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TeamSTEPPS Helps Arizona Hospital Reduce Emergency Department Wait Times
Prior to 2015, patients waited an average of nearly 90 minutes for treatment at the emergency department (ED) of Banner Payson Regional Medical Center, Payson, Arizona. While Banner Payson had earned high rankings for some clinical services and had been designated as one of the Nation’s top 100 hospitals three times by Thomson-Reuters, wait times at the central Arizona ED were high on the list of issues demanding a top-to-bottom overhaul, according to hospital officials.
To improve performance, the facility used a combination of operational improvements and TeamSTEPPS® training to reduce the hospital's ED wait times from a high of 89 minutes in April 2015 to an average of 18 minutes in April 2016, according to Banner Payson CEO Lance Porter.
Banner Health, a Phoenix-based non-profit system with 29 hospitals, acquired the 44-bed hospital from Community Health in 2014. Banner Payson suffered from problems with communication among physicians and nurses, a lack of teamwork and accountability among staff, and a general culture that shunned new approaches to familiar problems, according to Porter. For example, input from the nursing staff was discouraged by the former ED physician group, increasing the risk of delays and poor outcomes, he noted.
To begin addressing the ED's problems, Banner Payson brought in the national ED staffing firm TeamHealth, which recommended using AHRQ's TeamSTEPPS training program. Developed in collaboration with the Department of Defense, TeamSTEPPS is an evidence-based patient safety system used worldwide to improve communication and teamwork.
Banner Payson also introduced several operational fixes to help improve efficiency. These included hiring scribes to input notes into electronic health records for physicians, allowing nurses to order routine lab and blood tests, and shifting schedules to make more providers available during peak times. Using ED technicians during busy summer months also helped reduce waiting times. Together, these changes began to move the ED into performing in a more efficient manner, according to Porter.
"The real achievement is the change of culture" that occurred as a result of the TeamSTEPPS training, Porter noted. One tool known as a huddle, where physicians and nurses meet at the end of every shift to share patient information, has been a notable teamwork booster. Physicians use huddles to discuss with nurses why they’ve chosen a certain clinical protocol, encouraging nurses to be actively engaged in the care plan.
"Nurses are doing more than checking a box or keeping score," Porter explained, adding that "they feel part of a team, and they have that sense of urgency."
Maintaining a culture in which teamwork and communication are valued is an ongoing challenge to many organizations, and one that Banner Payson has anticipated. To maintain the momentum, all ED staff are involved in teams that address how to continuously improve patient information-sharing so that patients have a personal stake in the process, Porter explained.
Making sure that new hires are committed to a teamwork-oriented environment is another priority. "We only want people who fit the new culture," Porter said. "Luckily, we have enough staff interested that we don't have to settle for less."
In a related effort, the hospital is forming a team to review admission delays and determine how to admit patients more efficiently.
Impact Case Study Identifier:
AHRQ Product(s): TeamSTEPPS®
Topics(s): Emergency Department, Patient Safety, Health Care Quality
Geographic Location: Arizona
Implementer: Banner Payson Regional Medical Center
Page last reviewed May 2017 | <urn:uuid:45a153b8-a9f2-47c6-a950-061189c612ce> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://saludequitativa.blogspot.com/2017/06/teamstepps-helps-arizona-hospital.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573876.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20220820012448-20220820042448-00072.warc.gz | en | 0.954703 | 752 | 1.789063 | 2 |
SIRTE, LIBYA—Moammar Gadhafi, who ruled Libya with an iron fist for 42 years until he was ousted by his own people, was killed Thursday when revolutionary forces overwhelmed his hometown, Sirte, the last major bastion of resistance two months after his regime fell.
The 69-year-old Gadhafi is the first leader to be killed in the Arab Spring wave of popular uprisings that swept the Middle East, demanding the end of autocratic rulers and the establishment of greater democracy.
”We confirm that all the evils, plus Gaddafi, have vanished from this beloved country,” interim Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril said in the capital of Tripoli.
IN PHOTOS: Gadhafi through the years
“Clearly, this day marks a historic transition for Libya … Yet let us recognize, immediately, that this is only the end of the beginning,” said United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon later Thursday. “This is the time for healing and rebuilding, for generosity of spirit, not for revenge.”
Diplomats say NATO will decide Friday to end the aerial campaign over Libya.
Libyans now enters a new era, but their turmoil may not be over. The former rebels who now rule as the NTC party are disorganized, they face rebuilding a country stripped of institutions, and have already shown signs of infighting, with divisions between geographical areas and Islamist and more secular ideologies.
PHOTOS: Gadhafi’s powerful pals
Early reports from fighters said Gadhafi had been barricaded in with his heavily armed loyalists in the last few buildings they held in his Mediterranean coastal hometown of Sirte, furiously battling with revolutionary fighters closing in on them Thursday. At one point, a convoy tried to flee the area and was blasted by NATO airstrikes, but Jibril specified Gadhafi was not killed by the strike. Most accounts agreed Gadhafi was shot to death by fighters.
Fighters in Sirte rolled Gadhafi’s body on the pavement, according to footage aired on Al-Jazeera, TV. The goaded Gadhafi was stripped to the waist and his head was bloodied.
The killing or capture of senior aides, including possibly two of Gadhafi’s sons may ease fears of diehards regrouping elsewhere — though cellphone video apparently of Gaddafi alive and being beaten may inflame Gadhafi’s sympathizers.
Gadhafi’s body was then paraded through the streets of the nearby city of Misrata on top of a vehicle surrounded by a large crowd chanting, “The blood of the martyrs will not go in vain,” according to footage aired on Al-Arabiya television. The fighters who killed Gadhafi are believed to have come from Misrata, a city that suffered a brutal weeks-long siege by Gadhafi’s forces during the eight-month long civil war.
Abdel-Jalil Abdel-Aziz, a doctor who was part of the medical team that accompanied the body in the ambulance to Misrata, said Gadhafi died from two bullet wounds, to the head and chest.
“You can’t imagine my happiness today. I can’t describe my happiness,” he told the Associated Press. “The tyranny is gone. Now the Libyan people can rest.”
Celebratory gunfire and cries of “Allahu Akbar” or “God is Great” rang out across the capital Tripoli. Cars honked their horns and people hugged each other. In Sirte, the ecstatic former rebels celebrated the city’s fall after weeks of bloody siege by firing endless rounds into the sky, pumping their guns, knives and even a meat cleaver in the air and singing the national anthem.
Libya’s justice minister confirmed later Thursday that Gadhafi’s son and one-time heir apparent, Seif al-Islam, had been captured wounded by revolutionary fighters and is in a hospital after being shot in the leg.
Information Minister Mahmoud Shammam also told the Associated Press by telephone that Muatassim Gadhafi, his father’s former national security adviser, was dead.
Senior NTC official Abdel Majid Mlegta told Reuters that DNA tests were being conducted to confirm it was Moammar Gaddafi who the rebels killed. Most likely he would be buried in Misrata by Friday, according to Muslim custom.
Libya’s new leaders had said they would declare the country’s “liberation” after the fall of Sirte.
The death of Gadhafi adds greater solidity to that declaration.
It rules out a scenario that some had feared — that he might flee deeper into Libya’s southern deserts and lead a resistance campaign against Libya’s rulers. The fate of some top figures of his regime remains unknown, but their ability to rally loyalists would be deeply undermined with Gadhafi’s loss.
Sirte’s fall caps weeks of heavy, street-by-street fighting as revolutionary fighters besieged the city. Despite the fall of Tripoli on Aug. 21, Gadhafi loyalists mounted fierce resistance in several areas, including Sirte, preventing Libya’s new leaders from declaring full victory in the eight-month civil war. Earlier this week, revolutionary fighters gained control of one stronghold, Bani Walid.
By Tuesday, fighters said they had squeezed Gadhafi’s forces in Sirte into a residential area of about 700 square yards but were still coming under heavy fire from surrounding buildings.
In an illustration of how heavy the fighting has been, it took the anti-Gadhafi fighters two days to capture a single residential building.
Reporters at the scene watched as the final assault began around 8 a.m. Thursday and ended about 90 minutes later. Just before the battle, about five carloads of Gadhafi loyalists tried to flee the enclave down the coastal highway that leads out of the city. But they were met by gunfire from the revolutionaries, who killed at least 20 of them.
Col. Roland Lavoie, spokesman for NATO’s operational headquarters in Naples, Italy, said the alliance’s aircraft Thursday morning struck two vehicles of pro-Gadhafi forces “which were part of a larger group manoeuvring in the vicinity of Sirte.”
The Misrata Military Council, one of the command groups, said its fighters captured Gadhafi.
One fighter who said he was at the battle told AP Television News that the final fight took place at an opulent compound for visiting dignitaries built by Gadhafi’s regime. Adel Busamir said the convoy tried to break out but after being hit it turned back and re-entered the compound. Several hundred fighters assaulted.
“We found him there,” Busamir said. “We saw them beating him (Gadhafi) and someone shot him with a 9mm pistol ... then they took him away.”
Military spokesman Col. Ahmed Bani in Tripoli told Al-Jazeera TV that a wounded Gadhafi “tried to resist (revolutionary forces) so they took him down.”
“I reassure everyone that this story has ended and this book has closed,” he said.
After the battle, revolutionaries began searching homes and buildings looking for any hiding Gadhafi fighters. At least 16 were captured, along with cases of ammunition and trucks loaded with weapons. Reporters saw revolutionaries beating captured Gadhafi men in the back of trucks and officers intervening to stop them.
In the central quarter where Thursday’s final battle took place, the fighters looking like the same ragtag force that started the uprising eight months ago jumped up and down with joy and flashed V-for-victory signs. Some burned the green Gadhafi flag, then stepped on it with their boots.
They chanted “Allah akbar,” or “God is great” in Arabic, while one fighter climbed a traffic light pole to unfurl the revolution’s flag, which he first kissed. Discarded military uniforms of Gadhafi’s fighters littered the streets. One revolutionary fighter waved a silver trophy in the air while another held up a box of firecrackers, then set them off.
“Our forces control the last neighbourhood in Sirte,” Hassan Draoua, a member of Libya’s interim National Transitional Council, told The Associated Press in Tripoli. “The city has been liberated.”
In Benghazi, where in February Gaddafi disdainfully said he would hunt down the “rats” who had emulated their Tunisian and Egyptian neighbours by rising up against an unloved autocrat, thousands took to the streets, loosing off weapons and dancing under the old tricolour flag revived by Gaddafi’s opponents.
Mansour el Ferjani, 49, a Benghazi bank clerk and father of five posed his 9-year-old son for a photograph holding a Kalashnikov rifle: “Don’t think I will give this gun to my son,” he said. “Now that the war is over we must give up our weapons and the children must go to school.
“But Gaddafi was a terrible dictator and this was the only way to get rid of him. We want everything people have in free countries - want people to live in peace as you do across the Mediterranean where life doesn’t require the machinegun.”
In Ottawa, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said that Canada will contact its allies to prepare for a quick end to its Libyan military mission now that Gadhafi is dead.
“Our government shall be speaking with our allies to prepare for the end of our military mission in the next few days,” Harper said in a statement to reporters in which he also welcomed the news of Gaddafi’s death.
“The Libyan people can finally turn the page on 42 years of vicious oppression and continue their journey to a better future,” Harper said.
Canadian Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard has headed the NATO mission.
With files from Reuters and the Associated Press | <urn:uuid:83ceeecb-f548-48ae-8e17-80c57d73d95f> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2011/10/20/gadhafis_death_a_new_era_for_libya.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719453.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00231-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97092 | 2,144 | 1.796875 | 2 |
SINCE the Global Financial Crisis, there has been a huge range of reforms to the financial planning industry.
However, one of the greatest problems in this space has been absolutely ignored - that is the lack of regulation in the property investment industry.
Think about this. The property investment industry is virtually regulation free - anyone can wake up, decide to become a property investment adviser, and set up shop giving advice about property investing. There is no licence required, no education or training needed, and no supervisory body.
To make matters worse, property investment "advisers" usually operate without any kind of professional indemnity insurance because underwriters refuse to provide coverage for activities which are unregulated. Consequently, if you suffer a loss due to poor advice you will have no capacity to recover that loss.
ASIC provides no supervision because a property investment is not recognised as a financial instrument.
Thanks to the government's inability to tackle the problem there is now a stark contrast between financial advisers and stockbrokers who are highly regulated, and property investment advisers, who are unregulated. Despite years of financial education, it is a sad reality that the average Aussie still feels safer in bricks and mortar than in shares. They are more likely to gravitate to a so-called property investment adviser, with no licence, no training and who is not required to disclose to you any commissions they may receive from any sale to you. These can be as high as $40,000 a property.
If this scares you as much as it scares me, take some action and contact your local federal member. We need adequate regulation and we need it now.
Noel Whittaker is the author of Making Money Made Simple and numerous other books on personal finance. His advice is general in nature and readers should seek their own professional advice before making any financial decisions. Email: email@example.com.
Update your news preferences and get the latest news delivered to your inbox. | <urn:uuid:a427c3b8-c470-4c73-b91e-f1cd53ee1861> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.byronnews.com.au/news/property-invesment-needs-regulation/1493622/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284405.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00034-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959587 | 400 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Two studies on the health of bumblebees and links to neonicotinoid health were published simultaneously last month in sister publications of the prestigious science journal empire, Nature.
Both examined closely similar scientific questions, with somewhat different experimental methodologies. But the study that found that neonics caused no serious issues was ignored by the media while the one suggesting a bee-apocalypse was widely played up as “definitive.”
The studies were not identical in focus, although they had one author in common — entomologist Nigel Raine of the University of Guelph in Ontario. They looked at different stages in the life cycle of bumblebees and their queens. So, on that basis alone, the findings about the differences in bee health could have been different. But the issue here is not only the conclusions, but the reporting on the studies. | <urn:uuid:0955864d-aebf-48f6-895f-13a553ec5530> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://spudsmart.com/tale-two-neonicotinoid-bumblebee-studies/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570871.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808183040-20220808213040-00266.warc.gz | en | 0.980999 | 175 | 2.40625 | 2 |
Casinos supporting Catalan language
Catalan is a very old language with European affiliation. It is mainly spoken in Catalonia, an autonomous community in the north-eastern region of Spain. However, Catalan is also heard in southern France, Andorra, Spain, and Sardinia, Italy.
Known as one of the Romance Languages, Catalan started as a distinct language in the 12th century when it replaced Latin and Provencal in scientific, legal, and literary documents.
The language faced a setback in the early 18th century when Spain's Phillip V established rule in Catalonia and declared Spanish as the official language. Catalan returned as the official language in the 19th century, and in the early 20th century The Institute of Catalan Studies established a standardized version of the language.
Presently, Catalan is a co-official language in Catalonia along with Spanish. Written, Catalan utilized a Western-style alphabet of 27 characters. The extra character comes from an accented "C" known as a trencada. | <urn:uuid:f7b136b3-2e0d-47fa-bdaa-f994b999a669> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.freeextrachips.com/online-casinos/languages/ca/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279489.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00008-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959361 | 206 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Texas Weighs Rating Teachers on Schoolwide Scores
Renee Dailey is, by all accounts, a superb teacher. In the first of her 20 years teaching Texas history, she won the teacher of excellence award in her Austin school district. She went on to win the district's teacher of the year award five times and recently received a fellowship to study at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
But under a proposal by the Texas commissioner of education, the Kealing Junior High School teacher's annual professional evaluation would not be based on her 7th grade students' performance on standardized tests. Rather, her review would be influenced by the scores posted by all students at Kealing.
"I think it's quite unfair," Dailey says. "In education, there are teachers, and then there are teachers. I should not be affected by what someone else does not do."
Two of the four groups representing teachers in Texas are echoing her complaints and opposing the commissioner's plan, which, if districts adopt, would be the first in the nation to hold individual teachers accountable for their schools' standings. In fact, only a few states—Kansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee, among them—link teacher evaluations to student achievement at all, according to the Education Commission of the States, a state-policy clearinghouse in Denver.
Texas commissioner of education Mike Moses is touting his plan as a sensible way to satisfy a 1995 state law requiring that student performance be included in teacher evaluations. The state's 1,044 school districts can adopt the commissioner's plan or design an alternative by next fall. Dallas has already selected an evaluation system that considers classroom, not schoolwide, scores on the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills, also known as TAAS. Children in grades 3 through 8 in Texas take the exam, and high school students must pass it to get their diplomas.
Moses says he opted for schoolwide scores because the old system, which considered classroom test scores, incited dispiriting competition among teachers. "My interest is to encourage as much collaboration as possible between teachers," Moses says. "I want to create a little bit of awareness among teachers about how all students on a campus are performing."
The commissioner emphasizes that under his plan schoolwide performance on the standardized test would be only one of 52 factors used to evaluate a teacher's performance and could not by itself derail a career. Other factors include school attendance and dropout rates.
Teachers nationwide have long resisted proposals to evaluate them using student test data. That such a tiny fraction of the proposed teacher evaluation in Texas could provoke such a big fracas underscores just how controversial the idea is.
"I think it's degrading to judge teachers on the TAAS scores," says 4th grade teacher Evelyn Malone, a member of the Texas State Teachers Association, the largest teachers' union in the state. "We have a lot of turnover in my school, and I'll get new kids in February that will take the test in March. Should I be blamed if they don't do well?"
John O'Sullivan, an officer of the Texas Federation of Teachers, a 26,000-member union, is urging districts to choose evaluations that don't rely on TAAS scores but on end-of-course exams and homework. "Those are more appropriate means of measuring student performance," O'Sullivan says. "Otherwise, it's a bit like a teacher standing in front of a class and telling Johnny in the front row that his grade will be based on how the whole class does."
- Reinventing Teacher Compensation Systems. This September 1995 brief from the Consortium for Policy Research in Education presents a detailed argument about why and how teacher compensation should be restructured. The goals: wide worker acceptance, better employee morale, improved organizational performance, and higher individual salaries. See in particular, History of Teacher Pay Changes .
- A Tale of Two Tenures: We Can Make Dismissal Fair and Effective. Former National Education Association President Keith Geiger argues that "teachers and administrators must make fair dismissal procedures really work, because bad teachers need to be removed from the classroom and good teachers need to be protected from being fired for arbitrary or capricious reasons."
- Excellent Teachers Rewarded: Re-Designing Compensation. A 1995 article from "WCER Highlights," published four times a year by the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Argues for "an objective standard of measuring excellence in teaching."
- Investing in Student Performance. This 1996 brief from the Education Commission of the States examines the effectiveness of several efforts at improving student achievement. | <urn:uuid:0af271be-c765-485f-ae0d-5c6b90f1eecf> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/1997/03/01/06texas.h08.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719286.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00497-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965877 | 943 | 1.773438 | 2 |
When a ring only needs to be sized up by a small amount, there are a few ways that you can size the ring by stretching. Stretching can be done with traditional jewelers tools like a rawhide hammer over a steel mandrel or by using one of several tools that are designed to make the job much quicker.
Some of the processes will work only on plain bands while other techniques and tools will allow you to stretch a ring with mountings, diamonds, or gemstones that are on the ring. These techniques are used on pliable metals such as gold, silver, platinum, and palladium that are solid inside. Rings made of titanium, stainless, cobalt, and other extremely hard metals will not stretch using these tools or methods.
Be aware that there are some rings that were NOT designed to be stretched and that stretching a ring has some potential problems like rings that are made up of more than one type of metal or rings that have gems mounted all the way around. Jewelers will use a special torch and technique called “annealing” to heat the metal to red-hot and letting it cool slowly to release the tension and make it less likely to crack or break – Read our other guides to learn more about making jewelry.
Stretching a ring using Jewelers Rawhide Hammer
One of the most simple and traditional ways to stretch a ring and make it slightly larger is by using a mandrel and rawhide mallet. This works best for sizing only a small amount and should be used with extreme caution when the ring has any mounted gems or diamonds.
Set the ring onto the steel mandrel and check the size. If you are sizing more than 1/2 size, you should use a different method of stretching. Using the rawhide hammer, start to pound on the ring making sure you dont hit the exact same place over and over. If you have a a solid band that has no gems or diamonds, you can hit all sides equally. If there is a mounting or gems, you should only strike on the lower 1/2 of the shank staying away from any gemstones. Hit the ring so it is forced down onto the larger part of the mandrel forcing the metal to stetch and the ring should be 1/8 size larger with only a dozen strikes. once the ring is near fitting, turn the ring over on the mandrel so that both sides get stretched equally.
Now you can polish the ring to a bright shine or just wear it if there is a pattern or finish.
Stretching a ring using the Rathburn ring stretcher
This device is designed for solid wedding bands that have NO mounted gems or diamonds. This sizer works simply by hitting the top with a hammer. It has three components: Base, ring holder, and tapered shaft.
Set the nylon base on a bench or solid surface with the shaft and ring holder on top. Place your ring onto the holder pushing down as far as it will go by hand. Strike firmly on the top of the shaft while holding the device upright. The tapered shaft will force the ring to open wider with each strike. Pause after a few hits to check the size and to push down on the ring to the next larger position.
The ring sizes equally on all sides and should be 1/4 size larger with only about 10 strikes. Turn the ring over to make sure both sides are sized equally. This sizer has very little effect on the surface of rings but after stretching, its good practice to polish or replace your rings finish.
Stretching stone-set rings
This machine was specifically designed to size up rings that have mounted gemstones or diamonds and it works best on rings where the shank is not tapered drastically. It works by rolling over the metal with extreme pressure that quickly changes the size of the ring.
Its a requirement that this tool be mounted to a bench or desk to give you two hands to work
Select the die that fits with the shape and width of your ring. You can hold your ring up to the die to check the couture and shape (match only the “bottom” size of your ring – the size AWAY from the gems) You will be only working on the lower 1/2 of the ring to stretch it.
Insert the correct size die; then the ring is held by hand where it sits on the apposing smooth metal side. Tighten the handle to touch the ring then begin to roll the handle back and forth as your tighten the handle slightly every other time. The ring should be sized up 1/4 size after only a few sequences.
Caution: do not roll to the upper side of the ring or the thicker part of the ring and keep the tool only on the lower part of the ring (inside finger side)
Stretching with a jewelers ring stretcher/reducer
This heavy duty tool was designed to quickly stretch and shrink rings every day. You can stretch solid wedding bands that have NO mounted gems or diamonds with this powerful machine.
The top part with the mandrel has the ring sizes conveniently listed and the handle easily applies the required power and leverage to stretch your wedding bands. sizes 1-15 US.
The base has 16 reduction ring sizes to make rings smaller.
Sizing your ring can be an easy task if you have the right tools. | <urn:uuid:41ba89f4-5add-48e9-9165-b51649299076> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://blog.esslinger.com/how-to-size-a-ring-by-stretching/?_ga=2.13802558.806370775.1548077866-1798044534.1526326902 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570741.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808001418-20220808031418-00078.warc.gz | en | 0.936383 | 1,096 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Witty - Feisty - Vulnerable
I believe that Beatrice's motivation is protecting the one's she loves no matter what. For example, when Beatrice is talking to the Prince she says, "So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools," (Act 2 Scene 1). She's stating why she always talks to Benedick with a sharp tongue. It's because she loved him once, but he didn't love her the same, and now doesn't want to be fooled by him again. She uses her wit to protect herself from being tricked by Benedick. Another example of her protecting others is after Claudio ruins Hero's life at the alter. Beatrice says to Benedick, " ...Public accusation, uncovered slander, unmitigated rancor- O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the marketplace." Since she is a woman, she can't kill Claudio herself, but makes Benedick kill him for her in honor of her cousin, Hero. He publicly humiliated her in front of their community, and Beatrice would do anything to clear her name for her.
In the beginning, Beatrice is feisty and witty. She is against falling in love easily, and is looking for the perfect husband. Her and Benedick constantly bicker, always competing with each other for the best insult. It may seem as though she is tough, but I believe she put a wall up after breaking up with Benedick so she wouldn't be hurt again. But, after overhearing that Benedick loves her again, she quickly expresses her love for him. She never really stopped loving him. The bickering stops, and instead is replaced by emotions and love. She seems to be happier, smiling and laughing more than she did.
Plot and Theme
There are two main relationships in this play: Claudio and Hero, and Benedick and Beatrice. The whole story revolves around them. Without Beatrice, there wouldn't be another relationship to focus on. Benedick wouldn't date her and break her heart, and their feuding would never happen. She also influences Hero's decision to marry, "...let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy and say, 'Father, as it please me."which later effects the climax of the story: when Claudio leaves Hero at the alter. She helps keep Hero's "death" a secret, and wants revenge on Claudio for publicly humiliating her. Beatrice and Benedick's love is pragma. By how the talk to each other and outwit one another seems to me like a game, while Beatrice also wants real romantic love. | <urn:uuid:bf0af39e-c3f6-4cfd-982d-e1da5402ce3f> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://tackk.com/wxae7v | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281331.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00216-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982198 | 552 | 2.390625 | 2 |
Originally published by Belle Kalista Beauty on 04/20
Every time I go to the grocery store or run inside the gas station for a drink, I see some new, fancy-looking water. First, it was sparkling water. Then it was electrolyte water. Then it was water in compostable boxes or recyclable cans. Then it was dozens of different flavors of plain and sparkling water. I’ve even seen caffeinated water.
The list of ways that brands try to sell us water is outrageous, and it seems to never end. Most recently, alkaline water has been added to that list. You’ve probably seen the claims about how its detoxification properties help with energy and weight loss, or its ability to neutralize your blood helps to keep you healthy.
Before you spend $4 on a bottle of seemingly magical alkaline water, let’s talk about what it is and what it can actually do.
(Spoiler: It can’t do much. Let’s talk about why!)
What is Alkaline Water?
Acid and alkaline are two terms that are used to describe the pH of something. Anything with a pH below 7 is acidic, and anything above 7 is basic or alkaline. (Those terms are interchangeable, but it sounds way less cool to brand it as “basic water,” so they went with alkaline.) A pH of 7 is neutral, and pure water has a pH of 7.
According to EPA recommendations, tap water should fall in the 6.5 (slightly acidic) to 8.5 (slightly alkaline) range. However, in most places, tap water pH tends to be more acidic, with a pH between 4.3-5.3.
So, alkaline water is any type of water that has a pH above 7. When you purchase bottled water listed as alkaline, the manufacturers have raised the water’s pH either with minerals or a chemical process called electrolysis that involves special machinery.
You’ll usually know if you’re drinking alkaline water. Brands market their alkaline waters very specifically. The only exception is if you drink tap water in a region with hard water. Hard water has a high mineral concentration that raises the pH to about 8.5 or higher. You can usually recognize it by its bitter taste.
Why is Alkaline Water So Popular?
Health gurus, social media influencers and wellness brands have all jumped on a few studies that have been done that show possible positive benefits to drinking alkaline water.
Like every other health fad we’ve experienced for the past 20 years, alkaline water has become popular thanks to the Internet.
Much of the benefit that people cite is related to alkaline water having a higher pH than tap water, so it can “neutralize” the acid in your bloodstream. There are other claims that it has anti-aging, detox and weight loss benefits. Some people even go so far as to say it can help with bone density and cancer resistance.
A Look at the Research (Or Lack Of) Behind Alkaline Water
Most of the studies that have been done on alkaline water have produced shaky results that don’t seem to hold up to further scientific review.
Below are a few selling points that I’m going to debunk (sorry).
1. It helps with acid reflux.
In a 2012 study, researchers found that alkaline water with a pH of at least 8.8 could deactivate the digestive enzyme pepsin, which is the primary culprit of the damage that comes from severe acid reflux.
Your stomach acid is crazy strong (It usually has a pH of around 2, which is the same as battery acid). Even if water is alkaline going into your mouth, it’s not alkaline anymore by the time it reaches your stomach. It’s also worth noting that stomach acid has a few critical jobs, so it’s not a good idea to neutralize it unless you’re under medical supervision.
This study was done in vitro, which means it was performed in test tubes in a lab rather than on humans. So, the results might be different in a real-life setting.
Since this study has never been done in a clinical setting with real people, I wouldn’t put much faith in it.
2. It helps maintain bone density.
The claim that alkaline water helps to reduce bone loss comes from this 2008 study that was done on female dieticians.
The alkaline water group did seem to show slightly less overall bone loss, but there were only 30 participants. The study was only a month long, so there’s no way to know if there are any long-term benefits. Since then, a meta-analysis found that an acidic or alkaline diet didn’t affect osteoporosis at all.
In short, alkaline water won’t help with bone loss.
3. It helps lower blood pressure.
In this 2016 study, researchers gave 100 participants high-pH electrolyte water after exercising. They found that the water reduced blood viscosity, which helped blood flow more efficiently (aka it shortened recovery and rehydration time).
While that sounds great, the study was funded and supplied by an alkaline water company, and the specific data materials are confidential. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the results are meaningless. Still, it does make them less convincing, especially since they haven’t been replicated.
4. It helps neutralize your blood, cure cancer and make you look younger!
Claims regarding anti-aging, cancer and “neutralizing” your blood can be ignored. (Shocking, I know.)
First of all, your body does a fantastic job of keeping your blood pH around 7.4, which is where it should be. Even the slightest deviation from a correct pH range of 7.35-7.45 triggers an automatic stabilization response from your body.
If your body has issues stabilizing your blood pH, that’s a serious medical problem. You need medical attention, not a more alkaline diet. You don’t need to neutralize your blood. Trust me.
The claims about cancer are not based on any scientific research that specifically studies alkaline water and humans. Please don’t try to treat cancer with anything except real medicine. People who try to sell you on alternative methods for curing, treating or preventing cancer are scummy, and you should definitely NOT take their advice.
Finally, regarding anti-aging, there are much better ways to look and feel younger. Try eating a nutritious diet, moving your body as much as possible, wearing sunscreen and establishing a great skincare routine.
Alkaline water isn’t going to magically “detox” your body and make you feel rejuvenated. That’s what your kidneys are for.
The Bottom Line On Alkaline Water
Ultimately, as long as you’re not ONLY drinking alkaline water, it’s unlikely to cause any harm. It might taste weird (alkaline water is often bitter), and it definitely costs more. Still, it’s not inherently harmful as far as researchers know.
Personally, I recommend saving your money and just drinking regular water. I’ll be glad when the alkaline water fad passes! | <urn:uuid:0179f06d-2e81-4112-b78b-90ec607f9beb> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://msmerriam.com/alkaline-water-is-a-scam/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572870.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817062258-20220817092258-00668.warc.gz | en | 0.957477 | 1,546 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Consider closer to home resources.
Our valuable local leather resource has allowed us to ride the storm of widespread imported raw material shortages. Our Oak Bark Tanned Leather comes from Devon Cows whose skins are tanned with Oak Bark from the Lake District at Bakers Tannery in the east of the county and arrive to us thankfully without customs scrutiny.
A word about leather staining
Oak bark tanned leather is intended for horse tack and saddlery. It is not water repellent in its natural form and will absorb water, ink, oil – any liquid in fact which will stain irredeemably. It is, however, the staining, scuffs and scratches that help build the patina so loved in old leather.
Instructions on how to build Patina.
Firstly, natural Oak Bark Tanned Leather loves to be used, even abused. Above all don’t be precious or protective about your leather but do look after it.
When the leather gets wet, just like horse tack, let it dry naturally then feed with Tanner Bates Hide Food. If, before it goes near water, you want to make it water repellent use Tanner Bates Water Repellant Wax.
Hide Food and Water Repellant Wax keep your leather supple, builds patina and increases longevity. Occasional feeding with waxes will deepen stains, marks, scratches and scuffs, building a superb patina reminiscent of antique leather cases and inlaid leather desktops
Watch straps will get stained by water from hand, car and dish washing. The leather will aslo absorb natural oils and sweat from the skin of the wearer. The first stain is always the worst. Feed with Tanner Bates Hide Food or Water Repellant Wax to deepen stains scuffs and scratches blending them deeper into the leather forming the foundation of a strong patina
With time, the signs of life, use and activity will leave their marks and get absorbed into the leather. The wax treatment is essential to embed layers of staining, which will build an unrivaled patina, strength, and durability in a short time. Be mindful that it is a journey every bit as unique as the cows life whose skin it came from. The first marks are the most distressing but Tanner Bates Hide Food and Water Repellant Wax will deepen the markings creating a patina unique to you, the owner
Full grain leather bears the scars of the animal. By caring for your Tanner Bates Oak Bark Tanned Leather product you will be continuing the journey of that animals skin – unique to the animal and as the patina builds unique to you as the journey continues ……. | <urn:uuid:20bd9d9c-6cbd-4343-8ba0-79007b03e650> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.tannerbates.co.uk/products/ermington-watch-strap | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572163.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815085006-20220815115006-00670.warc.gz | en | 0.924961 | 537 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Patient-reported functional outcomes vary considerably after lumbar spinal fusion surgery, a study conducted by David Flum (University of Washington Surgical Outcomes Research Center; Washington; USA) and colleagues has found. But, the variability mainly reflects patient characteristics, rather than differences in care provided by surgeons or hospitals, the study published in Spine has suggested.
Researchers analysed variations in patient reported outcomes among 737 patients (average age 63 years, 60% women) who underwent spinal fusion surgery between 2012 and 2018. The patients were enrolled in a statewide quality improvement collaborative called Spine COAP. Spine COAP includes around 75% of all spinal fusion procedures performed in Washington State. The surgeries were performed by 58 different surgeons at 17 hospitals. The study focused on patient-reported functional improvement, based on the standard Oswestry Disability Index (ODI).
One year after spinal fusion, 58.7% of patients rated themselves as having improved functioning, based on at least a 15-point reduction (out of 100) on the ODI. Minimal disability, defined as an ODI score of 22 or less, was reported by 42.5% of patients.
Initial analysis suggested wide variation in outcomes by surgeon and hospital. For example, the percentage of patients reporting functional improvement ranged from about 44–79% at different hospitals, and 33–84% across surgeons.
According to the study team, the variations were much narrower after adjustment for factors known to affect outcomes. These included patient-related factors such as age, smoking, and insurance status; and clinical factors such as previous spine surgery, the type of spinal disease, and initial disability score. In the final analysis, there were “no detectable statistical differences” in the outcomes of spinal fusion among hospitals or surgeons.
The effects of hospital and surgeon were larger among patients with a lower chance of improvement after spinal fusion, based on known risk factors. In contrast, for patients with a higher chance of improvement—nearly two-thirds of those studied—there was little or no variation between hospitals or surgeons.
In recent years, PROs have become an important focus of efforts to assess the quality and outcomes of medical care. “Differences in PROs after accounting for patient factors across hospitals and surgeons could indicate variation in health care system performance and an opportunity for quality improvement,” according to the authors.
At first glance, PROs for patients undergoing spinal fusion surgery seem to vary substantially between hospitals and surgeons. But the variation is greatly decreased after accounting for patient and surgical factors – “suggesting that patient characteristics are the main drivers of variability in functional response among lumbar fusion patients,” Flum and colleagues write. The authors have developed a “PRO prediction tool” to help predict which patients are more or less likely have improved function and decreased disability after lumbar spinal fusion.
“Our study demonstrated that the overall variability was mainly driven by patient characteristics, suggesting that quality improvement efforts to reduce variation and improve overall functional outcomes may be better if focused at the patient level,” the researchers conclude. For example, selecting patients more likely to have favorable outcomes would increase the success rate of spinal fusion – but would greatly reduce the volume of procedures performed.
“Spine surgeons asked for tools that would help them to ‘pick the winners,’ and our PRO prediction tool does suggest there is a group that is much more likely to have better outcomes,” comments Flum. “Unfortunately, these data suggest that if surgeons want to increase the response rate by avoiding operation on patients with less than 50 percent chance of improvement, they may need to stop operating on around 60% of the patients they usually perform fusions on.” | <urn:uuid:d6de3ac7-e4a8-4f91-95ff-eda7ea32e46a> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://spinalnewsinternational.com/patient-factors-explain-variation-in-function-after-lumbar-surgery/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570793.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808092125-20220808122125-00667.warc.gz | en | 0.969498 | 761 | 1.648438 | 2 |
The sun has barely dipped below the horizon when the hikers set foot onto the trails, kicking up dust and brushing against knee-high chaparral as they make their way into the hills of Griffith Park.
In a little more than an hour, darkness steals the features from every man and woman's face until they are nothing more than silhouetted figures crossing against a red-violet sky.
"This is one of those hikes where you go into the hills in the day, and come out of them when it's night," said Karole Cooney, 53, of Alhambra.
"It's wonderful. Every hike is different. You never know what you're going to see."
There are other night hikes across Los Angeles, but those at Griffith Park remain some of the most popular in the city.
Hundreds come from all over the area each evening for a hilly workout under the stars and to feel an intimacy with the urban wilderness that many can only explain through the senses: the smell of eucalyptus and laurel sumac, the sound of silence broken only by hoot owls or the crunch of boots against a sandy trail. And then, once at the top of Mount Lee, there's that sight of all those streaming headlights and sparkling street lamps that crisscross over Los Angeles.
"There's nothing like it," said Will Perez, 40.
He had driven in from the West Adams neighborhood to join a meetup.com group hiking one recent evening. "This is our version of Central Park, but with better terrain," Perez said. "Once the smog has lifted, everything is clear and beautiful."
