.css"/>
<link rel="stylesheet" media="all and (min-width: 361px) and (max-width: 800px)" href="selene-max800.css"/>
<link rel="stylesheet" media="all and (min-width: 801px)" href="selene.css"/>
However, once I started testing on the phone and tablet something wasn't working right. It was like the mobile browsers were ignoring the media queries; they were auto-zooming out to display the web site in its entirety, which was not what I wanted. After some googling, I discovered that you have to tell the browsers scale the content to the width of the screen, this way the media queries will be taken into effect. To accomplish this, you have to put the viewport meta data tag in the head of your HTML document, like so:
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, minimum-scale=1, maximum-scale=1"/>
Once I added this meta data tag, it all worked as expected :) A more detailed explanation about this meta data tag can be found here.
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The comments below do not reflect the official position of Stand, but are intended to start a discussion:
While governments, groups and individuals are issuing statements left, right and center about the announcement of a ceasefire by the Government of Sudan, it is sometimes difficult for us concerned to really have any idea what it means. Let’s try to look at this move with a little perspective.
First off, the number of ceasefires that the government of Sudan has violated in the past is uncomfortably large. No one is denying this. A ceasefire is very tentative measure that can be overturned on a dime, and is often no more than an excuse to regroup, rearm, and redeploy. As Alex de Waal points out, the Government and government-supported militias have undoubtedly broken more ceasefires than the rebels over the past year. So you can’t blame the rebels for being skeptical.
There are reasons to be positive about this effort, however. Partly, because there has been no real peace process for a year or so now, and partly because the ceasefire comes after a “peace conference” with no rebels but a few opposition voices, including the Southern SPLM and the Umma Party. In fact, the recommendations of the conference offer some really interesting criticisms of the government, including calling on them to release Darfuris who may be arbitrarily detained, establish a fund to help internally displaced persons and refugees return home safely (and voluntarily!), and create a new Vice-President position in the government for someone from Darfur. Those are some solid, good ideas that, if truthful, could lead to good negotiations.
Finally, from our point of view, I’m glad the UN and Canadian Government are issuing statements of encouragement, but seriously, is that all that’s going to happen? If this ceasefire is really to be turned into an opportunity, a few things need to happen on our end.
1. UN mediators (or a Canadian Envoy….hint hint…) need to sit down with the rebels and discover what sort of monitoring methods would convince them of the government’s commitment to this initiative, and then set up those mechanisms. It is not implausible to me that the Canadian government would set up some sort of benchmarks that the government of Sudan would need to meet step-by-step to prove their commitment. The US did precisely that during the negotiations for the North-South Comprehensive Peace Agreement, responding to the attainment of a benchmark with rewards and the failure with punishment. Such benchmarks could include allowing UN troops access to places they have otherwise had trouble monitoring, disarming the Janjaweed militias, setting up real trials for crimes and providing compensation to victims, or allowing unfettered humanitarian access to the entire region. Halting bombing campaigns is assumed also….
2. UNAMID (the joint African Union-UN peacekeeping force) needs to focus on verifying the implementation of the ceasefire and needs to yell really loudly if it is broken.
3. As already mentioned, the rebels need to be brought on board. Discussions about a Qatar-backed peace conference are already circulating. The UN and/or Canada et al. need to meet with Qataris, government and rebels and reach a compromise about how such a conference would take place and where. While I’m glad to see that the peace process is slowly getting started, it won’t be a peace process for long if the rebels don’t jump on board at some point.
As de Waal mentions, we should all encourage and support a “homegrown” Sudanese solution to Sudanese problems; that said, the international community now needs to help make sure those solutions are actually carried out. Luckily for us, this is something we CAN do (unlike so many of the prescriptions that have been passed around over the past five years), through monitoring and verification, trust-building exercises, mediation, diplomacy and public statements, neutral locations for peace conferences, providing peacekeepers as a way to break the security dilemma, and more such “soft-power” actions of referee-ing. So let’s get on it.
A whole other question arises should it prove that the ceasefire is merely dead air…
As always, I welcome thoughts and comments.
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Emory chief apologizes for slavery compromise
Published over the weekend, Emory University President James Wagner's winter message reflected on the importance of compromise in politically divided times.
The example he chose to illustrate his point, however, was rather unfortunate.
And before the weekend was over, he was apologizing for citing the so-called three-fifths compromise in which Northern and Southern states agreed to count three-fifths of the slave population for determining representation.
"A number of people have raised questions regarding part of my essay in the most recent issue of Emory Magazine," Wagner wrote in an apology posted above his original column.
"Certainly, I do not consider slavery anything but heinous, repulsive, repugnant, and inhuman," he said. "I should have stated that fact clearly in my essay. I am sorry for the hurt caused by not communicating more clearly my own beliefs. To those hurt or confused by my clumsiness and insensitivity, please forgive me."
The apology came after comments lit up social media. Let's just say some people were downright offended. If you were on Twitter, you probably saw all the chatter. It was hard to miss.
@palumboliu wrote: "Would say #Emory prez 3/5 of a prez but why compromise? Can him!"
The Wonkette's headline said this: "It Is Cute When White People Try to Have Thoughts About Slavery"
And in Gawker: "Foot goes where? In mouth. In mouth, sir."
Several professors from Emory University's history and African-American studies departments spent hours over the weekend refining a letter of their own to Wagner. That letter, along with an editorial is slated to be published in the school's newspaper, The Emory Wheel, early Tuesday.
"The use of the Three-Fifths Compromise for any reason is unacceptable because, regardless of the context of the compromise, African-Americans see it simply as looking at black people as less than a human being," said Leroy Davis, one of the professors who helped pen the letter.
"We felt it was necessary to point this out," he said.
He said the letter, however, does not call on Wagner to step down, like some had done on Twitter.
"I honestly believe he did not recognize how insensitive that compromise was to many people," Davis said.
In his original column, Wagner held up the three-fifths compromise as a shining example of working together.
"As the price for achieving the ultimate aim of the Constitution -- 'to form a more perfect union' -- the two sides compromised on this immediate issue of how to count slaves in the new nation. Pragmatic half-victories kept in view the higher aspiration of drawing the country more closely together."
Wagner recognized his folly and said this in his apology about the deal reached by the writers of the Constitution:
"The point was not that this particular compromise was a good thing in itself. It was a repugnant compromise. Of course it is not good to count one human being as three-fifths of another or, more egregiously, as not human at all, but property. Rather, the first point of the essay was that the Constitution had to be a deeply compromised document in order to be adopted at all. If something is compromised it is inherently weak, unstable. In the Constitution's case, that weakness resulted in ongoing struggles over slavery and, eventually, civil war. In the long run, critical amendments have helped resolve some of the document's weaknesses and instabilities. We are still working at it."
Doctoral student Erich Nunn, who is teaching a class on race and music this semester, said Wagner's comments were "jaw-dropping, a parody."
He found it ironic that Wagner's faux-pas came as part of a column that Nunn called an "obtuse" effort to defend cuts in liberal arts funding.
"After my initial response I thought it was revealing," Nunn said. "It demonstrates the necessity of the liberal arts."
That no one associated with the production of Emory Magazine questioned Wagner's column was disturbing to Nunn.
"A real lack of critical thinking has been revealed by this whole debacle," he said. He plans to discuss the matter with students when class resumes Tuesday, make it a teachable moment.
The outrage over Wagner's comments came as Emory announced its commencement speaker this year -- none other than Rita Dove, America's first black poet laureate.
Copyright 2013 by CNN NewSource. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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CHIEFLAND, Fla. -- Everyone loves a glass of wine every now and again. Did you know the very first glass of wine in the U.S. was made in Jacksonville? Carrying on that tradition just an hour outside of Gainesville is the Dakaotah Winery.
Max Rittgers created the everything in onsite winery nestled on the side of Highway 19 nearly 30 years ago.
"To the right of the building entrance, you see an arbor and that's a typical arbor that you'd see in Europe and especially Italy ... You still get the warmth of the sun, in the summer you get the shade so you have the benefit year round of the grapes," Rittgers said.
The picturesque winery has also caught the selective eye of Southern Living magazine. The laid back atmosphere is cultivated by swaying grape vines, humming bird feeders and the beautiful wildlife that call Dakotah home.
Inside the winery is a fireplace surrounded by artifacts from the Midwest going back to the days of General Custer. It's hard to believe you're in the heart of Florida, let alone inside a functioning winery.
"This is the fermentation area and the bottling area where we produce a case of wine every 45 seconds," Rittgers said.
Rittgers also users French barrels for making port. They're tucked away behind all the polished stainless steel.
"They're grown in France, they're made in France and they're shipped from France to California. We buy them from California and we put our port in it and let the port sleep in there five or six or seven years."
All these grapes come from just down the road from Dakotah from their charming vineyard with 60 neatly arranged acres of grapes.
"These are 100% muscadine, now muscadine have 100 varieties."
But when it comes to wine making in America, Rittgers wants to make one thing clear.
Here's the message: 100 years before wine was made in California, it was made in Florida, not by the Hispanics, but it was made by the Huguenots over at Fort Caroline up off the south bank of the St. Johns River.