Night hikes into Griffith Park were said to have begun decades ago. More than just the observatory and pony rides, the park boasts roughly 55 miles of trails. And it takes only five minutes of walking those trails to feel transported, said Mike Eberts, a hiker and instructor at Glendale Community College, who wrote the book "Griffith Park: A Centennial History."
"It's uniquely accessible yet remote," Eberts said. "In Griffith Park, you can make a turn off the trail and you suddenly leave the city behind. It's not like a typical city park where it's all manicured. It's more like municipal forest."
Discovering the park
More than a century after the park was first donated to the city of Los Angeles by Col. Griffith G. Griffith in 1896, discoveries within the land continue to be made. The fires that burned 25 acres of hillsides in 2008 exposed World War II-era retaining walls and catchbasins that had been hidden under overgrown brush and long forgotten, said Bernadette Soter, spokeswoman for Friends of Griffith Park.
Soter said continued interest in the park, especially the night hikes, shows how residents appreciate what they have. The park was designated a historic-cultural monument in 2009.
"I think the night hikes are positive in the park," Soter said. "It's more than just a gym to people."
Free organized night hikes have been offered by the Sierra Club for more than 40 years, although interpretive park ranger Ernie Ybarra has started to coordinate them too.
"What I do enjoy is educating people about the park," said Ybarra, who has been leading night hikes at least once a month for nine years.
"I love doing this," he said. "This is my forte."
`An organized hike'
On a recent night, honorary mayor of Griffith Park and longtime Sierra Club hike coordinator Louis Alvarado summoned more than 100 walkers toward him who had gathered at the upper parking lot near the Merry Go-Round.
Like a carnival barker, Alvarado listed the levels of hiking groups, then introduced several leaders.
"You are participating in an organized hike. We go rain or shine. Find your group," he said.
The walking stick crowd is most often associated with advanced hikers. Many of them can conquer two miles of steep terrain in 45 minutes.
"I've heard music from the Greek Theatre," said Alan Daniels, 56, an advanced hiker who sports gators, or extra protection over his boots to keep pebbles out.
A supervisor for a recycling business in Sun Valley, Daniels said the night hikes in Griffith Park break up his long commute home to Orange County.
"Everyone sees pictures of the Hollywood sign, but this is the only hike you can go on where you can see a world-class sight like that up close," he said.
Hike leader Kathy Faulds directed less-advanced group members to follow her down a flat trail that parallels the Golden State (5) Freeway before heading toward a steep knoll. After reaching the top, out-of-breath hikers stopped to see the lit buildings of Glendale below.
On their way down, hikers passed the eerily abandoned cages from The Old Zoo, stopped to watch actors rehearse for an upcoming Shakespeare in the Park performance, then squinted as bright lights from a nearby film set illuminated the trails.
Cooney, the woman who drives in from Alhambra up to three times a week to join the hikes, said she may struggle to get to the top of each hill, but she feels good afterward.
"I think about all those people down there, probably eating a TV dinner with too much salt in it and watching the news, and I feel like a champion," she said. | <urn:uuid:c9886a84-ae66-42fc-bb55-d9ece3a1bb58> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.dailynews.com/20110806/moonlit-hikes-at-griffith-park-offer-a-workout-under-the-stars | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280292.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00345-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967139 | 1,133 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Lockheed Martin has revealed its latest exoskeleton technology, designed to help soldiers carry heavy equipment for long periods over rough terrain.
(Credit: PRNewsfoto/Lockheed Martin)
The Fortis Knee Stress Release Device (K-SRD) uses sensors to detect the user’s speed, direction and angle of movement. An onboard computer then instructs electro-mechanical actuators at the knees, boosting leg capacity for tasks that involve kneeling, squatting and lifting, or climbing with a heavy load.
"Fortis K-SRD features military-specification batteries that are approved for infantry use, improved control box ergonomics and faster actuators that generate more torque," said Keith Maxwell, Fortis programme manager at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control. "These system upgrades resulted from soldier feedback on the initial design."
According to Lockheed, the benefits of the exoskeleton are most noticeable going up or down stairs, or crossing undulating terrain. As well as a military version, the Maryland-headquartered defence giant has also developed models for industrial workers and first responders who have to carry out strenuous and repetitive tasks in challenging environments.
"For any mission that combines heavy man-portable gear and climbing, Fortis K-SRD can enhance strength and endurance," Maxwell said.
Lockheed is one of several organisations around the world developing exoskeleton technology. Last week The Engineer reported on an exoskeleton that could detect loss of balance and provide support to prevent falls. The research has implications for older people, for whom falls are one of the leading causes of injury. | <urn:uuid:d30c997b-5843-43f9-aa18-fa07552a2a84> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/news/lockheed-exoskeleton-gives-soldiers-a-leg-up | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571869.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813021048-20220813051048-00071.warc.gz | en | 0.926278 | 365 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Tips & Tricks: Punched Background
Use this Punch Idea to Create a Fun Background on Your Scrapbook
If you're ready to learn, we've got great tips for designing easy backgrounds and accents using punches!
Make the most of your punches and paper scraps by designing a themed background to use on your layout. Combine multiple punches to get a fun design, like the apple grid Davinie Fiero made on this layout. To get this look, create squares using a scalloped square punch, then punch through each square using a different shaped punch. Adhere your pieces in a grid design, and finish the layout by adding photos, title, and journaling.
The First and the Last Day by Davinie Fiero. As seen in the September 2011 issue of Creating Keepsakes magazine.
Design Tip For variety, fill the inside of a few of the punched shapes with patterned paper, paint, or beads.
Check out three more creative ways to use your punches on your scrapbook layouts.
|To comment on this article you must be logged in. Not a member?| | <urn:uuid:bf98ff70-e723-41b4-9524-86f5ea9ec503> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.creatingkeepsakes.com/articles/Tips___Tricks__Punched_Background | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279169.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00218-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.881489 | 229 | 1.898438 | 2 |
Students in the DeKalb County High School Construction Technology (building trades) program are making great progress on the latest home now under construction.
Up until two years ago, all homes built through this program were constructed on lots which had been purchased by the school board for this purpose. This meant that students in the class and their teacher would have to load up on a bus and travel back and forth between the school and the construction site each school day until the project was completed.
But now for the second time, a home is being built on campus at DeKalb County High School. When it is completed, the house will be sold and the owner will have it moved to his or her own lot.
Class instructor Gary Caplinger told WJLE Thursday that students began work on the home, a 1,456 square foot structure, in the latter part of fall and expect to have it finished by April. "It's a three bedroom, two bath house. Its 26 x 56. We're at the point where we lack having one small wall having all the interior walls, all the walls done and completed. The next step is we're going to align the walls and get them straight. After we do that we'll probably put on the house wrap. And then we'll start putting the trusses up. After that we'll put the decking on and the shingles and then we'll probably pretty much be finished at that point. We will set the windows and doors and do the house wrap on the exterior part. This house will be finished for vinyl siding," he said.
Before the first on-campus home was built in 2011, Career and Technical Education director Brad Leach addressed the school board on the reasons for building these houses at school. "The on-site building brings the building back to the campus at the high school. The students don't need transportation. Tools don't have to be transported. Everything is done right there close to the building trades classroom. The students are within walking distance. Its actually in between the band tower and the bus garage. We have a permanent footer and foundation where the house is constructed. After that, whoever wants to buy the house, they are responsible for paying for the house at the price that the construction teacher sets. The buyer is then responsible for all costs of moving the house and taking the house to wherever lot they want to put it on," he said.
Since the home will have to be moved, some finishing work will be required by the owner once its relocated. "Its to be roughed in on the inside. It will be roughed in for plumbing. It will have the windows and doors in it and the roof will be covered. It will have a shingled roof. Its just a basic house. The reason it's a basic house is because when you go to move that and you've done a lot of interior work you could have some problems inside so its just a basic shell. I would call it a dried in house with the rough ins done," said Leach.
"The buyer will have a lot already purchased most likely," said Caplinger,. "He will build a foundation and he will set this house on his foundation. I think its really a good deal for anyone that's looking to buy rental property or maybe they want to live in it. It is a good cheap way to go. Hopefully, when we get this one finished and put it on the market and sell it maybe we can start a new one by the fall semester," said Caplinger.
Once completed, the school board will likely accept sealed bids on the sale of the home. Money from the sale will go back into the building trades program to start another house. | <urn:uuid:17409eab-c4ee-4461-b5c8-7b1296393d78> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.wjle.com/news/2013/dchs-building-trades-home-could-be-finished-april | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280761.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00096-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982954 | 763 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Is technology worsening America's jobs crisis?
That's the argument of a new book, Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy, by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee. The authors contend that advances in technology have reduced the economy's ability to create new jobs for humans. And in the years to come, Brynjolfsson and McAfee argue, that impact is only likely to get stronger. Even when the economy eventually recovers from its current slump, they maintain, employment levels may not return to where they were even just a few years ago.
Yahoo News spoke Thursday to McAfee (right) -- a top research scientist at the Center for Digital Business in the MIT Sloan School of Management -- about why a busboy might have less anxiety about his job security than a lawyer should, how we can make the automation trend work for us, not against us, and why this all this is good news for Lady Gaga.
YN: What types of jobs are currently being affected most by the development of new technology?
AM: The classic examples have to do with customer interfaces. So, clerks, cashiers, salespeople. We can now buy stuff online without talking to a person or interacting, check into our flights at the airport, check out of Home Depot, and just do a lot of these kind of routine interactions without having to interact with a flesh-and-blood human being.
Computers are just improving by leaps and bounds in their ability to do that stuff. And one of our points in the book is, if you think Watson and the Google Car and Siri are impressive, you ain't seen nothing yet.
[These jobs] are a big source of employment. Retail's a huge industry in the United States. They are good old-fashioned middle-class jobs in America. And we think that this amazing encroachment of technology is part of what's making the middle class feel justifiably kind of precarious and nervous.
In addition, we're starting to see that, already, some of the pattern recognition technologies that we talk about in the book are having an impact in a field like law. So e-discovery is becoming a big deal. And anecdotally, we're hearing that a lot of companies and law firms are using software instead of rooms full of lawyers to look over documents as part of a discovery process. And we include a quote in the book from a guy who is now using e-discovery who went back and applied it to a huge set of documents that he had previously used human lawyers for. And his conclusions was that the humans were only about 60 percent accurate, and a huge amount more expensive. So he said, 'I spent a lot of money to do a little bit better than a coin flip.'
YN: This is hardly the first time in history that there's been concern about machines replacing humans on the job. In the past, those concerns have generally proved to be unfounded. Why might this time be different?
AM: . The question, what's different now, is a critical question. Even though there was a huge amount of automation historically, when you look at the total list of skills that you might hire a human worker for, all this automation barely encroached on those skills, and especially the mental or the cognitive ones. What's interesting to us, and the reason we wrote the book, is that suddenly we start to see digital technologies encroaching on skills where they never played [a role] before, where humans alone had these skills. So we talk in the book about things like more complex communication: understanding human speech, responding in human speech, translating human languages. Up until pretty recently, computers were hopeless at that, and now we're in an age of Siri, and all kinds of very powerful translation tools. They're not perfect--none of these is perfect--but they're pretty good.
Another skill we talk about is pattern recognition. Historically, computers have been terrible at, for example, looking at a large body of documents and finding common threads in them. Or finding whether or not there was a pattern of deceit or malpractice. That's exactly what e-discovery software does. And we look at Watson, this Jeopardy-playing supercomputer. It has this astonishing ability to sit on hundreds of millions of documents and extract patterns and meaning from them.
So there's this large-scale, recent rapid encroachment into stuff that computers have never been good at before, and where humans were the only game in town. And when we look at what a lot of the middle class, even more educated white-collar workers do, we see them doing complex communication and patterns.
YN: You argue in the book that in addition to reducing job growth, automation is likely to increase inequality. Why is that?
AM: We talk about three different ways that technology can increase inequality:
It favors more highly skilled workers over less skilled workers. So if you have an MBA, a PhD in computer science, a lot of these advanced degrees, especially in STEM fields, computers are great. You use them to do your work, and actually your salary has gone up in recent years. For mid-skill workers, for this large middle class in this country, when you look at them, they are doing stuff that, again, computers are encroaching on. That tends to drive down the wages that employers are willing to pay them, and tends to make them more likely to wind up unemployed. The fact that technology typically favors more highly skilled workers--this is one of the things that's going on.
Technology also rewards superstars, and we mean that in a couple different ways. It rewards Lady Gaga and Yo-Yo Ma, because they can suddenly replicate their work and sell it to millions and millions of people. And so if you like Lady Gaga a little bit more than the second best, or Yo-Yo Ma a little bit more than the second best, you're not gonna buy that much of the second best because you always have access to Yo-Yo Ma.
And then finally, when we look at financial services, it's impossible to be a modern investment banker or trader and not have a lot of technology at your disposal. You can't do CDOs and CDSs and all these esoteric financial products without a lot of technology whizzing away in the background. Now we can talk about whether those were good things or bad things--and I think it's pretty clear a lot of those were actually bad things for the economy. Our point is they did lead to superstar effects, and they were supported by technology.
YN: So the trend we already know about toward job polarization--where the number of middle-wage, middle-skill jobs is shrinking, while high and low skill jobs increase--is being driven in part by automation?
AM: David Autor has done the best work in teasing apart what's going on. So it's not just that high skill wins out and low skill loses. It's like you say, actually, if you're at the very lowest levels of education and skill, you're not as bad off, or things are not getting as bad as quickly, as if you're in this big middle distribution. And our explanation is that if you're a dog walker or a restaurant busboy, classically it's a low-skill, low-education job, but it's not one that technology's going to displace. So, for now, those jobs look relatively safe. And when we look at home health aides and food service workers and a lot of these employers that are still employing a lot of people, we think it's at least partly because technology's not available to automate those kinds of jobs away.
YN: Clearly, we're not going back to a world without technology. And technology brings a lot of benefits, in terms of lower costs, improved quality of life, etc. So how we do think about how to balance those upsides with the downside of its impact on jobs?
AM: I want to underscore what you just said. Our point in the book--and we want to stress it over and over again--is that technology is not bad. Technology is not the culprit here. Technology is growing the economic pie and it's improving our standard of living. We think that's fantastic. The last thing we're advocating, is, stop the innovation, shut off the machines, or do anything like that.
You bring up this central question, what do we do about this, given that the average worker is getting left behind by the cutting edge technologies?
We put a bunch of recommendations in the book for policy changes that basically help people acquire the skills to be good workers in this technology-intensive age. The kinds of skills you need to work in a factory these days are not what you needed 30 years ago or 50 year ago. One of the amazing things I keep hearing is people who want to start factories in the United States--these are really highly automated, very productive factories, they only need a couple hundred or maybe at most a thousand workers. They can't find those workers, because they can't find people with the right skills. So we absolutely need to shift education and shift the skills we're imparting to both young people and adults out there in workforce already.
We also do hear over and over again from executives and business owners that there is this kind of thicket of regulation and red tape that you have to go through if you want to start something up and employ some people. We need to work very hard to clear out that thicket.
This is a also great time to invest really heavily in infrastructure, A) because we need it, and B) because computers are still pretty lousy at repairing roads and bridges and putting sidewalks in. That sounds like we're rabid Keynesians or something, but we think that's a great idea.
YN: So what does all this mean for the kind of country we're likely to have in the future?
AM: As long as America's been around, there's been this social contract, where if you are willing to work, there will be a job available to you. Americans don't think the deck is stacked against them. We believe that we're the land of opportunity. That's fantastic.
But I believe that we're heading into the next chapter of our economic history, where for a lot of people who don't have exactly the right skills or have been left behind in this race against the machine, there might not be a job waiting for you, at least in the classic sense that we're used to thinking about a job. And we had better start thinking long and hard about how we react to that as a society and an economy.
This interview has been edited and condensed from the original transcript.
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Occult Science in India, by Louis Jacoilliot, , at sacred-texts.com
p. 196 p. 197
Power belongs to him who knows. (Agrouchada-Parikchai)
He who has penetrated the secret of things, who has lifted himself up by contemplation to the knowledge of the immortal principle, who has mortified his body and developed his soul, who knows all the mysteries of being and not being, who has studied all the transformations of the vital molecule from Brahma to man and from man to Brahma, he alone is in communication with the Pitris and commands the celestial forces. (Atharva-Veda.)
The Boutams (or bad spirits) tremble before him who is shaved, who wears the triple girdle, and is clothed with the yellow vestment, and who carries the seven-knotted stick. (Agrouchada-Parikchai.)
The philosophical part of our work is now ended. In a subject so vast there are many points, no doubt, that might have been more fully developed, but our main purpose has been to give a comprehensive idea of the metaphysical speculations of the Hindu initiates, and to show that their belief in spirits was only a consequence of their system relating to God and his attributes, and to the existence of the universe. In the comparison of this doctrine, which is based upon the Vedas themselves, with those of other ancient people, we devoted most of the space at our command to the Jewish Cabala, because, though not so well known as Magism, the philosophy of Plato, or the Alexandrian school, it also believed in the manifestations of spirits, the power of evocation, and its external phenomena, precisely in the same manner as the philosophy of the Pitris, their traditional ancestor on the banks of the Ganges.
We might also have called attention to the fact that primitive Christianity, with its Thautnaturgists suddenly appearing through closed doors, raising the dead, floating in the air, and receiving the gift of tongues, with its initiation in the Catacombs, its superior spirits, its demons, and its exorcists, was intimately related to the Cabala and the doctrine of the Pitris. We confined ourselves, however, to the statement that that religious revolution in the earlier ages of our era was only a synthesis of the old beliefs of Asia. An exhaustive study of the subject would have required a book by itself, which we might not have the leisure to complete.
The special scope of the present work forbids any extended excursion into this field. The mere fact of our undertaking it would have necessarily led us to devote the same space to the mysterious initiations of Egypt, Chaldea, and Persia, and, as the reader will readily see, it would have compelled us to write a general history of the ancient civilizations of the East, such as forms a part of the ethnographical studies published by us elsewhere.
Before giving an account of the exterior phenomena and manifestations by which the Hindus claim to show that they are in possession of occult power, which is a logical consequence of their religious belief in the part played by spirits in the universe, we desire to disavow any personal responsibility whatever.
We assert nothing positively with regard to most of the facts which we are about to relate. The skill derived from long experience, charlatanism, and even hallucination itself, may assist to explain them. We are bound to say, however, as impartial and faithful observers, that though we applied the severest tests, to which the Fakirs and other initiates interposed no objection whatever, we never succeeded in detecting a single case of fraud or trickery, which, we admit, is far from being a conclusive proof of their honesty.
Hue, the missionary, who also gives an account of similar phenomena, witnessed by him in Thibet, was equally at a loss to account for them.
We are perfectly ready to admit, also, that we never knew a European, either in India or Ceylon, even among the oldest residents, who was able to indicate what means the votaries of the Pitris used in the production of these phenomena.
Is this tantamount to saying that we believe in the intervention of invisible spirits?
We do not believe in spiritualism, but while we believe that scepticism or doubt in all cases, in spite of any amount
of proof, is something that man, in his weakness, has no right to indulge in, we may add, on the other hand, that no one has a right to assert a thing positively or scientifically, except upon careful investigation, based upon proof upon either side.
We occupy the position which we assumed in our preface, viz.: That of a simple recorder of facts which some regard as occult manifestations and others as skilful jugglery.
There are, however, some phenomena, which, without going too far, we are inclined to attribute to natural forces, the laws of which have not yet been ascertained.
What are these forces? Or rather, what is the force which the Hindus attribute to the pure Agasa fluid, under the direction of the spirits?
We are not an authority upon this point, and when we see the illustrious scientist and member of the Royal Society of London, William Crookes, treated with ridicule and contempt on account of the inquiries he is now making with a view to the discovery of the laws of this force, we are involuntarily reminded of the words of Galvani, to whom the western world is indebted for the earliest experiments in electricity, as follows:
"I am attacked by two classes of persons, the learned and the ignorant. Both of them treat me with ridicule, and say that I am only fit to be a dancing-master for frogs, 1 and yet I think that I have discovered one of the grandest forces in nature."
In short, with regard to certain physical facts, which have nothing in common with supernatural evocations, apparitions, or manifestations, and which are not in direct opposition to the laws of nature, which are not more wonderful than the results produced by electricity, we think that a denial or affirmation following a thorough
and scientific investigation, is better than a denial or affirmation à priori.
We know what a denial à priori is worth. It once rejected steam and electricity. The phenomena which we shall describe are all included within the three following categories:
First, facts and phenomena of exterior manifestations, obtained by spiritual force, and generally with the aid of material objects.
Second, facts of a magnetic or somnambulistic character.
Third, the phenomena of evocation and apparition, and the production of material objects by the spirits.
Phenomena of the first class are apparently easily tested. We shall tell what we have done and what our experience has been, without, however, expressing any opinion of our own as to their causes.
As to the last class of cases, we should have omitted them altogether from the present work, as shunning a scientific investigation, ifremembering that in ancient times the belief in evocations and apparitions was universal; that all religions, with Christianity at their head, included such phenomena in their mysteries and miracleswe had not deemed that it would be at least a matter of historical curiosity to set forth the nature of these singular practicesin common use in India at the present daywhich are so well adapted to influence the popular mind, and which formed the basis of all the ancient superstitions.
201:1 Alluding to his experiments on frogs. | <urn:uuid:a92b83dc-c8a7-4599-82cd-4fbfb82e193c> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://sacred-texts.com/eso/osi/osi34.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280242.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00077-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969095 | 1,557 | 2.390625 | 2 |
Penelope Gilliatt writes in her fifth collection of short stories about people who, by and large, are articulate and decent, intelligent and capable. Often, though, there is an undercurrent of disintegration in her characters' lives. The backdrop of their stories may be the shabbiness of postwar England or the atmosphere of suspicion in communist Poland. The disintegration also can be more personal -- age, perhaps, or neurosis.
In ''Purse,'' for example, the narrator, a middle-aged woman, denies that she is a bag lady even as she surveys her modest lifestyle. The sun is setting on her hopes just as it has set on the British empire.
Gilliatt draws her characters with a sure and delicate hand. These small portraits sometimes lapse into a preciousness, but not for long.
The story ''They Sleep Without Dreaming'' is a case in point. It begins amid the bustle of a happy and chaotic large family. The Ridley children are encouraged to be precocious by their flighty parents. But what starts out as a silly, hermetic study of English eccentricity quickly becomes something else when it focuses on one daughter, the scientifically inclined Arabella.
The shift in tone is graceful and effortless. Arabella makes lists, including one that divides soluble problems (''Buy drill bits'') from insoluble (''Get over Nelson's life and death''). The very bright Arabella eventually becomes minister of transport, but despite her worldly work, she understands the life of dreams.
It is a balancing act that repeats itself throughout Gilliatt's stories. | <urn:uuid:3f59f680-5d92-4113-ac43-b60bd3edf850> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1986-04-20/lifestyle/0210410132_1_gilliatt-arabella-drill-bits | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280891.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00153-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951995 | 327 | 1.890625 | 2 |
Hundreds of clergy on Sunday voiced
support for legalizing gay marriage in Illinois.
According to the Chicago Tribune,
more than 250 mostly Chicago-area clergy have endorsed a marriage
equality bill introduced in February and expected to be debated next
month during the General Assembly's lame-duck session.
The rabbis and pastors announced a
declaration in support of marriage rights for gay couples.
“Standing on these beliefs [of faith,
justice and compassion], we think that it is morally just to grant
equal opportunities and responsibilities to loving, committed
same-sex couples,” the
clergy said in their declaration. “There can be no
justification for the law treating people differently on the basis of
sexual orientation or gender identity.”
Chief sponsors of the bill earlier this
month signaled that they have sufficient support to get the bill to
Governor Pat Quinn's desk. Quinn has said he looks forward to
signing the bill into law.
Opponents have also began to organize,
forming The Coalition to Protect Children and Marriage, which
includes a who's who of Illinois social conservative groups,
including the Eagle Forum of Illinois, Catholic Citizens of Illinois,
the Thomas More Law Center, the Illinois Family-Institute and the
Penny Pullen, president of the Eagle
Forum of Illinois, said her group opposes marriage equality because
“Only a marriage of heterosexual persons can produce children and
secure the future of society.” She added that children must be
protected over “the personal gratification of even one single | <urn:uuid:ffc3106e-72e8-4d54-bb1f-b6d230102442> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.ontopmag.com/article/13911/Hundreds_Of_Clergy_Voice_Support_For_Gay_Marriage_In_Illinois | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283689.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00346-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933943 | 326 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Getting good feedback on your writing is hard. That’s because giving good feedback is hard. In your quest to find a good critique partner, it’s important that you’re able to reciprocate. Giving a good critique is more complex than telling a writer your first reaction to their work, so below are some of the things I think about to give the best, most helpful feedback.
Forget brutal honesty
Often times, writers will ask for brutal honesty. “Don’t pull punches. Tell me the good, the bad, and the ugly,” they’ll say. “I can take it.”
Here’s the thing: nobody actually wants to hear all the worst things about their writing in one breath. Writers say this because they are afraid critique partners won’t be realistic about the problems in their work and instead gloss over them with some sort of half-hearted compliment. When people say they want brutal honesty, what they probably mean (even if they don’t know it) is that they want real, concrete feedback instead of fluffy niceties.
The problem with being “brutally” honest is that there’s a fine line between that and being an asshole. Honest feedback that is kindly put will be much easier to process than a blunt, unfeeling list of a project’s faults.
All criticism should be constructive
This is the most common form of bad critique I witness. Someone will present a story or excerpt of their work, and another person will react, “I don’t like it.”
And that’s it.
While you may read something and not like it, that’s not really useful information for the writer. Any piece of criticism should be accompanied by the reason why it wasn’t working for you and a piece of advice on how to improve.
Bad critique: “I find Sally really annoying.”
Good critique: “I didn’t really click with Sally’s character in this scene because I thought she was too mean to her brother for no reason. Could you add some context about their relationship that would better justify her attitude?”
Bad critique: “This chapter wasn’t as good as the last one.”
Good critique: “This chapter moved really slowly and didn’t hold my interest as much as the others. You spent a lot of time talking about the mating habits of this alien species, but it didn’t seem relevant to the plot. If you cut those parts out, I think it will make the chapter more compelling.”
When I would complain about stuff growing up, my dad always told me, “All I’m hearing is problems when I want to hear solutions,” and I keep that advice in mind when I’m giving a critique. If I’m presenting a problem, I always propose a solution. It may not be the solution the writer goes with, but it at least allows them a jumping off point.
Your opinion is not sacred
When in a critique setting, it’s important to remember that your personal reaction to a creative work is not gospel. If you have a bad reaction to a piece, do a quick assessment before deciding how to proceed.
If the reason you don’t like it is because of a craft issue, go ahead and provide your opinion and proposed solution.
If the reason you don’t like it is a taste issue, maybe keep it to yourself.
When I find myself in a setting where I’m critiquing work I wouldn’t necessarily pick out to read on my own, I try and hold back my personal biases. If someone reads an excerpt from their faerie book at a critique session, I’m not going to tear it apart because I personally don’t like faerie stories.
Occasionally I will give my opinion when it’s a matter of taste if I feel like it might be something the author should consider, but I always treat this as take it or leave it advice.
Example: “I’m personally not into bodily humor, and this joke came off really crass. If you love it, I get it, but keep in mind it might be a turn off to readers like me.”
And that’s it. You don’t need to belabor the point, just put it out there and move on. The writer can decide on their own whether they think that’s something they should address.
Don’t forget positivity
Sometimes critique partners can be so eager to help fix the problems they see that they forget to praise what’s already working. Make it a point to highlight what you love about a story alongside the things that aren’t quite perfect yet.
I’m the kind of writer that only sees problems in my own work. I look at a draft and think, “Oh, my God, I have so many changes I need to make.” That’s why I really appreciate it when critique partners tell me what they like about my work — it keeps me from making changes to parts that didn’t need them!
It’s about more than just making the writer feel good about their project (although that is important) — it also helps them recognize what their strengths are so they can lean into them in the future.
On the blog, you'll finds musings on writing craft, book reviews, and general updates on my work. If there are any topics you'd like me to cover, leave a comment! | <urn:uuid:b210bd72-5f42-4536-90ec-98c518260c07> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.byelizabethbane.com/blog/be-a-better-critique-partner | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571222.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810222056-20220811012056-00669.warc.gz | en | 0.948799 | 1,213 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Aborigines in the Yarra Valley and Northern Dandenongs book cover.
Although I've worked on quite a few war stories in the last three years, this is the first one about an individual who didn't make it back home. He was a great poet before his death and the book publishes his writings including poems and an essay 'Winter in Victoria'. I don't think it's quite as confronting as some of the recent books I have worked on, as it doesn't document the daily life of war and hardships afterwards, but it does display the short life of a talented individual who could have become a greater part of Australian literature if it wasn't for his early death.
Preview of the J D Burns book cover | <urn:uuid:3fc018ae-8b11-45ee-9293-528f9629fc37> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://feralartdesign.blogspot.com.au/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285289.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00154-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.993754 | 148 | 1.648438 | 2 |
So, how did your week go? Did you have any arguments, conflicts or consternation? Did you remember how important it was to forgive? Did you find it tough? Do you want some help?
Let’s first remind ourselves the value that forgiveness has on our health.
To date, studies have found the following trends regarding (un)forgiveness and their relationship to health and well-being outcomes:
- sustained negative affective responses, including hostility, anger, and vengeance, are associated with higher rates of mental health problems (e.g., suicides, depression, reduced psychological well-being, and lowered life satisfaction), compromised physiological functioning associated with prolonged stress reactions, and overall worse self-reported physical health.
- Findings connecting forgiveness with health highlight the ability of forgiveness to interrupt and prevent negative effects, offering health-promoting outcomes in various ways. Forgiveness has been associated with higher self-esteem, as well as the expression of empathy, compassion, and love.
- Individuals considered forgiving by nature tend to also score highly on measures of altruism, report healthy relationships, and be buffered from age-related health risks in several ways.
- Forgiveness has been positively connected to cardiovascular health, such that forgiving results in lowered blood pressure, cholesterol, heart rate, and cortisol level, and other relevant heart health measures.
- Forgiveness has also been associated with a host of self-reported observations and health-promoting behaviors such as fewer chronic medical conditions, less reported pain, quicker recovery from medical procedures, better sleep, less drug and alcohol use, and higher global health ratings.
Can You Learn to Be More Forgiving?
Forgiveness is not just about saying the words. It is an active process in which you make a conscious decision to let go of negative feelings whether the person deserves it or not. As you release the anger, resentment and hostility, you begin to feel empathy, compassion and sometimes even affection for the person who wronged you. If you don’t, then at least you aren’t feeling the negative impact of your emotions.
Studies have found that some people are just naturally more forgiving. Consequently, they tend to be more satisfied with their lives and to have less depression, anxiety, stress, anger and hostility. People who hang on to grudges, however, are more likely to experience severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as other health conditions. But that doesn’t mean that they can’t train themselves to act in healthier ways. In fact, 62 percent of American adults say they need more forgiveness in their personal lives, according to a survey by the nonprofit Fetzer Institute.
Making Forgiveness Part of Your Life
Forgiveness is a choice. You are choosing to offer compassion and empathy to the person who wronged you. The following steps can help you develop a more forgiving attitude—and benefit from better emotional and physical health.
Reflect and remember
This includes the events themselves, and also how you reacted, how you felt, and how the anger and hurt have affected you since.
Empathize with the other person
For instance, if your spouse grew up in an alcoholic family, then their anger when you have too many glasses of wine might be more understandable.
Simply forgiving someone because you think you have no other alternative or because you think your religion requires it may be enough to bring some healing. But one study found that people whose forgiveness came in part from understanding that no one is perfect were able to resume a normal relationship with the other person, even if that person never apologized. Those who only forgave in an effort to salvage the relationship wound up with a worse relationship.
Let go of expectations
An apology may not change your relationship with the other person or elicit an apology from him or her. If you don’t expect either, you won’t be disappointed.
Decide to forgive
Once you make that choice, seal it with an action. If you don’t believe you can talk to the person who wronged you, write about your forgiveness in a journal or even talk about it to someone else in your life whom you trust.
The act of forgiving includes forgiving yourself. For instance, if your spouse had an affair, recognize that the affair is not a reflection of your worth.
There’s a big difference between seeing things as forgivable and having it be the consuming factor in your life. Forgiveness does not always include reconciliation. Having a relationship with someone in the future is about whether they are reliable and dependable and trustworthy, and sometimes they’ve broken your trust in a way that you can never have a relationship again.
A Few Points to Ponder:
Do we erroneously associate forgiving with forgetting?
I wonder if people sometimes have an expectation of forgiveness–that it must include absolution. Forgiving isn’t giving absolution where you say,
If someone’s done something really thoughtless, you think about them differently. You trust them differently. You have a different relationship with them.
Here is what Charles Stanley suggests we think about:
The phrase “forgive and forget” is not found in the Bible. However, there are numerous verses commanding us to “forgive one another” (e.g., Matthew 6:14 and Ephesians 4:32). A Christian who is not willing to forgive others will find his fellowship with God hindered (Matthew 6:15) and can reap bitterness and the loss of reward (Hebrews 12:14–15; 2 John 1:8).
Forgiveness is a decision of the will. Since God commands us to forgive, we must make a conscious choice to obey God and forgive. The offender may not desire forgiveness and may not ever change, but that doesn’t negate God’s desire that we possess a forgiving spirit (Matthew 5:44). Ideally, the offender will seek reconciliation, but, if not, the one wronged can still make a decision to forgive.
Of course, it is impossible to truly forget sins that have been committed against us. We cannot selectively “delete” events from our memory. The Bible states that God does not “remember” our wickedness (Hebrews 8:12). But God is still all-knowing. God remembers that we have “sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). But, having been forgiven, we are positionally (or judicially) justified. Heaven is ours, as if our sin had never occurred. If we belong to Him through faith in Christ, God does not condemn us for our sins (Romans 8:1). In that sense God “forgives and forgets.”
If by “forgive and forget” one means, “I choose to forgive the offender for the sake of Christ and move on with my life,” then this is a wise and godly course of action. As much as possible, we should forget what is behind and strive toward what is ahead (Philippians 3:13). We should forgive each other “just as in Christ God forgave” (Ephesians 4:32). We must not allow a root of bitterness to spring up in our hearts (Hebrews 12:15).
However, if by “forgive and forget” one means,
then we can run into trouble. For example, a rape victim can choose to forgive the rapist, but that does not mean she should act as if that sin had never happened. To spend time alone with the rapist, especially if he is unrepentant, is not what Scripture teaches. Forgiveness involves not holding a sin against a person any longer, but forgiveness is different from trust. It is wise to take precautions, and sometimes the dynamics of a relationship will have to change. “The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty” (Proverbs 22:3). Jesus told His followers to “be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16). In the context of keeping company with unrepentant sinners, we must be “innocent” (willing to forgive) yet at the same time “shrewd” (being cautious).
The ideal is to forgive and forget. Love keeps no record of wrongs (1 Corinthians 13:5) and covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8). However, changing hearts is God’s business, and, until an offender has a true, supernatural heart change, it is only wise to limit the level of trust one places in that person. Being cautious doesn’t mean we haven’t forgiven. It simply means we are not God and we cannot see that person’s heart.
It can be so hard to opt for empathy in the face of perceived betrayal. How do we begin to make that choice?
If you think of forgiveness in terms of thinking that something terrible has happened, being honest with yourself about your reaction, making a choice to forgive, to be empathic, to be compassionate, and then to decide whether or not to maintain a relationship, that’s different. That’s actually a process. But first you have to start with the idea that you even can say you could forgive them without condoning what happened.
And even that kind of forgiveness can have health benefits?
It can. To many of us, we wonder, what does it even mean to forgive on that level if you’re not completely letting something go? But the brain does understand that. Your thoughts drive your feelings and emotions and can drive your behavior. So if you think about it, if you continue to have negative thoughts all the time, you’re constantly in a negative, very tense state. It’s going to spill over into your thoughts about lots of other relationships. Can you trust people? And so it has lots of implications that are beyond just that one relationship.
Are there physical prompts for letting go? Can we think about breathing, for example, if we can’t get it into our emotional brain?
If you think of the steps of relaxation training, they’re often a part of forgiveness training. When you go into fight-or-flight mode, what you’re trying to say to your body is, “We don’t need to be in this mode. Let’s relax. Let’s do some deep breathing, let’s do muscle relaxation”. You focus on something else. And you actively work on relaxing your body; that’s often the first step. Let’s physically get you feeling differently, because then maybe you can think about things differently and not be in such a tense and geared-up state that you can’t really process information.
Do mood issues have a bearing on forgiveness?
There are two big things that happen. When people are depressed, they are in a negative mind-set all the time. That’s a part of depression—you see the negative version. So your reactions are out of proportion. So a small thing can happen and you’ll have a very strong negative reaction. You can be in a relationship where someone does something pretty trivial and you’re tremendously wounded by it. Also, people who are very depressed can make poorly thought-out decisions that may need forgiveness.
What do we bring into conflicts that might have little to do with the conflict itself—and that might be barriers to forgiveness?
So much of what fuels conflict is not necessarily the conflict. Part of forgiveness training is you have to look to yourself. “What is it about this that is really about me?” “Have I been depressed?” “Did I step over the line?” “Am I someone who gets furious when I’m in a particular situation?” And that allows you to process a more understandable reaction. I think it’s hard when you have two people and one person is having an intense reaction and the other person is saying, “If that were me I’d have much less of a reaction.” It’s hard to understand. Most of us know our own experience; we don’t really know someone else’s. Real empathy is, “I know what you’re feeling.” We can’t really achieve that. We can try. But because we can’t, most people are just disappointed that we don’t understand what they’re feeling. Which leads to more conflict and makes it harder to resolve some of these issues. It’s amazing how powerful it is for someone to apologize. And it’s amazing how difficult it is for so many people to do it.
And also to say the words “I forgive you.”
Yes! Forgiving someone is going to be facilitated by them saying, “I’m very sorry that this happened.” And sometimes what people have to realize is they don’t have to take responsibility for the whole conflict. They can take responsibility for their part in it. Like, “I’m sorry I didn’t know that would be so upsetting to you. I understand that now.” But sometimes people feel when they apologize, they are taking all the responsibility and saying, “It’s completely my fault.” Usually, each person has contributed to the misunderstanding and the difficulty.
Do we make a mistake in tending to think that forgiveness is something we do for other people, when in fact perhaps the greatest benefit is to ourselves?
Certainly the healthiest thing is to forgive. We have seen the many studies now that are demonstrating that—that you’ll have lower blood pressure and so much more. It would be better if people could view forgiveness as something they’re doing for themselves. Again, it’s not absolution. They get hung up on, “If I forgive you, it gets forgotten, or you’re not in trouble,” or something else. Forgiveness is something different, which is to say, “I am not going to have these negative emotions consume me.” That’s how to view it. And so forgiveness isn’t so much about the other person as your own process of saying, “I’m moving forward.”
Do we get too wrapped up in the morality of forgiveness? Do we hold on to the notion that it’s something we “should” do?
Other people can intrude on the process of forgiveness. People say you need to be a good person and forgive your sister, your dad, etc. The problem with that is when outside forces tell you what you need to do or decide for you what’s the right thing to do, it doesn’t have nearly the same benefit as saying, “I’m going to look at this”,” I’m going to work on changing my emotions”, “I’m going to substitute some of the negative feelings and thoughts I have into something more positive.” This can help you become healthier, and as the person who is doing the forgiving, to move on with your life instead of being too caught up in what it does or doesn’t do for someone else. So, it really is about the one who feels wronged.
Learning to Forgive
Identify the problem, give it time and get objective input. That input doesn’t have to come from a mental health professional. It could come from a close friend or a religious adviser.
Since most of us are aware that we need more forgiveness in our hearts and in our lives, then it makes sense to begin the process of learning how to forgive. We are the first to admit, that it isn’t ever easy. It is much easier to harbor the hurt and anchor the anger than it is to set ourselves free from the chains of it all.
When I am in those moments, the best thing I can do is look at the greatest example of forgiveness that ever lived on this earth—Jesus Christ. He chose to be ridiculed, mocked and crucified as a way of forgiving me and you for all of our future sins. Although I can never, ever live up to His standards, the very fact that He set them so high—for me—should clearly state His love and intentions to never, ever let me go. Why is it so hard to remember this? We need to continuously bring back the pictures of Him carrying the cross, His mother weeping over him, the stains of blood on His back and the wounds carved into His hands and feet—all of that–for you and for me.
No matter what has happened to us, none of us, not even one, can ever truly grasp the magnitude of what this innocent man did, but we all must realize that to maintain our relationship with Him, and to maintain our physical and mental health, we should always strive to let go of those areas that will spiritually deform us and ultimately kill us.
We must remember that there is no one on this earth who can provide for us the true living food that God can. You can’t find it on a tree and you can’t find it in your loved ones. If you want sustained love that will nourish your soul, go back to the only One who will give it to you. Stay attached and stay in Love with Jesus at all costs. There is no other lifeline in this world that can keep you happy, healthy and at peace.
The First to Apologize is the Bravest
The First to Forgive is the Strongest
And the First to Forget is the Happiest… | <urn:uuid:b23b134e-0e8a-447e-982d-d70d01b9ea7f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.myhdiet.com/healthnews/ampm/why-is-it-so-hard-to-forgive | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570765.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808031623-20220808061623-00278.warc.gz | en | 0.961385 | 3,755 | 3 | 3 |
eso1230 — Science Release
The Brightest Stars Don't Live Alone
VLT finds most stellar heavyweights come in interacting pairs
26 July 2012
A new study using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has shown that most very bright high-mass stars, which drive the evolution of galaxies, do not live alone. Almost three quarters of these stars are found to have a close companion star, far more than previously thought. Surprisingly most of these pairs are also experiencing disruptive interactions, such as mass transfer from one star to the other, and about one third are even expected to ultimately merge to form a single star. The results are published in the 27 July 2012 issue of the journal Science.
The Universe is a diverse place, and many stars are quite unlike the Sun. An international team has used the VLT to study what are known as O-type stars, which have very high temperature, mass and brightness . These stars have short and violent lives and play a key role in the evolution of galaxies. They are also linked to extreme phenomena such as “vampire stars”, where a smaller companion star sucks matter off the surface of its larger neighbour, and gamma-ray bursts.
“These stars are absolute behemoths,” says Hugues Sana (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands), the lead author of the study. “They have 15 or more times the mass of our Sun and can be up to a million times brighter. These stars are so hot that they shine with a brilliant blue-white light and have surface temperatures over 30 000 degrees Celsius.”
The astronomers studied a sample of 71 O-type single stars and stars in pairs (binaries) in six nearby young star clusters in the Milky Way. Most of the observations in their study were obtained using ESO telescopes, including the VLT.
By analysing the light coming from these targets in greater detail than before, the team discovered that 75% of all O-type stars exist inside binary systems, a higher proportion than previously thought, and the first precise determination of this number. More importantly, though, they found that the proportion of these pairs that are close enough to interact (through stellar mergers or transfer of mass by so-called vampire stars) is far higher than anyone had thought, which has profound implications for our understanding of galaxy evolution.
O-type stars make up just a fraction of a percent of the stars in the Universe, but the violent phenomena associated with them mean they have a disproportionate effect on their surroundings. The winds and shocks coming from these stars can both trigger and stop star formation, their radiation powers the glow of bright nebulae, their supernovae enrich galaxies with the heavy elements crucial for life, and they are associated with gamma-ray bursts, which are among the most energetic phenomena in the Universe. O-type stars are therefore implicated in many of the mechanisms that drive the evolution of galaxies.
“The life of a star is greatly affected if it exists alongside another star,” says Selma de Mink (Space Telescope Science Institute, USA), a co-author of the study. “If two stars orbit very close to each other they may eventually merge. But even if they don’t, one star will often pull matter off the surface of its neighbour.”
Mergers between stars, which the team estimates will be the ultimate fate of around 20–30% of O-type stars, are violent events. But even the comparatively gentle scenario of vampire stars, which accounts for a further 40–50% of cases, has profound effects on how these stars evolve.
Until now, astronomers mostly considered that closely-orbiting massive binary stars were the exception, something that was only needed to explain exotic phenomena such as X-ray binaries, double pulsars and black hole binaries. The new study shows that to properly interpret the Universe, this simplification cannot be made: these heavyweight double stars are not just common, their lives are fundamentally different from those of single stars.
For instance, in the case of vampire stars, the smaller, lower-mass star is rejuvenated as it sucks the fresh hydrogen from its companion. Its mass will increase substantially and it will outlive its companion, surviving much longer than a single star of the same mass would. The victim star, meanwhile, is stripped of its envelope before it has a chance to become a luminous red super giant. Instead, its hot, blue core is exposed. As a result, the stellar population of a distant galaxy may appear to be much younger than it really is: both the rejuvenated vampire stars, and the diminished victim stars become hotter, and bluer in colour, mimicking the appearance of younger stars. Knowing the true proportion of interacting high-mass binary stars is therefore crucial to correctly characterise these faraway galaxies.
“The only information astronomers have on distant galaxies is from the light that reaches our telescopes. Without making assumptions about what is responsible for this light we cannot draw conclusions about the galaxy, such as how massive or how young it is. This study shows that the frequent assumption that most stars are single can lead to the wrong conclusions,” concludes Hugues Sana.
Understanding how big these effects are, and how much this new perspective will change our view of galactic evolution, will need further work. Modeling binary stars is complicated, so it will take time before all these considerations are included in models of galaxy formation.
Most stars are classified according to their spectral type, or colour. This in turn is related to the stars’ mass and surface temperature. From bluest (and hence hottest and highest mass) to reddest (and hence coolest and lowest mass), the most common classification sequence is O, B, A, F, G, K and M. O-type stars have surface temperatures of around 30 000 degrees Celsius or more, and appear a brilliant pale blue. They have a mass of 15 or more times the mass of the Sun.
The component stars in binary star systems are usually located too close to each other to be seen directly as separate points of light. However, the team were able to detect their binary nature using the VLT’s Ultraviolet and Visible Echelle Spectrograph (UVES). Spectrographs spread out a stars’s light much like a prism breaks up sunlight into a rainbow. Imprinted in the starlight are subtle barcode-like patterns caused by elements in the stars atmospheres which darken specific colours of light. When astronomers observe single stars, these so-called absorption lines are fixed, but in binaries, the lines from the two stars are slightly shifted relative to each other by the stars’ motion. The extent to which these lines are offset from each other and the way they move over time allow astronomers to determine the stars’ motion, and hence their orbital characteristics, including whether they are close enough to each other to exchange mass or even merge.
The existence of this large number of vampire stars fits well with a previously unexplained phenomenon. Around a third of stars that explode as supernovae are observed to have surprisingly little hydrogen in them. However, the proportion of hydrogen-poor supernovae closely matches the proportion of vampire stars found by this study. Vampire stars are expected to cause hydrogen-poor supernovae in their victims, as the hydrogen-rich outer layers are torn off by the vampire star’s gravity before the victim has a chance to explode as a supernova.
This research was presented in a paper “Binary interaction dominates the evolution of massive stars”, H. Sana et al., to appear in the journal Science on 27 July 2012.
The team is composed of H. Sana (Amsterdam University, The Netherlands), S.E. de Mink (Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, USA; Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA), A. de Koter (Amsterdam University; Utrecht University, The Netherlands), N. Langer (University of Bonn, Germany), C.J. Evans (UK Astronomy Technology Centre, Edinburgh, UK), M. Gieles (University of Cambridge UK), E. Gosset (Liege University, Belgium), R.G. Izzard (University of Bonn), J.-B. Le Bouquin (Université Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, France) and F.R.N. Schneider (University of Bonn).
The year 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of the European Southern Observatory (ESO). ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world’s most productive astronomical observatory. It is supported by 15 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the world’s most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory and two survey telescopes. VISTA works in the infrared and is the world’s largest survey telescope and the VLT Survey Telescope is the largest telescope designed to exclusively survey the skies in visible light. ESO is the European partner of a revolutionary astronomical telescope ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. ESO is currently planning a 40-metre-class European Extremely Large optical/near-infrared Telescope, the E-ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”.
Astronomical Institute “Anton Pannekoek”, Amsterdam University
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Tel: +31 20 525 8496
Cell: +31 6 83 200 917
Selma de Mink
Space Telescope Science Institute
Tel: +1 410 338 4304
Cell: +1 443 255 3793
ESO, La Silla, Paranal, E-ELT & Survey Telescopes Press Officer
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6655
Cell: +49 151 1537 3591 | <urn:uuid:a2d747a4-ef49-4755-bbe0-607df88ab3c9> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.eso.org/public/usa/news/eso1230/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280266.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00504-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926354 | 2,150 | 3.28125 | 3 |
Worsening drought picture for Minnesota
As one of the driest Septembers in state history comes to an end, the drought situation in Minnesota is being assessed by a number of state agencies as well as University of Minnesota Extension.
The fall season is a critical hydrological recharge period for our state in terms of soil moisture, lakes and streams. Usually a very high percentage of the rainfall and snowfall is utilized by the landscape and little runs off during October, November and December. So it is critical for the overall health of our soil and water resources that adequate or surplus precipitation falls before the landscape freezes up for the winter (usually in December).
Let's take a look at the current drought picture:
Though early growing-season rainfall was predominately at a surplus during April, May and June, drought's imprint on the state has expanded since July. Severe or extreme drought as designated by the U.S. Drought Monitor is now prevalent in 45 Minnesota counties, most notably southwestern, south-central and northwestern agricultural landscapes. You can view the geographic distribution of drought around the state at the University of Minnesota climatology website, by visiting http://z.umn.edu/climatejournal.
Since mid-July many counties have reported less than half of normal rainfall, while some areas also reported a record-setting dry September. Moorhead, Willmar and Morris were among those locations reporting a record dry September, with less than 0.20 inches in total rainfall. In addition, observations of stored soil moisture (top 5 feet) routinely made at the University of Minnesota's Southern, Southwestern, and Northwestern Research and Outreach Centers are now showing near-record or record low values for the end of September.
Other signs of extreme dryness in the Minnesota landscape include lake levels that are drastically down, and flow volume on many Minnesota watersheds that is below the 10th percentile historically for this time of year. The danger of wild fires is very high in many areas of the state as well. Overall, the state has not seen this area and severity of drought since the fall of 2006.
At this point in time, the additional precipitation needed to alleviate drought in most of the counties currently affected ranges from 6 to 12 inches. This is highly improbable considering that all-time record amounts of precipitation would be needed by December.
Only 17 of the past 117 years have produced a statewide average of 6 inches or more precipitation over the October through December period. This calculates to a historical probability of about 15 percent, or about one year in seven. The absolute wettest October through December period in state history (1971) produced a statewide average precipitation for the period of just less than 8.5 inches.
Probably a more realistic expectation is that enough precipitation will fall before the end of the year that there will be some modest alleviation to the soil moisture deficits now in place. A wet spring will be needed for a decent 2013 crop in Minnesota.
Mark Seeley is a climatologist with University of Minnesota Extension | <urn:uuid:a92bf200-3748-440b-b3ee-6a245e529614> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.morrissuntribune.com/content/worsening-drought-picture-minnesota?qt-latest_trending_article_page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285289.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00144-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959601 | 613 | 3.59375 | 4 |
When you read your story, does it sound off, maybe you can’t quite put your finger on it, but you know you’ve done something wrong? Sometimes–maybe even lots of times–there are simple fixes. These writer’s tips will come at you once a week, giving you plenty of time to go through your story and make the adjustments.
Today’s tip: Use IT judiciously.
‘It‘ refers to an object or idea, or an animal (if you’re not into anthropomorphizing those wonderful creatures) with an unknown sex. Like any pronoun, it must have an obviousfor it refers back to the closest non-sex noun.
People often use ‘it‘ to remove themselves from the action. For example,
It is common practice to eat breakfast before a Sunday jaunt.
This makes the passage passive and for writers intent upon drawing readers into our stories, might be better written:
We make a habit of eating breakfast before our Sunday jaunt.
Here are several warnings about the use of IT:
- Writers use IT when they can’t come up with the right word, much as we use the word ‘thing‘. It implies a nonspecific, which is almost always a bad idea for the great writer in us. Avoid it in those cases. Sit back. Think harder, and come up with what exactly it is you want to say. Specifically.
- IT often appears too many times in a sentence. Careful writers restrict IT to one meaning in a given sentence.
For anyone who watches the program, it is obvious it is not an attack on Catholicism.
Anyone who watches the program will see it is not an attack on Catholicism
(from Garner’s Modern American Usage, Bryan Garner)
Enough about it.
To have these tips delivered to your email, click here.
Jacqui Murray is the editor of a K-6 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, creator of two technology training books for middle school and six ebooks on technology in education. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog, Technology in Education featured blogger, IMS tech expert, and a bi-weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher. | <urn:uuid:48925a40-677f-4317-b0ad-2ba527f37fbf> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://worddreams.wordpress.com/2012/10/22/writers-tip-25-it-depends-on-the-definition-of-the-word-it-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280791.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00355-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9442 | 558 | 2.359375 | 2 |
The mysterious disease now known as Morgellons went unnamed -- and largely unnoticed -- until 2002, when a Pennsylvania woman named Mary Leitao began researching her 2-year-old son's troubling skin problems [source: Chertoff]. The boy said "bugs" when pointing to fibers that continually sprouted from his lips [source: Schulte]. She christened the malady "Morgellons," a name plucked from a reference to wiry hairs sprouting from the backs of children that she discovered in an obscure 17th century French medical text. By 2002, she'd launched a Web site that galvanized a growing number of people experiencing equally unsettling symptoms. And in 2004, she founded the Morgellons Research Foundation, a nonprofit group to raise awareness and funding for the condition [source: Harlan].
Not long after, Randy Wymore, a pharmacology and physiology researcher at Oklahoma State University with a penchant for pinning answers on the unknown, began collecting and studying samples from people who said they had the fibers erupting from their skin [source: Harlan]. The pet project grew in scope, but Wymore still couldn't determine what the fibers were made of. They aren't a manmade material, like fiberglass, or a plant-based material [source: Stobbe]. In fact, researchers still don't know what the fibers are; they don't even match anything in the FBI's national database [source: ABC News].
People continue to populate the Morgellons Research Foundation Web site, which has become the primary registry for those reporting symptoms. The disease seems to affect middle-aged women most often, but men and children also report symptoms. Many say the disease seems to spread through families in close contact [source: Schulte]. To date, more than 14,000 people (who've dubbed themselves "Morgies") consider themselves carriers of the disease. Still, it's difficult to track the number of actual cases. That's because people with the symptoms must diagnose themselves; the medical community doesn't recognize Morgellons as a disease -- yet.
In September 2009, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) -- which receives about 1,200 annual inquiries from those with Morgellons -- wrapped a yearlong investigation on the condition [source: Chong]. The CDC currently is studying the data, but as of May 2010, a date had not been set to release the results.
The CDC investigation was designed to catalog symptoms and gather information about the people who report having Morgellons. Northern California was selected as a study site because of its greater-than-average number of cases [source: Templeton]. Other areas with Morgellons clusters include Florida and Texas, but Morgellons has been reported in every state, as well as Asia, Europe and Australia [source: Witt].
For those who believe they wage a daily battle against Morgellons symptoms, the CDC study offers hope. We'll explore their troubling symptoms on the next page. | <urn:uuid:e4ac9006-ae36-48af-bbe1-4229a8a7e0b7> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://health.howstuffworks.com/skin-care/problems/medical/morgellons-disease1.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280929.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00423-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965999 | 621 | 2.890625 | 3 |
CHICAGO – The issue of gender identity, especially for those who are born with a vagueness as to what to call themselves between/beyond boy and girl, has come front and center in the U.S., both with the legalization of gay marriage and the callous repudiation of identity by trying to pass laws dismissing it (the North Carolina “bathroom” laws). The performance companies of The Living Canvas and Nothing Without a Company is currently staging “[Trans]formation,” which presents gender identity art by six performers, who perform most of the play in the nude.
Tips and tricks employed by movie marketers
Tips & Tricks Employed by Movie Marketers
As you meandering through various department stores and knick-knack shops downtown, you notice a seemingly-normal bench on the sidewalk—well, except for the gigantic advertisement that makes up the entirety of the bench’s backboard, right? Moreover, it is an advertisement for the latest movie to emerge in theaters. That probably gets you thinking about that documentary (or was it a commentary?) you watched last night on television about how they managed to find the perfect acting cast for that movie.
Well, you have just witnessed a very tiny portion of the tactics used by professionals in the film industry to promote the latest movie on the big screen. Their marketing madness goes well beyond the likes of a park bench or commentary though. In fact, you have probably been influenced subliminally in several of the stores you have visited lately. From stuffed animals, to sweats and fleece, advertisers are looking for any means of marketing, even if it means persuading you to stay warm with promotional sweatshirts or hoodies. Nothing is off-limits; especially if it is creative and invokes the imagination.
Speaking of creativity, the marketing and promotional tactics really begin to liven up when it comes to children’s movies. With a mind like Play-Doh, a child’s imagination can be shaped, molded, and contorted to reflect a vibrating interest in any animated or cartoon-like movie. Then again, who is the advertising really for? A talking teddy bear or quirky duck is already going to peak the interest of most any child, but generally the child is not alone when going to see a movie, but instead is accompanied by an adult. Perhaps the advertising was made to stimulate the interest of adults. Seeing that quirky duck displayed over Times Square might make a parent think, “Well, I guess it could be funny.”
As the minds of movie marketers everywhere become more creative, sometimes even bordering genius, there is still a heavy interest in the more traditional marketing methods as well; these include radio interviews, flyers, and of course, the beloved television commercial that so kindly interrupts the television program we were watching in depth. That should not be a hard concept to grasp though. In fact, when you consider how much time is spent in front of a television, it would actually be irresponsible for marketers not to utilize this outlet.
Of course, we cannot forget about the one piece of technology that has single-handedly taken over and become a staple in the everyday lives of most folks—the Internet! While it used to be that one could not access the Internet without logging into a big, clunky desktop computer, now folks everywhere are gaming, managing money, and even watching movies, on tablets and smartphones. So, it should go without saying that movie-marketing has since appeared everywhere on the web, from dedicated movie sites, to fan sites, to the annoying little pop-ups that grace just about every web page.
As we all know, some movies were meant to be seen, while others ended up being complete and total duds, bringing in very little profit at the box office. This concept is what makes the task of marketing a movie so difficult. Think about it; the job of a marketer in the film industry is similar to that of a public defendant defending someone they know is guilty. The marketer may have a hunch that the movie is not, let’s say, “Oscar-quality,” but it is still their job to get your but in a theater seat.
With that being said, it is probably safe to assume that as time progresses, so too will the promotional methods utilized by the film-marketing industry. Expect to see innovate, creative, and perhaps even downright bizarre feats of promotion that entice imagination and interest. Next thing you know, your butt will be parked in a theater seat preparing for the latest in box-office magic. | <urn:uuid:624b5401-e2c9-4c62-b914-073947b11610> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.hollywoodchicago.com/forums/21103/tips-and-tricks-employed-by-movie-marketers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284352.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00193-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967558 | 947 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Keila is a ♀ girl’s name.
Keila is a variant of the name Kayla, which derived from the Irish surname Ó Caollaidhe, but is also of Hebrew origin.
Keila means “descendant of Caollaidhe”, “slender” or “narrow”, “crown of laurel” and “pure” (from Kayla).
The name Keila is ranked #1839 overall.
Find more beautiful first names!
Download our free baby name app and swipe a wonderful name together with your partner! | <urn:uuid:9cd9437d-dd34-478a-ba01-6e9cf821d4d8> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://charlies-names.com/en/keila/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571150.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810070501-20220810100501-00673.warc.gz | en | 0.91005 | 130 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Why You Need to Run Multivariate Tests
It’s been several years since your website’s last major update. The design is starting to look outdated even though you’re still adding new content every day. You know it’s time for change, but you’re understandably hesitant because things seem to be working out just fine: you’ve got a steady stream of traffic, most of who are recurrent visitors, and the income that you’re getting from your site has been consistent so far.
But this won’t last for long. Keep in mind that change is the only thing that’s constant, especially in the online world. You’ve got to adapt to the trends and keep up with the times by updating, not only in terms of content, but also in design. This is so you can stay relevant among the throng of websites who belong in the same niche as you do.
Where Multivariate Tests Come In
At this point, what you can do is test. Two methods commonly used nowadays is A/B testing and multivariate testing. In both methods, two different versions of a single website are presented to the site’s audience simultaneously. The variation that gets the most clicks, results in the most sales, or has higher conversions is then deemed to be the better version of the two.
The methods vary in the number of elements to be modified. A/B tests specify that only one component can be changed, while any number of variations can be introduced in multivariate tests.
Uses for Multivariate Testing
Multivariate testing is primarily used in website optimization. For this purpose, designers and site administrators test out options for certain design elements and pick which one to use for the final version of the website based on the test results.
Testing is also done for email marketing and advertising campaigns. The goal is to come up with content, designs, and materials that will appeal to the majority of its intended audience in order to deploy a more effective and higher impact campaign.
How to Run a Multivariate Test
Below you’ll find the general guidelines that are followed in conducting multivariate tests:
Step 1: Site Survey
A survey of the site is recommended to figure out which elements and components are to be tweaked. Most people make a list at this stage so they can have something to refer to in the later stages of the test.
Step 2: Test Design
Once the elements have been listed down and grouped together according to test batches, the group to run tests on first should be selected. The variations for the chosen elements are then drawn up for use in the test.
Step 3: Multivariate Test Deployment
The multivariate test can be run by hiring a third-party service to take care of the IT aspects. You can also choose to run it yourself by employing tools like Google’s Website Optimizer, which is available for free online.
Step 4: Results analysis
When the test has run its course, run analytics and analyze the results that you were able to obtain. Determine which version performed better based on the criterion that you’re using to gauge the success or effectiveness of your campaign, be it the number of sales or conversions.
Step 5: Implementation
Once you’ve determined which version is better, implement the better variation. When you’re done with that, move on to conduct more tests to further optimize your content. | <urn:uuid:5e5897cd-be43-444d-9a77-344d239fccb9> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.stayonsearch.com/why-you-need-to-run-multivariate-tests | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280065.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00544-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940459 | 710 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Sweating - a scourge in modern society, regardless of the season.During cold weather, the problem is undoubtedly disturbed somewhat smaller, but need protection from sweat winter as well as summer.Therefore, the relevance of the issues, "which means better protection against sweating", "which is better, a deodorant or antiperspirant," "and what actually is different from antiperspirant deodorant" excite many.To help you make the right choice, which means sweat better, we publish ratings and deodorants / antiperspirants.
1. How to choose the best deodorant / antiperspirant sweat?
2. What is sweating: sweating causes
3. deodorant, antiperspirant: the difference
4. What is the best deodorant or antiperspirant?
5. Rating deodorants / antipespirantov
6. How to test?
• Up to choose the best deodorant / antiperspirant sweat?
Shelves modern shops filled to overflowing by a variety of means underarm sweating.How did all of this variety to choose the best antiperspirant deodorant or better sweat?How to evaluate the most objective means of protection, and on what parameters to evaluate?We take you and give you all the way to find out.
To this end, leading in the field tests carried out by independent experts, which formed the basis for assessment of consumers, that is with you our comments.Evaluated and tested in the first place the following quality indicators: Packaging, informative, deodorizing effect, resistance flavoring, ease of use, marks on clothes, subjective sensation, skin reaction to the tool, cost deodorants / antiperspirants.The results of these tests, and we will offer.
And considering that "the taste and color," as they say, everyone has their own preferences and requirements so specific product, as a remedy for underarm sweating, you will appreciate these results, as you can easily compose and own rating of deodorants / antiperspirants,suits you personally.
But before we announce the list of test tools to talk about testing methods and results, let us remember the origin of the peculiar smell of sweat, why there is excessive sweating armpits, how to deal with an unpleasant odor and sweating, it differs from antiperspirant deodorant, and thatactually underlies these remedies antiperspirant and how they operate.
• WHAT sweating: Causes Sweating Sweating
, in fact, and sweating armpits, including - a natural process of the body that protects us from overheating protection mechanism.In our body there are about 3 million sweat glands!When heat during exercise, hard physical work, through the sweat glands secrete moisture close to 2 liters.Furthermore, increased or excessive sweating occur when a person is nervous or ill, when the body is broken metabolism, as well as many other reasons.
How is sweating?The armpits and elsewhere sweating (in the chest, belly button, genital, etc.) among others are arranged also eccrine sweat glands secreted moisture.Furthermore there eccrine and apocrine sweat glands, secreted hormones, together with the moisture, proteins, lipids, and volatile fatty acids.That is what we'll call then has a very mixed composition.
But all these isolation by themselves do not have, nor any odor.In damp, warm, poorly ventilated environment, the contents of this gland becomes a magnificent platform for the reproduction and development of bacteria, and that's actually the waste products of these bacteria and have the nastiest peculiar smell that can unbalance the most unflappable man, not what his entourage.By the way, have you noticed the extraordinary stability of the smell of sweat?The explanation is that in addition to lipids, proteins and other components in the apocrine sweat glands, there is also isovaleric acid.Actually, it's the smell of sweat provides increased resistance.
In general, all human odors can be divided into male and female.Women smell - sour.Its appearance is due to saprophytes relating to cocci.Male odor description lends itself with difficulty - a special torture!But men, frankly, are not to blame.The fault lies in the lipophilic diphtheroids, but do you remember or reprimand those clever words when breath catches, his eyes watering?When faced with this smell in public transport, in the second-class carriage, or you feel all "fiber" men's socks, instead of lipophilic diphtheroids come to mind quite different words, but rather the expression!
to life in such moments were smaller and more comfortable, tireless minds, since ancient times, and come up with ways and means of improving combat sweating and neutralizing the nasty smell of sweat.During this time I have been invented a lot all different, but caught the most effective and affordable.Today is: deodorants, antiperspirants, powders, gels, creams.Absolute leaders of the list are deodorants and antiperspirants.Of course, most of us knows the difference between an antiperspirant deodorant on, what the difference between them, but we all recall.
• deodorants, antiperspirants: the difference
So the difference between antiperspirant and deodorant from what deodorant-antiperspirant?
DEODORANT - a tool that removes odors.Translated from the French word prefix - des, means removal and odor from the Latin root meaning smell.Deodorant prevents the growth of bacteria absorbs natural odors of the human body and haunting smell of sweat.Ideally, the best deodorant sweat in addition to flavor, contains antibacterial and disinfecting components, which destroy microorganisms living in a humid environment, and to prevent odor.Best deodorant sweat luxury brands often contain several sets of essential oils that have bactericidal action.
Deodorants latest generation of additives that inhibit the activity of bacterial enzymes, whose participation leads to the formation of malodorous components of sweat.Basically, the process of sweating deodorants have no effect, and the smell of sweat simply replaced the perfume.Virtually all existing leading brands in the perfume composition of their commercial lines are deodorants, bactericides containing no additives, and therefore, are not self-sufficient.Simply put, before clubbing like deodorant should be used only after the application of a more robust and radical means.For example, an antiperspirant.
antiperspirant .We have knowingly used the word antiperspirant characteristic of radicalism.These funds are short term completely block the activity of sweat glands apocrine.That those who "produce" the most pungent smell.Antiperspirants significantly reduce sweating (translated antiperspiration (Eng.) - "Against sweat").
Almost always all antiperspirants contain the salt of zinc or aluminum (aluminum chlorohydrate), - they are tanned, seal skin, narrowing the ducts of sweat glands.Good antiperspirant actually reduces underarm sweating up to 40%.Fortunately, the microflora these funds do not affect in any way, except for funds, which include those imeesya triclosan or farnesol.These components are typically used for the production of means of combining multiple properties, or simply put deodorant-antiperspirant.Issued antiperspirants in the form of aerosols, roller, sticks, creams, pastes.There are deodorants with fragrances and generally odorless.
Use antiperspirants, in some cases severely undesirable!The most important rules are:
- 1. Do not use deodorant during severe exercise and sports activities as well.It is not necessary to interfere with the body when it is released from the slag using sweating.Breaking this excessive sweating, you will cause damage to the body, damage to their health!
- 2. Do not use antiperspirant daily long-acting, but more so in several times a day!So you are completely disrupt the body's natural defenses, will make an imbalance in metabolism, and just poison themselves with their own sweat, strange as it may sound.
- 3. never give in to the temptation to put the tool on the forehead, chest, back or foot!For each of the parts of the body, there his own means.In this case, the manufacturer is not trying to "roll you" for additional spending, it is not the case.It's just that each of these areas has its flora, its acidity, and this "peculiarity" requires self-care products.Therefore, the use of antiperspirant will at best simply ineffective, useless, and at worst - harmful and dangerous to health.
Simply put, a difference of antiperspirant deodorant in that the first largely odor masks, and the second prevent its occurrence.That's actually important, the difference between antiperspirant deodorant on.
Thus, the best deodorant sweat the one that is able to "adequate time" to prevent the reproduction of bacteria and unobtrusively overshadow the smell of sweat.That is, the rating depends directly on deodorant disinfectant properties and durability of their odors.Best deodorant sweat, one that actually disinfects by destroying bacteria and preventing their reproduction.
• WHAT BETTER deodorant or antiperspirant?
If we compare the first and second means of sweating, that is, to determine what is best deodorant or antiperspirant, everything depends on your needs at the moment.However, if you take the question literally, sweat best antiperspirant, actually he only defends itself FROM sweat.
Well, "a snack", as they say, a little bit of statistics.In European countries, according to the independent research company 66% of men and 81% of women use antiperspirants and deodorants.The palm is from the British.Slightly inferior to them by the Germans.When choosing what is best deodorant, most Europeans are paying attention to functionality means.And only the French preference is given to odors often, choosing perfumed form.
Regarding the consumer forms the 55% of women prefer aerosol antiperspirants, 20% - choose solid forms, 15% - ball, and only 5% preferred deodorant creams.The men mostly prefer a deodorant spray, as they turned out to be associated in men with morning freshness and purity.
most interesting and popular in recent years, anti-perspirants, deodorants from sweating armpits have the form of stick or gel.Therefore, also undergo testing semisolid and solid forms, and they are also present in the published rating deodorants / antiperspirants.
• RATING deodorant / ANTIPESPIRANTOV
Given that you only use antiperspirants is not always justified, or even safe, many prefer the odor of sweat forms of protection, and the answer to the question, what is better deodorant or antiperspirant depends on the specific conditionsuse, we decided to split test results into groups: the rating of deodorants, antiperspirants the rating and rating of deodorants / antiperspirants.Took part in the tests the following 12 products "antipotovoy" protection:
• TIMOTEI Lux (deodorant);
• FLORENA (deodorant);
• DRY (deodorant);
• FA (deo-gel);
• VICHY (Deodorant Cream 7 days).
• PERFORMANCE ADIDAS (antiperspirant);
• REXONA (antiperspirant).
Read More test results antiperpirantov & gt; & gt;
fasting day on yogurt and apples: effects, menus, reviews.8 different kefir unloading days
- deodorant ANTIPERSPERATY:
• ORIFLAME (antiperspirant deodorant);
• SECRET (antiperspirant deodorant);
• EMANSI (biodezodorant antiperspirant);
• LADY SPEED STICK (antiperspirant deodorant);
Read More test results deodorant / antiperspirant & gt; & gt;
• How to test?
During testing, tested and evaluated deodorants, antiperspirants according to the following criteria: packaging, informative, deodorizing effect, perfumes resistance, ease of use, marks on clothes, skin reaction and the sensation of the funds and its economy.
For practical tests have been invited to women and young girls who, during the week to use means, and recorded his observations in a special form, simultaneously giving an explanation and justification of negative and positive assessments of Use.At the end of the study profiles processed, brought an average rating for each of the indicators and the estimated total number of points obtained in the practical tests.What came of it - read on.
• Rating deodorants & gt; & gt;
• Rating antiperspirants & gt; & gt;
• Rating deodorant / antiperspirant & gt; & gt;
And a little more about what is better, a deodorant or antiperspirant, videos: | <urn:uuid:e98cb965-690b-412d-b048-5f8909966958> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://ladyhealthnet.com/en/pages/14891 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281450.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00174-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.895796 | 2,815 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Key industry tax breaks in Oklahoma have more than doubled over the past four years and are now costing the state well over half a billion dollars a year, state records show.
The two dozen business tax breaks combined grew from $356 million in 2010 to $760 million in 2014. The 2014 figure is equivalent to just over 10 percent of the state’s $7.2 billion budget, and more than the state spends every year on prisons and public safety.
An Oklahoma Watch analysis of data obtained from the Oklahoma Tax Commission, Oklahoma Insurance Department and Senate Finance Committee shows that the growth has been fueled by incentives provided to oil, gas and wind-power producers.
Together, the energy industry tax breaks reduced state revenue collections by $486 million in 2014. The other tax breaks related to areas such as job creation, the film industry and historic building rehabilitation.
Some lawmakers and advocacy groups say the lost revenue is harmful to the state, restricting its ability to invest in core services such as education and health care or to offer broad-based cuts in income or sales taxes.
“It’s the largest corporate welfare giveaway in the history of Oklahoma,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Mazzei, R-Tulsa. “It’s going to crowd out our ability to do other levels of tax reform, other levels of lower taxes for people, small businesses and other industries that aren’t in oil and gas.”
Supporters of the subsidies insist that they help pay for themselves by generating economic growth and creating jobs. Energy industry leaders say without oil and gas production tax breaks, they would make new drilling methods less cost-effective and stifle exploration.
“My neighbors, my families, my friends are employed by those people,” said Rep. David Dank, R-Oklahoma City. “We’re doing the geology and the engineering for wells that are being drilled in Ohio and West Virginia and Pennsylvania. I want that to continue.”
Leaders in both parties have voiced concern about the growth in tax breaks and have taken steps to pare them back. Since 2010, the legislature has repealed, capped or attached “sunset” dates to several dozen business tax breaks.