And now it's settled. Florida was first.
So they've been making wine in Florida since the 1600s.
First Coast News
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Living with Wolves
Most commonly known as evil villains from childhood fairytales, wolves have long been the subject of strange myths, causing many humans to fear them. Opening March 22nd, Living with Wolves sets out to debunk cultural misconceptions of these elusive creatures. Living among a pack of wolves at the edge of Idaho’s Sawtooth Wilderness, Jim and Jamie Dutcher spent years in a tented camp intimately observing the social hierarchy and behavior of the famous Sawtooth Pack. Now exquisite, large-scale photographs bring you closer than ever before to each individual pack member, and invite you to explore each wolf’s role within their interconnected social group. Experience the selection of pack leaders, the birth of pups, and the mourning ritual following the loss of a pack member. Plus, learn how the reintroduction of wolves has played a key role in balancing and managing the ecosystem of Yellowstone National Park and beyond.
This exhibition was organized by the nonprofit organization Living with Wolves.
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The GaiamTV interview series features in-depth conversations with some of the nation’s top yoga instructors and wellness experts. GaiamTV is a lifestyle media website that features thousands of online videos and yoga classes designed “to nourish your mind, body, and soul.” Every Tuesday and Thursday we’ll introduce you to a new expert. First up this week, Jill Miller!
Hi Jill. Thanks for taking the time to speak with us! We wanted to start out just by asking you about the video you offer on GaiamTV, Yoga for Weight Loss. Why would someone do yoga for weight loss? Why not hiking or biking or some other form of exercise… do you think yoga is more effective?
I would not claim yoga as a stand-alone is a “more effective” approach for weight loss. Changing one’s body requires change on multiple levels from inside-out: nutrition, mind-set, stress levels and day-to-day activities all bear weight (so to speak) when a body has decided that it is time to shed. What yoga brings to the table is a body-wide introduction into deeper connections between muscles and tissues that may be glossed over by simple one-plane movements such as hiking or biking.
Yoga has a way of teasing out dormant connections amongst multiple muscle and connective tissues layers which revitalizes a body’s way of moving in space, and a person’s connection to their body as a special entity… not just something to shrink or get rid of. A practice of yoga helps to harmonize a body that lives soaked in stress hormones or may be trapped in a mental state of having a negative self-image. Most yoga methods emphasize connecting emotions with actions, and slowing down a mind that may have removed itself (metaphorically speaking) from it’s own body.
In short, yoga is exceptional as an adjunct or additive practice for a person attempting to lose weight.
How has yoga helped you personally find your ideal weight?
In general I am uncomfortable with terms like “ideal” weight, and “weight loss.” I feel that culturally, we are extremely obsessed with body fat as a barometer of health, well-being and social acceptance. Having survived both anorexia and bulimia as a young woman, my journey to robust health did not, nor was ever, satisfied by an ideal number on a scale. I can modify my shape based on the amount of activity I do, or the amount of calories that I eat, or by increasing or decreasing stresses in my life. Weight is hormonal, nutritional, emotional and responsive to exertion.
So, that being said… My personal Yoga Tune Up® practice has made me incredibly conscious of my own appetite, my cravings, and specifically what emotions might be triggering certain cravings. Yoga gives me a barometer to witness my behavior around food so that I can see whether I am eating out of genuine hunger, or whether I am acting on unconscious impulses. Additionally, my practice gives me a chance to feel deeply, both on a soft-tissue level, the movements of muscles, fascias and fluids, and a chance to feel my innermost secrets expressing themselves through movement, my drives, my thoughts, my clarity. All of this brings about balance, because I am seeing myself as I am and ultimately that helps me make better choices in my life.
What was your intent in creating the Yoga for Weight Loss Kit?
When I was initially approached about this title, I had a really hard time with it. Because I had gone through years of serious issues with anorexia and bulimia, I recognized that I was now in a position to perpetuate this never-ending product production around the concept of “weight loss,” which I feel in many cases does not create a supportive portrait around the process. So many thousands of products are designed to “shred,” “rip,” “destroy” or “annihilate” the body in the name of weight loss. I truly find it repulsive and psychologically harmful to us all, especially the most vulnerable, young women and teens.
So I wrestled with these questions as I contemplated whether to create the kit or not. Ultimately I decided that I would rather have my voice contribute to the subject rather than be silent. My director, Rebecca Stetson was completely supportive of my approach, and gave me full creative control over my messages within the kit. My intent with the kit was to emphasize:
1) The practice helps put you in touch with your feelings, both physical and emotional to help you truly discern what you are craving.
2) The physical practice is novel with lots of surprising dynamic moves that are born from my Yoga Tune up® approach that safely prepare a body to move better as a human form… rather than an “ideal” form.
3) The practice makes you sweat, get strong, limber and is super fun!
I continue to have amazing feedback from video students who love my approach and who appreciate that their body is respected in all ways while encouraging them to make these new connections in order to live better in their body.
Ignite your metabolism and increase endurance with this fat-burning yoga workout. Uniquely designed 3 lb. push-up weights add resistance to help you lose weight faster. The ergonomic weights are integrated into each pose in this 60 minute workout to heat up your body for ultra-efficient toning and fat burning. The round bolster helps add support to poses and with it’s unique rounded shape, can be used as a comfortable seat during the post-workout meditation. This program features 3 – 20 minute workouts.
Watch the Yoga for Weight Loss videos for FREE here:
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Before the Meeting
• Keep virtual meetings small; no more than twelve, even if that means you have to hold five different virtual meetings. You can hold a discussion with a small group but that is not possible if there are thirty or more people on line.
• If you hold a series of virtual meetings keep the same small groups together each time. After several virtual meetings twelve people can begin to feel like a community, recognizing each other’s voices, remembering what each person sounds like, what ideas are important to him or her. In other words members get to know each other, which in turn makes them more willing to offer their ideas and thinking on the call.
• Contact people personally before the meeting to build rapport. Reach out to participants whose participation is particularly important.
• Create a picture collage of people who will be on the call. Pictures help make the others on the call real to us. We have a much better memory for faces than for names. We have a sense that we “know” another person if we can recall how they look. If a few people don’t send a picture, you can still include their names in the circle.
If pictures are not possible use a clock face to help yourself and others know who is on the call.
At the Beginning of a Virtual Meeting
• Have the pictures of the people on the call up on the webinar screen. If it is a teleconference, send an email of the collage ahead of time and ask people on the call to have it up on their screen.
• Ask people to always say their name before they speak. The format is: “This is Joe Fitz, I agree that ………” If someone forgets, ask them to say their name after they have finished. “That was very helpful, who was just speaking?” The facilitator should also say his/her name each time he/she speaks to help to set the norm.
• Provide time at the beginning for a check in. Get each person’s voice in the room at the beginning. Checking in creates a friendly atmosphere. People need an example to know how long they should talk. As the facilitator, provide your answer first so others will have a model for how detailed they should be. But before you provide your example, give everyone a moment to think about what they want to say. Here are some possible check in questions:
o What is something about (x) you’ve learned in the last week?
o What do we need to be working on together?
o What was the highlight of your month?
o What have you learned from others that you have tried?
o What is the most interesting thing that happened in your shop this week?
o What are you most grateful for this morning?
o What has inspired you this week?
• Call on people individually early in a meeting which sets the expectation that you might call on them at anytime.
During a Virtual Meeting
• Many virtual meetings are scheduled as presentations by either faculty or members. However virtual meetings can have a broader range of goals than just informing. Virtual meetings can also:
o Problem solve
o Make decisions about how or what work will be done
o Generate ideas
• In actuality, virtual meetings are a poor medium for presentations. As listeners, we simply don’t experience enough cognitive stimulation to keep our attention on an audio presentation. However, there are alternatives to having a speaker present for an hour.
o Send an article or report out ahead of time so the call can be a discussion of the content. When you send out content put it in a separate email and put in the subject line, “Action required.” Send the content out about 3 working days before the call. Let members know, “You will need about 20 minutes to read this.”
o Send an article or report out ahead of time and ask participants to prepare questions for the presenter. Then during the virtual meeting call on each member to ask his or her question. Because questions are often based in a specific context, give the question asker time to provide enough context for the speaker to develop a useful and thoughtful response. Some questions may even become more of a dialogue as the speaker asks other members for their response to that question.
o If you must have on-line presentations keep them to no more than 15 minutes before giving the group an opportunity to interact for at least 10 minutes. Group interaction does no mean asking the presenter questions. Rather the facilitator asks the group a question (see attached questions) that gives them space to offer their thinking about what the speaker has said. Then the presenter might continue again for 15 minutes, then again group discussion. "Ted Talks" must surely have convinced us all that 15 minutes is adequate to present even the most complex of ideas.
o Keep a list of participants in front of you and check names off each time someone speaks. That way you will know who you might need to call on to get their thinking.
Near the Meeting End
• During the meeting create a list of “to dos” and list them verbally at the end of the call.
• One of the most effective ways to end a meeting is to ‘check-out’ with each member to gain closure.