According to a newly released report by the Oklahoma Tax Commission, the number of all exclusions, exemptions, deductions, credits and other tax breaks that it tracks declined from 480 in 2010 to 455 in fiscal year 2014.
But the legislature has rejected efforts to rein in others, even as the total amount of business tax breaks has soared, tightening the squeeze on state revenue collections.
“We’ve done some positive things that have never been done before … in terms of cleaning up some special-interest tax breaks,” Mazzei said. “But we’ve started some new ones that have greatly increased taxpayer-subsidized support for some special interests.”
The Tax Commission’s latest tally of “tax expenditures” adds up to billions of dollars of lost revenue every year if every kind of tax preference is considered.
Many of the biggest breaks benefit very broad constituencies and enjoy widespread popular support. An example is the sales tax exemption for prescription drugs, which reduced state revenue by $136 million in 2014.
Mazzei estimated that tax reforms already enacted by the legislature were boosting annual revenue collections by at least $100 million. They include the phasing-out of three controversial tax credit programs for venture capital investments.
At the top of Mazzei’s setback list, however, is this year’s expansion of gross production tax preferences for oil and gas production, he said. In response to intense energy industry lobbying, the legislature replaced a temporary tax break for horizontally drilled wells with a permanent tax break for all wells during their first three years of production.
Even before the change, the horizontal well tax break had soared in cost from $83 million in 2010 to $363 million in fiscal year 2014. (The 2014 figure includes $94 million in rebates paid out during 2014 for production during two earlier years when the tax break was suspended.)
It appears unlikely that the legislature would consider scaling back the gross production tax at this point. The oil and gas industry has strong support from lawmakers who say it has become the backbone of the Oklahoma economy, generating jobs and revenue that might be endangered if the tax breaks were curtailed.
Rep. Dank has been a key figure in the crusade to get rid of certain tax breaks. But he said he is a firm supporter of the gross production tax incentives because of the oil industry’s contributions to the state.
“What’s more important to me than the gross production tax is the high-paying jobs that are created in the Devon Tower, by Continental, by Sandridge, by Sampson, by Chesapeake,” Dank said.
Wind Power Credit
If the gross production tax breaks appear secure for now, another energy industry tax subsidy, the wind power credit, is in the crosshairs of reformers who say its rapid growth is imperiling state revenue collections without a big economic payoff.
In 2003, the state began providing an income tax credit to companies that built wind-powered electricity generating plants. A year later, it added wind-power facilities to the list of manufacturers eligible to receive five-year property tax exemptions. Although property tax collections go to county governments and schools, the state reimburses them for the manufacturing exemptions.
The combined cost of the wind-power income tax credits and property tax exemptions ballooned from $7 million in 2010 to $50 million in 2014, according to the Senate Finance Committee.
Supporters sold the legislature on the idea that the tax breaks were needed to help jump-start an environmentally friendly energy source that offered potential long-term payoffs to the state. Critics contend the industry generates few long-term jobs once the wind farms are up and running.
The Senate Finance Committee conducted an interim legislative study of the wind power tax breaks this fall. Mazzei said he intended to propose changes during the 2015 legislative session.
Incentives for Jobs
Another big-ticket incentive that might receive scrutiny is the Quality Jobs Program. Created in 1993, it provides direct payments to manufacturers who create new jobs by building new facilities in Oklahoma or expanding existing ones.
It, too, has grown rapidly in recent years. Direct payouts to manufacturers were $82 million in 2014 compared to $54 million in 2010.
Oklahoma’s Quality Jobs program has been touted by Dank and others as one of the best programs of its kind nationwide. But even some supporters contend it might have become too generous.
Under a 2008 amendment, for example, the partnership that owns Oklahoma City’s Thunder basketball team now qualifies for the Quality Jobs Program. Professional Basketball Club LLC received $4 million in payouts during the 2014 fiscal year.
(The Thunder’s owners include oilman George Kaiser of Tulsa. The George Kaiser Family Foundation is one of Oklahoma Watch’s principal funders.)
Even if Quality Jobs is considered a national model, companies sometimes eliminate jobs for which they have been receiving subsidies. Under the program’s terms, the state pays the companies for up to ten years. If the firms eliminate the jobs in a downsizing, the payments stop. In most cases, no payback is required.
Larkin Warner, a retired Oklahoma State University economics professor who served for years on the state’s Incentive Review Committee, said he thinks the legislature should make sure the program is kept within reasonable limits.
Yet he cautioned that Oklahoma must remain competitive with other states in providing economic growth incentives.
“We have to meet or beat the competition,” Warner said. “We could thumb our nose and say, ‘Well, we’re not going to stoop that low.’ And then along comes another state and just takes business away from us.”
No State Comparisons
Although some national organizations track state tax breaks, Oklahoma Watch could find no comprehensive data to assess how Oklahoma’s complete package of business incentives compares with that of other states.
“The trouble is, there are no standardized rules,” said Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First, a nonprofit research group in Washington, D.C., that has been publishing state tax-break data for four years.
LeRoy said the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) recently drafted its first proposed rules for defining business incentives. But until standardized rules are adopted, no comprehensive comparative data is available, he said.
“We can’t (provide it). The data doesn’t exist in a uniform way because of GASB’s negligence. The states have resisted, too,” LeRoy said. “You get into a lot of gnarly, definitional gray areas.”
Despite the limited success of past tax reform initiatives, Mazzei said he intends to continue pushing for lower tax rates across the board and few or no special-interest tax breaks.
“The lesson we need to learn is that when we stay in the habit of picking winners and losers and helping one special-interest group over another, we fail to make progress toward what is best for everyone,” Mazzei said.
Dank said he, too, would keep pushing for more reforms.
“I think we’re winning converts,” Dank said. “I think we’re making progress.”
Reach reporter Warren Vieth at firstname.lastname@example.org.
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Please consider donating to Oklahoma Watch in support of nonpartisan, in-depth, investigative journalism on some of the most important, challenging public-policy issues facing our state today. | <urn:uuid:990b5823-bf13-48cc-a009-38e36b476b51> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://oklahomawatch.org/2014/11/13/state-business-tax-breaks-more-than-double/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280292.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00337-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955018 | 2,042 | 1.890625 | 2 |
It is not a steely-eyed
egret nor heft of pelican but just a singing bird that catches
from a balcony perched
across from pines lining the marina. Here I make watch of
shifting sky, distant buoy
sounding swells in the bay, common robin chiming in on the wind.
But this bird makes its
roost in the forked trunk, where branches droop heavy with
Like this robin, I try to
perfect a voice in the intimate language of birds, call back at
parroting the rise and fall
of its wistful warbling, practicing the melodic whistling.
Everything readies for
something - above, wide wings of dark crows fan the horizon.
a ray steers clear of a row.
A dog splashes into the water, his boy crying for a lost oar.
Twilight settles on tapping
riggings and masts, breeze in the tinny chimes, spring in the
“How do you know you
are going to die?”
I begged my
mother...With strange confidence she answered,
“When you can no
longer make a fist.”~Naomi
My mother, born into the
flapper era, never bobbed
her hair, never sported
drop waist dresses with a cloche,
nor did she cover her
face with pancake and rouge,
lifting her skirt above
her knees in speakeasies
or on Gatsby verandas.
She came of age in World War II.
Draped in white
coveralls, hair wrapped in a red scarf
under a hardhat, clear
goggles shielding her amber eyes,
she welded Pressed
Steel’s boxcars outside Pittsburgh
like women in Toledo hauling Jeep parts to Ford lines,
like those assembling fuselages on bombers in Long Beach
or for Boeing’s Flying Fortresses in Seattle,
like women filing bullets for the Army,
or building ships at California’s Richmond docks,
like those feeding blast furnaces in steel mills,
sparks flying at the giant cauldrons of molten steel.
women on railroads, in shipyards,
as pipe fitters and riggers, bus drivers and mechanics,
like those shooting riveting guns or ferrying planes,
ratcheting with wrenches or lighting torches,
arms linked across America with the plains women,
with the farm women, the desert and mountain women,
with the city women, even with Marilyn Monroe,
who as Norma Jean, attached propellors to planes.
My mother never jumped
drunken in her clothes
into a fountain like F.
Scott Fitzgerald’s new women,
but she did drop,
donning her mail order rayon sheath,
from a rowboat into the
lake, belting out the high notes
of Indian Love Call at a
USO picnic. She learned
to love the night shift
as a blackout air warden
and became the woman who
I would later blast
for not pulling free
from my father’s fierce grip.
I have become the woman who no longer wonders
how I dared knuckle into
my own fist, raise it high
for rights in rallies
and marches for reason and right
because I had a mother
who dared give up a job
as a nursemaid for the
rail yard and factory,
relinquish the girdle to
the rubber drive, who never
threw off the helmet for
the apron, and went on
living as if she could
~ Human Equity through Art
Women of the Fields
Dolores Huerte, UFW co-founder
declared her a born again Feminist at 83
The women of the
fields clip red bunches of grapes
in patches of
neatly tilled farmland in the San Joaquin,
globes they can no longer stand to taste -
miles shy of Santa Cruz beach babies
Pleasure Beach surfers on longboards,
all the cool
convertibles speeding the Cabrillo Highway
women line as
pickers, back bent over summer’s harvest.
The campesinas labor
without shade tents or water buffalos,
oversized shirts and baggie work pants, disguised
as what they are
not, faces masked in bandanas under cowboy hats
in fils de
the young one named Ester taken in the onion
with the field boss’ gardening shears at her
the older one called Felicia isolated in the
and pushed down into a doghouse. The pretty
without work papers, asked to bear a son in
for a room and a job in the pumpkin patch,
Isabel, ravaged napping under a tree at the
end of a dream
after a long morning picking pomegranates, violación
de un sueño.
Salome on the apple ranch forced up against
as the boss bellowed his ecstatic Ave, Ave
The promotoras flex
muscle in words, steal off into night
face-to-face to talk health care, pesticides,
meet to tally
accounts - forced to exchange panties for paychecks
in orchards, on
ranches, in fields, in truck beds - to speak out to
deportation to an old country, a new foreign soil.
Women of the
fields, like those before them, like those
who will trail
after - las Chinas, Japonesas, Filipinas -
to slave for
frozen food empires in pesticide drift,
along the skin, creeping into the nostrils
it ends as they hide from La Migra
in vines soaked
in toxins or crawl through sewer tunnels,
tracks, through fences to pick strawberries,
for this, this: la
fruta del diablo.
Center’s The New
About a Fight?
What is it that
balls a man’s fists into sudden rage,
blocking, body weaving and swaying -
a poker bet gone
bad, tiff over a last shot and beer,
wrong song on the
jukebox, something the other guy
said years ago to
the woman he didn’t marry anyway?
What is it, when the
brawl tumbles into the street,
honking horns, grunting OohRah!
even when one face
is already kissing the pavement?
No Sugar Ray or Ali,
what drives the everyday Joe,
digs in so deep,
courses across scarred knuckles,
the broken tooth,
blackened eye, flattened nose?
They say my father
liked a fight. Was it his old juvie record
determination or hope, his annulled marriage
to a bigamist
collecting veteran’s checks, or layoffs at the mill
just before benefits
kicked in, a monotony of existence?
What of those of us
who years later toss and turn over
brutal thoughts that
won’t abate, still hearing the screech
of a police car
hitting the curb, the smack of the body
asphalt? They say my father liked a fight.
And as they carted
him off to jail again, what of the wife -
my mother behind the
window’s bent blind slat
who, as the cruiser
takes off, she thinking I am not there
to hear her own
wounded spirit sigh, says:
“Finally, maybe now
I can get a good night’s sleep.”
Literary Review Pushcart Prize Nomination;
PEN Oakland Fightin' Words Anthology. | <urn:uuid:80c5f2ff-94cf-4bd8-aeaf-f4f4c3361ab5> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://poetrymagazine.com/zawinski/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573744.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819161440-20220819191440-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.871309 | 1,807 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Nearly everybody knows someone who occasionally cuts and peddles firewood to bring in a few extra bucks. But, during the 1979/1980 winter alone, Lloyd Otis—manager of Douglaston Manor Farm in Pulaski, New York—will market 4,000 to 5,000 face cords of hardwood at $25 per cord wholesale and $28 retail.
And—since it's not unusual nowadays for Mr. Oils to receive a single order for 1,000 cords—his ultimate production and marketing goal of 10,000 cords a year may be just around the current energy-crisis corner.
A Modest Beginning
Lloyd's fast-growing firewood business began—quite modestly—in 1975, when he took over the operation of the 4,000-acre farm owned by New York State Senator H. Douglas Barclay. He found that the farmhands—in clearing trails through the property's hardwood forests—had cut and stacked some 100 cords of maple, beech, cherry, and ash. Not being one to let potential income go to waste, the new manager got permission to sell this energy resource to the local community.
The 100 cords sold so rapidly that Lloyd decided to have 600 more cords cut by the following fall. However, even he was a little amazed when vehicles from as far away as Syracuse and Oswego overflowed the farm driveway and waited patiently in line to cart off the suddenly popular product.
That demand, though, was just fine with Mr. Otis. He figured he could simply increase the supply to meet the slew of orders that were sure to come in during the following season. To do that, the manager sold timber rights on sections of the farm's abundant woodland to the highest bidder, then arranged to buy back the cull timbers (which the loggers delivered right to the farmyard) for a small per ton price. And to insure a continuous supply of wood, he bought culls from other area loggers as well.
Once the logs were delivered, Lloyd and his helpers used chain saws and hand splitting tools to turn out 10 to 15 face cords a day. Yet despite the fact that 2,000 cords were stacked and waiting for the third season, firewood-hungry New Yorkers had purchased the farm's entire stockpiled supply by the beginning of the New Year!
Time to Automate
At that point, thinking about automation, Lloyd searched for and eventually located a log processor. It was manufactured by LaFont Corporation that sold for $50,000. Now, with the device and a crew of three men, 50 cords of wood can be cut and split each day. One man simply saws the logs to the maximum length (10 feet) that the machine can handle, another uses a front-end loader to stack the timber on the processor, and a third operates the controls.
And although tree tops left in the woods by the logging crews were formerly allowed to rot away, Otis decided to put a man in the field—working full time during the spring, summer, and fall—to cut the tops to size and bring them to the yard as well to be processed by the new machine.
Then, in addition to the money spent on the log-processing system, the farm invested another $50,000 in delivery trucks and related equipment—notably, a 40-foot, portable, hydraulically operated conveyor belt that can be moved from one woodpile to another to load the firewood onto the vehicles. Unfortunately (as Lloyd notes ruefully), this helpful bit of automation sometimes fails to work when the weather is extremely cold. On those occasions the conveyor's hopper still has to be loaded by hand. A tractor with a bucket is the other means used to stack the wood for delivery, but this machine must also be hand-loaded to keep dirt, sawdust, and—in the winter—ice and snow from getting into the measured load of "goods".
"It's a very labor-intensive business," the enterprising firewood supplier points out, "but we believe the price—and our profits—will continue to go up as demand for this renewable energy source increases."
Meanwhile, despite the heavy investment made in machinery, the future of the firewood business must seem very promising, because Douglaston Manor has already phased out its stable full of jumpers and hunters, its Guernsey herd, and a chicken operation. The "business end" of the New York farm—with the exception of 200 acres of grain corn—now concentrates totally on turning out huge winter wood supplies.
And, despite the fact that a good part of the summer of '78 was spent setting up the log processor and enclosing it in a building (so the crew could work in any weather), 3,000 cords were sold last year.
An Expanding Market
Now, in addition to selling firewood directly from the farm, a big part of the Manor's business is done on a wholesale basis to retailers (such as nurseries) who buy in large quantities.
"We also get hundreds of calls from New York City and Boston companies wanting our wood, but—since gasoline prices are high—we have to charge more than the urban firms want to pay." However, if a retail or wholesale buyer is willing to absorb delivery costs, Lloyd will haul his product over any reasonable distance. He already covers homes and businesses throughout central and upstate New York—selling wholesale to Buffalo and Rochester—and even the quite distant Cape Cod area. In fact, the farm is now one of the biggest suppliers of processed firewood in the Northeast. And as oil and gas prices soar, business can only get better.
"I've heard that full cords of hardwood are already selling for $200 in highly populated areas," Lloyd notes. "At that rate, our wholesale price of $75 for a full cord is extremely reasonable."
The day we talked to the busy manager, his machine operator had been laid up with an injury, and Lloyd himself was running the big log processor. However, not much work was actually getting done, because he had to keep shutting down the equipment to deal with the incessant orders for firewood that keep flowing into Douglaston Manor Farm. | <urn:uuid:74d22a1b-edfa-4cc3-9613-0671c746abf2> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.motherearthnews.com/nature-and-environment/firewood-business-zmaz79ndzraw | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285289.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00153-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972826 | 1,282 | 1.859375 | 2 |
- Question: I had acne in the past as a teenager and now that I am in my late thirties I no longer have acne bumps but what appears to be acne scars under the skin that are red and flat. Also my skin tends to itch a lot on the cheeks and chin and are often red. In addition I have large pores only on the cheek areas. Do you have any suggestions for products such as cleaners and masks that will reduce the pore size and are for sensitive skin? I feel like I have rosacea so my skin is sensitive but I also need to find something strong enough to clean up the acne scarring.
Keep in mind acne scarring is extremely difficult to treat, topical products alone do not generally offer the results patients are looking for. Your best option is to seek consultation with a dermatologist in your local area, as dermatological grade procedures offer the best results for scarring. Pores are a natural part of the skin, unfortunately the size of our pores are genetically determined and typically get larger as we age. Topical products can help to reduce the pore size, but not permanently, the results from topicals are only going to be temporary. I recommend the following cleansers for your concerns: Pevonia Botanica Clarigel Exfoliating Cleanser, Dr. Brrandt Poreless Cleanser | <urn:uuid:a674dc79-b278-4e2a-818d-d98ce069e3b0> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.dermstore.com/blog/questions/treating-large-acne-pores-and-itchy-skin/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573193.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818094131-20220818124131-00478.warc.gz | en | 0.962819 | 289 | 1.671875 | 2 |
The Correct spelling is: crystal
Common misspellings of the word crystal are:
How do you spell crystal?. It is not
- A homogenous solid formed by a repeating, three-dimensional pattern of atoms, ions, or molecules and having fixed distances between constituent parts.
- The unit cell of such a pattern.
- A mineral, especially a transparent form of quartz, having a crystalline structure, often characterized by external planar faces.
- A natural or synthetic crystalline material having piezoelectric or semiconducting properties.
- An electronic device, such as an oscillator or detector, using such a material.
- A high-quality, clear, colorless glass.
- An object, especially a vessel or ornament, made of such glass.
- Such objects considered as a group.
- A clear glass or plastic protective cover for the face of a watch or clock.
- Slang. A stimulant drug, usually methamphetamine, in its powdered form.
Clear or transparent: a crystal lake; the crystal clarity of their reasoning.
[Middle English cristal, from Old French, from Latin crystallum, from Greek krustallos, ice, crystal.] | <urn:uuid:628de994-ff00-4b33-8a61-b97acff171f2> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.how-do-you-spell.com/crystal | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721595.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00477-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.847444 | 252 | 3.234375 | 3 |
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Experiments using a high-powered projectile cannon show how impacts by water-rich asteroids can deliver surprising amounts of water to planetary bodies. The research, by scientists from Brown University, could shed light on how water got to the early Earth and help account for some trace water detections on the Moon and elsewhere.
“The origin and transportation of water and volatiles is one of the big questions in planetary science,” said Terik Daly, a postdoctoral researcher at Johns Hopkins University who led the research while completing his Ph.D. at Brown. “These experiments reveal a mechanism by which asteroids could deliver water to moons, planets and other asteroids. It’s a process that started while the solar system was forming and continues to operate today.”
The research is published in Science Advances.
The source of Earth’s water remains something of a mystery. It was long thought that the planets of the inner solar system formed bone dry and that water was delivered later by icy comet impacts. While that idea remains a possibility, isotopic measurements have shown that Earth’s water is similar to water bound up in carbonaceous asteroids. That suggests asteroids could also have been a source for Earth's water, but how such delivery might have worked isn’t well understood.
“Impact models tell us that impactors should completely devolatilize at many of the impact speeds common in the solar system, meaning all the water they contain just boils off in the heat of the impact,” said Pete Schultz, co-author of the paper and a professor in Brown’s Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences. “But nature has a tendency to be more interesting than our models, which is why we need to do experiments.”
For the study, Daly and Schultz used marble-sized projectiles with a composition similar to carbonaceous chondrites, meteorites derived from ancient, water-rich asteroids. Using the Vertical Gun Range at the NASA Ames Research Center, the projectiles were blasted at a bone-dry target material made of pumice powder at speeds around 5 kilometers per second (more than 11,000 miles per hour). The researchers then analyzed the post-impact debris with an armada of analytical tools, looking for signs of any water trapped within it.
They found that at impact speeds and angles common throughout the solar system, as much as 30 percent of the water indigenous in the impactor was trapped in post-impact debris. Most of that water was trapped in impact melt, rock that’s melted by the heat of the impact and then re-solidifies as it cools, and in impact breccias, rocks made of a mish-mash of impact debris welded together by the heat of the impact.
The research gives some clues about the mechanism through which the water was retained. As parts of the impactor are destroyed by the heat of the collision, a vapor plume forms that includes water that was inside the impactor.
“The impact melt and breccias are forming inside that plume,” Schultz said. “What we’re suggesting is that the water vapor gets ingested into the melts and breccias as they form. So even though the impactor loses its water, some of it is recaptured as the melt rapidly quenches.”
The findings could have significant implications for understanding the presence of water on Earth. Carbonaceous asteroids are thought to be some of the earliest objects in the solar system — the primordial boulders from which the planets were built. As these water-rich asteroids bashed into the still-forming Earth, it’s possible that a process similar to what Daly and Schultz found enabled water to be incorporated in the planet’s formation process, they say. Such a process could also help explain the presence of water within the Moon’s mantle, as research has suggested that lunar water has an asteroid origin as well.
The work could also explain later water activity in the solar system. Water found on the Moon’s surface in the rays of the crater Tycho could have been derived from the Tycho impactor, Schultz says. Asteroid-derived water might also account for ice deposits detected in the polar regions of Mercury.
“The point is that this gives us a mechanism for how water can stick around after these asteroid impacts,” Schultz said. “And it shows why experiments are so important because this is something that models have missed.”
The research was supported by NASA (NNX13AB75G), the National Science Foundation (DGE-1058262) and the NASA Rhode Island Space Grant (NNX15AI06H). | <urn:uuid:057ba7a0-1015-427b-ac30-bc516d9a303e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.brown.edu/news/2018-04-25/impacts | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571472.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811133823-20220811163823-00678.warc.gz | en | 0.964139 | 984 | 4.25 | 4 |
Wheat has been getting a bad rap lately.
Many folks are experimenting with the gluten-free diet, and a best-selling book called Wheat Belly has helped drive a lot of the interest.
"Wheat is the most destructive thing you could put on your plate, no question," says William Davis, a cardiologist in Milwaukee, Wis., who authored the book.
Davis' drastic views on the ills of wheat were shaped by his own personal experience. Twenty-five years ago, he had Type 2 diabetes, as well as a host of other common ailments including "mind fog, mood swings, joint pains and acid reflux," he says.
But after he stopped eating wheat, he says, his health improved. And he's seen the same kinds of results when his patients go on wheat-free diets.
"You take wheat out of the diet and you literally see lives transformed," Davis says.
Davis' beliefs are way outside the mainstream. Most doctors don't think wheat causes problems for most people. Nonetheless, with a growing number of people claiming they feel better without wheat, Davis says there's something going on here.
His theory is that modern varieties of wheat are to blame. He says the wheat of yesteryear didn't make people sick.
"We know that celiac disease has doubled in the last 20 years," Davis says. And he says we known that humans have probably not changed, "so the more likely culprit is the wheat itself."
It's true that about 40 years ago, breeders introduced new varieties of wheat that helped farmers increase their grain yields. Those varieties, which came out of the Green Revolution, now make up 90 percent of all the wheat that farmers grow around the world.
But the claim that the more productive wheat is somehow making people sick didn't sound right to scientists who work with the crop.
"I never thought that wheat was toxic," says Donald Kasarda, who has studied gluten proteins for more than 40 years as a research chemist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Kasarda says when he saw there was speculation that the rise in celiac disease and gluten sensitivities was linked to breeders increasing the amount of gluten in wheat, he was very skeptical.
"It seemed strange to me," says Kasarda. As far as he knew, gluten levels had remained about the same. And when he dug deeper, combing through the scientific literature, he found no significant differences in gluten levels in wheat from the early part of the 20th century, compared with gluten levels from the latter half of the century.
So, when it comes to an increase of gluten in modern wheat? "As I suspected, I didn't find any evidence that this is true," says Kasarda.
Now, Wheat Belly author Davis believes there are more subtle changes in the wheat plant that are leading to the problems. But there's no scientific agreement on this. And in the medical world, there's a lot of pushback against the idea that modern wheat is toxic to all of us.
"I certainly think that's an overstatement," celiac expert Daniel Leffler told us. Leffler directs research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and is on the faculty at Harvard Medical School.
"I don't think there's one evil food causing the problem in our society," Leffler says. In fact, he says most people eat wheat with no problem. "There's good evidence that the vast majority of people actually do just fine with wheat."
Leffler says it's true that the prevalence of celiac disease is up. Most experts agree that about 1 percent of the population has this condition, which makes it very vulnerable to even small amounts of gluten, and they say it isn't just due to better diagnosis and awareness.
There's also a growing consensus that another portion of the population does have a nonceliac gluten sensitivity. That means they test negative for celiac disease but have some similar symptoms — like diarrhea, abdominal pain and headaches — after eating foods with gluten.
Leffler says there's likely no single cause leading to the increased prevalence of celiac. And he doesn't agree with the notion that changes to modern wheat could explain what's happening.
"We sort of chafe at these oversimplistic theories that purport to explain an entire rise in a disease," he says.
Leffler says the increase in celiac disease comes at a time when lots of other autoimmune diseases and allergies are on the rise, too. And one theory that might help explain this phenomenon is the so-called hygiene hypothesis.
This is the idea that our environment has become so clean and sterile that our immune systems no longer have to fend off so many bugs and infections, especially when we're young. As a result, our immune systems start to overreact to things that should be harmless, such as wheat or peanuts.
"You can see very quickly how this gets really complicated," Leffler says.
There are many other theories that could help explain gluten intolerances. Some scientists are looking at the changes in gut bacteria. There's also growing evidence that antibiotic use early in life and the timing of introducing babies to wheat and other grains could favor the onset of celiac disease later in life, says Stefano Guandalini, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Chicago and medical director of the university's Celiac Disease Center.
As for why so many people say they feel better on a gluten-free diet, Guandalini says that might have nothing to do with the gluten.
"It could be another protein in wheat," he says. "It could also be that once you remove gluten, you're also removing a number of other carbohydrates that are hard to digest. So you eliminate them and that makes you feel better."
But, he admits, doctors are really just beginning to understand what gluten sensitivity truly is. "It's a moving target," Guandalini says. "The more we learn the less we really know."
Leffler of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center agrees that we should stay tuned on this one. But in the meantime, don't think you have to avoid wheat if you enjoy bread and pasta and tolerate them well. | <urn:uuid:bd45208b-c253-476a-87ff-5f7fc9f328d2> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.mprnews.org/story/npr/226510988 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280266.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00499-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981564 | 1,288 | 2.40625 | 2 |
A map indicating cities you have visited makes a great decoration for your wall. It sparks interest and conversation from your friends and guests; it also serves as a record of all the places you have been. It even can inspire you to dream up new destinations and plan future trips.
With a little preparation and care, you can make a sturdy, lasting poster map showing the cities you have visited without putting any holes in your wall.
- Skill level:
Other People Are Reading
Things you need
- World map
- Foam board
- Large book
- Metal straight edge
- Utility knife
- Poster adhesive
- Coloured pins
Buy a world map that will look attractive on your wall. Try looking in bookstores, school supply shops or online stores. You also can print maps off websites. Bright colours will make the map pop, but other shades, like old-fashioned sepia, have their own charm.
Position the map in one corner of the foam board. Be sure that the foam board is bigger than the map.
Turn the map over and apply glue to the back.
Take up the map by its edges and carefully turn it over so that the side with the glue faces down. Starting at the corner, smooth the map slowly onto the foam board.
To help the glue set and to eliminate bubbles, press the book onto the middle of the map. Keep applying pressure while moving the book from the middle of the map toward each of the map's edges.
Let the glue dry for at least eight hours.
Lay the metal straight edge along the edge of the map adjoining the largest amount of empty foam board. Allow one-eighth of an inch or less of the map to show on the other side of the straight edge.
Place the utility knife right against the straight edge. Beginning at the far side of the map, cut through the foam board and the tiny portion of the map along its entire edge, using one cut if possible. Repeat for each edge.
Using adhesive and hang the mounted map on the wall in the place you have chosen.
Push the coloured pins into the map at all the cities in the world you have visited.
Tips and warnings
- Changing the blade of the utility knife frequently will prevent ragged edges. For the snap blade variety, you should change the blade every two cuts.
- If you discover unclean edges after cutting, change the blade and trim the edges by another one-eighth inch.
- You can use different coloured pins for places that you have lived versus places you have visited. You can even indicate where your ancestors are from, or where you would like to go someday.
- Be very careful when you are handling the utility knife, especially when cutting and changing the blade. It is extremely sharp.
- Be sure your hands are clean and free of glue when you smooth the map onto the foam board so that you do not dirty it.
- 20 of the funniest online reviews ever
- 14 Biggest lies people tell in online dating sites
- Hilarious things Google thinks you're trying to search for | <urn:uuid:eb916f14-7877-48b1-92cf-687bf3c54379> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.ehow.co.uk/how_8301773_make-map-cities-ive-visited.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279410.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00171-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906737 | 636 | 2.671875 | 3 |
“In Flanders fields the poppies blow.
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.”
Post 1976 Auxiliary member Karen McDaniel read the poem, a moving tribute to those who died while defending their country, during a Memorial Day ceremony at the post Monday morning.
Post Commander Tony Gerner, commander of Post 1976 in Annandale, led the ceremony, which included “The Star Spangled Banner,” a prayer, and 30 seconds of silence to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice.
The guest speaker, Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chair Sharon Bulova, called Memorial Day an “intensely personal day for so many people,” noting that “everyone is touched by a veteran some time in your life.” Bulova’s 89-year-old father served in the Marines in World War II and fought in Okinawa and Iwo Jima. Amid the horrors of those battles, Bulova told the audience, he was inspired by a beautiful little town in Saipan called Charon Kanoa, and later named his daughter, Sharon, after that place.
tax relief, she said, noting that the state Constitution has recently been amended to exempt certain veterans with permanent and debilitating disabilities from property taxes. | <urn:uuid:cd6f3ab1-9e29-44c6-bd16-a6693d106b81> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://annandaleva.blogspot.com/2011/05/american-legion-honors-veterans-at.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279368.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00324-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968281 | 292 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Introducing al-Jazari's ancestry to modern cybernetics and robotics science, Prof. Toygar Akman narrates in this testimony article his own discovery of the work of the great 13th century Muslim scholar. He shows further how al-Jazari's mechanical achievements laid the ground to a proto science of robotics avant la lettre.
By Dr. Toygar Akman*
First of all, let me explain that I am not an Art Historian; nor am I an archeologist or an examiner of Islamic Art. I am merely an "Examiner of Cybernetics". As you may know, Cybernetics was started after World War II. It is a technical science, which examines the transfer and the balancing of information between machines and people, people and people, and machines and machines. In short it is known as, "control and communication within both animals and machines". Today, the technology of electronics, automated machines, tele-communication, electronic-control and the science of robotics are all products of Cybernetics. As I will explain next, the uncommon genius of al-Jazari has had a profound impact on this science going back to 800 years ago.
I have been interested in Cybernetics since 1960, but my most exciting event was the discovery of a very talented Turkish scientist during a trip to Diyarbakir in 1972. 800 years ago this scientist had created simple robots, which could perform several functions. I was thrilled to learn about a Turkish scientist who contributed to Cybernetics.
I excitedly imagined the possibilities: attending a conference in a foreign country on "Developments in Cybernetics," or "New Applications in Electronic Technology". If the topic came to the historical evolution of these developments, the participants would be likely to brag about their own scientists. For example, the French could say: "the first scientists of Cybernetics were Descartes and Blaise Pascal, because one of them had introduced the ‘machine-animal model,' and the other had used the binary system in his invention, which is seen as the foundation of today's electronic data transfer."
A German could claim the first scientist in Cybernetics as the German philosopher Leibniz because of his ‘automatic wheels,' which could add, subtract, multiply and divide.
A Brit could counterclaim that the first scientist to invent a calculator was professor Babbage. As a Turk, I would need to remain quiet.
Maybe some would be thinking, "Science has no country. It is for the good of everyone". They may be correct. Nevertheless, there is something, which should never be forgotten. When a famous scientist dies, his coffin is wrapped in his national flag. As the citizens march behind the coffin respectfully, with mixed emotions of pride and sorrow, they think: "this great scientist is one of ours". This was the kind of excitement I felt during my trip to Diyarbakir in 1972 .
It was a particularly cold winter week in Diyarbakir, when I was visiting this old city. The fog had grounded all the planes. The trains were not working on the frozen railroads. The weather conditions did not allow for people to go outside much at all. The only productive work I could do under these circumstances was to study the interesting structures in the city and do research in the library. My time at the library introduced me to a publication called Black-Amid (Amid was Diyarbakir's old name.) I started looking through the 2nd issue in volume 2 and I noticed an article by Ibrahim Hakki Konyali titled "Turkish palaces used machines eight centuries ago." As I read through the pages, I learned about the scientist named Abu 'l-'Izz al-Jazari, who served his masters through "automatic machines" and "various robotics." The same article also stated that the original book written by al-Jazari was kept at Istanbul's Topkapi Palace, at Ahmed III's Library, and that another hand-written copy was at the library at Aya Sophia, which had 66 pages stolen .
Upon return to Istanbul from Diyarbakir, I immediately went to Ahmed III's Library at Topkapi Palace. I found the book registered under number 3472. Since the ‘language of science' used in Artuk Turks' palace in the 13th century was Arabic, the book was also written in Arabic. (This was similar to how the ‘language of science' used by the Selcuk Turks in Konya was Persian and it was Latin in the Western cultures.) The title of the book read in Arabic Kitab al-Jami' bayn al-'ilm wa-'l-'amal an-nafi' fi sina'a al-hiyal. This could be translated as "The Book of the Science and the Art of the Making Automated Tools" .
I felt a deep feeling of pride as I turned the pages of this 800-year old book, which had established the basic principles of Cybernetics around "adjustment systems around stability". My book on Cybernetics, Evolution in Science was in print at the time. I decided to stop the print so that I could add a few paragraphs about the very interesting work by Abu 'l-'Izz and my efforts to get his book translated as soon as possible. My book got published later in 1972 and I had the pleasure of being the first person to introduce al-Jazari to our nation .
While I continued to plead with my friends in the academic field to get this book translated, I also explained my finding to the authorities at TUBITAK and suggested that one of the automatic machines be built as a statue. My article on this subject was first published in the Science and Techniques Magazine (April 1974, issue no. 77), and the picture of an automated machine used for Muslims to wash up before prayers was used on the magazine's cover .
In this automated system the whole artuc assembly is placed in front of the king. Water is poured into the castle. This continues in an automatic system until the water in the castle is almost exhausted, whereupon the duck drinks all the water that is in the basin. Upon this the robot holds out his left hand with the towel and comb, Artuc Kings dries then themselves and use the comb then put them back into his hand.
|Figure 2: This illustration is explained in detail in Donald Hill's translation of al-Jazari's book, The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices (Reidel, 1974), pp. 107-109 (the fig. is on p. 107).|
Later on in the same year, I proudly attended the meeting on "Electro-Technological Developments" in Brussels, and presented my findings. Right before I went to Brussels, Donald R. Hill from UK had printed his book in Dordrecht, Holland titled The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices. His book introduced the works of al-Jazari in English to a much wider audience. Furthermore, because Donald R. Hill was an engineer as well as an art historian, he was able to explain al-Jazari's works of automatic systems through drawings. I thank Mr. Hill for giving us the opportunity to look at al-Jazari's systems through the perspective of cybernetics.
A year later, in 1975, my book titled Automation System and Data Banks included works of al-Jazari: "the pictures of automated tools and automated robots as well as their explanations" . In 1976, my second article explaining the systems set up by al-Jazari was published in the Science and Techniques Magazine (103rd issue), which also displayed the ‘Automated Bird Clock' on its cover .
|Figure 3: Automatic Horseman and Musicians Tool, a leaf detached from al-Jazari's treatise displayed in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, Islamic Arts section.|
In the following years, the excitement of al-Jazari spread all around the country. TUBITAK asked that I speak to a group of award winning students on November 24, 1976 on our now famous scientist and his works. My speech got published in the magazine's 113th issue in full .
Many years later, I was visiting the Metropolitan Museum in New York. In the Islamic Arts section, I was saddened to see two pages from al-Jazari's hand-written book on display complete with colorful pictures. One page was showing the "Automatic Tool with Elephant and Bird." The other was showing the "Automatic Horseman and Musicians Tool."
I wondered why the display only showed pages from a book instead of the entire book. I could not help but be suspicious of whether or not these were from the stolen pages, which I had read about in Ibrahim Hakki Konyali's article in Black-Ami in Diyarbakir in 1972.
I thought the caption under the pages on display was also rather interesting as it explained the visuals as the works of "Al Jazari, Muslim Engineer, who lived during the 13th century Egyptian Memluk Sultanate".
|Figure 4: Drawing from W. Ross Ashby, Design for a Brain: The Origin of Adaptive Behavior, Chapman & Hall, 1952; reedited Wiley, 2nd edition, 1960, see related section on pp. 205-214.|
I cannot do justice to explaining the importance of al-Jazari, without talking about the thinking of contemporary scientist of Cybernetics, Ross Ashby. Professor Ashby is a medical doctor. He observed that within a human organism, the balancing process between different organs was controlled by a more sophisticated data processing center. He called this "ultrastability".
In his book titled Design For A Brain, Ashby explains his theory through a drawing. The areas (A) and (B), and (B) and (C) are directly linked to one another. Ashby indicates that even though (A) and (C) do not have such a direct relation, they are connected through (B), which serves as an intermediary. This is not a continuous, but an extremely sophisticated intermittent system, but one that establishes "ultrastability." The ultrastability system is applicated in the high technology robotics today.
|Figure 5: Original illustration of the boat robot, taken from al-Jazari's book al-Jami' (Topkapi Palace, Ahmet III Library, MS. 3472).|
If we compare Professor Ashby's explanations to the process followed in one of al-Jazari's inventions, namely, "the automated musicians in the automatically moving boat", then we can see that our scientist from Cizre had also achieved "ultrastability" in his work. The musicians on the boat start playing their instruments once the water flows from a tank in the boat, which subsequently initiates movement for the dancers. The flow of water also sets the oarsman in motion, whose rowing moves the boat forward.
This shows that al-Jazari had clearly established a process of movement and balance between multiple systems. It is noteworthy to explain that if Eb-Ul-Iz had a slightly different design, and instead of the oarsman, he had used wheels connected to a propeller in the back of the boat set into motion by the running water, then he could have been the first scientist to move an object through the use of a propeller.
Another great piece of work by this scientist is seen in his "Automatic Elephant Clock." There are several actions set in motion every hour. As the water builds up in a tank, it eventually reaches a level, which sets off a ball dropped from a hawk's beak into the mouth of a snake, and the rider sitting on top strikes the elephant as a result. The water tank starts to fill up again and the series of actions are repeated in the following hour.
A similar mechanical process is displayed in his "Entertainment Center," which serves drinks, again through the use of a series of motions set by flowing water.
As displayed in all these devices, al-Jazari used only the force of water and the power of air pressure to build his systems 800 years ago.
His works could be seen as the path to today's robotics, even though they were built in an era with absolutely no knowledge of electrons, photons and positrons each containing data units and electro magnetic fields.
These are all examples of "control and communication systems" in today's cybernetics and technology of robotics. We cannot help but conclude that al-Jazari's thinking had planted the seeds to today's science of robotics 800 years ago!
- Akman, Toygar, "First Turkish Cybernetician: Eb-Ül-Iz" (In Turkish: Ilk Türk Sibernetik Bilgini Eb-Ül-Iz), Bilim ve teknik, 1976, N° 103.
- [Debate], A Muslim was the father of robotics? What do you think?
- Nadarajan, Gunalan, Islamic Automation: A Reading of al-Jazari's The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanicl Devices (1206).
- Ören, Tuncer, "Advances in Computer and Information Sciences: From Abacus to Holonic Agents." Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (Special Issue on Artificial Intelligence of Elektrik), published by TUBITAK (The Turkish Science and Technical Council), vol. 9:1, 2001: pp. 63-70.
- [Programmable Robot], A 13th Century Programmable Robot. University of Sheffield (2007). Retrieved on 20.02.2008.
- Sánchez Martín FM, et al., "Historia de la robótica: de Arquitas de Tarento al robot Da Vinci (Parte I)", Actas Urologicas Espanoles, vol. 31(2), 2007: pp. 69-76.
- Sharkey, Noel, "The programmable robot of ancient Greece, NewScientist.com news service, 04 July 2007.
- [Timeline] : Timeline of Robotics.
- Vukobratovic, Miomir, "Humanoid Robotics – Past, Present State, Future",
- Proceedings of the 4th Serbian-Hungarian Joint Symposium on Intelligent Systems, SYSY 2006, Subotica, Serbia.
Toygar Akman, Cybernetics Creation, Ankara, 1984, p. 35.
Konyali Ibrahim Hakki, "Turkish Palaces Used Machines Eight Centuries Ago", Black Amid Magazine, 1969, Issue 5, pp. 2-7.
The exact translation is A Compendium on the Theory and Useful Practice of the Mechanical Arts or literally: A Compendium on the science and useful practice of the making of machines (the editor).
Toygar Akman, Cybernetics: An Evolution in Science Computers and Reform in Law, Banka Ve Tic. Hu. Aras. Enstitusu, Ankara, 1972, pp. 11-15.
Toygar Akman, "Eb-ul-Iz: The Turkish Scientist who Built Automated Machines Eight Hundred Years Ago", Bilim ve Teknik, Issue 77, pp. 1-6.
Toygar Akman,Automation System and Data Banks. Banka ve Tic. Huk. Arastirma Ens., Ankara, 1975, pp. 153-158.
Toygar Akman, "The First Turkish Scientist in Cybertenics: Eb-Ul-Iz", Bilim ve Teknil, Issue 103, pp.1-4.
Toygar Akman, "Man Future Scientists and Eb-Ul-Iz", Bilim ve Teknik, Issue 113, pp. 7-10.
* PhD, Emeritus Senior Researcher of TUBITAK (The Turkish Science and Technical Council). | <urn:uuid:80283f88-dcac-4ef8-81e1-f4829e4e98b2> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.muslimheritage.com/article/800-years-old-ancestor-today%E2%80%99s-science-robotics-and-al-jazari?page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285289.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00148-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958677 | 3,319 | 2.84375 | 3 |
You soon may be able to keep more chickens
Plan Board next week may raise the limit on how many chickens city residents can have
Published: Saturday, July 20, 2013 at 6:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, July 19, 2013 at 8:47 p.m.
Two groups of urban chicken farmers are hoping to convince Gainesville officials to allow them to expand their flocks.
Members of the Gainesville Friends of Hens and Backyard Chickens Gainesville will be at the Plan Board meeting on Thursday with a petition asking that people who raise chickens at home be allowed to have more than the current limit of two.
Friends of Hens organizer Becca Huy said city staff is recommending increasing the number to between four and six — the number allowed in many cities surveyed, depending on lot size.
Huy and others believe residents should be allowed 10 to 12 chickens because there are no limits on how many pets people can have.
"If dogs are too noisy or too smelly, people can call and complain," she said. "It should be the same with chickens."
If the Plan Board approves the proposal to raise the limit to between four and six, it will go to the City Commission on Aug. 15. If the commissioners approve, they will direct the city attorney to draft an ordinance.
Gainesville has between 500 and 1,000 people who raise chickens, estimates Wade Rodgers, manager of Alachua County Feed and Seed.
The chicken keepers live in all parts of the city, except in apartments and duplexes, which are not allowed to have chickens, Huy said.
The number of chickens in cities is increasing because it is part of a green movement in which people want to know what goes into the food they eat, she said.
In Gainesville, the Friends of Hens, a loosely based organization started a year ago, and Backyard Chickens, a national forum started in 2000 that has a Gainesville forum, are leading the push for the rules change.
Although other people are interested in raising chickens, the proponents say, many are waiting until the limits are expanded so that they can start with a small flock.
"Sometimes it's hard to get chickens because of the pecking order," Huy said. "You can't get different ages because the older pick on the younger."
In addition to having more eggs from more hens, increasing the number of chickens improves their social conditions, which makes them quieter and less likely to disturb people, she said.
Huy noted that regulations already prohibit people from owning roosters, eliminating one of the bigger concerns: neighbors complaining about early-morning crowing.
Another concern has been the waste generated by more birds, but Huy said that has been overblown. She cited figures showing that the waste produced daily by 10 chickens is 0.66 pounds, while one 40-pound dog produces 0.75 pounds of waste a day, she said.
Some owners, such as Krista Ruggles, who has been a chicken keeper since February 2012, have two lots for the purpose of having more chickens.
Ruggles, a member of both local groups of chicken keepers, agrees with Huy about the organic movement. She said the eggs she has received from her chickens Abigail, Beatrice, Clara and Daisy since August 2012 are better tasting and more nutritious eggs; they also have orange instead of yellow yolks. All these differences she attributes to the fact that they're free-range chickens that eat insects.
Experts also attribute the orange yoke to free-range hens having the opportunity to eat more pigmented foods, after which the pigment is then transferred to the yolk.
Ruggles also said that chickens don't cause disturbances or unsanitary conditions as long as owners are responsible. Besides her, she knows someone on the other end of her street who raises chickens and she also has a friend who lives two minutes away from her home who keeps chickens.
"My neighbors didn't know I had chickens until I showed them," she said.
"One day I mentioned it and they were shocked. It disproves misconceptions of when people say, ‘Oh, they're smelly. Oh, they're loud.' "
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. | <urn:uuid:fe74b7f6-07e4-42d4-bf59-9cfd17d924f7> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.gatorsports.com/article/20130720/ARTICLES/130719514/0/news03 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720468.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00488-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975477 | 914 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Facebook and YouTube offer a limited level of compatibility. YouTube links on the social network automatically display a thumbnail, for example, but you can't tag your Facebook friends from the YouTube interface. To tag people in YouTube videos on Facebook, you need to create a Facebook update linking to the YouTube video, and then tag the update with the names of your friends. Alternatively, if you have access to the original video, you could upload it directly to Facebook and not utilise YouTube at all.
- Skill level:
Other People Are Reading
Open YouTube and browse to the video you want to use. Click "Share" and then copy the URL text in the "Share this video" box.
Log in to Facebook and click inside the "Update Status" box to begin creating the link. Alternatively you can browse to a friend's Timeline if you'd prefer to post the link on someone else's Facebook profile.
Paste in the URL you copied earlier and a thumbnail and description will appear. Tick the "No thumbnail" box if you'd rather hide the thumbnail, or click the light blue cross to the right to remove the thumbnail and the description.
Add any text required before or after the link you've pasted. Be careful not to alter any part of the URL itself.
Click the "Tag" icon and type out the names of the friends you want to tag. When the correct name appears, select it and begin typing the next one.
Use the audience selector drop-down to control the audience for your post and then click "Post" to publish it. The friends you've tagged will receive notifications of the post and other friends may see it in their news feed.
Tips and warnings
- The tags you add to the Facebook update are not transferred back to YouTube, and there's no indication on the YouTube video page that anyone has been tagged. The ability to tag Facebook friends on YouTube directly is not currently supported.
- By default, content tagged with the name of one of your friends can be seen by that person's friends as well. This behaviour can be altered from Facebook's privacy settings, but only for your own account, not the accounts of others.
- 20 of the funniest online reviews ever
- 14 Biggest lies people tell in online dating sites
- Hilarious things Google thinks you're trying to search for | <urn:uuid:ebe1545a-513a-43ce-9bff-8514eb40f5ce> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.ehow.co.uk/how_12266699_tag-people-videos-youtube-facebook.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720845.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00085-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.87328 | 478 | 1.859375 | 2 |
TUESDAY, March 22 (HealthDay News) -- Use of a class of cholesterol-lowering drugs called fibrates is on the rise in the United States despite research that suggests they may not do much to improve health, researchers say.
Fibrates are often prescribed to people with low levels of HDL ("good") cholesterol and high levels of triglycerides, a harmful form of fat circulating in the blood, experts explained.
The new study isn't questioning the ability of fibrates to lower triglycerides, said lead study author Cynthia A. Jackevicius, an associate professor of pharmacy at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, Calif. Fibrates have also been shown to have a "modest" effect on raising HDL cholesterol. (Statins, another hugely popular family of cholesterol drugs that includes brands such as Lipitor and Zocor, are used to lower LDL, or "bad, cholesterol.)
The real question, according to the study authors, is whether any decline in blood fats linked to fibrate use translates to a benefit to users' health.
They point to two recent large trials conducted in people with diabetes that found that taking fenofibrate, one type of fibrate, did not lower the risk of having a heart attack or dying compared to taking statins alone.
Fenofibrate is sold in a generic form and under the brand names Tricor, Antara, Lipofen and Triglide, among others, the researchers said.
"In some recent studies, the fibrates, particularly fenofibrate, was not found to reduce the chances of having a heart attack or of saving lives," Jackevicius said. "Just because the medicine may improve the cholesterol profile doesn't mean it also decreases the chance of a heart attack or death."
The study is published in the March 23/30 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
There is some research on fibrates that has shown a benefit in warding off heart attacks, although not overall mortality, according to the study. But in those studies, patients took another generic fibrate that's been on the market since the 1980s, called gemfibrozil (which raised some safety concerns when combined with certain statins).
But even though most of the positive data on fibrates has come from that older drug, the news research shows the major growth in prescriptions in the United States has come from fenofibrate -- particularly its more expensive brand-name forms, Jackevicius said.
Use of fibrates has increased steadily in the United States, especially for the brand-name fibrate product. Fenofibrates account for more than $1 billion in U.S. sales, according to background information in the study.
In the study, researchers compared U.S. and Canadian prescription data between January 2002 and December 2009.
In the United States, prescriptions for fibrate medication generally more than doubled -- from 336 prescriptions per 100,000 people in 2002 to 730 prescriptions per 100,000 people in December 2009. The increase in Canada wasn't as steep, from 402 to 474 per 100,000 people.
And in the United States, prescriptions specifically for fenofibrate nearly tripled -- from 150 prescriptions for every 100,000 people in 2002 to 440 for every 100,000 people in 2009. In Canada, fenofibrate's use rose much less steeply, from 321 to 429 per 100,000, the study found.
The researchers also found that physicians tended to prescribe the brand-name drug over generic fenofibrate in the United States, but not in Canada, while costs for fibrates for every 100,000 people were nearly three times higher in the United States than in Canada.
A generic form of fenofibrate has been available in Canada much longer than in the United States, Jackevicius noted.
She said the finding raised a key question for Americans consumers: "Why use the brand name drug if you can use in the less expensive generic?"
Despite the lack of benefit shown in the two studies in diabetics, Dr. Jorge Plutzky, an American Heart Association spokesman and director of the Brigham and Women's Hospital vascular disease prevention program, said that fibrates remain an important option for some patients, particularly those who've had a heart attack already and/or have very high triglyceride levels (above 300 milligrams per deciliter of blood) and very low HDL (below 35 mg/dL).
And he believes that, in a deeper look at the data in the studies of diabetics in the subgroup of people with very high triglycerides and very low HDL, fibrates may be beneficial. In addition, some patients in those studies were also taking statins, which may have obscured the benefits they might have derived from fibrates, Plutzky said.
"When physicians see patients whose LDLs [cholesterol] are well-controlled, but who still have residual risk with elevated trigylcerides and low HDL, fibrates are a potential target for that," Plutzsky said. "The evidence has not been a strong as we would have liked, but there is also evidence I would not be willing to ignore."
Doctors typically choose fenofibrate over older, generic gemfibozil because the former is a once-a-day dose, while the latter has to be taken twice a day, he said, and people are more likely to take a once-a-day medication. Whether people take the generic or the brand name is usually determined by the insurance plan, he added.
Researchers stressed that this research is not about statins, which have been shown in numerous studies to reduce the chances of a heart attack by lowering LDL cholesterol.
They also emphasized that patients should continue taking their fibrates as prescribed and talk to their doctor if they have any questions, Jackevicius said.
Eating a healthy diet, exercising, losing weight and improving diabetes control can help also improve the cholesterol profile, the researchers said.
The American Heart Association has more on cholesterol.
SOURCES: Cynthia A. Jackevicius, Pharm.D., M.Sc., associate professor, pharmacy, Western University of Health Sciences, Pomona, Calif.; Jorge Plutzky, M.D., American Heart Association spokesman, and director, Brigham and Women's Hospital, vascular disease prevention program; JAMA, March 23/30, 2011.
All rights reserved | <urn:uuid:44381297-5159-4c13-9ca4-d0fea923f2a3> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news-1/Study-Questions-Rise-in-Use-of-Certain-Cholesterol-Drugs-80328-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719215.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00200-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952946 | 1,358 | 2.640625 | 3 |
I don’t know many people who like poetry, though I do know a good number of people who read. Poetry remains rarefied and uninviting—or is the better word unappealing?—which is why I suspect National Poetry Month consistently passes uncelebrated and unacknowledged in the lives of most Americans. Poetry is the country music to those who might otherwise fancy themselves readers of everything, the form of writing almost all otherwise enthusiastic readers (of fiction and history and short stories and essays…) are excused for eschewing.
That isn’t to say people hate poetry. On the contrary, those who don’t read it often look upon the genre with benevolence, maybe even fond indulgence. When someone finds out I went to grad school to study poetry, they are almost inevitably charmed, if only with my precocious embrace of un-employability. What a cute, quaint, harmless pastime, their smiles imply, like I actually got a Masters in Floral Management.
Though it’s arguably the most persistent, adaptable, iconoclastic form of art, poetry has more unpleasant stereotypes to buck than any other. It’s been a few years since I was in grade school, but I remember the poetry taught then as written almost exclusively by long-dead British men and a handful of more recently dead white American men. Oh, and Emily Dickinson.
Those poets rhymed and used strict meter, which sounded silly and childish to me, and they concerned themselves with being clever, somber, or impenetrable on topics such as fleas, fences, and birds. Even if they were sometimes fun—“The Raven” is fun!—they didn’t move me. They didn’t feel vital or connected to life, and so I learned that poems were either trifles you could forget as soon as you left class, or boring, old codes you were saddled with cracking to pass a class.
It wasn’t until the summer after high school that I came to love poetry by accident, on my own, while reading a book that quoted a Russell Edson poem. Just a few lines were enough to get me hooked, and lead me to plumb the depths of my local library for more from Dadaists, haiku masters, and Nobel Prize winners (like Czeslaw Milosz). I kept hunting for another hit of the good stuff. Poetry accesses—and sometimes articulates—a deeper emotional level than conversation. If you drink from the right cup, you get drunk; once poetry has grabbed you, it won’t let go. When I meet another member of the poetry cabal, we recite our favorite stanzas and eagerly swap names of little-known poets, the ones whose work we treasure the most.
In honor of National Poetry Month, then, here are some poems that might inspire non-poetry readers to reconsider their abstinence. My only criteria for inclusion: the poem had to be written by a living American, and it had to be good. There’s no pressure to “get” anything about a certain poem and no quiz about symbolism or syllables at the end. This is purely for pleasure, not for points.
Think of it as a poetry tasting menu. You may encounter some new flavors and new combinations, and you won’t like them all equally. But what you do like might expand your palate. You can read more from each of these poets online and in print, so the party doesn’t need to stop here.
All their fences
All their prisons
All their exercises
All their agendas
Thomas Sayers Ellis’s “All Their Stanzas Look Alike” is a scathing indictment of whiteness, capitalism, academia, hegemony, and the poetry sanctioned and propagated by institutions shaped by those forces. There’s no poem more perfect to help buck off the old order and usher in the new.
My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn’t,
dammit: No tears.
Vietnam vet Yusef Komunyakaa’s “Facing It,” his poem on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, is powerful and pure, with an ending that masterfully unites devastation and hope.
For a month I tried to think of what to say
how many times you’ve swept a kitchen knife
across your neckline and said, This is how
you end a marriage, how many more wicks you light
EJ Koh’s poems are condensed, haunting, and specific. This one, “To My Mother Kneeling In The Cactus Garden,” is worth reading again and again.
Finally, one you don’t even have to read! Just sit back and listen to “Somewhere in the Bottom of the Rain,” Steve Roggenbuck’s earnest love poem that filters a narrator’s desire through a corn maze, rain, and raccoons. (If you’d rather read it in print, you can find it in DOWNLOAD HELVETICA FOR FREE.COM—but this one, like all his work, is best when he reads it aloud.)
I am always hungry
& wanting to have
sex. This is a fact.
Another love poem; I’m sorry, they’re unavoidable. This one, “Peanut Butter,” is by Eileen Myles and it’s almost excruciatingly sweet. It’s also a refutation of the idea that happiness or contentment can’t inspire or be the subject of great art.
Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil
probably fell down there.
And the drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty
dishes have piled up
waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the everyday
we spoke of.
“What The Living Do”: Marie Howe’s unaffected, conversational elegy accumulates intensity so subtly that the reader, too, is almost rendered speechless at the end.
These are the first days of fall. The wind
at evening smells of roads still to be traveled,
while the sound of leaves blowing across the lawns
is like an unsettled feeling in the blood
“How To Like It,” Stephen Dobyn’s allegory of a dog and a man, has to be one of the most likable poems of all time. And I know I promised no hidden meanings, so, if you’d like, disregard the “allegory” mention above and assume it features an actual talking dog.
Here’s another one you can watch. Denice Frohman’s “Dear Straight People” is an exuberant, tender tribute to queerness that slyly refuses straight people the satisfaction of the poem really being about them. Her charismatic delivery lends a lot; but this, like many poems, is also impressively funny on the page.
Poems don’t need to be long to have intensity and staying power. (And not all short poems are haikus.) Some, in fact, can even be 140 characters, the length of a tweet. Like this poem, “End Piece,” written by Yoko Ono. It appears, in its four-line entirety, as the last piece in her book Acorn: | <urn:uuid:c50ae59c-8dd9-4f26-a4c4-a87401311c9b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://newrepublic.com/article/121543/its-national-poetry-month-and-you-havent-read-single-poem-yet | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281162.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00534-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948963 | 1,593 | 1.851563 | 2 |
Imperial Triumph : The Roman World from Hadrian to Constantine Hardback
Imperial Triumph presents the history of Rome at the height of its imperial power.
Beginning with the reign of Hadrian in Rome and ending with the death of Julian the Apostate on campaign in Persia, it offers an intimate account of the twists and often deadly turns of imperial politics in which successive emperors rose and fell with sometimes bewildering rapidity.
Yet, despite this volatility, the Romans were able to see off successive attacks by Parthians, Germans, Persians and Goths and to extend and entrench their position as masters of Europe and the Mediterranean.
Imperial Triumph shows how they managed to do it. Michael Kulikowski describes the empire's cultural integration in the second century, the political crises of the third when Rome's Mediterranean world became subject to the larger forces of Eurasian history, and the remaking of Roman imperial institutions in the fourth century under Constantine and his son Constantius II.
The Constantinian revolution, Professor Kulikowski argues, was the pivot on which imperial fortunes turned - the beginning of the parting of ways between the eastern and western empires. This sweeping account of one of the world's greatest empires is incisive, readable and authoritative.
- Format: Hardback
- Pages: 386 pages, 7 maps, 16 page color plate section
- Publisher: Profile Books Ltd
- Publication Date: 15/09/2016
- Category: European history
- ISBN: 9781846683701 | <urn:uuid:d6080849-80cd-4832-bc21-d7f32355b8ba> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.speedyhen.com/Product/Michael-Kulikowski/Imperial-Triumph--The-Roman-World-from-Hadrian-to-Constantine/19798735 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281331.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00222-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906418 | 307 | 2.390625 | 2 |
Geri Gust stopped the conversation when she noticed an unlikely survivor of the wildfires dangling from a branch.
“Hey, I still have wind chimes!” she said, walking over to a bush at the edge of her property and unhooking a butterfly-shaped ornament with a large green marble inside a metal spiral. “Just look at that!”
It was a discordant moment of forced joy amid the ruined landscape that is much of Gates, a tiny town east of Salem that suffered an outsize proportion of the damage wrought by this season’s second-largest fire in the early morning hours after Labor Day.
Just over two weeks after the flames tore through the canyon, destroying hundreds of homes and killing four people, the mental and emotional fog has been slow to clear for the town’s residents.
Some rummaged through ash, metal, roof tiles and stray concrete in search of tools, resilient trinkets and anything else that may have survived. Utility workers along Oregon 22, the main road through the Santiam Canyon, cleared debris and mended power lines. Locals who still have homes managed a torrent of donations to help those who don’t.
For the most part, though, the real work has yet to start. Much of what was destroyed remains in undisturbed piles of rubble, often next to the skeletal remains of cars – one of the few possessions still recognizable after a blaze.
The Beachie Creek fire, which combined with fires near Gates started by downed power lines, destroyed 486 homes across the approximately 193,000 acres it touched, state officials said.
At first glance, the carnage can be hypnotizing, drawing gasps and pulling newcomers' eyes to those objects that kept the form of what they were before Sept. 7. But the piles of debris strewn through the town quickly dissolve into a single gray, black and rust-brown scene.
From the beginning, the emotions have been complicated.
Gust, 64, said she evacuated her home just before it was too late. She couldn’t bring herself to do anything to get ready to leave, she said, and sat in a corner and cried.
“I sucked my thumb,” she said, “crying like a baby.”
WILDFIRE TRACKER: See all fires in Oregon and across the nation
Back this Tuesday with her boyfriend, Gust was trying to hook a neighbor’s camper to a friend’s pick-up truck, so they had somewhere better than a tent to store the things they extracted from the remains of their double-wide manufactured home.
But the friend’s truck wasn’t wide enough. That meant they couldn’t move the camper the 40 or so feet from one property to the next.
Gust was categorical when asked if she would consider using the camper while it was on the neighbor’s property.
“At some point, your pride just kicks in,” she said.
The couple has applied for Federal Emergency Management Agency help twice. They were denied both times. The Red Cross is putting them up at a hotel until Oct. 2, and they’re still not sure where they’ll go next. Their home was not insured.
‘STRANGE THINGS HAPPEN’
For some, hope is the only option when they don’t know what happened to their most precious possessions.
Fran Howe and her husband Larry Tripoli pulled past the Marion County Sheriff’s Office and National Guard roadblock at milepost 33, on the eastern edge of Gates, followed by two friends who came from Seattle. It was the second visit to their property since it burned down in as many days.
An insurance adjuster was on the scene when they arrived, his laptop on the trunk of the car.
The Santiam River flowed nearby as a chainsaw on their neighbor’s property buzzed, interrupted by the intermittent crack-thud of falling trees. The smell of soot wafted up the property on a breeze coming up from the river and past the leveled house.
Howe’s childhood friend, Deb Fitz, stood in the corner of what used to be the dining room, where Howe kept an antique chest with jewelry she had collected for years, and fished out a bent and discolored silver bracelet with a centerpiece stone – the most intact item she found.
Fitz and Howe, both 63 and former military kids, have been friends since second grade. They stayed close even as their fathers moved bases.
Fitz eventually moved to Seattle, and she and her partner would come down to visit at least a few times a year. They would sit on the deck facing the Santiam, drink sangria and watch rafters go down the river. The last time Fitz was here was also for a difficult occasion: Howe’s mother was dying.
Now, Fitz said she and her partner have come to help any way they can, though they’re mostly in “listening and hugging mode” for now.
“It’s a blank sheet of paper,” she said, “And I want for them to scribble in and let us know what they need.”
She turned around from the dining room corner where she was fishing for jewelry and, laughing, pointed to a lop-sided, rusted and collapsed bed frame: The bed she’d use when she visited.
Howe has also found some unexpected things. In the remains of a shed packed with holiday decorations, Howe found a flat porcelain Christmas ornament with Santa depicted on one side. It needed no more than a moist wipe to look fresh.
But what Howe is really looking for is far more precious -- the wooden urn containing her mother’s ashes. The box was in a nightstand on the first floor, Howe said, so perhaps it was protected when the second floor collapsed. It’s worth a shot.
Howe has two weeks to look for that and anything else she wants to keep before she goes in for back surgery, after which it will be difficult to do more than the most basic physical tasks, and her husband will have to take over.
Then, there’s her cat, Minoue.
Moments before the couple ran down to the Santiam River to escape the approaching fire, Tripoli opened a sliding glass door. He hoped the cat, which had hidden under a bed, would know to bolt if the fire got to the house. If it did, then Howe wasn’t worried, she said. It had been feral and could survive in the woods.
The first time she came back after the fires, Howe brought two metal bowls for food and water and put them in front of the pole barn that stands unscathed next to the home’s remains.
“I hope she’ll come,” Howe said.
The hard choice ahead will be whether they should rebuild. First, the septic tank, well and trees must be inspected. Then, they have to think – something there’s been little time for in the last two weeks.
It’s a complicated decision. They love the space – they put 13 years into it and had planned to retire there. But the reality of reconstruction is daunting.
“I think it would be sad if we leave,” Howe said. “But it’s going to be sad if we rebuild, too.”
Fitz was quiet, spending minutes at a time simply looking in the direction of the gutted house and the river. It hit her for the first time how close her friends were to the fires – the ground was scorched almost all the way to the riverbank.
The work with the insurance company wrapped up in about two hours. Fitz got in the car to start towards Salem. A carrier Howe wanted to take in case they found the cat was in the back.
Fitz had looked at the bowl of food Howe had left the previous day. It looked like it hadn’t been touched.
“But, you know,” she said. “Strange things happen.”
Rick Smart and Jeremy Smith stood outside of Kelly Lumber Sales, in Mill City, a town west of Gates that also sustained damage in the wildfires, though not nearly as bad as Gates.
The men tripped over each other to describe the work they had done to help the community.
Smith, 44, said he had put his crew of five concrete-layers on 12-hour shifts hauling water and hose houses down to protect them from encroaching fires, he said, and personally spent about $750 on fuel and $8,000 to pay his employees to do it. Smart, meanwhile, said locals had been coming to his Facebook page for live updates on their homes.
Smart called Smith to let him know his home was still standing.
“I said, ‘Bro, we’re saving houses,’” Smith said.
Neither one of them took anything for the work they did, though an anonymous donor paid Smith’s water bill for the next six months or so, he said.
This video contains graphic language:
A White Grand Cherokee Jeep pulled over as they spoke. A woman stepped out and walked up to Smart, pushing a small wad of cash towards his chest.
“I don’t want that,” Smart, 46, said as she implored him to take the money. “You know better than that.”
“I know you, that’s why I want to help,” she replied as he tried to turn away.
All he could do was offer her a hug, he said. And then another one.
“Keep your head up,” Smith told her. “It’s all going to be good.”
“Canyon strong,” she said, before heading back to the car.
The men collected themselves, looking down at the ground and then each other.
“I was right about to tell her to split,” Smith said. “Before I got emotional.”
‘IT’S OVER, MAN’
Perry Drevo sat in a chair on the neighbor’s nearly immaculate lawn. That neighbor’s home was untouched, the green grass offering little to no fuel for the fire. But Drevo’s home was leveled, charred remains of appliances sticking out from pieces of slate, metal and ash.
Drevo, 74, said that before she evacuated, she grabbed only her puppy, an Australian Shepherd named Eddy, and two days' worth of clothes.
“The rest,” she said, “well, you can see what happened.”
The house, on the Linn County side of Gates, stood right on the bank of the Santiam River, and her son, Sam Drevo, needed to clear the toxic ash from the area closest to the bank before the rains came. The area nearest to the river was covered with the remains of a deck Sam Drevo built in the spring – his “covid deck.”
Trees flanked the opposite bank, and salmon were spawning in a small eddy.
“This is Salem’s drinking water,” Sam Drevo said. “Think about that.”
The first order of business that Monday was to remove the thousands of screws he’d used on the deck. He and his friend, Andrew Hansen, rolled a wheeled magnet back and forth across the soft ground, then lifted the contraption over a wheelbarrow and let the screws fall with a clatter.
A hole in the ground hidden in the trees emitted a slow plume of smoke that Sam Drevo and Hansen hadn’t noticed at first.
“Not too much to worry about burning down now,” Sam Drevo said after Hansen pointed out the spot fire.
Sam Drevo, who’d also lost property in the fire, brought a crew of about 15 people in to finish the job Tuesday. They brought in five tons of hay that they laid over the ground near the bank of four nearby homes and laid down tubes by the river to prevent erosion.
Still, Sam Drevo isn’t hopeful about the future of the town or the river. He listed a variety of numbers, from the hundreds of thousands of acres burned to the homes destroyed.
“It’s over, man, it’s over,” Sam Drevo said. “I don’t know what to say.”
Were you affected by the wildfires? Get in touch.
-- Fedor Zarkhin | <urn:uuid:a6c383c1-9b0e-457e-bd9f-45ada6eaf36e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.oregonlive.com/wildfires/2020/09/locals-band-together-grieve-amid-remains-of-beachie-creek-wildfire-devastation.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571198.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810161541-20220810191541-00266.warc.gz | en | 0.975749 | 2,700 | 1.53125 | 2 |
By Sikivu Hutchinson
I have a vivid memory of the first time I became aware that children could die. It was early evening in the leisurely dusk of summer, and after eating with my mother at a local coffee shop, we passed by a newspaper vending machine outside. A child victim, kidnapped, murdered and disposed of like garbage, stared ominously out at me from the front page of the paper in grainy black and white. I remember my sense of horror when my mother told me that the child, who was approximately my age, would never see his parents again. Associating death with old people, I was stupefied by this seeming contradiction. Although raised heretically in a secular household, I had been corrupted by the prayer-saturated social universe of waxen blue-eyed Jesus’ plastered on my friends’ living room walls. Alone in my bed that night, I wondered how “God” could have countenanced such unspeakable evil.
Decades later there is an aching space where this child’s life would have been, his personhood “frozen” at abduction. Violent death by homicide at an early age is a grim reality for many youth of color. Gangsta rap romanticizes it and dishes it up for the voyeurism of white suburbia. Mainstream media ignores it or relegates it to social pathology. Every semester when I ask my students if they’ve had a young friend or relative die violently at least half will raise their hands. Their tattoos, notebooks and Sidekick phones are filled with vibrant mementoes for the dead. It is not necessary to go to Iraq, Afghanistan or some other theatre of American imperialism to experience the devastation that the killing fields of disposable youth inflicts. Yet, God takes care of children and fools, or so the shopworn saying goes. In the midst of sudden death there is refuge in the belief that the Cecil B. De Mille epic doomsayer of the Old Testament must have a special place in his heart for this tender constituency. Pied Piper religionists pat children on the head and whisper into their dewy ears that the murder of an innocent child is part of some grand design. They dish up the concept of divine providence like hard candy. They lure sweet-toothed youth with a ready “antidote” to the quandary of trying to make sense out of the senselessness and randomness of evil. The Wynken, Blynken and Nod bedtime story of grand design is chased down with the simple carrot of eternal reward for slain innocents. The inexplicable is assimilated. Senseless evil, evil that befalls the good and stalks the innocent, is legitimized as part of the divine’s hardscrabble boot camp for the living.
If it can be understood, it isn’t God, said Augustine. In ambiguity then, prayer is the great equalizer and potential redeemer. As American children we grow up with recurring images of kneeling girls and boys, hands clasped solemnly in prayer. These images propagandize faith as a normal, natural phenomenon. The magic bullet of prayer is trotted out as an escape hatch from the small indignity to the unspeakably cruel act of wild-oats-sewing youth. Bad kids pray obsessively for forgiveness. Good kids pray strategically in crisp starched pajamas for family members, friends, and Fido to be delivered to the top of God’s check list. Sinful thoughts can be defused by requesting a special audience with God. Good thoughts can be “deposited” into one’s virtual piggy bank of moral worth.
Blasting the hypocrisy of this brand of yo-yo morality in the Doors’ song “the Soft Parade,” Jim Morrison bellows:
When I was back there in seminary school, a person put forth the proposition that you can petition the Lord with prayer…petition the Lord with prayer…petition the Lord with prayer…You cannot petition the Lord with prayer!!!
Morrison’s fierce monologue highlights the absurdity of prayer as a form of negotiation. Clearly, the more meditative personal and intimate benefits of prayer can be therapeutic to the believer. Yet, the assumption that prayer can be a bargaining chip in moments of crisis merely allows individuals to refuse to accept responsibility for their actions. Children who are indoctrinated into this escape hatch mentality are forced early on to reconcile an out of control, evil, morally rudderless world with the illusion of a forgiving tailor-made God that they can summon like hocus pocus. Picking and choosing morality and dividing the world into the Christian “us” and the immoral, unwashed secular/Muslim/Hindu/“them,” “faith-based” children are socialized to see and enforce hierarchies of personhood rather than embrace fellowship.
Since God sees and “forgives” everything that is petitioned, the moral universe of children is a tiny, confining funhouse of mirrors. In communities where death at an early age is considered unremarkable by mainstream media and policymakers, the deferment demanded by faith is an insurance policy against social oblivion. When death is near, it is easy to arm a child with the “faith” that their 15 year-old cousin, killed in a drive-by shooting, has gone on to a “better place.” When death is near, the fear of retaliation for being a “snitch” compels crime witnesses to remain silent. As a result, homicide cases remain open indefinitely while perpetrators walk around free and clear in the same neighborhoods. Yet faith allows victims and witnesses to rationalize this seeming contradiction. God will take care of the evildoer in the afterlife, whilst granting the departed everlasting peace and deliverance in heaven.