- Name one take away from this meeting
- Give a number from 1 to 5 that represents your confidence with this solution
- Say one thing you are going to do about this issue before our next meeting
After the Meeting
• Summarize the call and send the notes to everyone. If the chat function is used clean it up (clean up names, correct spelling, remove small talk) and send the script.
• Send the to-do list to everyone on the call.
• “Mary has told a story about a frustrating experience. I’m sure many of you have had similar experiences. I’d like to hear a couple more examples.”
• Jack has explained how his team does “X.” What are other ways you have accomplished “X?”
• What are the 3 most important things to consider when doing “X?”
• “Fred has given us a very interesting presentation. What did you hear that really stuck with you?”
• “How would you complete this sentence? ‘The greatest difficulty we face with XXX is _________________.”
• “Sue has told us about an improvement in a rural hospital.
o What did you hear that would work in your setting?
o What did you hear that would need to change because your setting is so different?”
• “What did you hear in Joanna’s presentation that you could put into practice next week?”
• “We’ve heard three examples, what did you hear that was similar in all three examples?”
• “What possibilities come to mind based on what you've heard?”
These questions maybe equally useful in a face-to-face format.
Methods to Use to Ask the Questions
• Ask one of the questions above, and then say, “Let me give you a minute to write a few notes to yourself before people start to answer. (then count to 60 before opening the microphone or calling on people)
• Poll the group – If the group is under 10, call on each person in turn. Then summarize what you heard in the poll. “It sounds like we are divided between (X) and (Y).” or “I’m hearing general agreement about XX.”
• Poll in a random fashion if the group is large – “I’m going to call on a few people to get a sense of the reaction to (Bill’s) idea.” Then call on 5 people. Then ask, “Who else has an idea to offer?” And wait at least 20 second before moving on.
• If all the responses to a poll are similar ask, “I’d like to hear from anyone with a different view. Who sees it differently?” Then give it 20 seconds.
• Present a simple scenario and ask each participant to share how they would respond in that situation
• Use the chat function to get responses to a question on a 1-5 scale. “Just type a number from 1 to 5 into the chat area.” Then ask, “Most of you put in a 4 or 5 but there are a few people who were at a 1 or 2. I’d like to hear your thinking”
• Use the voting function on a webinar with pre-designed questions based on the presentation.
• Pause to have a paired conversation. Say, “If there is someone else at your site, talk with them for a few minutes before we call on people for their response. If you are by yourself then make some notes.”
• In the chat function, ask participants to write in brief notes during the presentation about what they agree and disagree with, for example, “X’ was a good point.” Or “I agree with “XX.” These notes are not for the presenter to read, but for others on line to see the reaction of their colleagues. It also is useful for starting the discussion after the presentation. “Many of you agreed with “XX,” Bella, what was your thinking that caused you to agree?”
• Don’t feel you have to answer every question asked of you. It is often useful to ask the group members what their thinking is on a question addressed to you.
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In the second sentence, the student states that if Vallejo is correct, there is insufficient evidence for claiming that glass-blowing originated in Egypt.
However, in the conclusion the student incorrectly infers that to mean glass-blowing must have originated elsewhere.
According to the passage, Vallejo only claims there is insufficient evidence for determining glass-blowing originated in Egypt, not that there is evidence that glass-blowing did not originate in Egypt, or that there is evidence that glass-blowing originated elsewhere.
The fault in this passageís reasoning is similar to fault in this more simple passage:
Although most scientists believe that cigarettes cause cancer, a new study by Scientist X questions the validity of the evidence linking cigarettes to cancer. Therefore, if Scientist X is correct, cigarettes donít cause cancer.
Kohsuen, hope this helps.
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Denver artist Monica Petty Aiello, one of the stars of the Fine Art Center's NASA | Art: 50 Years of Exploration, studies her muses closely. But after she's put in her time with scientific experts, she does take plenty of creative liberties.
“I am not a space artist, I’m a contemporary artist,” she says.
Not just anyone would go this far to analyze his or her inspirations. Petty Aiello has coined the term "cosmorphology" to describe the patterns of shapes between the very small and very large.
“There’s this whole connection between forms that are very universal, so you can see similar forms repeating in the universe, whether it’s a microscopic or a macrocosmic level," she says. "And I like playing with that idea."
You can see it within the core of much of her work.
Day trips to Denver's Museum of Nature and Science helped awaken her fascination with space and the cosmos. Taking her children to see the exhibits, Petty Aiello says, "reinvigorated" her passion for the sciences, one that began in her own childhood within a family of computer scientists and mathematicians.
For more on Petty Aiello, catch her lecture at the FAC on Feb. 13.
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Sautéed Stinging Nettles Recipe
A simple sauté is a delicious and quick way to deactivate the stinging hairs of this somewhat intimidating green. Herbaceous and slightly nutty, sautéed nettles can be added to soups, pizza dough rounds, simmered white beans, and scrambled eggs or paired with ricotta on crostini for an elegant hors d’oeuvre.
Special equipment: Heavy rubber dish gloves are helpful to quickly stem and clean the nettles. If you do not have gloves, tongs and scissors will do the trick.
What to buy: Stinging nettles can often be found at farmers’ markets and specialty food markets during the spring.
This recipe was featured as part of our Recipes for Spring Ingredients photo gallery.
- 1 pound stinging nettles
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 large shallot, sliced lengthwise and thinly sliced
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 4 medium garlic cloves, minced
- 1/2 cup water
- Zest of 1 medium lemon
- Juice of 1/2 medium lemon
- Wearing thick rubber gloves, clean the nettles by soaking them several times under cold running water, then drain. (Do not touch raw nettles with your bare hands. If you do not have rubber gloves, use tongs to handle the nettles.) Separate the tender leaves from the tough stems, discarding the stems. (Use scissors for this process if you don’t have protective rubber gloves.)
- Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium heat until shimmering. Add the shallots and salt and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 2 minutes. Add the garlic and cook until the shallots have softened, about 2 minutes more.
- Using tongs, add half of the nettles and the water to the pan. Cook, stirring often, until the nettles have begun to wilt, about 2 minutes. Add the remaining nettles and cook, stirring often, until wilted, about 3 minutes more. (Add more water a tablespoon at a time if the pan becomes too dry.)
- Remove the pan from heat. Stir in the lemon zest and juice. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper and serve.
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About Developmental Math
Developmental math classes give students the basic skills and understanding required for success in university-parallel classes and non-transfer 100-level classes. Credits earned in developmental math classes do not count towards graduation. Developmental math classes are kept small (base class size 22 students) to personalize the learning environment and facilitate student-teacher interaction.
Developmental math classes at TMCC are offered in lecture-based format, in computer-assisted format, and in Web-based (online) format. See Math Class Formats for further details. TMCC's developmental math classes are numbered Math 90, Math 95 and Math 96.
Registration for online developmental math classes is by departmental permission and limited to students who meet the following three requirements:
- The student has not dropped or failed the class before, or the student has a minimum GPA of 3.0.
- The student has a grade of A or B in the prerequisite class, or a qualifying Accuplacer math, ACT math or SAT math score, taken within the past two years.
- The student has a minimum Accuplacer Reading score of 86 and a minimum Accuplacer Essay Sample score of 5 (or a minimum score of 440 on both the SAT Reading and Writing tests, or a minimum score of 18 on both the ACT Reading and Writing tests), or a C of higher in English 98R, taken within the past two years.
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The heart of an engine's lubrication system is the oil pump. It sucks oil in from the crankcase and pushes it through the filter and oil galleries to the bearings, camshaft and upper valvetrain. A steady supply of lubricant is absolutely essential to prevent metal-to-metal contact, wear and friction between moving parts, to help cool the bearings and pistons, and to maintain proper valvelash in engines that have hydraulic lifters or cam followers. If for any reason the pump cannot keep the oil circulating, it's bad news for the engine. The first symptom of low oil pressure is typically valve noise and/or a warning light or low oil pressure gauge reading usually at idle. From here, things can quickly take a turn for the worse. Loss of oil pressure may starve the bearings of their much-needed lubrication. With no
oil to keep the surfaces apart, bearings can wipe and fail. A seized rod
bearing will often break the connecting rod and put it through the side of the engine block. A seized main bearing will often spin and wipe out the main bore.
An oil pump failure is like cardiac arrest because the results are often fatal.
Nothing Lasts Forever
With regular oil and filter changes, an original equipment oil pump should last the life of the engine. Today, that means upwards of 150,000 miles or more. But some oil pumps may not go the distance because the pump is the only internal engine component that runs on unfiltered oil all the time. If the vehicle owner neglects regular oil changes and/or drives his vehicle in a dusty or dirty environment, the pump will suffer the consequences.
Think about it. The filter protects the bearings and other internal engine parts by trapping wear particles and debris that end up in the crankcase.
But the filter provides no protection whatsoever for the pump because the filter is located downstream of the pump. The oil pump just sucks up
whatever junk is in the crankcase and pushes it along to the filter. The
only protection for the pump is the inlet screen over the pickup tube. The screen can prevent big chunks of debris from entering the pump but allows smaller particles to pass right through. Some pickups even have slits that allow cold oil to bypass the screen when the engine is first started.
Consequently, if there is any junk in the crankcase it will be sucked right into the pump.
Pump failure can occur if anything large enough to jam the gears or rotors
enters the pump. This includes metallic debris from bearings or castings,
gasket or seal debris, shot peening remnants, glass beads from bead
blasting, or anything else that doesn't belong in the crankcase. With
twin-gear pumps, a foreign object that enters the pump can lodge between the
close-fitting gears, or the gears and housing, causing the pump to lock up.
Once the gears stop turning, something has to give. Usually the pump shaft
twists or shears off. Sometimes a pump seizure tears up the teeth on the
camshaft or distributor drive gears depending on how the pump is driven.
With front-mounted rotor-style pumps, debris usually won't lock up the pump
because it is driven directly off the crankshaft, but it can damage or
destroy the rotors.
Even if a pump doesn't fail, it loses efficiency as it wears. Over time, the
effects of pumping unfiltered oil produces scratches and wear in the gears
and pump housing that increase clearances and reduce pumping efficiency. The
result is a gradual loss of oil flow and oil pressure as the miles add up.
An oil pump, by the way, does not create oil pressure. It pushes oil from
one place to another. It is a positive displacement pump that moves oil as
it turns. Oil is incompressible so once it leaves the pump it continues to
flow until it encounters resistance in the filter, oil galleries and
bearings. It's the resistance to flow that builds pressure in the oil
system. Trying to force oil through a small opening creates more resistance
and pressure than allowing it to pass freely through a large opening.
A worn pump can't deliver the same volume of oil as a new pump, so with less
flow there's a drop in oil pressure.
As pressure builds in the oil system, it exerts pressure. A spring-loaded
"pressure relief valve" built into the oil pump (or near the pump) opens
when pressure exceeds a certain limit (typically 50 to 60 psi) and either
reroutes oil back into the pump's inlet or the oil pan. This prevents a
dangerous buildup of pressure that could rupture the oil filter or blow out
press-fit oil plugs.
At idle, most oil pumps do not produce enough flow to force open the relief
valve. Oil pumps that are camshaft driven turn only at half engine speed so
output isn't great at idle and low rpm. Even pumps that are crankshaft
driven and turn at engine speed (or double engine speed in a few instances)
don't pump enough oil to overcome the relief valve spring. The relief valve
generally only comes into play at higher rpm when the pump's output pushes
more oil into the system than it can handle. Then the relief valve opens to
vent oil and limit maximum oil pressure until the engine returns to idle or
a lower rpm.
How Much Pressure?
Vehicle manufacturers have traditionally recommend a minimum of 10 psi of
oil pressure for every 1,000 rpm of engine speed. Using these numbers, most
stock engines don't need any more than 50 to 60 psi of oil pressure. With
tighter bearing clearances, pressure goes up requiring less flow from the
pump and less parasitic horsepower loss to drive the oil pump.
In racing applications, the old school of thought was more oil pressure was
needed to keep the engine lubed. That's true if bearing clearances are
loosened up. But most engine builders today tighten clearances so less oil
flow is needed to maintain adequate oil pressure. This approach increases
the horsepower output because less power is needed to drive the pump at high
A stock oil pump is usually more than adequate for most street performance
engines, and even many racing engines. NASCAR engines typically get by just
fine with no more than 50 psi of oil pressure at 9,000 rpm! Some top fuel
dragster and funny car engines are set up so the oil pump will dump
excessive oil pressure at high rpm so more power will be routed to the rear
Some racing engines use a "dry sump" oiling system. With this type of
lubrication system, an external oil pump is used to suck all the oil out of
the crankcase to reduce "windage" (oil drag) on the crankshaft. The oil is
routed to an external tank and an oil cooler before it is recirculated back
into the engine.
High-Volume & High-Pressure Pumps
In applications where more oil flow is desired either to increase oil flow
or pressure for better bearing lubrication and cooling, an oil pump with
longer or larger gears may be installed. The physically larger surface area
of the gears pushes more oil through the pump at the same rpm than a stock
pump. A high-volume oil pump typically flows 20 to 25% more oil than a stock
pump. The increase in oil flow produces an increase in oil pressure at idle,
which helps compensate for increased bearing clearances. Consequently, some
people may install a high-volume pump in a high-mileage engine in an attempt
to restore normal oil pressure. But oil isn't metal, and the only real cure
for low oil pressure is to replace worn bearings and restore normal
High-pressure oil pumps are another option. A high-pressure pump contains a
stiffer relief valve spring that does not open until a higher pressure is
reached (75 psi or higher). The actual flow rate of a high-pressure pump may
be no different than a stock pump, or it may be higher if longer gears are
used. Either way, the pump will increase the system oil pressure reading at
high rpm when the pump is working hard, but it won't have any affect on idle
pressure when the pump is turning slowly.
A high-volume or high-pressure oil pump may be recommended in engines where
bearing clearances are looser than normal, in engines where an auxiliary
external oil cooler has been added to improve oil cooling and in racing
engines where a oil accumulator has been installed.
Rebuild or Replace?
If you're overhauling a high-mileage engine or replacing a set of worn
crankshaft bearings, it's always a good idea to replace the oil pump, too.
Replacing only the gears in a twin-gear pump can restore gear-to-gear
clearances but not gear-to-housing clearances. The end plate that covers the
pump often develops a heavy wear pattern that is most noticeable on the
outlet gear side. Regrinding the face of the plate smooth can restore end
play tolerances between the plate and gears but it can't compensate for wear
inside the housing. Deep scratches or grooves worn into the sides of the
housing will leak oil and reduce the pump's ability to move oil.
In the case of front cover oil pumps on overhead cam engines, the pump turns
at engine rpm and generates more flow at idle than crankcase-mounted pumps.
Consequently, when the pump becomes worn it isn't always necessary to
replace the entire cover assembly ‹ provided the pump housing inside the
cover isn't worn or damaged. A new drive gear can be mounted on the
crankshaft and a new rotor installed in the cover to restore normal oil
pressure. This approach eliminates the need to replace the entire cover
In cases where an engine has experienced a bearing failure or any other kind
of internal failure that puts debris into the crankcase, the oil pump should
always be replaced.
You should also replace the pump's pickup tube and screen. Pickups are
difficult to clean and can hide debris that may damage a new pump or the
If you want to rework a stock oil pump to maximize flow, use a die grinder
to smooth and blend the sharp edges of the pump inlet and outlet ports. This
will reduce turbulence and enhance flow through the pump. The clearance
between the end of the gears and the pump housing cover also should be
minimized to reduce pumping losses around the ends of the gears.
If you're working on a small block Chevy V8, another trick that can boost
oil flow is to install a big block Chevy oil pump instead of a small block
oil pump. A stock big block Chevy oil pump has 12 teeth per gear versus
seven for the small block version, and flows about 10% more oil at the same
Something else to watch out for when installing a high-volume oil pump in a
small block Chevy V8 is the nylon retainer on the pump shaft. A better
choice is a pinned steel retainer to provide extra support between the
intermediate shaft and pump shaft.
Care must also be used when tightening down the pump mounting bolts on small
block and big block Chevy V8s because the pumps do not use a mounting
gasket. The bolts should be torqued to 60 to 70 ft.-lbs. so there are no
leaks or sloppiness that would eventually cause the shaft to break.
Preventing Oiling Problems
The greatest oil pump in the world won't keep an engine properly lubed if it
is dry when the engine is first started, or if it sucks air because the oil
level in the crankcase is low or the pickup screen is mounted too far above
the floor of the oil pan.
The pickup tube should be installed so it is located no less than 3/8" above
the floor of the oil pan (to allow good intake flow), and no more than 1/2"
above the floor so it doesn't run out of oil in a sharp turn.
The pump should also be filled with oil when it is mounted on the block to
prime it and reduce the risk of a dry start. Do not use grease or assembly
lube here. In the case of front-mounted oil pumps inside the timing cover,
the pump rotors can be coated with heavy oil such as 50W or even gear oil to
keep the pump primed.
Before starting the engine, prime the oil system with a pressurized oiler.
Oil tends to drain off bearing surfaces when an engine sits for more than a
week or so without running.
On older engines with distributor-driven oil pumps, the engine can be primed
by using a drill to spin the oil pump shaft through the distributor hole.
But on engines with no distributor or those with oil pumps inside the front
cover, this isn't possible. Feeding pressurized oil into the main oil
gallery through the oil pressure sending unit fitting will route oil to all
the critical areas inside the engine and eliminate the risk of scuffing the
bearings when it is first started.
Another option to consider is installing "coated" main and rod bearings if
you're replacing crankshaft bearings. Several major bearing suppliers have
recently introduced performance engine bearings coated with a low-friction,
moly-based anti-scuff surface treatment. The special coating increases the
price of the bearings but provides added protection in the event of oil
Causes of Low Oil Pressure
Possible causes include:
Excessive main and rod bearing clearances (someone may have installed the
wrong-sized bearings or standard-sized bearings on a reground crankshaft). Only 0.001" of extra clearance in the main bearings can reduce oil pressure
by up to 20%!
Excessive camshaft bearing clearances (a bearing may have slipped out of
place when the cam was installed).
Excessive clearances inside the oil pump.