And for the parents of a dead child it is said that God doesn’t give you more than you can handle. Having lost a child to a congenital disease, this is bitter refuge and rank fraud. This reductive homily has been especially tailored to domesticate and seduce women, saddled with a thousand obligations, the primary care of children and infirm relatives, dead end jobs with marginal pay. It is God’s will that you be eaten alive by the “womanly” stress of always being expected to defer, sacrifice and persevere. And it is God’s will that you must bite back your Eve-bequeathed rage in silent complicity.
In my infant son’s final hours, I stared down at the phalanx of tubes that separated him from death. Soon, they said, he will be an angel. I could feel nothing but the obscenity of divine providence, the mockery of robust babies whisked from the delivery room to pink and blue splattered nurseries without incident, innocent of the antiseptic drone of the neonatal ICU.
But then, there is the stripped-to-the-bone eloquence of women waiting for deliverance; like that depicted in a story I read recently about a homeless Haitian single mother’s heartbreaking quest for permanent shelter. Desperately she waits for God to “put something into her hand,” to perhaps give her a sign that she won’t be like scores of parents fated by this rudderless God to outlive their young children.
Sikivu Hutchinson is the editor of blackfemlens.org and a senior fellow for the Institute for Humanist Studies. | <urn:uuid:2642b026-561c-4116-905e-80764cf1209a> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://the-orbit.net/blackskeptics/2010/08/?wpmp_switcher=mobile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721387.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00447-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941672 | 1,576 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Remember all the hullaballoo in October over The Wall Street Journal's report that third-party Facebook developers were leaking user information to Internet tracking firms? Turns out those privacy concerns may have been justified. Facebook recently acknowledged that some developers were deliberately selling user IDs (UIDs) to data brokerage firms. UIDs are uniquely identifying numbers that can be used to find your Facebook profile and any profile information you have made publicly available.
You and Your Facebook UID
At a minimum, knowing your UID can show someone your name and Facebook likes, but many users also leave other information public such as their location and friends list. The brokers could use any information they find on your Facebook profile and sell it to advertisers.
Facebook says "fewer than a dozen" Facebook application developers were selling UIDs to data brokerage firms. As a result of their naughty behavior, the data-selling developers have been suspended from Facebook for six months. Facebook will also audit the developers to make sure they don't sell Facebook user information again. The social network also says it is working on a technical solution to make it impossible for developers to leak UIDs in the future.
Facebook didn't name the developers or the applications they produced, but the company did say they were "mostly small" Facebook application makers and none were behind the top 10 applications on Facebook.
Facebook's Privacy Problems
Facebook has long been criticized over how it manages user data and privacy. Shortly after the social network's developer conference in April, the company came under fire for allowing developers to store user data indefinitely. Previously, developers could only hold user data for 24 hours. The Electronic Privacy Information Center along with 14 other consumer protection groups in May launched a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission over Facebook's treatment of user privacy. In October, Congressmen Edward Markey (D., Mass.) and Joe Barton (R., Texas) sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg about concerns surrounding third-party developers leaking information to advertising and tracking firms.
Some of Facebook's partners have also been pulled into the social network's latest privacy scandal. Popular Facebook developer Zynga--the company behind games such as Farmville and Mafia Wars--was recently the target of a class-action lawsuit over its alleged treatment of Facebook user data.
Facebook Privacy Scandal or Much Ado About Nothing?
Even if you account for the fact that some developers were selling user IDs to data brokerage firms, it is debatable about how serious this so-called privacy breach really is. Knowing your user ID cannot reveal any private information you have on Facebook, and some have likened knowing your UID to finding your name and address in the phone book. Regardless, it is reassuring to hear that Facebook has zero tolerance for data leakers and is punishing those who violated Facebook's policies and sold UIDs to outside firms. | <urn:uuid:4348f449-ce1e-481f-865d-8dd39e0e4ec7> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.pcworld.com/article/209403/facebook_nails_developers_leaking_user_data.html?tk=rel_news | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281419.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00493-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954025 | 570 | 1.546875 | 2 |
The iconic clay courts of the Stade de Roland Garros should be familiar to any tennis fan. In fact, the French Open is called the Roland Garros Tournament in France. And here's a secret for Snoopy fans: In WWI, Roland Garros was the first fighter pilot to ever be known as an “ace.” But the courts actually have a limestone base; the main court has seating for almost 15,000.
Within the complex is the Tenniseum, which houses trophies and multimedia exhibits on the history of the Open. Tennis fans will also want to sneak a peak at Court 1, known to French Open spectators as the Bullring.
Métro line 10 is the closest; note that the westbound stop is Porte d'Auteuil and the eastbound stop is Michel-Ange – Molitor.
Photo courtesy of rolandgarros | <urn:uuid:c0c9bcbb-52d6-4299-9814-997436d88dd3> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.viator.com/Paris-attractions/Stade-Roland-Garros/d479-a7849 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00047-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947925 | 182 | 1.992188 | 2 |
Futurity Systems : A company designing the future from research to design for a long-term & impact-oriented innovation
Her-Age team has interviewed Cecilia Mosze Tham, Founder & Social technologist at Futurity Systems which is a company specialized in designing the future from research to design for accelerating the corporate journey of tomorrow.
- Cecilia, can you tell us about yourself and what is your background in the tech Industry?
Born in HK, grew up in Macao and left for the US at 14 years old. I received my Bachelor degree in Biology and a master in Architecture at Harvard. Soon after, I moved to Barcelona, for the love of the city and have been my base ever since.
Started my first company Makers of Barcelona, the first coworking community of its kind in Barcelona. The hooked on entrepreneurship. Started FabCafe Barcelona, coffee shop meets digital fabrication. Then all women, an education platform to train the next generation of women leadership-in-tech made women by women. I also worked for the first moonshot factory in Europe, launched by Telefonica, spearheading the ideation team to create the engine as well as the projects for moonshot Telefonica. In 2020, in the midst of COVID, I decided to launch Futurity Systems, our own moonshot development platform to help companies and organizations tackle uncertainties for the future. We proactively prototype and engineer tangible desirable futures for our clients via emerging technologies ranging from AI to Blockchain.
- As a founder, what inspired you to start with Futurity systems ? and how did you develop it ?
There has been a lack of tools and methodologies in navigating the future and incorporating long term thinking into companies strategies. The need for this is more urgent than ever post COVID now that uncertainties and unintentional consequences are increasing … We took our learnings and experiences from building the moonshot factory for Telefonica into building Futurity Systems in providing these insights for companies. It's not about theorizing what might be in the future, it is about actively engineering what is possible and desirable. We build tangible prototypes to rapidly learn from what is possible and project those consequences based on data and 1st hand insights.
- What kind of companies do you help find growth opportunities and de-risk innovation ? and what strategies do you follow to find the best results to accelerate the business ?
We work with multinational companies and global organizations, specifically with their innovation and moonshot departments, in assessing and implementing their futuring needs. We find that long-term thinking strategies and future-driven innovation requires executive decision-making because companies need to look beyond the short-term horizon of their return of investments. We apply a three prong approach to hone in on the problem but intersecting strategic forecasts with a rigorous understanding of the capabilities of science-based emerging technology together with a creative design layer to synthesize future possibilities that we can test via prototyping.
- Your slogan is FUTURES-AS-A-SERVICE what does it refer to ? and why did you choose it to represent futurity systems ?
In plain and simple terms, we work for the future. We work to ensure an equitable and sustainable future, for generations to come, that is based on planetary inclusivity. Sometimes our work is difficult to understand, because we don't necessarily see value in investing in the future, because we live in the present. To make this relatable and understandable, we apply the same logic as other contemporary and necessary services of our time, such as software-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service. In some ways, we are very similar to other anything-as-a-service providers, as we have our own data science and ML tools to help us navigate futures and innovations in an exponential way.
- As a Social Technologist how do you come up with solutions in the intersection between technology, impact, and business opportunity ?
We mainly use our methodology Synthesizing Futures as a way to integrate these different perspectives.
Synthesizing Futures is a four-step future-focused multidisciplinary approach to tackle uncertainties, understand emerging company needs, communicate vision, accelerate development, and plan a roadmap to desirable and sustainable future growth.
Mapping the Futures Space via Futures Wheel to generate multiple scenarios and solutions. The team collectively will create detailed projections of positive and negative consequences for both individuals as well as the company, to identify the most desirable courses of action for all. Here is the anatomy of what the Futures Wheel looks like.
Building Future Worlds involves creating context and narrative around your desired future idea. Combining techniques used in stories and screenplays, participants put themselves in the life of customers and users - thus improving the product idea and thinking through how to communicate it.
Designing Future Artifacts is about making prototypes for fast testing with colleagues, clients, and other audiences. Building and designing an artifact can also help you make decisions and open up new ideas and possibilities that a mere thought- or digital exercise would not uncover.
Creating Future Roadmaps or backcasting guides a plan of action in order to get to the desired future, by working backwards in steps to the present day from the future scenario you created.
In essence, Synthesizing Futures allow us to explore, ideate and prototype futures scenarios as means to rehearse and gain insights about the futures designed to weave through business strategies, design ideation, emerging technologies as well as potential impact.
- Futurity systems has announced the showcasing of the latest digital goods and artifacts as non-fungible plants. Can you tell more about plantiverse and what is the advantage of buying non-fungible trees ?
For centuries and millennia, humans have dominated the earth, dominating species, “domesticating” animals, and claiming ownership to nature and its resources.
As the consequences of our human centricities impact the earth, what if it is time for other non-humans to gain autonomy, and even rights, on par with humans?
Our project Plantiverse started out with this exploration of non-human rights for plants, by giving them autonomy.
We gave Herbie, our autonomous plant, autonomy, and that means that Herbie can make certain decisions, on his own. We put sensors to Herbie, light, ph, water reservoir, and humidity, and added mobility so that Herbie, when in need of water or light, will go to the water source / light source as needed.
As Herbie starts gaining mobility and decision making power, we started asking ourselves, can Herbie have economic power? What if Herbie is a herb plant and can deliver and sell its herbs and leaves to people? And if Herbie can sell, and can “earn” money, can Herbie have a bank account? Can Herbie, have ownership of things, vote, or even have planetary citizenship?
But how would that manifest in the real world?
With the latest development of decentralization of web 3, where data and trust are designed based on decentralized and individual non-custodial ownership of data and goods , could plants and other non-humans have the same access in the metaverse and could they, through their digital twins, gain these rights and empowerment?
This is the basis of the Plantiverse.
We enabled a family of plants, Herbie, Minty and a fleet of other plants, with sensors. These sensors, in turn, give readings that are then paired with a particular output of an image, Leave colors, for example, indicate water level...
The rendering, then, becomes a visualization of physiological status of the plant itself, essentially a digital twin, or avatar, of the plant in real life.
Not only so, we subsequently created a plant-governed DAO so that plants themselves will have the ability to decide how the funds of these NFTrees should be spent. If the water level is low, then the funds will then go towards water focused initiatives, for example.
After this first iteration, we are now working on the 2nd generation of NFTrees where the trees are now generated in 3D and can be “planted” via geolocation in the place of your choice and can be viewed via our own augmented reality application of SOFT (Store of Future Things) app.
In our future pipeline, we are hoping to extend this project and place sensors in the forest in the same capacity to monitor forestry health and convert those as NFTrees as well. Other initiatives, such as placing sensors in the ocean to monitor ocean health, can then be turned into NFSeas with visualizations of reefs and corals that people can buy and funds can go towards blue initiatives, NFBees for bee health.
This project is about using metaverse, NFT and digital twins as a mechanism for non-humans to gain equal rights so that we can truly establish a fully integrated and diverse approach to earth stewardship, an interspecies metaverse.
- In today's world how important is it to follow a sustainable business model and how can brands develop that ?
It is not only fundamental if not crucial to our survivability. Capitalism, while great in the past and helped many nations out of poverty, desperately needs to be reinvented and we are now looking at a regenerative economic model as an alternative.
Brands need to understand what is the total cost of consumption (economic, social, health, and most importantly environmental) and create a regenerative model that calculates all those factors to create net positive outcomes on all of the factors. One of the biggest theories we have at Futurity Systems, is that our consumption in the last 100 years has shifted from sustenance to pleasure, increasingly creating unsustainable and irresponsible consumption to a new level, combining with the fact that consumers are so many layers removed from the actual source of what they are consuming, therefore also psychologically removed from the true value of cost of what they have consumed. We looked at the need to separate essential consumption from hedonic consumption, and seek ways to replace our hedonic consumption digitally. Do we really need to buy that vase that has no utility that sits on our shelves or can we replace it with an NFT version that we can view via AR and can enjoy equally?
One way for brands to pivot is to understand how this shift to digital hedonic consumption could be a way to tackle unsustainable consumption without curbing our consumption appetite.
- We found that you have different plantbots herbie and minty ? What do they do and what is the difference between them ? are they out in the market to be sold to people
Yes, we have an army of plantbots whom we work for. Each of the plants is equipped with a body of sensors that relate their plant health status to us. They are our first line of experimental subjects to be replicated as digital twins, aka NFTrees for Plantiverse, our interspecies metaverse project. The plants are different in the same way that you and I are different. We are currently in the prototyping phase but the idea is that these sensors will be placed in forests or oceans, or other ecosystems, to create digital twins to monitor their health and progress, via the form of NFT and DAO for governance, transparency and traceability. Money that is raised via the sales of the NFTrees will be put back in funding sustainable projects. We are currently building the first plant-governed DAO so that the funds can be directed based on the needs of the plants themselves.
- What is the sustainable impact of the futurity system and how will it help protect the environment ?
I think it's really hard to say, but we are trying, like many others. We want to be in the position of being proactive in helping curb our unsustainable habits. It's a collective responsibility but it is one that we have to own up, for our past mistakes and for our unintended consequences.
- What is your future of the futurity systems and where do you see it going ?
We would like to see our tools, methods and even mindset being applied and used, insofar that it is helpful, and we will continue to improve our toolkits so that it is relevant to the application. We hope to drive Futurity Systems’ future based on purpose and impact. We hope to scale our impact via our expertise and capabilities as well as technologies that we see relevant. | <urn:uuid:7ad0bf9e-9b43-4560-82d7-c84084bd5aa9> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://her-age.com/blogs/la-gazetta/futurity-systems-designing-the-future-from-research-and-foresight-to-design-and-prototyping | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573104.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817183340-20220817213340-00472.warc.gz | en | 0.947762 | 2,568 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Designing with Scenarios: Putting Personas to Work
This article is an excerpt from the podcast that Adam and Kim recorded after her virtual seminar, Designing with Scenarios: Putting Personas to Work. You can hear the full podcast or read the transcript on the podcasts page.
Adam Churchill: Is it a true that scenarios only work if you have have data-driven personas? Have you seen scenarios used effectively, even if the research can’t be funded?
Kim Goodwin: Great question. I think that you can do scenarios without data.
It’s better to have data if you can because it has a few benefits. One is, you’re more confident that you’re getting to a good answer. And it makes it a lot easier to make design decisions because instead of wondering how a person would react, you actually know. This is assuming you know them well.
Think of it like you’re planning an event, or buying a gift for someone close to you, versus, say, buying a gift for your child’s teacher or an acquaintance you don’t know well.
The first one is a whole lot easier than the second one, and data gives you the confidence that you’re doing the right thing. Secondly, the data helps you persuade stakeholders. It’s not you, the designer, who is probably pretty low on the totem pole, saying this is how it should be. It’s you, the designer, channeling the users and saying, “Look, based on our data, here’s how people think and act, and so here’s why this is a great solution.”
So, data is best, but not always necessary. I definitely do scenarios without data. A few weeks ago, I was working with some subject matter experts on an idea for a medical device. Four of us sat in a room, and we didn’t have data. The point was to get to some design ideas fairly quickly, so that they could explore the feasibility of this idea.
It didn’t make a lot of sense for us to go get data, and we said, “OK, let’s build some shared assumptions about the kinds of users we’re talking about.” We came up with what I call provisional personas, which are like sketchy representations of what we think the usage patterns and goals are. Then we used those to create scenarios just as we normally would.
Regardless of the absence of data, scenarios are a design tool you can always use. You’re just going to be making decisions and communicating with a bit less confidence when you don’t have data. But the tool still works great.
Adam: Can you explain the difference between scenarios and a storyboard?
Kim: A scenario is the story, it’s the script. It’s the words that describe the action. A storyboard, on the other hand, is the graphic depiction of that action. For instance, the movie extras on your DVDs or your Blu-ray where they show scenes building or sketches stuck on the wall. That’s what I mean when I talk about a storyboard.
It’s essentially at a thumbnail level, but the key to storyboarding is the depiction of sequence over time, right? A storyboard can be a very rough napkin sketch. If you’re talking about a high-level service design, like getting through the airport, you might have stick figures walking through physical space. If you’re doing just a screen-based design, you probably won’t storyboard your first pass at the scenario because it’s so high-level, you’re not really getting into solutions.
But then as you start to get into more detail in design, you’re going to keep storyboarding at the whiteboard, drawing multiple instances of a screen and how it changes over time. As you start to express that design and share it with stakeholders, you can have storyboards at that wireframe level, where they’re pretty much content and control complete, but you haven’t really incorporated any visual design.
You can still use that storyboarding approach down at the pixel level where you’re showing changes in screen state over time like putting them in a PowerPoint presentation or something similar and flipping through them. It’s similar to keyframing, like they do in the movies. So storyboarding is essentially a sequence of pictures that tell a story, and the scenario is the text of the story itself. | <urn:uuid:4046dc0b-c995-4043-941f-bb5d0aed85e7> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://articles.uie.com/designing_scenarios/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280761.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00097-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936977 | 961 | 2.390625 | 2 |
Results from the Sept 29th, 2021 Benefits Breakfast Club
Staying informed during the changing landscape is critical to implementing policies and practices that are on trend and based on sound legal and medical advice. At the September 29th Benefits Breakfast Club, Joel Smith, Partner at Williams HR Law and Dr Arif Bhimji, Medical Director with arc Health Management clarified the legal and medical obligations for employers and employees with respect to vaccination and accommodations. Key take-aways from attendees were the challenge of regional policies that are constantly changing, balancing employer and employee needs with vaccination and returning to the workplace, and developing health and safety policies.
As insightful as the presentations were, the results of the pre session attendee poll exposed the magnitude of challenges plan sponsors are facing as they develop new workplace policies to return employees safely to the workplace. Most advisors reported that their clients have legal concerns around unvaccinated employees, but do not have a clear vaccination policy and are looking for guidance.
Polling also confirmed that over and above additional mental health and wellbeing resources, employers have provided flexible work arrangements during COVID-19 and are now struggling with returning employees to the workplace. This includes logistical issues around implementation of proof of vaccination, employees who wish to continue to work remotely and employees who are reluctant to receive vaccination. Returning employees to full time schedules and tracking when an employee is and is not able to work when working remotely have also presented additional challenges.
During one-on-one discussions to explore how plan sponsors are responding, Denise Balch, President, Connex Health was joined by Elizabeth Desjardins, Special Advisor in Innovative Recruitment and Assessment Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada; and Doug Kube, President of Kube Environment, Health, Safety and Risk.
Here is a recap of some of the key learnings from the morning’s presentations and discussions:
- Employers are required to have a vaccination policy in place, which may include a mandatory requirement that employees must be vaccinated in some or all circumstances, or they may impose mandatory testing.
- While employees are not legally required to be vaccinated, refusal of the vaccine could be reason for dismissal. Mandatory vaccination could be contributing to the “great resignation boom”, but it could also be an opportunity to attract talent.
- Employers have a duty to accommodate, whether through remote working or through a mask or vaccine exemption, which applies only in the case of a medical or disability diagnosis. However, gaining access to the information required to assess the need for accommodations is not always forthcoming from physicians. Employers can provide alternatives to the requests submitted by employees and their physicians in the case of a non-medical accommodation request.
- There is a wide gap between employers on how they are handling returning to the workplace. Some employers, including the federal public service, have clear return to the workplace policies including mandatory vaccination. However, many employers are not prepared to implement appropriate health and safety guidelines in their workplace for the ongoing risk of COVID-19.
Based on the information presented, advisors can play a key role by providing valuable guidance to their clients on benefits and wellness resources, as well as returning to the workplace policies and best practices to help plan sponsors navigate the current changing climate. In doing so advisors can work with their clients to create an opportunity to attract top talent.
Don’t forget to register to our next BBC session on November 25th where we will address the under-explored topic of Stretching the Limits of Data Analytics in Group Benefits, and our BPHA at Lunch session on December 9th for an overdue update on Biologics and Biosimilars Reimbursement.
Once again we want to thank our presenters and our one-on-one guests, as well as our sponsors for their support. You can find our sponsors here. | <urn:uuid:d8989a82-5d51-4447-84c2-37345fd5801d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.connexhc.com/return-to-the-workplace-vaccinations-and-accommodations/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571538.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812014923-20220812044923-00476.warc.gz | en | 0.96246 | 779 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Role of the family in drug abuse.SK Kartikeyan, RM Chaturvedi, VR Bhalerao
Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, K.E.M. Hospital, Parel, Bombay.
A simple random survey of 9863 population out of the total 70,000 population is one slum pocket of Bombay revealed drug dependence in 104 persons. Out of 104, 83.65% smoked 'brown sugar' 10.68% used cannabis and 5.77% opium. Most of the addicts (95.2%) belonged to large families. Family history of alcoholism and drug abuse was present in 41.35%. Parental deprivation was additional contributing factor in 30.7%.
Keywords: Child of Impaired Parents, psychology,Developing Countries, Human, India, Psychotropic Drugs, Risk Factors, Social Environment, Substance-Related Disorders, psychology,Urban Population,
The use of major psychotropic drugs has been socially accepted during festivals in India, but restricted to adults. Since the early 1980's, the Indian youth have been introduced to more potent synthetic psychotropic drugs and addiction to these drugs has spread like an epidemic among the affluent and the urban poor. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 'brown sugar; addicts lived in Bombay in 1985 alone ('Brown Sugar' is an impure form of heroin).
The host and the environment are integral factors in the genesis of drug abuse. A study was, therefore, carried out to investigate the family background of the drug addicts from an Urban slum.
For the purpose of this study, an addict or drug user was defined as one, who compulsively used psychotropic drugs for 6 months or more.
This study did not consider other patterns of drug use described as 'experimental' or 'casual' and recreational' . Tobacco and alcohol were not considered in this study because their use is socially accepted and legal.
This study was conducted in an urban slum in the Western suburbs of Greater Bombay where a health centre delivers comprehensive health care since 1977. This slum area has a population of about 70,000 and is divided into plots, which are serially numbered.
A simple random survey was taken from all the geographical areas of the locality by picking up the plot numbers by the lottery system and surveying the entire population in these plots. The socio-demographic profile of the sample (viz. age, sex, religion, literacy, income and occupation) was compared with that of the total slum population.
Among the surveyed population, all were questioned on use of drugs (mentioned by their local names), and only those persons, who admitted to using psychotropic drugs compulsively for 6 months or more, were further interviewed by means of a proforma. The answers given by the drug addicts were independently verified by questioning other family members, usually the spouse or parent(s) of the drug user.
Data were analysed by using chi-square test.
Out of a sample size of 9,863, only 104 persons admitted to having used dependence drugs (mentioned by their local names) compulsively for 6 months or more. These 104 addicts were interviewed. Out of them 83.65% smoked 'brown sugar' while the rest used traditional drugs like opium (5.77%) and cannabis (10.68%)
The interviews revealed that 95.2% of the drug addicts came from families with 5 or more members. The chi square test showed the significance of the difference with the sample [Table - 1].
Only 24.03% of the compulsive drug users lived within their income. The other respondents said they had borrowed money from family members or incurred debt and had pawned their belongings to support their habit. Twenty-one interviewees admittedly lived beyond their income but refused to reveal the source of extra money for supporting their habit [Table - 2]
Out of total, 41.35% of the respondents had a family history of drug abuse or of alcoholism [Table - 3]. This was usually corroborated independently by other family members. 30.7% has been separated from their fathers during their childhood.
The family attitude towards drug taking behaviour was found to be sympathetic in 51.93% of cases [Table - 4]. 11.54% revealed that their problem was kept a secret from their family members since they stayed away from them.
The paternal education status did not differ significantly from that of the sample, but literacy among the mothers of drug addicts was significantly lower when compared with that of the sample. [Table - 5].
A glance at [Table - 1] reveals that a predominant number of drug addicts belonged to large families with 5 or more members. It is possible that each child received less parental attention, when there were many children in the family. Moreover, the breakdown of the traditional joint family system in urban areas has resulted in lack of supervision of the growing child by relatives and grandparents. The probability of vagrancy, delinquency and association with antisocial elements in the locality increased when family control on the children is lax. Child rearing is a painstaking task and every adolescent requires parental guidance.
That 37 our of 104 interviewees [Table - 2] are supported financially by their families and relatives, shows that addicts were tolerated in their families, Hughes et al have reported that the crime rate is much lower in Asian countries, even though the abuse of drugs 'IS equally widespread as in the West. This may because of strong family ties in Asian societies,
This study also revealed that the presence of an alcoholic or a psychotropic drug user in the family sets a bad example to growing children in that family. 41.35% of the addicts had a family history of alcoholism or psychotropic drug use. Nearly one third of the drug addicts were separated from their (30.7%) fathers during their childhood and adolescence due to reasons such as paternal jobs, marital discord between parents or paternal death. Robins et al had reported that the risk of heroin abuse among urban black American males was 17%, if the father was absent and only 5%, if he was present.
The family attitude towards drug taking behaviour was found to be sympathetic in majority of the cases. Similar findings were reported by Veeraraghavan, who conducted a study on University students in 13 Indian cities. Her study revealed a sympathetic attitude in 62% of the drug user's families, while 20% of the families were indifferent. Suwanwela and Poshyachinda reported from Thailand that strong family ties and cultural attitudes alleviated the psychosicial and financial stress associated with drug addiction.
In most Indian families, the father is the sole bread earner who is usually away from home. Thus it is the mother who influences her off-spring during the formative years of childhood and adolescence. An illiterate mother is less likely to know the whereabouts or the doings of her adolescent off-springs especially, if she has younger children to care for.
This study has its limitations, because only those who used drugs compulsively for 6 months or more were interviewed. Thus study did not consider other patterns of drugs use described as 'experimental' or 'casual' and `recreational'. Though the respondents were assured of the utmost secrecy, it is possible that they may not have been forthright in their answers. Paucity of community based studies on drug abuse, especially in urban slums made comparisons difficult.
[Table - 1], [Table - 2], [Table - 3], [Table - 4], [Table - 5] | <urn:uuid:855b06be-a937-478f-a36f-7314c4d6fe6e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://jpgmonline.com/article.asp?issn=0022-3859;year=1992;volume=38;issue=1;spage=5;epage=7;aulast=Kartikeyan | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571190.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810131127-20220810161127-00078.warc.gz | en | 0.972769 | 1,573 | 2.4375 | 2 |
Do you know a teacher who is retired or will be retiring soon? You can send them off with some laughs with a few great retired teacher jokes. These can lighten the situation and let them know that you care about them. They are especially useful, perhaps even crucial, for any speeches or presentations that might be made at a retirement party. You probably won't be able to come up with these on the spot, so you will definitely want to be ready with several prepared jokes.
Starting off a speech with retired teacher jokes can't go wrong. Here is a good one to try out -
Three elderly math teachers, Mark, Alex, and Robert, go to a doctor's office for their yearly memory test. It's a miracle they remembered the appointment! The doctor begins with Mark. He asks him, “What is five times five?” Mark replies “191.” The doctor rolls his eyes and looks up at the ceiling. He then says to Alex, “What is five times five?” Alex replies “Wednesday.” The doctor shakes his sadly and turns toward the last man. He asks Robert, “What is five times five?” Robert answers, “twenty five.” “That's right!” says the doctor. “And how did you come up with your answer?” “Easy,” says Robert, “just subtract 191 from Wednesday.”
Some retired teacher jokes, such as the following one, will set a different tone to the party, to say the least. Here it is –
A teacher was retiring after 30 years of teaching. Her elementary school class decided to throw her a retirement party, and they all brought gifts for her. A little boy who's father owned a fine chocolate shop brought her a box of delicious chocolate delicacies. A little girl who was the daughter of a florist brought her a beautiful bouquet of flowers. Another little girl who's parents ran a top-shelf liquor shop then brought her a large box. It had some juices leaking out of the corner. The teacher told the girl, “I bet I know what this is!” She tasted some of the liquid leaking from the box and said “I bet this is some wine!” The girl said “Nope.” She tasted it again and said “Liquor?” The little girl said “Nope!” She tasted it one more time and said “It's beer, isn't it?” The little girl said “Wrong again!” The teacher was almost frustrated. She said, “Well, I give up, what is it?” The little girl said, “A puppy!”
If you need some more retired teacher jokes for a retirement party or just for conversation and the fun of it, the internet is a great place to find jokes for free without having to buy a book. BasicJokes.com has a large selection of thousands of jokes in hundreds of different categories. You will also find some great retired teacher jokes at Guy-Sports.com/jokes. These sites, along with Teacher.AllCrazyJokes.com, will let you search for the perfect jokes for your retirement speech. A retiring person deserves respect as well as humor – remember this as you pick your jokes, but don't forget that it's also a celebration!
Photo Credit: Anoka County Library | <urn:uuid:dd648702-3912-4b5e-b119-771231ceea89> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.lrngo.com/music-arts/retired-teachers-jokes-40 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284405.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00035-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983511 | 721 | 2.390625 | 2 |
In recent years, the financial world has shown constant development and has led to the emergence of many innovations such as cryptocurrency. This digital currency has set a new standard with its promising concept and has created new models for businesses since the concept of tokenisation was introduced to the world. However, a new challenge has also emerged for crypto enthusiasts: which is the better investment, utility or equity tokens? Read on to know the difference between these two and which is the better investment.
Tokenisation refers to the creation of tokens as a medium of data by providing a non-meaningful equivalent to a meaningful piece of data. You probably think that tokenisation is a new thing that comes with cryptocurrency, but the truth is it has already existed even before the development of cryptocurrency. Over the years, tokens were already used as a representation of money. For instance, casinos replace real money with chips.
In simpler terms, this process replaces confidential data with unique identification symbols that retain all the important information without sacrificing its security. Security is indeed very important when it comes to cryptocurrency, which is why in choosing a crypto platform, some traders and investors visit the official website of Immediate Edge: https://immediate-edge.io. This platform utilises advanced tools and high-security measures to ensure you’re trading safely.
Benefits of tokenisation
In the world of cryptocurrency, there are two types of tokens: equity tokens and utility tokens. But before we dive in and discuss these two, let’s take a look first at the benefits offered by tokenisation and why it is essential in your cryptocurrency career.
Tokenisation uses cryptography to make users’ data safe and secured, but how? Cryptography allows storing personal and confidential data and restricts anyone from downloading it online. The only way to access these data is through using a private key, which only users possess.
What most crypto users love about blockchain technology is its transparency. This peer-to-peer network allows traders to view the details of their transactions. Since it has no central server, it gives traders peace of mind knowing that online attacks such as breaches, hacking, fraud, and theft are very small.
The majority of cryptocurrencies, such as Ethereum, use smart contracts which permit automated transactions. This type of transaction does not require the presence of any third-party or intermediaries such as banks or the government.
This technology stores information and the data behaviour is stable, which means it cannot be changed, removed, counterfeited, or corrected by anyone. This boosts users’ confidence to perform transactions knowing that all their data are stored privately.
Understanding Utility Tokens
Utility Token refers to the coin app or user token which provides access to digital coupons that are redeemable in the future for a discounted price or a special discount for certain products and services. Since the government or the law does not regulate these tokens, they do not function as investments.
This type includes gift certificates, public transport tickets, or cards. In the world of cryptocurrency, Bitcoin is considered a utility token since it is not affiliated with the government and can be owned and stored to be utilised for future transactions.
Understanding Equity Tokens
Equity tokens or security tokens refer to blockchain technology-based tokens that utilise cryptography while offering advanced security features. This type of token serves as a representation of a share from a company that issues this token. Aside from the security features, investors who buy or invest in this type of token also benefit from it as a protection from fraud because the government regulates this type of token.
Which is the better choice: Equity vs Utility?
Which is the better choice between these two tokens depends on your target goals as a trader or investor. To recap, one impactful difference between equity and utility is that the latter is not regulated by third party agents such as banks or the government. Due to this, they provide access to a service rather than a specific investment in an asset or company compared to equity tokens.
For advantage investors who prefer to have full control over their tokens, utility tokens may be tempting as they can be stored for a long time. Meanwhile, equity tokens appear to be a better option for new investors since they are an extension of equity shares on the traditional stock market, which are simpler to understand.
Opening the door to the world of cryptocurrency can feel like being transported to a parallel universe, where nothing makes sense and people sound like they’re speaking another language. No matter how long you have been part of this world, you may have heard of tokens once or twice, and it’s extremely important to understand the difference between a utility token and an equity token. Although both tokens exist within the generic group of cryptocurrencies, they are not remotely the same. So, make sure to check out the discussion above and determine which token suits your career best.
The above information does not constitute any form of advice or recommendation by London Loves Business and is not intended to be relied upon by users in making (or refraining from making) any investment decisions. Appropriate independent advice should be obtained before making any such decision. London Loves Business bears no responsibility for any gains or losses. | <urn:uuid:7dad146e-2219-401d-8113-e8f55a100597> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://londonlovesbusiness.com/utility-tokens-versus-equity-tokens-the-better-investment/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572043.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814143522-20220814173522-00470.warc.gz | en | 0.947869 | 1,070 | 2 | 2 |
COLUMBIA, Mo.—Since 1947, summer camp at the University Forest in Butler County has been a rite of passage for University of Missouri forestry students, who crammed a semester’s worth of class work coupled with real-world experience into just a few weeks.
On Oct. 7, more than a dozen forestry alumni along with active and retired MU forestry faculty and staff gathered at the University Forest Environmental Education Center to share memories and mark the closing of the 160-acre teaching and research center.
In recent years, revenue from outside groups using the University Forest for meetings, workshops and seminars hasn’t covered the growing costs of maintaining the 64-year-old facility, which includes cabins, a classroom/meeting center and a dining hall.
The University Forest is still in demand in the spring and summer. “But it sits empty for the rest of the year,” said David Larsen, MU forestry professor.
Some of MU’s other outstate research centers generate revenue by selling crops or livestock. However, with only 160 acres, the University Forest has limited opportunities to earn money from timber sales, Larsen said.
The University Forest occupies an ecological crossroads at the southeast edge of the Missouri Ozarks, where the vast upland forests of oak, hickory and pine start to give way to the river delta country of the Bootheel, where rich alluvial soils support the remnants of gigantic bottomland hardwoods and bald cypress.
This location provided students with the opportunity for hands-on learning within a variety of forest types and ecosystems, said Rose-Marie Muzika, chair of the MU Department of Forestry.
The phrase “summer camp” might suggest weeks of fun and recreation, and while there is some of that at MU forestry camp, alumni also recall doing a lot of hard work.
“We remember ticks, chiggers and the apparent mass confusion in which we accomplished our tasks,” wrote student Joe Garvey in a 1970s edition of a MU forestry student publication called The Missouri Log. “Looking back now one realizes how much was taught in that controlled confusion and how worthwhile that time was.”
“There’s a personal attachment for most students,” Muzika said. “Summer camp meant they were on the way to becoming professionals and could more accurately call themselves foresters.”
“I am sad to see the camp cease,” said Henry Deutsch, who earned MU bachelor’s and master’s degrees in forestry in the early 1960s. “I remember my time there as formative and vital. We have many good and bad memories, but overall they were progressive—not excluding the personal encounters with a rattlesnake, which we later ate.”
Among other things, students practiced their skills in identifying tree and plant species, studied forest ecology, forest management practices and wildlife habitat, and learned how to estimate the amount of merchantable timber in a given area.
Students would also swap whimsical tales of the “Karkhagne,” a mythical mischief-making beast said to lurk in the Ozarks.
With the property up for sale, the Karkhagne might be in for lonely times.
Meanwhile, the closure of the University Forest doesn’t mean the end of forestry summer camp.
“We’re dedicated to field education,” Muzika said.