Leaks between the oil pump and engine.
Oil pump relief valve stuck open or installed backward.
A loose or mispositioned oil pickup tube (too high in the oil pan).
A defective oil pressure sending unit or oil pressure gauge.
Low oil level in the oil pan.
Cracks or leaks in the oil galleries or gallery plugs.
Cracked oil pump housing (improper installation).
Oil viscosity too thin for hot weather.
Oil viscosity too thick for cold weather.
|Presentation Available on Engine Lubricant Quality
As vehicle maintenance professionals, you all are well aware of the
importance of basic auto maintenance, especially the need to change lube oil
and filters regularly. Over the past few years, we have seen not only major
changes in automotive technology, but some say there also have been changes
in the quality of engine lubricants. The net effect of these changes is that
some engine oils that remain available in the marketplace are obsolete for
modern engines, according to the Association of International Automobile
To receive a PDF version of a Powerpoint presentation developed by the AIAM
that describes some of the excessive engine wear and sludge buildup problems
that can occur when improper motor oils are used in modern engines, email us
at firstname.lastname@example.org. Please include your name, shop, location and e-mail
|Oil Change Association Holds Convention
The Automotive Oil Change Association (AOCA) will be holding its "AOCA & All
That Jazz Annual Convention & Fast Lube Expo" April 23-26 at the Ernest N.
Morial Convention Center in New Orleans.
The sixth-annual AOCA Boot Camp will be held on Saturday, April 23rd. This
full-day program is designed to help new lube owners improve their
operations and their bottom line.
Seminars include Getting and Keeping Customers; Add-On Services: Tire
Rotation, Power Steering and A/C Service; Dude, Where's My Car?; Warranty
Claims Self Defense and Customer Satisfaction; Working With the Media; and
To Go of Grow.
On the exhibit floor, AOCA will host a new "demo theater" during which
featured exhibitors will share their insights and techniques on cabin air
filter service, water and deposit removal, training, car wash management,
on-board diagnostics and the effects of thermal expansion on lube equipment.
For more information on AOCA and the convention, visit www.aoca.org or call
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Want More Education?
Delve deeper into the science behind skin care with —Skin Inc. Video Education!
Most Popular in:
Marketing Matters: Private Label Grows Up
By Donna C. Barson
Posted: February 20, 2008It used to be that, for the consumer, buying a private label brand meant a deal with the economic devil. Private label purchases cost less and saved the consumer money, but a distinct drop-off in quality was often the trade-off from a national label alternative.
But, as Bob Dylan sang, the times they are a-changin’. Today, in every category, retail outlets are aggressively stocking private label products next to national brands, and often using private labels to attract customers into their store. From packaging down to performance, private labels are giving the national brands a run for their money.
What does that mean to the savvy marketer? Simply this: private labels have emerged as a definite threat to sales, shelf positioning and even the decision of what products are carried. Foolish personal care marketers ignore these warning signals at their own peril—and the likely detriment to their products.
Private label development has been the most significant at grocery stores, with a nearly 20% incursion rate. Supercenters are next, with 16%. Both are formidable personal care retail outlets. Even non-traditional personal care markets such as apparel chains—including New York & Co. and Ann Taylor—and accessory chains such as Coach offered personal care products in 2007.
If you need somebody to blame for this private label change from frumpy to fabulous, look no further than Martha Stewart. Stewart’s partnership with K-Mart some years ago suddenly gave private labels polish and pizzazz, and now Macy’s also carries her products. No longer was the private label some anonymous product made by some anonymous manufacturer, but now it carried the distinctive and well-known name of Stewart.
Soon Michael Graves was in Target, drugstores were seeking out their own exclusive brands, and private labels were on a rising sales escalator that hasn’t reached the top yet.
Macy’s, in fact, is becoming a retailer composed of mostly exclusive/private label brands, nudging out national brands that have been with the chain for decades.
In personal care, CVS has exclusively introduced Lumene personal care lines from Finland, and this, along with Essence of Beauty, Dr. Jeffrey Dover and other exclusive private brands, including new free standing skin care centers with private label and exclusive brands, have turned CVS into a beauty destination.
To continue reading this article, please click here. You will be redirected to GCI magazine's Web site.
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The Arecibo Observatory is part of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC), a national research center operated by Cornell University under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation (NSF). The NSF is an independent federal agency whose aim is to promote scientific and engineering progress in the United States. NSF funds research and education in most fields of science and engineering. Additional support is provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Making Arecibo a very important part of the Space exploration for planet.
The Observatory operates on a continuous basis, 24 hours a day every day, providing observing time, electronics, computer, travel and logistic support to scientists from all over the world. All results of research are published in the scientific literature which is publicly available.
As the site of the world's largest single-dish radio telescope, the Observatory is recognized as one of the most important national centers for research in radio astronomy, planetary radar and terrestrial aeronomy. Use of the Arecibo Observatory is available on an equal, competitive basis to all scientists from throughout the world. Observing time is granted on the basis of the most promising research as ascertained by a panel of independent referees who review the proposals sent to the Observatory by interested scientists. Every year about 200 scientists visit the Observatory facilities to pursue their research project, and numerous students perform observations that lead to their master and doctoral dissertations .
Those who see the Arecibo radio telescope for the first time are astounded by the enormousness of the reflecting surface, or radio mirror. The huge "dish" is 305 m (1000 feet) in diameter, 167 feet deep, and covers an area of about twenty acres. The surface is made of almost 40,000 perforated aluminum panels, each measuring about 3 feet by 6 feet, supported by a network of steel cables strung across the underlying karst sinkhole. It is a spherical (not parabolic) reflector .
ARECIBO, Puerto Rico -- It is a space-age sentinel, rising out of the prehistoric jungles of Puerto Rico -- a 1,000-foot (305-meter) diameter aluminum "ear," cocked perpendicular to Earth, leaning into the sky, listening.
For 37 years radio astronomers at the Arecibo Observatory have used this, the world's largest radio telescope, to fathom the radio signals of the cosmos. It has tuned in on the tumultuous songs buried in the hearts of stars and quasars that radiate from the very edge of the universe. Closer to home, it has lent an ear to random radio emissions emanating from 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) within the upper atmosphere.
Located 12 miles (19 kilometers) from the coastal city of Arecibo, the facility requires a full-time staff of 140. Most of them are technicians and engineers, and nearly 30 are astronomers and engineers from countries as different as India, Uruguay, Great Britain, Sweden, Belgium and United States.
"The radio telescope can be used 24 hours a day," says Reinaldo Velez, the observatory's chief telescope technical operator. "Darkness or daylight doesn't make any difference when it comes to radio waves."
Even so, most scientists prefer to work at night, Velez says, as the interference from cell phones, pagers and radar is much less.
With the proliferation of modern electronic devices and communications equipment, electronic interference has is grown worse in recent years. Besides Earth-based technology, communication-satellite constellations like those of the now defunct Iridium, along with powerful military and civilian airport radar also clutter the radio waves.
"It's similar to optical telescopes having to penetrate city air pollution," says Velez, who has been at the observatory 26 years. "It's a constant battle we cannot win."
However, the assault on Arecibo comes on two fronts -- while electronic emissions encroach from the air, on the ground of this former 15 th -century Spanish colony in the Caribbean, the tropical forest forever attempts to consume the structure.
"Sometimes, up to three days a week, the radio telescope is shut down because technicians have essentially to beat back the jungle," says Mike Nolan, a planetary radar scientist.
Most of the engineers compare the facility to a ship exposed to natural marine threats: tropical heat, luxuriant vegetation, fungi and salty air all can create rust and other harsh effects on the fine electronics and complex mechanisms. The observatory's smooth operations depend on 26 electrical motors and 30 miles (48 kilometers) of thick cables supporting the 900-ton reflector suspended 450 feet (137 meters) above the radio telescope's metallic dish.
Even under the observatory's spherical dish, 1,000 feet in diameter (305 meters) and suspended from 20-foot- (6-meter-) long cables, an abundant and colorful life flourishes. While deterring erosion of the limestone terrain, a lush growth of ferns, begonias and wild orchids have to be trimmed on a regular basis to keep them from interfering with the 18-acre surface of the bowl-shaped reflector. Composed of 40,000 aluminum panels, this antenna covers the same area as 26 football fields.
Suspended 450 feet above the reflector is the 900 ton platform. Similar in design to a bridge, it hangs in midair on eighteen cables, which are strung from three reinforced concrete towers. One is 365 feet high, and the other two are 265 feet high. All three tops are at the same elevation. The combined volume of reinforced concrete in all three towers is 9,100 cubic yards. Each tower is back-guyed to ground anchors with seven 3.25 inch diameter steel bridge cables. Another system of three pairs of cables runs from each corner of the platform to large concrete blocks under the reflector. They are attached to giant jacks which allow adjustment of the height of each corner with millimeter precision.
Just below the triangular frame of the upper platform is a circular track on which the azimuth arm turns. The azimuth arm is a bow shaped structure 328 feet long. The curved part of the arm is another track, on which a carriage house on one side and the gregorian dome (installed in 1996) on the other side can be positioned anywhere up to twenty degrees from the vertical. Inside the gregorian dome two subreflectors (secondary and tertiary) focus radiation to a point in space where a set of horn antennae can be positioned to gather it. Hanging below the carriage house are various linear antennas each tuned to a narrow band of frequencies. The antennas point downward and are designed specially for the Arecibo spherical reflector. By aiming a feed antenna at a certain point on the reflector, radio emissions originating from a very small area of the sky in line with the feed antenna will be focused on the feed antenna.
Attached to the antennas are very sensitive and highly complex radio receivers. These devices operate immersed in a bath of liquid helium, to maintain a very low receiver temperature. At such cold temperatures the electron noise in the receivers is very small, and only the incoming radio signals, which are very weak, are amplified. The Arecibo system operates at frequencies from 50 megahertz (6 m wavelength) up to 10,000 megahertz (3 cm wavelength).
A total of 26 electric motors control the platform. These motors drive the azimuth and the gregorian dome and carriage house to any position with millimeter precision. The tertiary reflector can be moved to improve focusing, receivers are moved into focus on a rotating floor inside the gregorian and the dynamical tie downs activate as needed to maintain platform position. The 1 MW planetary radar transmitter located in a special room inside the dome, directs radar waves to objects in our solar system. Analyzing the echoes provides information about surface properties and object dynamics.
This giant telescope has scrutinized our atmosphere from a few kilometers to a few thousand kilometers where it smoothly connects with interplanetary space. With its radar vision it studies the properties of planets, comets and asteroids. In our Galaxy it detects the faint pulses emitted hundreds of times per second from pulsars. And from the farthest reaches of the Universe quasars and galaxies emit radio waves which arrive at earth 100 million years later as signals so weak that they can only be detected by a giant eye like this one.
The giant size of the reflector is what makes the Arecibo Observatory so special to scientists. It is the largest curved focusing antenna on the planet, which means it is the world's most sensitive radio telescope. Other radio telescopes may require several hours observing a given radio source to collect enough energy for analysis whereas at Arecibo this may require just a few minutes of observation.
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Latest VideosMore Videos
Baby Joy said her first words, and Whyatt was the only one around to hear her! The only problem is...no one believes him! This is just like the Boy Who Cried Wolf - no one will believe he has a friend named Wolf! The Super Readers fly into his story and help the boy convince the townspeople there's more to his tale than meets the eye. Will Whyatt's family come around, too? Educational Objectives: To learn about getting others to believe you, build with the alphabet and celebrate spelling! The power to read is used to change the story.
Watch Super Why! and more at PBS Kids Video.
Sorry, this episode has no rebroadcasts scheduled at this time.
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Home News Local News Fire prevention starts with you
Fire prevention starts with you
By JAYSON JACOBY
Of the Baker City Herald
A fire may feel fine on falls frosty mornings, but flames and even sparks remain a threat to Baker Countys parched forests and rangelands.
And what really frightens fire officials is this: A person can spark a blaze and never even know it.
The most irresponsible camper knows an unattended campfire can escape its ring of rocks.
But how many visitors ponder the possibility of their sport-utility vehicles catalytic converter igniting the patch of tall, dry grass where they parked the rig?
Or that their four-wheelers clogged spark arrestor might be ejecting hot little embers every time they shift into low gear?
People just need to be real cautious, said Miles Hancock, who works at the Northeast Oregon Interagency Fire Dispatch Center in La Grande.
Hancock said the regions forests and ranges are as dry now as theyve been all year.
Earlier this week firefighters had to put out three human-caused fires in the Elkhorn Mountains southwest of Baker City.
Investigators dont yet know how those blazes started.
None burned more than half an acre, but weather conditions warm, dry afternoon and gusty winds the next couple days are conducive for a fire to get out of control fast, said Larry Aragon, fire management officer at the La Grande Ranger District.
But both Aragon and Hancock said recreationists can greatly reduce the risk of starting a fire by adhering to some simple precautions.
They still need to be very careful, Aragon said.
Fires in developed campgrounds rarely get away, Aragon said.
By far the bigger threat is from the blazes people sometimes start to take off the morning chill while theyre hunting or hiking away from camp.
The problem, he said, is that people either dont properly prepare the site where they build their warming fire, or they walk away from it before its actually out.
Preparing the site is easy, Hancock said just sweep the ground down to bare dirt.
Then, before you leave, make sure the fire is dead out.
The difficulties come from the way people define that term, Hancock said.
Many people figure dead out means there are no visible flames, he said.
But fire officials dont call a fire dead out until they can run a bare hand through the embers and not feel any heat, Hancock said.
Just because there arent active flames doesnt mean the fire is out, he said. A lot of times they do come back to life, especially on these warm, windy afternoons.
The easiest and fastest way to render a fire dead out is to douse it with water and mix the moisture into the ashes, he said.
Plain dirt works, too, but it will take longer.
A popular practice is to ignite an old pitchy stump for warmth. They make a nice fire, but they also can burn and burn and burn, Aragon said.
Rigs, and other things with motors
All motorized equipment, including chain saws and generators as well as vehicles, are supposed to be equipped with a spark arrestor that meets standards of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
But not all do, Aragon said.
And even on motors so equipped, the spark arrestor may not function properly, especially if its old and hasnt been maintained.
But sparks from the exhaust pipe arent the only potential firestarters, Aragon said.
Catalytic converters, which are installed on most vehicles built within the past 25 years or so, usually are the hottest external parts on a vehicle, he said.
He urges drivers to look around whenever they stop, even if they just pull over for a moment to check a map.
Aragon said he knows of many instances in which a driver parked for only a minute, then drove away without realizing the catalytic converter or muffler had ignited roadside grass or brush.
It seems obvious that flicking a cigarette out the window of a vehicle is a bad idea, but Aragon said its a habit that can be hard to break.
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<person> (Vinton G. Cerf) The co-inventor with Bob Kahn of the Internet and its base protocol, TCP/IP. Like Jon Postel, he was crucial in the development of many higher-level protocols, and has written several dozen RFCs since the late 1960s.
Vinton Cerf is senior vice president of Internet Architecture and Technology for MCI WorldCom. His team of architects and engineers design advanced Internet frameworks for delivering a combination of data, information, voice and video services for business and consumer use.
In December 1997, President Clinton presented the U.S. National Medal of Technology to Cerf and his partner, Robert E. Kahn, for founding and developing the Internet.
Prior to rejoining MCI in 1994, Cerf was vice president of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI). As vice president of MCI Digital Information Services from 1982-1986, he led the engineering of MCI Mail, the first commercial e-mail service to be connected to the Internet.
During his tenure from 1976-1982 with the U.S. Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Cerf played a key role leading the development of Internet and Internet-related data packet and security technologies.
Cerf served as founding president of the Internet Society from 1992-1995 and is currently chairman of the Board. Cerf is a member of the U.S. Presidential Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) and the Advisory Committee for Telecommunications (ACT) in Ireland.
Cerf is a recipient of numerous awards and commendations in connection with his work on the Internet. In December 1994, People magazine identified Cerf as one of that year's "25 Most Intriguing People."
In addition to his work on behalf of MCI and the Internet, Cerf serves as technical advisor to production for "Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict," the number one television show in first-run syndication. He also made a special guest appearance in May 1998. Cerf also holds an appointment as distinguished visiting scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he is working on the design of an interplanetary Internet.
Cerf holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from Stanford University and Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from UCLA. He also holds honorary Doctorate degrees from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich; Lulea University of Technology, Sweden; University of the Balearic Islands, Palma; Capitol College and Gettysburg College.
Try this search on Wikipedia, OneLook, Google
Nearby terms: Vincennes LISP « vines « Vine Technology « Vint Cerf » Vinton Cerf » Viola » virgin
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The city of Hastings got an early start on celebrating our nation's veterans with a parade Saturday morning, featuring not just one grand marshal, but five.
They range from age 27 to 90 and gained experienced in various locations and different wars, but they come together as veterans from Nebraska.
"General Patton's 3rd Army. We were in the Battle of the Bulge," said World War II veteran Reinold Schutte.
"I enlisted in the Navy right after high school in 1951. The Korean War was just starting at that time and they were drafting people," said John
Schiefelbein of his experience.
One man from each branch of the Armed Forces led the Veterans Recognition Parade. They're all veterans, but they said their experiences have differed vastly.
"Usually if they see this cap they come right up and talk to me. I even have little children come up. It wasn't but about a week ago that a little girl came up and gave me a thank-you card," said Schutte.
"Really there wasn't much support and all. It was kind of like, well here I am, but nobody really talked too much about it. It's not like nowadays, they welcome you home. It was kind of a letdown to come home from that," Schiefelbein said.
Air Force veteran Mike Marymee remembers the protesters during the Vietnam Era, but said that was just the way of the time.
"It kind of goes along with people that protest today. I always felt that I served so they had the right to do that," Marymee said.
But they all said, it's good to know that most people have the military's back nowadays.
"Now the public opinion of the military is totally changed since the Vietnam War. They're very open. If you walk in with a military jacket, they'll shake your hand or buy you a cup of coffee or a drink or something, say thank you. That just didn't happen when I came back," said Lee Daily, who served in Vietnam as a marine.