Plans for 2012 and beyond are still forming, but some lessons and exercises can be done in the Columbia area at such places as MU’s 2,266-acre Baskett Research and Education Area near Ashland. Local activities may be supplemented by field trips to the Ozarks. | <urn:uuid:fb2b074c-af62-45c8-9225-54805b740318> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://ozarksfn.com/2011/10/24/alumni-remember-university-forest/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570651.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20220807150925-20220807180925-00466.warc.gz | en | 0.95225 | 780 | 2 | 2 |
JEFFREY MISHLOVE, Ph.D.: Hello and welcome. I'm Jeffrey Mishlove. Today we're going to examine "The Human Future." As we approach the year 2000, what are some of the novel features of our contemporary culture that are likely to become dominant in a future society? With me is Terence McKenna, a specialist in shamanistic cultures and hallucinogenic plants and drugs. Terence is the coauthor with his brother Dennis of The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching, also Psilocybin:The Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide. In addition he is a founder of Botanical Dimensions, a nonprofit organization devoted to preserving hallucinogenic plants as used by native peoples throughout the world, and he's also the author of Timewave Zero, a computer software package. Welcome, Terence. TM: It's a pleasure to be here, Jeffrey. MISHLOVE: You know, you're a specialist really in the past -- the ancient past, the prehistoric past of shamanistic cultures;and of course ancient peoples, shamans and other ancient peoples, have always attempted to look at the future. Today there are many, many scenarios about the future, and the one thing that seems to be certain is that the future will contain surprises -- that no matter how much we attempt to predict what the future will be, there will always be unexpected things.I think you have a unique perspective on the future, since your studies take you so deeply into the past. I wonder what some of the major features that you delineate in our present and our past society are that may tend to surprise us, or surprise conventional theorists about the future. TM: Well, first let me say you make a valid point.My ordinary concern is shamanism, which is usually thought of as an archaic or an historical phenomenon. However, in my looking at the shamanistic phenomenon, I've discovered that shamans themselves, as you also mentioned,have a deep concern with seeing into the future, with having a feeling for the course of development of the society in which they are embedded.And strangely enough, my own career somewhat paralleled that model, as I was a student of Erich Jantsch, who was one of the great forecasters of the last ten years. MISHLOVE: Systems theorist, as I recall. TM: Systems theorist, exactly. And he was very concerned to model the future with a degree of realism that had previously not been possible, and he taught me that the way to do this is to concentrate on the novel and the unexpected. As you point out, much of the future will be in fact characterized by factors that are presently unpredictable. How then, by stretching our own definition of what is currently at the cutting edge of society, can we anticipate these future event systems? My own approach to this has been to try to concretize or locate areas of influence that seem to me, while very seminal in the present situation, probably fated to grow and flower over the next twenty-five years. MISHLOVE: You know, I think it's interesting that you mention Erich Jantsch. He wrote a book, I believe it was called Design for Evolution. TM: Exactly. MISHLOVE: In that book I was very interested in how a man of his scientific credentials as a systems theorist took a close look at the new age movement, and things such as Kundalini yoga, and examined how we might begin as a society to look at developing Kundalini to develop our own evolution biologically and as a species. TM: Yes, well, he was an extremely broad thinker,not only a fine scientist but music critic, philosopher, what have you. A point that he was always very much concerned to make to me about the future was that much of the future is in place in the present. A typical residential street of today will look pretty much as it looks today thirty years from now, barring major catastrophic changes in society. A curious thing about history is how much momentum it does have. Nevertheless it is possible to isolate forces which are creating change. Four major forces which I will enumerate and discuss for you, the four that I think are probably among the most important, are first of all feminism. Feminism is a tremendously underestimated force, viewed in the present context primarily as a woman's concern. The understanding has not yet percolated throughout society that the advancement of women is a program vitally connected to the survival of human beings as a species. The reason for this is simply that institutions take on the character of the atoms which compose them, and what we are most menaced by -in the twentieth century- are dehumanized institutions. If women played a major role in policy formation and execution on the part of these institutions, I think they would have a far more benign and ecologically sensitive kind of character. So I see feminism not as a kind of war between the sexes or any of these stereotypic images, but as actually a kind of effort to shift the ratios of our emphasis that is expressed through our institutions. MISHLOVE: In other words, you're not looking so much at whether women get more voting rights, or whether they get more women placed in high positions in government, but rather whether institutions have more of a nurturing quality. MCKENNA: That's right. It isn't even really about women,it's about femininity -- injecting femininity into our decision-making process and our social policy. Naturally the most obvious way to do this is to bring women into the process, but that isn't necessarily how it should be done. MISHLOVE: Well, there's a catch phrase now that's going around a lot in business circles -- "High tech, high touch." That seems to embody this notion of paying attention to human feelings and to caring about people as we develop a more technologically oriented society. MCKENNA: Yes, although I'm suspicious of that, having seen several American revolutions turned into advertising slogans. I'm afraid this may be an effort to co-opt the really volcanic energy that feminism could bring to the social restructuring effort. But feminism is only one of these novel areas that are injecting change into our lives. MISHLOVE: Why don't we list the others, and then perhaps we can look at how they interrelate with each other? MCKENNA: Well, for example cybernetics is certainly a major area where we could spend some time. Space flight -- I don't think you would get a lot of argument from people that that is going to have a major impact on our lives. Then perhaps in a more controversial vein,and along the lines of my own special interests, I think hallucinogenic plants and the pushing back of the frontiers of the mind, the cataloging of ever more exotic states of experience through the use of hallucinogenic drugs, aerobic exercise, vitamin therapy, what have you, is going to be very, very important. Seen as an amalgam, what these things seem to imply is that we are really sweeping toward the climax of a thousand-year-old civilization -- a civilization that began, I suppose you could say, with the rise of medieval scholasticism, which then transformed itself into proto-modern science, which then became modern science, and then modern philosophy. We are really sweeping toward the culmination of the western contribution to the story of mankind, and what will that contribution be?It could well be a devastating species-exterminating thermonuclear war.Or it could be the culmination and completion of the ideals that we inherited from the Greeks. How we balance historical forces against the need to evolve consciousness is going to decide how the tale is told, and if you look at the things that I named -- feminism, cybernetics, consciousness expansion,space flight -- these are all different approaches toward the notion of expanding our frontiers, organizationally, geographically, informationally, consciously. The expansion of frontiers is the very essence of a continuing human future, a humane human future. MISHLOVE: You used the word balance a little earlier in a pivotal way, and the four elements that you mentioned strike me as being rather balanced. Space flight and cybernetics seem to be expanding the frontiers of science and technology, and yet when we look at the inner exploration suggested by the rise of feminism and the return or revival or re-energizing of hallucinogenic drugs and other features of the consciousness movement, that suggests an expansion of the inner frontiers. It seems tome ultimately that if we are to survive the threats that now stand poised above our planet, that balance has to be essential, that we can't go too far either internally or externally without some balancing features. MCKENNA: No, I think that's a very good point. In fact the entire lethal dimension to our cultural dilemma can be laid at the feet of a burgeoning scientific capability that developed at the expense of a concomitant ethical capacity. I think that we are not going to go to the stars as Republicans and Democrats, communists and free marketeers;we are not going to go to the stars as male chauvinists; nor are we going to go to the stars as uninformed clods. All of these various characteristics and ways of being are dross that the historical experience of the twentieth century is going to either burn away from us or burn us with. We have actually created a self-limiting situation for ourselves. We are the ones who have boxed ourselves into this dilemma, and we must now be the ones who have the cultural and intellectual wherewithal to take command of the situation and to navigate out of this cul-de-sac without wrecking the planet, without betraying our ethical heritage of some several thousand years. Balance is going to be essential to this -- a sense of openness to possibility,a sense of the true strangeness of the situation in which we find ourselves. MISHLOVE: It strikes me that as we move into the future,as we move into the next millennium, perhaps the really novel feature that might emerge is that as a culture, as a global culture, we will be forced,I think, to take responsibility for ourselves on this planet in a way that we haven't previously been forced to do because we've always had room to expand, room to exploit the environment and ourselves. We're running out of room for that,so we must be responsible. MCKENNA: Yes. Well, this is the century in which the chickens come home to roost. All the profligate processes of metal extraction and subjugation of native populations and land clearing in the tropics, that pot latch mentality must now give way to a more resource conserving state of mind, or we will be quite simply doomed. And I'm very much up on humanity,but I'm very concerned about the role that the United States is to play in this future. Certainly if resource management is going to be an important factor in the future, then the Japanese are out in front of all of us. Now, if not having committed resources to an obsolete infrastructure is going to have an impact, then certainly the Chinese have a leg up on all of us. Did you know that there are less than a thousand private automobiles in China? Can you conceive of the leap forward that can be made if you could go from the wooden cart to the spaceship without committing yourself to fifty years of highway building and gas stations and petroleum extraction and this sort of thing? MISHLOVE: You have a remarkable talent here for seeing the positive side of a nation of a billion people living in what we would think of as destitute poverty. They don't have cars because the per capita income in China is about two hundred and fifty U.S. dollars a year. MCKENNA: Well, I think Marshall McLuhan pointed out that any technology put in place is extremely difficult to dislodge, and that is our problem. We went for the automobile so completely that it will now be a major effort at cultural restructuring to leave it behind. The Chinese have no such problem. I think it was Freeman Dyson, or perhaps Gerrard O'Neill, who said, "No technology should be put in place that has a foreseeable obsolescence." This was his argument against nuclear power. And I think that's an excellent point. We should not commit ourselves to any course of action whose end state can be foreseen. This is why we have to commit ourselves to this kind of conscious, open-system, non-equilibrium future that futurists like Jantsch, and West Churchman and others have so eloquently described in their work. MISHLOVE: Let's talk for a bit about the role of hallucinogens in the future. I think most people would agree that the marvelous decade of the 1960s, which seem to have awakened so many people to possibilities,was inextricably linked with the use of LSD and other hallucinogens at that period. It's interesting to me that today this is not talked about very much; you're one of the few people who are willing to look at the role that hallucinogens may have played at that time. How do you see hallucinogens? Do you imagine, for example, that a billion Chinese will return to... MCKENNA: Using LSD? No, it isn't quite like that. I think that whatever we may say about the way hallucinogens were introduced into American society in the sixties, I think that that has now become a dead horse, and that we are looking at a much different sort of problem. The problem is that psychology is the science whose perfection we are most in need of, because our whole problem is that we do not communicate with each other. We do not understand our own motivations. We are waiting on psychology literally to save our necks, and governments are repressing the major tools that promise major advances in psychology. I may represent only a faction of opinion, but it is my opinion that the hallucinogenic plants and drugs are to psychology what Galileo's telescope was to astronomy. The difference is that the church was unable to suppress the telescope, but the state has had immense success in suppressing hallucinogens. I'm not speaking of keeping it out of the hands of high schoolers and college students; I'm talking about keeping it out of the hands of research pharmacologists. Science feels free to investigate any area that concerns it -- areas of our interpersonal relating, our sexuality, the effects of automobile crashes on human bodies studied through using monkeys. Nothing is sacred. However, when it comes to allowing scientists to study the effect of hallucinogenic compounds on brain function and psychology, a great wall, a great barrier, is raised, and I think it signifies the fear really, that the establishment has of unleashing the creativity and vitality that it senses to be tied up in these things. The very decade that you mentioned was the last decade, I think, when Americans had this feeling of an open-ended, hopeful, transcendent future. Ever since the 1960s we've been given shortages, limited resources, voluntary simplicity, and a host of other notions that boil down to repression. MISHLOVE: So you're suggesting that the legal restrictions are perhaps a temporary aberration, and that the exploration of the human mind through hallucinogens or other means might get us in touch with avast resource within ourselves that we seem to have lost touch with a little bit as a culture. MCKENNA: Yes. Well, if you contrast the state of modern astrophysics with astronomy as it was practiced in 1530, I think you can feel the kind of paradigm shift that I'm suggesting. We know nothing about the mind. There are a few theories -- Freud, Jung, Reich, so forth and so on -- but these are just guesses tossed into the unknown. And yet in principle the mind need not be a mystery; it's simply that the more complex objects in nature yield their secrets last. We understood falling lead balls long before we understood drops of water; we understood drops of water long before plastic polymers. The brain will yield, but it will yield to a different set of tools than the ones we have been applying. MISHLOVE: As a philosopher, or at least a person who asks a lot of questions, I wonder if the ultimate nature of the mind is really knowable, any more than the ultimate nature of matter. It seems as if in some sense, as physicists today probe the ultimate nature of matter, they begin asking questions that sound more and more theological. And we get that way too with people who look at the mind, particularly people who explore hallucinogens. MCKENNA: I think we can do a great deal, though, without having ultimate knowledge of something. As you yourself said, we have no ultimate knowledge of what matter is, or electricity, and yet we light our cities with electricity; we transform matter any way we wish. So I agree with you; the mind is inherently mysterious. If nothing else, Goedel's theorem will protect it from being understood -- that mind cannot understand mind. But I think brain, which is the receiver of mind, the stage upon which mind acts, the magic marionette, if you will, there's much to be learned there. That is in fact the great frontier of materialism, strangely enough. MISHLOVE: As you look at the future, Terence, with your special lenses that really are unique to yourself, where do you see the realm of religion evolving? MCKENNA: Well, I think we are rapidly growing into what I call a religion of the imagination, where we transcend individual archetypes and begin instead to realize that the mystery can take any form, and that a higher religion is a religion then which dispenses with the symbolic forms, the presentational modes of the mystery, and concentrates on the mystery itself as a kind of ineffable center of being that constellates everything around it to have meaning. MISHLOVE: This would require obviously a dropping away,then, of dogma. MCKENNA: Yes, well, I think dogma has served us ill. How ill is hard to say, but I think, for instance, the case could be made that it got us to this point. I think it was H.G. Wells who said, "History is a race between education and disaster," and I think we are in the homestretch, we are neck and neck, it is too close to call, and we must not take our eye off the ball. It is going to take the best effort of all of us to bring to birth the kind of transcendental human future that we all sense so pregnantly near the surface of things. It is not far away. It is here, it is now, if we could but invoke it, if we could but find the means to communicate to the deeper parts of ourselves and to each other, to bring that kind of perfected future into being. It's fallen out of fashion recently in a lot of existential whining and carping, but I think this is only a fad of the times. The future is endlessly bright and full of transcendental promise for those who are not afraid of it. MISHLOVE: The future that you described was a fourfold future, in effect -- feminism, space flight, cybernetics, and hallucinogens.It reminds me of Jung's image of the mandala, the fourfold mandala, that we move into. MCKENNA: Yes, well, these things could be imagined as the four quarters of a mandala that taken together create the totality of a free and caring world -- well fed, well governed, well intentioned,and pointed toward the exploration of the mystery of being, which is, I think, really the higher calling of human beings. We are naturally called to the mystery, we are naturally its acolytes, and in all other roles we perform rather badly, I think. MISHLOVE: So there's a sense in which if we look at the future, we might ask ourselves, why have a future at all? What is the meaning,what is the purpose of being here? And you seem to be saying to study, to appreciate the mystery of it all. MCKENNA: Well, I think that history is a kind of message from the ineffable -- that in the rise of dynastic families and the fall of empires and the migrations of peoples there is a vast tale being told; that we are caged within art, and that the great satisfaction of contemplating this spectacle is to know where in the tale you are. MISHLOVE: Terence McKenna, thank you very much for being with me. It's been such a pleasure. MCKENNA: It's always a pleasure to talk with you. | <urn:uuid:65364ede-cde8-449b-b529-ade91aba3786> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://asktmk.com/wiki/talk/The+Human+Future | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571097.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810010059-20220810040059-00274.warc.gz | en | 0.972366 | 4,270 | 1.835938 | 2 |
The link to my slideshow is here. Feel free to use as is or save a copy and modify to your own needs.
I begin with having them do a math meditation that I learned from Dr. Edmund Harriss at Twitter Math Camp 2014. I ask the students to do a visualization exercise (close your eyes if you need to, or stare of into space if that helps). Begin with a blank canvas -- it could be any color -- then we are going to add a certain number of dots to the scene. I then call out the numbers 1 through 5 (maybe a number every 10 - 20 seconds). I pause at five and tell them that this is about where we run into the limits of being able to put dots anywhere. They might think about starting to organize the dots as we progress. Then I continue on in the same manner until about 15 to 20.
When I stop, I ask students to describe to me the picture in their head. It might be a 4 by 5 rectangle. It might be two 2 by 5 rectangles. It might be two groups of 3 by 3 squares with 2 dots to the side. One person from Calculus said, "Three dice with the six side up and one with the two." (D&D player anyone?)
I then proceed with the sideshow and tell them I want them to try to figure out how many dots are on each of the next slides, but they will only appear for 0.6 seconds. We do a few of these and they love the challenge of trying to get it quickly. I'll explain what they are doing is called "subitizing" and how many animals (including humans) have the ability to do it with small numbers, but only up to a point. Imagine if 97 dots flashed up there. Could you count them in half a second?
I also like to stop after a couple of them and ask them how they figure it out. I don't know much about the subitizing literature, but my guess is that with small numbers of dots you can make shapes with them easily (three dots make a triangle or line, 4 into some kind of quadrilateral or rows, etc.) then count after the image disappears if necessary. Making a decagon is quite a bit harder, though. Even with seven dots, some students will say they saw a row of 3 and a group of 4 (like we chunk phone numbers).
I then show the Vsauce video which talks generally about numbers (including logarithmic number lines as well as subitizing). We discuss any questions, comments, or other thoughts they may have after viewing and then go back to trying out our counting techniques.
In the next few slides, the dots are organized into easier to think about shapes. Even if they don't get the number correct after it flashes on the screen, we talk about how they might find the number of dots without counting each and every one. The students sub-organize the shapes into smaller shapes (eg this section was a 3 by 3 square, then one more to the side) and it's interesting to hear the different ways they group them. The switch to blue squares is not too different.
Once we do a few slides of blue-square counting, I ask them what percentage of the whole shape is made from blue squares. In the slides I made, I have it animate to move the squares around and see the same amount in a different way. By moving a blue square to a white space in an organized way, it's easier to determine the percentage.
To finish, I tell the students I wanted to show them this stuff to highlight some interesting psychology behind our number sense, but also to motivate the need for math as a subject.
By organizing and moving things around in a meaningful way, it is easier to interpret what is quantitatively in front of us. Especially with my algebra students, I tell them that our notation and algebraic manipulation will cause some growing pains, but once we get some techniques under our belt (like we did with chunking shapes into smaller pieces or moving blue squares to fill white holes), it will make the process easier. | <urn:uuid:9a4616a5-1fe4-4cb8-b688-964dd8106b65> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://longtailsofinterest.blogspot.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281450.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00177-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965837 | 847 | 3.296875 | 3 |
Chihuahuas are lively pets filled with personality. They are predisposed to certain diseases though, so careful observation of your pets daily routine is important. Any significant change in this routine is cause for an examination. Our web site in the Diseases Section has detailed information on many of the diseases they are prone to.
Chihuahuas can develop a problem called hydrocephalus (water on the brain). If your pet ever shows signs of disorientation, incoordination, or depression, it should be examined to help determine if this problem exists.
The shape of their face and eyes predisposes them to eye trouble. Any time you see your pet pawing at its eyes, have redness or discharge to one of the eyes, or is squinting, its needs help to determine if the problem is serious.
Some Chihuahuas can develop problems with the knee joint that might require surgery. Any time it is limping significantly, especially on one of its back legs, or if it kicks its leg out when it runs, we need to check for this problem.
Chihuahuas are particularly prone to dental disease. It is important to learn how to brush your pet’s teeth while it is a pup so that you are successful at it when the problem starts to arise later. We have a special kit for this purpose, please have one of our nurses show you the proper technique. We also have a food called t/d (it stands for tartar diet) that is a big help if you cannot brush its teeth.
As your pet gets older yearly exams are needed to identify the accumulation of tartar and treat it before it progresses to more serious complications and we have to remove rotten teeth under anesthesia. As tartar accumulates on the teeth we will perform non-anesthetic dentals (this is not a replacement for brushing) every 6 months and hopefully never have to remove rotten teeth under anesthesia.
Heart disease can also occur as your Chihuahua ages. We will check for heart murmurs with our stethoscope during your yearly examine to diagnose this problem and treat it before the onset of congestive heart failure. Always be diligent for signs of coughing, lethargy, weight loss, and exercise intolerance as an indication of this problem. | <urn:uuid:1cbba098-ccea-4376-870b-4eeacf3bd7e7> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.lbah.com/word/breed-disease/chihuahua/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282935.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00247-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943622 | 465 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Statement: Chad Stone, Chief Economist, on the September Employment Report
Today’s jobs report shows that the economy still faces a long and difficult climb out of the jobs hole created by the recent recession. The private sector has created, on average, fewer than 100,000 jobs a month this year — not enough to keep up with population growth and not nearly enough to reduce the unemployment rate. Worse, the pace of job creation is slowing as the economy slows, with only 64,000 private-sector jobs created in September.
The 1981-82 recession and subsequent recovery was the last to have a classic “V-shape,” with sharp job losses followed by a strong jobs recovery (see chart). Job losses were even deeper in this recession, but a strong recovery remains elusive. The last two recessions, in 1990-91 and 2001, also were followed by much slower job recoveries, and the current recovery is suffering from another protracted jobs slump as well — but with a much larger jobs deficit to erase.
In fact, a jobs recovery patterned after the 1980s experience, if it started right now, would require average job growth of more than 500,000 per month and would take 15 months (until January 2012) to boost the number of jobs in the economy back to where it was in December 2007, when the recession began. Restoring full employment would take even longer, given the growth in the nation’s population over the intervening years. Of course, no such jobs recovery is on the horizon, and it would be optimistic to hope for one even half as strong as that of the 1980s since most forecasters expect economic growth to remain sluggish this year.
This is bad news for the nearly 15 million unemployed Americans, 42 percent of whom have been looking for work for 27 weeks or longer. Even worse, the measures providing additional weeks of emergency unemployment compensation to workers who exhaust their 26 weeks of regular unemployment insurance (UI) benefits are scheduled to expire at the end of November. If policymakers let them expire, most of the roughly 500,000 people who exhaust their regular UI benefits each month will not receive any additional assistance, and many of the roughly 5 million people receiving additional emergency benefits will see their weeks cut. In addition to helping unemployed workers and their families cope with the loss of a paycheck, UI is one of the most effective forms of job-creating stimulus because UI benefits are spent quickly, providing a boost to spending that ripples through the economy.
Therefore, when Congress returns to work in mid-November, lawmakers need to extend the emergency UI measures beyond November 30. Congress has never let these temporary measures expire when the unemployment rate is as high as it is now. (The highest previous unemployment rate when emergency benefits were terminated was just over 7 percent.) Congress also needs to renew the TANF Emergency Fund, which proved highly cost-effective in providing jobs to 235,000 Americans but which Congress allowed to expire at the end of September. Failure to renew these programs will increase hardship and weaken the recovery.
About the September Jobs Report
- Private and government payrolls combined fell by 95,000 jobs in September. Private employers on net added 64,000 jobs, but those gains were not enough to offset the decline in government jobs. So far this year, private payrolls have expanded by 863,000 jobs, a pace of 96,000 jobs a month.
- The decline in government payrolls of 159,000 jobs was due partly to the scheduled termination of 77,000 temporary jobs associated with the decennial census. In addition, however, local governments reduced their payrolls by 76,000 jobs (50,000 of those in education).
- There are 7.8 million fewer jobs on nonfarm payrolls than there were when the recession began in December 2007, and 7.6 million fewer jobs on private payrolls.
- The unemployment rate remained 9.6 percent in September, and the number of unemployed edged down to 14.8 million.
- The decline in the number of unemployed did not change the unemployment rate because of a modest increase in the labor force. However, changes in the size of the labor force, the number of unemployed, and the number of people with a job were all modest enough that the labor force participation rate and the percentage of the population with a job were unchanged at 64.7 percent and 58.5 percent, respectively.
- It remains very hard to find a job. The Labor Department’s most comprehensive alternative unemployment rate measure — which includes people who want to work but are discouraged from looking and people working part time because they can’t find full-time jobs — jumped to 17.1 percent in September.
- Long-term unemployment remains a significant concern. Over two-fifths (41.7 percent) of the 14.8 million people who are unemployed — 6.1 million people — have been looking for work for 27 weeks or longer. These long-term unemployed represent 4 percent of the labor force. Prior to this recession, the previous highs for these statistics over the past six decades were 26.0 percent and 2.6 percent, respectively, in June 1983. | <urn:uuid:3c8e6846-8c4d-4991-adff-a7a7826d9a53> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.cbpp.org/press/statements/statement-chad-stone-chief-economist-on-the-september-employment-report-0?fa=view&id=3303&emailView=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281419.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00482-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971564 | 1,055 | 2.3125 | 2 |
1.Before reading any notes or chaalu copy paste books I should be thorough with the original books (mentioned later)
2.Thinkers and Theories(say Theories of social change,of power etc.) should be done in great detail with elaborate notes,rest of the topics can be done via a single book(you could pull out/photocopy relevant chapters and put them alongwith your notes so that everything is in one place when you revise) or mere pointers can do (say for topics like Child Labour).
Warning:No notes should be made before a third reading of the chapter/book/source material especially for those who were, till they decided to plunge into cse preparation completely alien to the subject and its nuances.
3.These notes/pointers were to be made in the format of:
First Page-The Syllabus with the newly added topics (info for the newbeeies, the syllabus changed from 2008 Mains) highlighted (you can expect increased importance to be allotted to the newer topics in the exam)and sources referred to for the various sub-topics written alongwith a mention of whether you have written notes on it or not.
This will help you in cross referring the source books when you feel that there is something missing in your notes when you revise after a long time,or to ask doubts/search for new material 'cos you would know what you don't know ...very important since this would guide you in selecting which questions to answer in the final exam hour ( no one is allowed to ask...is there a choice in the question paper or even worse...how will it guide one in question selection!)
Second Page-All old questions including the 1980's ones(according to syllabus of course!)...if you notice some of the really old questions pertain to the newly added topics...bringing the changes made to a full circle! :)
Also, its important to know which sub topic can be interlinked with which other sub topic , which sub-topic requires more elaborate reading and note-making and which topics you cant afford to miss(some questions have been repeatedly asked indirectly or directly...)
All of this can only be gathered by a thorough analysis of the questions asked (preferably on your own) in the previous years so pay attention to the second page too !
Third Page- Now your note making starts...the elaborate notes and even pointers should follow this format :
a.Theory/Concept-Who said,What was said and in Which context was it said
b.Criticism-Every theoretician/perspective has a critique which points out the lacunae in the same and at the same time takes it forward...one should be very clear with this aspect.
In paper 1: Emphasise on case studies usa,uk('cos many studies are available from there!) or any other foreign country if you have a relevant case study ...but , at the same time do not forget to connect it to Indian examples.
In paper 2 : Emphasis should be placed on Indian Sociologists and application to Indian context, though here too works of important sociologists(from paper 1) can be applied .
Hence, studying , note making and then answer writing (in the same chronological order for very obvious reasons!) should be done keeping in mind that paper 1 and paper 2 are not exclusive of each other but are in fact interlinked and at times even draw sustenance from each other.
4.The notes would be made preferably in the same format as the answer sheets given in the upsc mains exam ie A4 blank sheets with space left at both sides(instead of wasting time making margins with scale and pencil just fold the paper on both sides to give the impression of a margin) and punched to be put into well organised folders.
5.This organisation of notes may sound like a very very childlike suggestion but it has great bearing on your revision...remember you are not writing notes to publish them for the benefit of mankind (which is not a bad idea but not your primary goal!) but to apply them in the examination, so please revise revise revise(this is not a typo error :) bad joke...still)
6.I would share resources like advice/coaching material/your own notes with another serious student...its a personal belief that petty competitiveness pulls you down as well.
7.Internet resources (some books have a few pages put out for reading online) and library(D School,Arts Faculty-Delhi University) resources (through a student) would be used appropriately.
Note :If you get hold of an amazing book for a very small sub-topic and don't have time to go through it just read the Introduction+Preface...it usually encapsulates the whole argument
This was the "how to read" bit... now lets come down now to the "what to read" part :
The "How to start" dilemna plagues most of the cse aspirants esp those who did not have a humanities background....The solution is simple-
Start with NCERT XI and XII (old and new editions both)
Then for :
Paper 1- Refer (in accordance with the syllabus...if time permits you could read the whole book as well...if nothing else it may help you in the essay or later on in the interview stage):
Anthony Giddens-Sociology(I believe the 5th edition is available in India in a paperback format...expensive book but its usefulness justifies its expense)
MacIonis-Sociology(brought to India by Pearsons publications)
These books give a basic understanding and at the same time an analysis of more contemporary topics.
Now you could go onto the basic book for Thinkers which is:
Francis Abraham and John Henry Morgan-Sociological Thought
You should also elaborate upon Thinkers by referring to Ritzer selectively(a must)
Some of my friends picked up tit-bits from Lewis Coser and some referred to Raymond Aron too(optional)
For Paper 2- Start with IGNOU BA course material and stick to it! Take care to mention the case studies considered in the IGNOU booklets in your examination.
You should also read:
M.N.Srinivas-Social Change in India
Yogendra Singh-Modernisation of Indian Tradition
Handbook of Indian Sociology-edited by Veena Das (selective reading of the book )
J.C.Verma (a NBT publication on Tribals) for the portion on problems faced by tribals...
I found books like Madan and Mazumdar- Social Anthropology and Horton and Hunt relevant for prelims only
Though one could pick up meaning of terms like culture etc from the Horton and Hunt book to understand its usage and maybe, apply it in the Essay paper (if it so demands)
Now the question arises how to supplement this basic material ?
In paper 2 the theory portion should be connected to/updated by egs drawn from real life /recent case studies covered in magazines like Yojana and Economic and Political Weekly . You could become an online member of these magazines and avail the benefit of browsing through their archives.
I was too lazy to do this and consequently suffered(thankfully not too badly!) in paper 2.
In paper 1 there is an excellent reference book by the name of Haralombos and Halborn,its detailed,comprehensive and contemporary....unfortunately, reading it is a time consuming exercise so do it only as a last resort and/or to add value to selective topics(to avoid meandering away from relevant topics always keep the syllabus by your side)
These are the books/resources which I found relevant ..if I later on recall more(not that you would want me to, once you see the content of some of these books!) I would add on to this post...
Hopefully all of you would come to enjoy Sociology as much as I did (and also get good marks...very imp! ) | <urn:uuid:9e645d68-acc9-4975-90bb-3a4e03699619> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://thecivilservicesdream.blogspot.com/2010/07/sociology-mains-preparation.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988718426.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183838-00138-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942214 | 1,660 | 2.125 | 2 |
Bored of the standard printing process, artist Sam van Doorn has created STYN, a playfully chaotic design tool made from lithographic ink and a pinball machine.
The idea struck van Doorn while he was printing off a poster. "I realised the printer did exactly what I told it to," van Doorn told Wired.co.uk. "What would roll out of the printer would be predictable; every program and machine has it's own aesthetic, which is easily forgotten when working as a graphic designer.
Everything was too predictable, I wanted to be surprised."
Van Doorn wanted to create a design tool that combined the control of printing with an element of chaos. The answer dropped into his living room when a roommate persuaded him to adopt an old pinball machine their friend was throwing out. "My roommate convinced me to pick up the machine and use it as a decoration in our home. So I did. We fixed it up, and while playing on it I realised that it had all the elements I was looking for; control, chaos and a load of fun."
The prints are made on a poster that is placed under the pinball machine's flippers. It has a grid printed on it outlining the field in which a 26mm ball, covered in ink used for lithography printing, will move. By playing the machine, the balls leave behind a trace of their path, creating an unpredictable pattern.
It took van Doorn hours of research to create the right ink mix to make sure the ball retained the ink for as long as possible, without making it too sticky to move. "The challenge was to get the right paper and ink for the project, as well as the right rubbers to let the ball have a good bounce. The ball has to be able to move smoothly across the surface of the machine, to create a good game environment -- the project wouldn't be interesting if the machine wasn't fun to play. "If the ink was too thick, the ball would stick to the paper.
But if the ink was to smooth, it would simply slide off the ball.
The paper had to be smooth for the ball to create good patterns, but not too smooth so it would lose grip."
After much trial and error, van Doorn was able to find a balance that allowed a single ball to be played with for hours and still leave a pattern. The resulting experience of play and print is an engrossing one. "I underestimated the attraction of a pinball machine. Once people started playing they were dancing behind the machine to keep the ball in control, completely focusing on the game. Everybody wanted to play, not just for a print but for the fun of the game."
Such is STYN's design, that prints betray those players who struggle to keep the ball in play. Van Doorn was surprised to find the players to emerge with the best prints during the interactive exhibition were the 40 to 60-year-old men. "Man they could play that machine like I never could. After years of experience in pinball, damn they made that ball fly."
Check out the gallery for prints created by van Doorn's STYN. | <urn:uuid:2b6549fe-dd1a-4e14-896f-429b7e7eab5c> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.wired.co.uk/article/pinball-print-machine | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00047-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982692 | 648 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Last September, alumni of the Texas Wesleyan University School of Law were invited to a meeting in downtown Fort Worth at the building that once housed their 24-year-old alma mater. A month earlier, Texas A&M University had completed a deal to purchase the school for $73.2 million. Though the physical space itself was familiar to the former students, many felt that they were walking in as outsiders.
Karan Watson, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs for Texas A&M University, spoke at the meeting, along with interim law school dean Aric Short. Many of the alumni were concerned that their law school was gone and wanted answers as to how, or if, they would fit into the A&M family.
After a brief introduction by Short, Watson immediately addressed the elephant in the room: Would the Wesleyan alumni receive reissued degrees from A&M?
“You all graduated from Texas Wesleyan University School of Law. That’s it,” she said. “You did not graduate from Texas A&M University. Texas A&M had no authority before we acquired the law school in August to grant any degrees in law.
“So that’s it in terms of degrees and diplomas. We cannot reissue your diplomas; we cannot do anything about that,” she said, adding that A&M could jeopardize its accreditation by issuing its diplomas to non-A&M graduates.
Her comments didn’t sit well with the crowd. The exchange that followed between the alumni, Watson, and Short bordered on combative.
Many alumni who attended the meeting or watched a recording of it on YouTube, used word like “betrayed” and “abandoned” to describe how they felt afterward.
During the negotiations between A&M and Wesleyan, when the Fort Worth university was trying to win ex-students’ support for the idea, Wesleyan sent a letter of intent to its alumni announcing the school’s “strategic partnership” with A&M. The new name of the school would be the Texas A&M School of Law at Texas Wesleyan University.
The letter energized many alumni, who believed their law degrees were about to become more prestigious with the A&M name behind them. Several of them told Fort Worth Weekly that they believed that, once the partnership became official, their diplomas would be reissued as a matter of due course. Tantalized by the prospect, most of them supported the partnership.
During the course of negotiations, however, the touted partnership became an outright sale of the law school. In part, it appears that the law school was sacrificed in order to pay for continued improvements of Wesleyan’s main campus in southeast Fort Worth.
In the sale, “Wesleyan” was dropped from the school’s name, and the excitement that the Wesleyan alumni had felt turned to confusion and anger. Their law school had vanished.
The former students believe they have lost a program they helped grow, that was accredited in part because of their accomplishments. And now they are the proverbial orphans left at the doorstep of an institution that doesn’t want to acknowledge them.
But the loss of their law school has broader implications than just hurt feelings. They fear that having graduated from a law school that no longer exists could hurt their careers as they apply for jobs, seek to further their education, or move out of state.
Online records of the Texas Wesleyan School of Law have practically been scrubbed from existence. On the website of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), the organization that grants accreditation to law schools in this region, Texas A&M is listed as gaining accreditation in 1994, the year Wesleyan earned it. There’s no record of Wesleyan Law. When former students apply online for a more advanced degree, out-of-state jobs, or another state’s bar exam, Wesleyan Law isn’t one of the listed options as accredited law schools.
Some alumni have heard rumors that A&M plans to some day move the university out of Fort Worth. University officials have repeatedly publicly committed to keeping the school in Fort Worth, though Chancellor John Sharp told the Weekly that administrators have discussed possibly having some freshmen attend law school classes at the university’s College Station campus.
Wesleyan alumni Jared Julian said he was initially excited about the idea of joining the A&M family and gaining the prestige that comes along with that brand.
“It’s been disheartening,” he said. “It was represented to us that the value of our degree would, if anything, be enhanced. Instead, we feel very much lost. The law school and its reputation that the professors and students have built have been taken from us. We’re getting nothing in return.”
Now Wesleyan Law alumni are doing what lawyers do: They are organizing and gathering evidence as though preparing for a court case. Some alumni started Facebook groups on which people have discussed taking legal action against A&M.
Fort Worth attorney Warren Norred, who calls himself a “happy warrior,” created a petition imploring A&M to reissue the alumni’s law degrees. So far the petition has 243 signatures. In the petition, Norred writes that he and other Wesleyan graduates have looked for and could find no legal basis for A&M to claim it can deny them their reissued diplomas.
“The petition doesn’t say emphatically that we’re right,” he said. “It just says we couldn’t find anything.”
Norred is frustrated that so many questions about the sale of Wesleyan remain unanswered, such as whether his school records are now subject to public information requests and how the erasure of Wesleyan Law will affect its graduates who seek to practice outside of Texas under reciprocity rules. In 26 states, lawyers who have passed the Texas bar exam are not required to take the other states’ bar exams in order to practice there. But one of the requirements is that the lawyer must have graduated from an accredited law school.
“There is no place on the A&M law school website that tells Wesleyan Law alumni how you handle these issues,” he said. “They don’t want to take responsibility.”
He believes that he is now an A&M School of Law graduate.