"Everybody for the most part around here just say thanks for your service," added former Coast Guard Jesse Schakat. "They're very appreciative."
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I want to share something puzzling that has troubled me for some time: Why don’t development agencies use results-based financing more consistently as a way of supporting stronger governance in developing countries? Let me explain the source of this puzzle and give you my personal take on the issue.
The traditional way in which international agencies finance development projects is by paying for inputs (materials, construction, and services). Typically, a set of activities is identified as critical to achieving results, costs are established, and funds provided accordingly. Heavy emphasis is placed on monitoring how inputs are used, based on technical standards. Measuring the project’s results (the outputs produced with those inputs and the associated outcomes derived from the use of those outputs) is often included as a parallel activity that does not influence the amount of funding or the rate of disbursements.
I can see this type of arrangement being justified when close control over inputs (e.g. construction, technology, etc.) is essential to the achievement of results. This is typically the case when technical design (and the associated implementation challenges) is a critical bottleneck. Without these, results cannot be achieved –and to the extent technical challenges (at both the design and implementation phase) are addressed, the probability that results will be achieved is very high. Often such situations involve discrete, one-off, activities, such as the construction of a large infrastructure project or the purchase of expensive and technically sensitive equipment.
Many of the development challenges faced by developing countries, however, cannot be addressed just through discrete policy actions or through the proper technical implementation of a project. For example, improving service delivery (e.g. better maintained roads, functioning schools and health clinics, effective agricultural extension services) may well require policy actions (e.g. a decentralization law) and will typically involve some discrete investment activity (e.g. constructing new schools or purchasing new equipment for the road maintenance agency). But these are seldom sufficient for the achievement of results: schools can be built but teachers may remain absent; health clinics may have new equipment but essential drugs may not be available at the point of service; rural roads may remain un-maintained in spite of the existence of idle equipment.
Addressing such bottlenecks involves changes in management practices and behaviors by service providers and users alike. Improved policy frameworks may be necessary and more or better inputs may be essential–but without stronger incentives and accountability mechanisms, improved policy frameworks and inputs are unlikely to yield results. In other words, stronger governance is fundamental –and without it more resources are unlikely to yield the desired results.
Interest in so-called results-based financing arrangements has increased substantially among development agencies. But resistance remains to making this central to development work. What is the problem? After all, If the goal is to support better governance, what better way than rewarding good performance? One argument is that results based financing is mainly workable in high capacity, strong governance settings. Well, almost everything works in those settings. The key intuition, however, is that paying for results can, in fact, be a powerful instrument to change incentives and thus contribute to improving governance. Seen from this perspective, results based financing is not a luxury for well-performing countries but an instrument to support better governance.
Hence my puzzlement: what is the source of resistance?
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21. No Credit Cards – Cut up the credit cards and live only on what you make. No interest. No late fees. No problems. If you currently struggle with credit card debt, consider a source like Ready for Zero to help you pay it off.
22. Pack Your Lunch – Don’t go out for lunch everyday; pack lunch instead. This can easily save you $50 a week.
23. Don’t Pay for Your Kids - If you do dine out during the week, make sure you visit one of the many places that offers “kids eat free” specials. At least you won’t be paying for their meals.
24. Don’t Forget to Ask – Ask for a discount. We always ask about discounts and have found that many places we wouldn’t have thought of give unadvertised discounts. For example, our preschool offered a discount to pay in full. And our plumber gave us a discount when we asked. As it turns out, many things are negotiable if you ask! – My Dollar Plan
25. Savings Goal Reminder – Carry a list in your wallet of financial goals that you will see every time you take it out to buy something. Create online savings goals with SmartyPig.
26. Shopping Plan of Attack – Look at all the sale ads before you grocery shop and go to the store with the most sales. Write down a list before I go to any store and it saves you from buying unnecessary items.
27. Vacation During No Child Care Days – Plan your vacation days on the days your children have half days of school or teacher in-service days. It yields more time with kids and lower child care costs.
28. Quit Your Bad Habits – Be they eating out, smoking, or going out partying. Every time you stop yourself from doing it, put the money you would have spent into your savings.
29. Meat Alternative - Meat is generally the most expensive source of protein. Beans and nuts are pound for pound far more nutritious for your protein dollar, and better for you too. If you can’t stomach the idea of giving up beef, consider ordering your beef online through OmahaSteaks.com – Amateur Asset Allocator
30. Daily Spending Goal - Set a daily goal for yourself: how much money your going to spend during the day.
31. Deal of the Day Sites – Groupon.com. This is a fantastic site to get some great group deals from local businesses. The only thing to watch out for is the “I don’t really need that but it’s such a great deal” syndrome.
32. Online First, In-store Second – One of the smartest ways to save money is to always do comparison shopping online before going to stores. This will allow you to find the best deal without wasting time and gas driving around town.
33. Consider a Stay-Cation – No need for a big expensive vacation. Take a week off of work and simply do a bunch of activities in your own home town. Skip the hotel and airfare costs and spend more money on entertainment and dining out for the week.
34. Wash Your Own Work Clothes – If you need a lot of professional clothes for work, buy the generic equivalent of Woolite and wash your work clothes with it instead of regular harsh detergents. It costs a bit more initially for the detergent but saves your clothes from fading, thinning, or frizzing, so I can wear them a lot longer and not have to buy new things. Also use Dryel instead of dry cleaning my clothes as much as possible.
35. Do it Right the First Time – If you are working on a car repair or home improvement, consider doing it right the first time. If you try and cut corners it will likely end up costing you more money in the long run. – Money Smart Life
36. Early to Bed, More in the Bank – Go to bed earlier. Saves light, heat (in the winter) and late night nibbles.
37. Create a Savings Category on the Budget – Make saving part of your budget and set saving goals. If you monitor your progress toward a goal you are much more likely to succeed in hitting that goal than if you just hoped to save money some day. Monitoring anything makes you more aware of it. Gain more awareness of your goals and progress with You Need a Budget – No Debt Plan
38. Utilize Free Online Services – Dump the monthly subscriptions and read newspapers and magazines online. Or at least get your magazines for free online using one of the many free offers.
39. Be Purposely Low in Cash – Do not take a lot money with you when you go out, so even if you have the temptation to buy something you will not, if its really that important you will surely go back home to get the money. If its not, then you just saved yourself from spending money.
40. Reduce Your Medical Bills – If you have a hospital bill, just call up the billing department and ask if you can get a discount for paying cash, or if you can pay a lower amount. Often they’ll be happy that they’re just collecting a bill, and are willing to cut 10-20% off your amount. We saved several hundred by doing this after my wife was hospitalized last year. If you want to save big on health care, consider a high-deductible health insurance plan. – Bible Money Matters
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How to change your laptop into a very very good laptop for $
by Computers-ITPro - 6/23/12 4:37 AM
How to change your laptop into a very very good laptop for $150.
It must be relatively new with DDR 3 memory.
Go to Newegg.com and buy a sata solid state hard drive (128 GB) and two (4GB) stick of DDR 3.
Step by step: Must be Windows 7
1. Get an external hard drive.
2. Plug the external hard drive into your laptop and click on "my computer" and make sure it loaded.(See it)
3. Go to the "control panel" and select "backup and restore".
4..Create a backup...follow directions...don't worry...the PC sees the external hard drive and will automatically save it on the external hard drive.
4-A. Also create a CD to boot to when they ask you at the end after it has created the backup image.
5. OK, you have purchased the solid state hard drive and 8 GB of memory so now take the back cover off and expose the hard drive and memory modules. (It is easy, I taught an orangutan how to do it)
6. Take the junk out and put the new components in. (Now you have a laptop with a blank hard drive and 8 GB's of memory) Unformatted..that's how they come from the factory.
7. Plug in the external hard drive you saved the "backup image" on and make sure it is on.
8. Put the CD you created into the DVD drive and boot to the recovery CD you made.
9. It will automatically find the external hard drive saved backup and ask you if you want to restore it to the
"blank hard drive"...say "YES
10. When it is finished you now have a laptop that is so fast it will "make you coffee, wash your feet, massage your back, do the dishes and calm your wife."
Have fun, don't be afraid.
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"1. Click the north up button to reset the view so that north is at the top of the screen. Click and drag the ring to rotate your view.
2. Use the Look joystick to look around from a single vantage point, as if you were turning your head. Click an arrow to look in that direction or continue to press down on the mouse button to change your view. After clicking an arrow, move the mouse around on the joystick to change the direction of motion.
3. Use the Move joystick to move your position from one place to another. Click an arrow to look in that direction or continue to press down on the mouse button to change your view. After clicking an arrow, move the mouse around on the joystick to change the direction of motion.
4. Use the zoom slider to zoom in or out (+ to zoom in, - to zoom out) or click the icons at the end of the slider. As you move closer to the ground, Google Earth swoops (tilts) to change your viewing angle to be parallel to the Earth's surface. You can turn off this automatic tilt (Tools > Options > Navigation > Navigation controls; Mac: Google Earth > Preferences > Navigation > Navigation controls)."
You can now display the sun by enabling View > Sun or clicking on the sun button from the toolbar. To create time-lapse views of sunsets and sunrises, click on the "play" button and watch the changes.
For some of the imagery, you can see at the bottom of the window an approximation of the date when it was taken. The Street View images from Google Maps are now available in a new Google Earth layer, which is not enabled by default.
Google Earth includes much more models in the 3D buildings layer for cities like: San Francisco, Boston, Orlando, Munich, Zurich. "Google has optimized the loading and performance of 3D buildings. When you first turn on the 3D Buildings layer near a city with models, you'll see simplistic versions of the buildings load up really fast, then they gradually get more solid and load more texture detail," explains the unofficial Google Earth Blog.
Google Earth 4.3 can be downloaded from earth.google.com. Windows users that don't want to install the application using Google Updater can try this direct link. You'll probably notice that the Windows setup is much smaller: the size has been reduced from 12.7 MB to 7.36 MB. Unfortunately, the new version seems to be less stable and it uses more resources, but it's still in beta.
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A History of The New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington DC
History is said to be to a community what memory is to an individual life. That is certainly true of the history of a religious congregation, as its remembered past takes the shape of a narrative crucial to self-understanding, decision-making, and future planning. Capital Witness tells the story of The New York Avenue Presbyterian Church (NYAPC) in Washington DC with such an end in mind.
The result of a union in 1859 between F Street Associate Reformed Church (founded in 1803) and Second Presbyterian Church (founded in 1820), NYAPC’s roots are deep in the nation’s capital. With the church situated just blocks from the White House, the people of NYAPC have been immersed in the social, religious, and political issues facing the country since its founding.
During NYAPC’s span of more than two hundred years and location in four sanctuaries and various temporary sites, the church has been renowned for preaching truth to power—James Laurie, Daniel Baker, and Phineas Gurley in the nineteenth century; Wallace Radcliffe, Joseph Sizoo, Peter Marshall, and George Docherty in the twentieth century; and Roger Gench in the twenty-first century. Three of its pastors have also served as federal legislative chaplains—specifically Septimus Tustin, Gurley, and Marshall.
NYAPC’s pews have held such noteworthy historical figures as Presidents John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Capital Witness recounts Adams’s generosity to the church and its pastor, Jackson’s role in the scandalous affair of two friends, Lincoln’s ultimate belief in the selfless love and reconciliation reflected in his Second Inaugural Address, and Eisenhower’s inspiration for the addition of “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance.
The NYAPC clergy and congregation have been active leaders in the fight for social justice dating as far back as 1817, when Laurie backed colonization as one way to right the wrong of slavery. It continued through the Civil War era as Gurley counseled and consoled a president struggling to understand the meaning of God’s activity in the maelstrom of that war, and into the twentieth-century as Docherty and Jack McClendon led the congregation into active participation in the civil rights movement and protest against the controversial Vietnam War. This quote from its 1988 Long Range Plan sums up the role NYAPC has played and the people it has attracted over time: “Ours is a church for those who respond to challenge.”
This church’s track record of care and involvement is reflected in its various ministries. One of the most notable is the Community Club. A program that began as a World War II–era social and recreational outlet for the young men and women passing through or relocating to Washington DC, the Club has evolved into a successful tutoring program for underprivileged youth in the community that has encouraged and enabled hundreds to pursue higher education.
The buildings housing this congregation through the years are supreme examples of leading architectural design during the periods in which each new church was constructed. The current structure boasts a sanctuary renovated in 2009, a state-of-the-art organ, and nineteen stained glass windows, each one depicting biblical scenes or significant historical remembrances in the life of the congregation. The sanctuary holds the pew originally rented and occupied by Lincoln and his family. Also on display in one of two rooms that preserve and recall NYAPC’s history is an original draft in Lincoln’s handwriting of what later evolved into the Emancipation Proclamation.
Capital Witness describes how this church, born of the Reformed tradition in America, has evolved and continues to transform—“reformed, always reforming”—irrevocably intertwined with the nation as a whole, the city in which it stands, and the lives of the people who give and receive its ministry.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. wholesale businesses increased their stockpiles in October but their sales fell sharply, a mix sign for economic growth.
The Commerce Department says stockpiles grew 0.6 percent in October. That's slower than September's 1.1 percent, which was the biggest gain in nine months.
Sales in October fell 1.2 percent, after rising 1.9 percent in September
An increase in restocking leads to more factory production, which boosts economic growth. Faster restocking helped lift growth in the July-September quarter to an annual rate of 2.7 percent.
But slower sales could force companies to cut back on restocking in coming months, which would slow growth in the October-December quarter. And companies may be worried about looming tax increases that will take effect without a budget agreement to avert them.
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Apologizing isn't so much an art as a sport. When approached as a skill to build, governed by a few simple rules, the apology almost always achieves its goal — despite any fumbles during delivery. When it's over, everyone wins.
Degree of difficulty: Medium to hard, depending on aversion to eye contact.
1. Forget dodge ball; apologizing is a contact sport. "Eye-to-eye, face-to-face, that's the one way it works," said Maribeth Kuzmeski, author of "The Engaging Child" (Red Zone Publishing) and "The Connectors" (Wiley), both relationship skills books. "My son, when he was younger, … (would) write a note of apology. We would say, 'We're so happy you took the time to write us this note. We'd really like you to talk to us about it.'"
Now, her kids and their peers apologize by text message. "That seems to be accepted. Apologies are situational sometimes. But, as a parent, if my daughter apologized by text message to me, I would say, 'Are you kidding me?' Teenager to teenager may be one way, but teen to adult or adult to adult, if you really mean it, you go face-to-face and suck it up."
2. Find a segue. Rolling into the apology is often the toughest part, especially if the tone up to now has been light. Kuzmeski suggests a transitional, "Hey, I wanted to talk to you about something." That signals the subject matter is important. Next you might say, "I know you were unhappy with something that I did, and I'd like to talk to you about that."
3. Include the "I," as in "I'm sorry," not just "Sorry." The latter is the equivalent of "Love ya!" versus "I love you." It's often employed by kids who feel justified in what they did. "We need to teach, if something they've done has upset the other person, and they don't want the person upset, then they say an authentic apology," Kuzmeski said. "Hopefully we can get to the point where they're sorry for what (the misunderstanding) has done, if not sorry for what they've done."
4. Don't qualify it. Banish the "if" and "but," as in, "I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings but your outfit reminded me of dad's Naugahyde recliner." Those qualifiers/justifiers will bury a deeper hole. If you can't apologize without them, don't apologize.
"We have to apologize in a believable way and not have any other messages intertwined in there," Kuzmeski said.
If you're unclear of your offense, however, it's OK to say, "I see I hurt your feelings. I don't completely understand. Can you tell me what you're feeling?" If there was a misunderstanding or oversensitivity in your view, mend the fence with, "I didn't know it would make you feel the way it did or I never would have said it. That wasn't my intention. I'm sorry."
5. Don't expect instant absolution. "You want the other person to tell you it's OK. And they may not do that," she said. Perhaps your apology lacked conviction; you may wish to reiterate how sorry you are and add, if it's a personal relationship (not business), "Will you please forgive me?" If the person replies, "Stop apologizing — it's over already!" do stop. The person may just need time.
The apology under duress: Kuzmeski condones requiring a child to apologize, a la, "If you want to do whatever the next thing is that you want to do, you have to apologize to your sister." "If you wait till they really feel sorry, you might be waiting 10 years," she said. "What's more important is to get them to know that apologizing is the right thing to do. It's social intelligence type of teaching."
How to receive an apology
You don't have to say, "Oh, that's OK." Especially if you're still sore. Kids are known to fire back at an apologizer with "Well, I don't forgive you!" A more mature alternative: "Thank you for apologizing."
Life Skill #9
How to apologize
It's hard to say 'I'm sorry.' Face time is essential, for starters.
In person is always best. (Nick White Taxi/Getty Images / January 23, 2012)
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My career in public service began more than 40 years ago at the height of the civil rights movement. As a legislative assistant in the U.S. Senate, I worked on landmark civil rights legislation and as Director of the U.S. Office for Civil Rights, I had the responsibility to enforce those laws.
At that time, I saw how one man, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., could make a difference. He did so by challenging his fellow citizens to reflect on what it means to be American. Faced with opposition, he did not threaten violence, but rather gained strength from the truth of his convictions. His powerful ideas and lyrical words compelled our nation to live by its founding principle: that we are born with equal rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In the end, he changed not only the law of our land, but also struck a note for freedom that still resonates in the hearts and minds of the American people and the entire world. That’s a legacy worth celebrating.
Dr. King renewed the promise of America’s dream. His example inspired a movement for our country to reclaim its fundamental pledge – so that we might live as one nation, with liberty and justice for all. Every man and woman at the Department of Defense should strive to uphold these fundamental ideals.
One of my proudest moments was the opportunity to meet Dr. King and years later, as a congressman, to cast my vote to set aside a day dedicated to Dr. King’s memory. This weekend, I hope each of you will think about just how much this one man’s life and accomplishments have meant to our country. The nation we work so hard to protect is a better place because of him. In fighting for equal justice, he was fighting for all of us.
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