“Texas A&M purchased and renamed this school,” he said. “They did not make it up out of whole cloth. If I were to ask Texas A&M School of Law for a list of graduates from 1994 to 2012, would I be on that list? If I am on that list, how can I not be called a Texas A&M School of Law graduate?
“The fact is, we do have a degree from Texas A&M,” he said. “We just haven’t been issued it.”
Former student Matthew Graham, who practices in Dallas, noted that on its website, A&M often trumpets the accomplishments of Wesleyan Law graduates when they do something noteworthy. In those cases, he said, they are happy to acknowledge Wesleyan Law graduates as A&M alumni.
“It’s a sort of strange, self-serving use of our accomplishments without allowing us to use their name on our resumé,” he said.
Julian also feels that the relationship between A&M and Wesleyan graduates is decidedly one-way.
“[A&M officials] are saying ‘Thank you very much. On the one hand, you created an excellent law school, and your reputation of the quality of attorneys is the reason we were attracted to the school. In return, we’re not willing to recognize you,’ ” he said.
Graham isn’t looking for a job, but if he were, he said, he wouldn’t know what to put on a resumé.
“I don’t even have a bread-crumb trail to get back to where the school is,” he said. “If you go on the internet and look around a bit, it’s been expunged.
“You can’t buy a Wesleyan Law t-shirt, you can’t buy a Wesleyan Law coffee mug,” he said. “It’s history now.” | <urn:uuid:e65added-7f92-48d3-a32e-8fae0d6902f3> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.fwweekly.com/2014/02/26/aggie-vanishing-act/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285289.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00144-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981892 | 1,796 | 1.765625 | 2 |
"arents, no cheating off of your children," West Salem Elementary fourth-grade teacher Michelle Colter teased the big people in her classroom.
"She gave me a wrong answer, anyway," one of the mothers quipped in return.
If you can't beat them, join them, seemed to be the attitude of West Salem Elementary Principal Robert Dorety towards the fourth-grade proficiency exam as he gathered parents at the school for pizza and proficiency Thursday evening.
While the test is a controversial one, Dorety thinks a positive attitude towards it is the best approach. Familiarizing parents with the testing method -- targeting their helping kids with homework -- is part of that approach.
After fortifying themselves with dinner, parents divided into classrooms to study sample questions in each area of the fourth-grade test -- reading, math, science, and citizenship.
Dorety noted that Stark County Educational Services granted him permission to reproduce sample questions.
Getting used to the test is the biggest hurdle, according to Dorety, who said it uses a "whole different concept" from the standardized testing to which people became accustomed over the last two decades.
No longer based on straightforward multiple choice, "the fourth-grade proficiency exam requires a higher level of thinking in order to answer the questions," Dorety said.
For instance, the math problems include many different things studied, utilizing math terms, estimating, calculating, and true and false all in one problem.
"All the problems are word problems," he said.
Parents discovered the modern testing principle as many of them, accompanied by their children, pored over their simulated test sheets.
One of the things that immediately throws students off when they encounter the test, Colter told a group in the science section, is vocabulary -- even names -- not familiar to them in their daily lives.
For instance, she said, "The test uses names like Rodriguez and Julio (as part of questions), rather than Bob or Susie."
If the name Lamont is used, as it was in the reading section, children aren't sure whether they are reading about a person, place, or thing, another instructor noted.
Several parents agreed that questions in the reading selections, featuring charts and extended answer requirements, were confusing.
In some cases, queries appeared to have more than one right answer, including one in which students were asked to determine what the main character of a story was "most likely" to do in the future.
"Can't they come up with a basic question?" Denna Sibug asked.
"It makes you think how hard kids are going to have it," Vickie Tracy said.
Along with helping parents understand the new testing method, West Salem Elementary is making certain the students are comfortable with the test as well.
A "problem of the day" representing each subject covered by the test is put on the overhead in fourth-grade classrooms daily.
"Seeing the repetition and how the questions are asked, when the students sit down to take the test, they are going to be a little more familiar with it," Dorety said.
"It's not (done) just to make ourselves look better, or just to get higher scores," he stressed.
Rather, "because we don't have a choice at this level, let's do it right. Let's be positive."
Dorety said the motivation for the proficiency testing is to promote better understanding among students of the academic material.
"Let's not just jump through the hoop. Let's see if we can get something out of it," Dorety said. "We're not teaching to the test; we're adjusting our strategies."
"Let's make our students higher-level thinkers." | <urn:uuid:c31a43f8-6923-4c99-bab2-7fb906d73eff> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.the-daily-record.com/local%20news/2000/12/01/positive-attitude-helps-parents-understand-testing | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283689.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00345-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971017 | 769 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Failure Analysis and Prevention
Erosion of solid surfaces can be brought about solely by liquids in two ways: from damage induced by formation and subsequent collapse of voids or cavities within the liquid, and from high-velocity impacts between a solid surface and liquid droplets. The former process is called cavitation erosion and the latter is liquid-droplet erosion. This article emphasizes on manifestations of damage and ways to minimize or repair these types of liquid impact damage, with illustrations.
R.H. Richman, Liquid-Impact Erosion, Failure Analysis and Prevention, Vol 11, Edited By William T. Becker, Roch J. Shipley, ASM International, 2002, p 1013–1018, https://doi.org/10.31399/asm.hb.v11.a0003570
Download citation file: | <urn:uuid:825e4e1a-f6c6-4aaa-9c11-62ad7e171d9b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://dl.asminternational.org/failure-analysis/edited-volume/29/chapter-abstract/397090/Liquid-Impact-Erosion?redirectedFrom=fulltext | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570871.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808183040-20220808213040-00275.warc.gz | en | 0.891165 | 178 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Sarajevo, July 16, 2020 – Solidarity within the media community and joint public pressure on political institutions and decision makers are key to solving many problems that journalists and media in BiH have been facing for years – from inadequate legal protection and media legislation, to the safety of journalists, freedom of expression and very poor economic status and conditions of their work – this was pointed out during the online discussion on the research “Indicators on the level of media freedom and journalists’ safety in BiH 2019”, organized by BH Journalists Association.
Political influences and economic pressures on BiH media are becoming more visible, and journalists have less and less freedom in creating the content they work on while facing self-censorship and censorship almost daily. In 2019, a total of 56 cases of attacks, threats and pressures on journalists in Bosnia and Herzegovina were registered. Of that number, nine physical attacks on journalists and media employees were recorded, as well as eight death threats. The Free Media Help Line (FMHL) has data on 289 active defamation lawsuits against journalists and the media in the last five years. The average salary of journalists in BiH is 880 BAM. Overtime is not paid, and in many media houses, taxes for health and pension insurance are paid irregularly. The political and regional divisions in BiH are deeply reflected in the issue of journalistic solidarity and the possibility of forming a single trade union organization, which would bring together journalists from all over the country.
These are just some of the results of a research by BH Journalists, conducted within the regional network of journalists’ associations in the Western Balkans (www.safejournalists.net). The results of the research were discussed by prof. dr. Lejla Turčilo, Head of the Department of Communicology/Journalism at FPS Sarajevo, doc. dr. Daniela Jurčić from the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Mostar, Velida Kulenović, journalist of Federal Radio and member of the BHJA Steering Committee, Esad Šabanagić, editor of the independent Krajina newspaper Reprezent, Faruk Kajtaz, editor of the independent online magazine Starmo.ba from Mostar and member of the BHJA Steering Committee, Borislav Vukojević, senior assistant at the FPS at the University of Banja Luka, Andrijana Pisarević, journalist of Srpskacafe, Borka Rudić, general secretary of BHJA and Maja Radević, researcher/project coordinator of BHJA.
As the participants in today’s online discussion pointed out, this kind of research should leave the circle of the media and academic community and must be discussed at the level of political decision-makers.
– It is discouraging that we are already getting used to such circumstances in which journalists and media work in BiH today – from the legal norms we have and which are generally good, but not applied in practice, to the issue of safety of journalists and economic conditions in the media, which are getting worse. It seems to me that there is no political will to solve these problems, and it is especially worrying that there is less and less will within the media community as well. However, public pressure is key to the visibility of all our problems. I’m afraid that citizens know very little about how and under what conditions journalists work and that is what needs to be changed because bad journalism endangers citizens and their right to be well informed, and not for someone to manipulate them – said prof. dr. Lejla Turčilo.
According to Daniela Jurčić, the situation in BiH media is largely a reflection of the political situation in the country,
– How can we expect our media to be professional and high-quality in addition to such corrupt politicians? I think that the education of journalists, especially young people, is very important here, as well as who can be a journalist at all. Interest in the study of journalism still exists although it is declining every year, and this is surprising given such a poor media image in BiH – says Jurčić.
Participants in the discussion particularly highlighted the extremely bad situation in local media operating in smaller communities, whose problems often remain in the shadows and are considered less important compared to public services and media from larger cities.
– The problems of local media and journalists who work for them mostly remain out of focus, although we have numerous reports and analyzes in which the status of local media has been highlighted as one of the main problems in the media community for years – says Faruk Kajtaz.
– There were no major changes in Zenica-Doboj Canton last year. Pressure on the media continued and journalists were even fired for disobedience, especially in the local media. It is enough to see what is happening on RTV Zenica. I am afraid it will only get worse because on the one hand, local elections and the start of the political campaign are approaching, and on the other hand you have the fact that during the pandemic journalists were much more exposed to the risks of their profession and in that period it became visible in what poor conditions we work – said Velida Kulenović.
Esad Šabanagić emphasized that one of the problems is large number of “wild” portals and media – it is not known who owns them, or who works in those media.
– That is why we need a law on the transparency of media ownership and to create a public register of media outlets. In general, journalists in BiH need more solidarity and truth, and less self-censorship and censorship – says Šabanagić.
Speaking about the legal protection of journalists and media, Borislav Vukojevic emphasized that it is devastating not only that journalists do not have adequate protection in cases of attacks on them, but that it sometimes takes on absurd dimensions so even though there is evidence, investigations in judicial institutions are suspended, very slow and inefficient. The same opinion is shared by professor Lejla Turčilo, who states that the connection between politics and the judiciary can be easily noticed on the examples of processing attacks on journalists.
– When it comes to lawsuits filed by journalists/media, these lawsuits are usually rejected or kept in drawers for months, and when the journalists are sued by those who are close to political powerful people, it all goes much faster. Such a relationship clearly shows the intention of judicial institutions and their connection with politics – concludes Lejla Turčilo.
The report “Indicators on the level of media freedom and journalists’ safety in BiH 2019” will be published in the next month. | <urn:uuid:94f98bfc-c1d6-4620-bf98-13da957ee702> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://bhnovinari.ba/en/2020/07/16/the-media-community-must-show-solidarity-and-jointly-defend-freedom-of-expression-in-bih/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570767.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808061828-20220808091828-00470.warc.gz | en | 0.965558 | 1,400 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Derived from the Dutch for “children” and “bicycle,” a Kinderfeets is a wooden push bike designed to ease the transition to pedal-powered bicycle at a toddler’s comfort level.
More than a toy, Kinderfeets is a father’s gift to his son. Disappointed with the push bikes available, Dutch designer Oscar Mulder decided to create his own balance bike for his son, Sebastiaan.
Oscar wanted Sebastiaan to be able to cruise once he became confident enough, so he broke the push bike mold and added footpegs. Knowing kids love to get dirty, he added a removable seat cover that can go in the wash with the rest of the laundry. Other push bikes have inflatable tires that go flat, interrupting the fun. But Kinderfeets’ tires don’t require air. Plus, Kinderfeets’ colorful chalkboard finish provides a reusable canvas for children to exercise their creativity. Older now, Sebastiaan rides a regular bike with ease and confidence – all thanks to the push bike his father designed with him in mind.
There are no products matching the selection. | <urn:uuid:39fbafe0-e715-47e4-aabf-9f8ad8c55f9e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.weebikeshop.com/balance-bikes/brands/kinderfeets.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283301.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00505-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962999 | 242 | 1.742188 | 2 |
The UK Supreme Court has ruled that the Government must deliver new plans by the end of the year to cut illegal levels of air pollution. We are pleased and have welcomed this decision.
Exposure to high levels of air pollution can exacerbate existing heart conditions, increase the risk of heart attack and increase the risk of hospitalisation or death from stroke.
Powered by our research
We have been at the forefront of research that has shown the links between air pollution and cardiovascular disease. Just last month a study we funded at the University of Edinburgh showed the impact of air pollution on stroke risk.
The UK has been breaching legal limits for nitrogen dioxide since 2010 in 16 different cities and regions. Research suggests that in the UK as many as 35,000 to 50,000 people could die prematurely each year, as a result of short term exposure to air pollution.
End of long battle
The judgement signals the end of four-year battle in EU and UK courts by environmental group ClientEarth to force the UK Government to comply with EU regulations.
Following the verdict, our Director of Policy, Mike Hobday, said:
“Today’s ruling sends a clear message to the UK Government. They must put plans in place to clean up the UK’s dirty air.
"The UK Government has a duty to protect public health and ensure the air we breathe is safe – a duty they have so far failed to fulfil.
“Reducing air pollution will help protect the health of the 7 million people living with cardiovascular disease and also help protect the heart health of future generations.”
Advice on air pollution
If you are worried about your exposure to air pollution and how it might affect your cardiovascular health, please download our factsheet for advice.
Research we funded helped show the dangers of air pollution. We receive no Government funding for our research and it is only possible with your support. | <urn:uuid:b10d5ccb-fda4-4683-ab72-b2f4149cd58e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.bhf.org.uk/news-from-the-bhf/news-archive/2015/april/air-pollution-victory-at-supreme-court | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281574.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00017-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939336 | 387 | 2.46875 | 2 |
The Nooelec Ham-it-up already has a circuit in it which you might be able to use in instantaneously switching it out of the circuit when you transmit.
Combined with a relay it would almost certainly be adequate.
I would go to the Skyworks site and look up whatever device they use. http://www.skyworksinc.com/products_switches.aspx
They are very popular and I'm sure very good. Better than mechanical switches as far as loss at high frequencies.
The Ham-it-Up presents very little loss at VHF/UHF when its turned off.
The schematics for the entire Nooelect device are online.
Was looking for some data on Pin Diodes yesterday and found this: http://www.microsemi.com/sites/default/files/micnotes/701.pdf
"PIN Diode Fundamentals
A PIN diode is a semiconductor
device that operates as a variable
resistor at RF and microwave
frequencies. The resistance value of
the PIN diode is determined only by
the forward biased dc current. In
switch and attenuator applications,
the PIN diode should ideally control
the RF signal level without
introducing distortion which might
change the shape of the RF signal.
An important additional feature of the
PIN diode is its ability to control large
RF signals while using much smaller
levels of dc excitation."
Since it doesn't have an LNA, I dont see why the Hamitup and similar simple converters wouldn't be able to be used in reverse for transmitting. | <urn:uuid:d9c1589d-1d7d-4010-b0c0-d5c0d086cc55> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.eham.net/ehamforum/smf/index.php?topic=94428.msg728539 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721405.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00313-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935944 | 341 | 2.296875 | 2 |
This study from Italy investigated potential associations between heart failure and comorbid cancer and whether the existence of heart failure predisposed individuals with both to a higher risk of death.
There are increased risks of cancer and of cancer-related mortality among individuals who have coexistent heart failure, reports a new study from Italy. In addition, both risks may be even greater in the presence of decompensated heart failure, which is the sudden onset of volume overload and requires immediate medical attention.
These findings were published recently in JACC: CardioOncology.
“The interconnection between cancer and heart failure is increasingly recognized, but it remains unclear whether heart failure is associated with an excess risk of cancer and cancer-related mortality,” the authors explained. “In this context, we assessed cancer incidence and mortality in a large cohort of heart failure patients compared with matched control subjects.”
Their study classified participants into 2 cohorts: heart failure at baseline (n = 104,020) and controls (n = 104,020) matched by age, sex, drug-derived complexity index, Charlson comorbidity index, and follow-up duration. International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision codes and death certificates defined cancer incidence and mortality, and health care cost-related fee waivers (HFWs) for heart failure in the previous year or a hospital discharge record (HDR) with a heart failure diagnosis.
For the years of this retrospective community-based study, cancer occurred 1.7 times faster in the heart failure cohort than the control cohort. There were 21.36 (95% CI, 20.98-21.74) cases compared with 12.42 (95% CI, 12.14-12.72) per 1000 person-years, with an overall 76% greater risk (HR, 1.76; 95% CI, 1.71-1.81). Risk of cancer-related death was also higher in the study group overall (HR, 4.11; 95% CI, 3.86-4.38).
Stratifying by age showed even higher risks of cancer-related mortality; in particular that the youngest patients with heart failure—evaluated ages were younger than 70 years (n = 57,328), 70 to 79 years (n = 70,156), and 80 years and older (n = 80,556)—had a mortality risk that was more than twice as high as the oldest patients:
A competing risk analysis for other causes of death also confirmed that presence of heart failure led to a greater risk of death from cancer (subdistribution HR [SHR], 3.48; 95% CI, 3.27-3.72) overall and across all age groups:
Further, among patients with heart failure who were taking high-dose loop diuretics, there were elevated incidences of cancer (HR, 1.11; 95% CI, 1.03) and of death (HR, 1.35; 95% CI, 1.19-1.53), and women with heart failure at baseline had a higher risk of cancer mortality (HR, 4.86; 95% CI, 4.35-5.43) vs men (HR, 3.79; 95% CI, 3.51-4.10), although both risks were elevated.
All study participants were at least 50 (mean [SD], 76 ) years of age between January 1, 2005, and December 31, 2013; from the Puglia region of Italy; had administrative health data (drug prescriptions, outpatient visit reports, HDRs, HFWs, death certificates) from between 2002 and 2018; did not have cancer in the 3 years before the study’s baseline evaluation; and had at least 5 years of follow-up data on record.
The most common cardiovascular risk factor overall was hypertension, the most common prescribed cardiovascular drug class was diuretics, and the most common cardiovascular disease was stable coronary artery disease among study and control subject aged younger than 70 years through 79 years. Among participants 80 years and older, atrial fibrillation was most common among the heart failure group and stroke among the control group.
To minimize surveillance bias—patients with heart failure have more medical evaluations vs healthy subjects—the study investigators also stratified their cohorts by total hospital admissions, after which they assessed cancer incidence and mortality in all. Again, cancer incidence and mortality were higher among the persons with heart failure.
While their observational design may bias generalizability of these results, having a large study population, utilizing an unbiased selection process, including a long follow-up, and confirming heart failure diagnosis through health care records serve to strengthen their conclusion that individuals with heart failure are more likely to develop and die from cancer.
Bertero E, Robusto F, Rulli E, et al.Cancer incidence and mortality according to pre-existing heart failure in a community-based cohort. JACC CardioOncol.Published online January 18, 2022. doi:10.1016/j.jaccao.2021.11.007 | <urn:uuid:ab4054e2-5bf4-4be7-95b5-056ff176a790> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.ajmc.com/view/heart-failure-history-may-indicate-greater-risks-of-cancer-related-mortality | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572304.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816120802-20220816150802-00469.warc.gz | en | 0.948743 | 1,048 | 1.859375 | 2 |
Remember the first time you looked up at your roof and noticed those black stains appearing on your shingles? Do you remember how you felt when you saw it slowly spreading across the roof? Your home was fairly new and your shingles barely a few years old. How could this be happening and what was causing it? Well, you weren’t alone in your frustration. It appears that this is quite a common occurrence in Florida. Even on a roof with fungus resistant shingles, the fungus protection applied by the manufacturers of the shingles can begin to fail as soon as 2-3 years after installation. As the protection fails, staining can appear within six months. In Florida’s hot & humid climate, it seems that inevitably a fungus actually begins to grow on your roof shingles; leaving behind these stains that continue to spread across your roof if left untreated. These fungi live abundantly in the soil. Like all fungi, they multiply by microscopic spores which float through the air and after landing on a hospitable surface, germinate. Fungi feed on organic matter such as wood, paper and asphalt, just to mention a few, and in the process, decompose and eventually destroy the material on which they grow.
Besides making your home look old and unsightly, researchers looking into this problem have discovered that this fungus could actually be costing you quite a bit of money. If your roof has fungus growth, temperatures under your roof become higher, increasing your monthly air conditioning costs and possibly even shortening the lifespan of your air conditioning unit. Some of these studies have revealed reduction of under-roof temperatures by anywhere from 10 – 20 degrees once the fungus has been eliminated. Some owners have seen utility savings of up to $20-$25 per month. In fact, there is a noticeable difference in your electric bill if the change in your attic temperature reduces the temperature in your living space by just 3-4 degrees. SHORTENED ROOF LIFE AND ALLERGIES.- Compounding the problem, the same studies seem to indicate that the lifespan of your roof is shortened by the increased granule loss from thermal expansions and contractions commonly experienced with this problem. This expansion and contraction can cause a weakening around the fastenings of the shingles on your roof. Also, unhealthy fungus spores and mold could conceivably be tracked into your home. For those owners suffering from allergies, this breeding ground on your roof could really cause some suffering.
As with most of these types of problems in Florida, everyone you speak with seems to have a different opinion. Some owners believe that cleaning the roof with a high pressure water hose is the best treatment. While it is our understanding that this might temporarily eliminate most of the fungus, enough of the fungus is left behind, actually embedded in the ceramic granules on the shingles, to quickly cause future problems. In addition, high pressure water treatments do seem to damage shingles over time, causing granule loss and shortening the life of your shingles. Keep in mind, the granules on your shingles are the sources of not only the color of your roof, but also the home’s heat-reflective protection. Granule loss should be avoided and we focus on avoiding such.
Extend the life of your roof, driveway, fence etc. by removing stains, mildew, algae & nasty fungus. Everyone likes clean and bright surroundings. You can have the original look of a new concrete driveway, sidewalk and patio. Remove the mildew from the siding on your home. From your mailbox. Your gutters. Your deck can be restored to look as good as new.
Your cost is very reasonable for the difference it will make in the overall appearance of your property. Call us or use the online request form for a NO OBLIGATION quote on all of your pressure washing needs to renew the appearance of your home.
Mold can get under shingles and cause your roof to leak over time.
A fungus-covered roof is not only an eyesore, but unhealthy for people with allergies as unwanted spores creep into your home.
In addition, a fungus-covered roof keeps under roof temperatures a lot higher by preventing the reflective capabilities of your shingles.
Commercial businesses are welcome, too. Bank driveways. Service Stations. Grocery Stores. Warehouses. Small office buildings. Let’s make clean and beautiful our standard for home and business. You can do one project at a time or the total property. Our goal is to meet your time schedule. Everything cleaned at one time or over several weeks or months.
Mandrell’s Pressure Cleaning guarantees to clean your roof, driveway, deck, patio, sidewalk, fence, shed or gutters to your satisfaction. Please understand that only regular cleaning can prevent stains from becoming permanent.
Put us on your list of things to do. Enhance the beauty of your surroundings with a low cost cleaning of your property. The online request form was designed for your convenience and allow us to promptly serve your cleaning needs. Otherwise, give us a call.
Referrals are always welcome and appreciated. Your company may have a need for our pressure washing services. A “confidential” suggestion from you is all we need. Our professionals will make the necessary visit and offer our service. Only with your permission would your name be mentioned to anyone.
Do you belong to a neighborhood community group, church, private school, and wish to make a gift covering the cost of our service? Call us today and we’ll give you a 5% off gift.
THAT UGLY BLACK FUNGUS ON YOUR ROOF IS STEALING YOUR MONEY!
DON'T DELAY, GET YOUR FREE ESTIMATE NOW!
- HIGHER UNDER-ROOF TEMPERATURES INCREASE AIR CONDITIONING COSTS
- HEAVIER AIR CONDITIONER USE SHORTENS YOUR AIR CONDITIONER'S LIFE
- UNSIGHTLY APPEARANCE HAS A NEGATIVE AFFECT ON PROPERTY VALUES IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD
- SHORTENED ROOF LIFE BECAUSE OF SHINGLE ROT AND GRANULE BREAKDOWN
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- SAFER AND CLEANER LIVING AREAS - NO UNHEALTHY FUNGUS SPORES AND MOLD TRACKED INTO YOUR HOME | <urn:uuid:5aafaa7c-b48b-4e55-8cd7-6d73c59d5db3> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://mandrellspressurecleaning.com/faq/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571987.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813202507-20220813232507-00273.warc.gz | en | 0.934054 | 1,428 | 2.34375 | 2 |
Category:Tomb of the Unknown Revolutionary War Soldier
The Tomb of the Unknown Revolutionary Soldier in Washington Square in Philadelphia was completed in 1957. It was designed by architect G. Edwin Brumbaugh and includes a bronze cast of Jean-Antoine Houdon's sculpture of George Washington. The Tomb includes remains disinterred, after archeological examination, from within the park from when it was a cemetery. The remains are that of a soldier, but it is uncertain if he was Colonial or British. (Source: USHistory.org)
Media in category "Tomb of the Unknown Revolutionary War Soldier"
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Suppose that three consecutive natural numbers are of the form: n – 1, n, n + 1.
Then their sum will be: n – 1 + n + n + 1 = 3 * n, that is, this number is a multiple of 3.
The sum of the digits of a multiple of 3 must be divisible by 3, we get:
* 1234: * + 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = * + 10. In order for the indicated amount to be divisible by 3 and have the smallest value, instead of *, you must put 2.
2 + 10 = 12.
Thus, the smallest sum of three consecutive numbers that meets the conditions of the problem is 21234.
One of the components of a person's success in our time is receiving modern high-quality education, mastering the knowledge, skills and abilities necessary for life in society. A person today needs to study almost all his life, mastering everything new and new, acquiring the necessary professional qualities. | <urn:uuid:db871ad9-fe2a-4450-945d-489b44fcf8bf> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.univerkov.com/what-is-the-smallest-sum-that-three-consecutive-natural-numbers-can-have-if-the-sum-ends-in-1234/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573399.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818185216-20220818215216-00075.warc.gz | en | 0.935485 | 212 | 3.15625 | 3 |
o161. AUDITORY AGNOSIA
-- a pure word deafness wherein the word is clearly heard but seems unfamiliar or not easily understood like a foreign language.
B: Mahal kita..
o162. "Kung maraming dapat gawin pero wala kang ginagawa,
Mas madalas na hindi katamaran ang dahilan nun..
May iniisip ka.."
-- Bob Ong
o163. "Don't deny yourself of the things you want because a thing that is denied becomes strongly desired.""
o164. "While I'm busy looking up the balloon,
I've realized that there's an ice cream melting on my hand."
Don't take things for granted.
o165. I don't have the capability to paint the skies blue when the dark clouds sets in..
But I do have an umbrella we can share in case those raindrops fall..
o166. "Of all the hardships a person had to face,
Nothing was more punishing than the simple act of WAITING.."
o167. A relationship doesn't need any promises, terms or conditions..
It just needs two wonderful people..
"One who can trust"
And "One who can understand"
o168. "Sometimes, there are reasons why we don't want to talk about stuff.
One, if it means nothing..
Two, if it means everything.."
o169. Life doesn't force us to be the best..
It only asks us to try..
o170. "Love always sparks through the good times,
And it's up to you to make it last through the bad times.." | <urn:uuid:eb4a2b07-a2d7-4329-a656-ac9bf6073e22> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://k0wts.blogspot.com/2009/05/k0wtso17.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00473-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91861 | 357 | 1.945313 | 2 |
In recent years there has been major focus on illegal shareholder loans, as it has represented an increasing problem. In 2011, nearly every 10th company audited had raised an illegal loan corre-sponding to 16,427 companies. The reaction to this was an amendment of the tax rules in the au-tumn of 2012 under which illegal shareholder loans were to be taxed as salary or dividend. Since then, the number of illegal loans also declined to approx. 6,500 in 2014, which seems to be a good development. However, it is interesting to note that many new loans are being raised every year and no one is trying immediately to explain why this is so. Why are so many illegal loans still being raised in companies when the rules aim at removing the incentive of those who break them? The thesis describes company and tax law rules, the effect on the annual report and the role of the accountant with respect to the issue. This provides an overall understanding of the relevant rules. Subsequently, we analyse the development in the number of illegal loans based on data from FSR – Danish Auditors supplemented by unpublished data obtained from the Danish Busi-ness Authority (ERST). Thus, a background has been set up based on which attempts will be made to explain why illegal loans are being raised in companies. These explanations are based on interviews with four state authorities public accountants, all of whom have had clients with illegal loans, and on an interview with a consultant from the Danish Business Authority em-ployed in the department dealing with illegal loans. In connection with the analysis of the sub-ject, the following notable issues appeared. The only organisation who publish figures on and analyse the development of the problem is FSR. A close inspection of FSR’s annual analyses shows that the analyses are inadequate as they only include figures from audited companies, which constitute approx 66% of all class B enter-prises in financial year 2014, and the analyses are characterised more by the need to support a political agenda than to provide objective information about the problem. An examination of data received from the Danish Business Authority shows that the Authority has identified more than 4,100 illegal loans in 2014 in companies not audited. This illustrates a so far unknown part of the problem. Based on the figures from ERST, the issue of hidden illegal loans is assessed to be somewhat less significant than described by FSR in its analyses; however, more illegal loans have been observed than estimated by FSR. Overall, we assess the reason for raising illegal loans to be twofold: intentional and uninten-tional loan arrangements. A number of individuals raise the loans intentionally to postpone or attempt to avoid paying taxes, alternatively to raise funds in an easier way than by borrowing funds from a bank, which may be difficult for example in connection with the financial crisis. Unintentional arrangements arise in small enterprises with limited financial management and overview or with lack of professional capacity, which may result in unfortunate arrangements. Therefore, illegal loans will probably always exist in future as there will always be business own-ers who will either try to cheat the system or who are not fully aware of all the rules. Other rules, follow-up methods, etc. are required to eliminate the problem and that will not happen for years to come.
|Educations||MSc in Auditing, (Graduate Programme) Final Thesis|
|Number of pages||124| | <urn:uuid:f47bbc2a-e2c4-4a98-8f23-f55a931cd5d7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://research.cbs.dk/en/studentProjects/8f028297-3cc2-4e8a-b26c-438740ca4b5c | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571909.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813051311-20220813081311-00271.warc.gz | en | 0.973721 | 709 | 1.523438 | 2 |
You have reached the website of the Japanese Garden Foundation of New Orleans. Here you can find information about New Orleans Japanese Garden located in beautiful and historic City Park. Here is a short history of this tiny treasure.
The dream of building a Japanese Garden in New Orleans first took root in 1985, when four visionary women — Colleen “Co” Thian, Betty Lyons, Coralie Nesser, and Madeline Jones — founded the Japanese Garden Society. For decades these four special New Orleans women carried the dream forward, planning, working, and fund raising. Without their energy and tireless dedication, Yakumo Nihon Teien would not exist today.
After years of fund raising, an ideal spot was obtained within the Botanical Garden section of City Park. The garden is located just beyond the Train Garden, near the Garden Study Center and the Lathe House. Surrounded by a beautiful bamboo fence, visitors enjoy the garden as an oasis of calm and tranquility. The pictures elsewhere on this website will hopefully give you a sense of what a special place the garden is.
The garden celebrates some important connections between New Orleans and Japan. The formal name of the garden is Yakumo Nihon Teien, an unusual name that bears some explanation. Nihon means Japanese and Teien means garden, so that much is clear. Yakumo refers to a New Orleans writer, Lafcadio Hearn.
Originally born in Greece, Hearn was a renowned author and journalist who lived and wrote in New Orleans for many years in the late 1800s. A substantial collection of his work is housed at Tulane University. He was dispatched by Harper’s Weekly magazine to Japan in 1890, to send back a series of articles. There he fell in love with the culture. He married into a Japanese Samurai family and assumed the name Koizumi Yakumo. Here is a picture of his tombstone in Japan.
He wrote eloquently about Japanese culture, and was influential in introducing it to the west; he is widely read and respected in Japan to this day. He lived for many years in Matsue, which happens to be New Orleans’ sister city in Japan. It is renowned throughout Japan, and indeed the world, for the fine quality of its stoneware. Matsue has donated three massive pieces of stone art to the garden: two lanterns and a water basin, which alone are worth a visit.
The garden was designed by local landscape architect Robin Tanner, an acknowledged expert in Japanese-garden design. Ground was broken in 2003 and completed in 2005, just in time for Katrina. While many of the plants were lost in the flood, there was no major damage to the physical elements in the garden. The garden was quickly restored and, in fact, improved by the addition of a small structure that serves as a tea house, and a backdrop to cultural events. It has even served as the site of a wedding.
The garden is one of the most visited and popular sites in the Botanical Garden. We recently expanded the garden more than doubling it in size. The Japanese Garden Society also recently changed its name to the Japanese Garden Foundation, which is more in keeping with our mission of expanding and maintaining this tiny treasure in City Park.
You can see pictures of the recent expansion, as well as our past accomplishments on our “digital diary” page. If you’re interested in gardening, experiencing other cultures, or could just use a few moments of quiet contemplation, you might want to visit the Japanese garden in City Park.
The Japanese Garden is located in the Botanical Gardens
Stones for our Japanese Garden
When we first began the design of the Japanese Garden, I learned from Vaughn Banting, a distinguished member of our design team, that stones are considered to be one of the most important elements of a Japanese garden. As I learned more about Japanese gardens from reading books on the subject, I became more deeply impressed by the importance of stones.
Work on our Japanese Garden has progressed slowly but surely, and the acquisition of the appropriate stones and the placement of them in the garden site have become important milestones for us. The main entrance of the garden, along with several other features of the garden, could not be completed until the stones were in place because a big machine, namely a Bobcat, needed to be used to enter the garden with these heavy stones. Thus, we needed to maintain a large opening until the stones were in place.
The achievement of these milestones began to become a reality on the weekend of April 3, 2005, when Robin Tanner, board member and landscape architect for the garden, and Vaughn drove from New Orleans to Crossville, Tennessee, in Robin’s truck to a rock quarry. They had selected this particular quarry after investigating sites in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Tennessee. They had talked to the owners and operators of the quarry before their visit about having someone from the quarry send the stones to us, but decided instead that it was important to visit the quarry personally to make the selection. Robin and Vaughn arrived on a Sunday night so that they could go to the quarry early on Monday morning to review and select the stones for our garden. On Monday, they went to the quarry, loaded the truck, and left Tennessee about 3:00 p.m. The truck was so heavily laden that they were required to drive slowly, and they didn’t arrive back in New Orleans until Tuesday morning about 6:30 a.m.
Knowing how important this effort was and not having been in touch with Robin since the previous week, I was delighted when I got a telephone call from him saying that they had just arrived with the stones and telling me the story of their adventure. He was speaking from his cell phone as he was driving the truck with the stones to the garden. He told me that his Bobcat was needed to handle the stones, but he had no room on the truck for the machine, so his associate was bringing the Bobcat in another truck.
Both Robin and Vaughn are very pleased with the stones, and think they are just right for our garden. Now that the stones have been placed, I hope that you will have a chance to visit the Botanical Gardens and go to the garden site to see them.
Jack Perry Strong, M.D.
Past President, Japanese Garden Foundation | <urn:uuid:f3121683-a5b9-475a-95e9-4ef5aa204706> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://jgfneworleans.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284405.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00035-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979789 | 1,299 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Revolutionary Tactile Graphics Software for K-12
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With the Content Creator that can be accessed via any browser, teachers and support staff upload existing learning materials; add haptics (vibrations), text-to-speech and auditory feedback; and share the newly-created accessible content with students.
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Want Vital in Your School?
Vital for K-12 provides the revolutionary tactile graphics software with tools and support built for teachers and support staff. Create and share tactile graphics specifically created for students, utilizing both class and resource time for the best learning experience possible. | <urn:uuid:338bb746-83ed-44c8-a7d0-8a2bed96eee3> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.vital.education/k-12 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571987.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813202507-20220813232507-00275.warc.gz | en | 0.86732 | 289 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Now that it's positive that the bones found buried beneath a car park are those of King Richard III, Leicester is staging an exhibition about the find, and displaying an exact copy of his skull.
It's only a few days since forensic tests revealed that the skeleton found buried under the council car park is definitely that of Richard III and Leicester is bracing itself for an onslaught of visitors. They've just opened a small exhibition in the 14th century Guildhall, adjacent to the Cathedral, but there are big plans for a much larger visitor centre scheduled to open in the next 12 months. This should coincide with the reinterment of the bones in Leicester Cathedral where Richard will finally be laid to rest.
This location has not been without controversy. Westminster Abbey is normally the destination for dead royals, and the city of York has also tried to claim the bones but the Mayor of Leicester, Sir Peter Soulsby, is adamant they will stay in Leicester: "The Ministry of Justice has reaffirmed that, under the terms of the licence granted for the archaeological excavation, the skeleton will be buried here" he said, adding that the Catholic Bishop of Nottingham also supports this decision. The cathedral already has a stone slab dedicated to Richard and it's likely that the skeleton will be reinterred in the same location.
Canon David Monteith, of Leicester Cathedral, is already thinking about the ceremony which will take place probably in spring 2014. He emphasises that this will not be a funeral, as Richard has already been buried, but says that a reinterment of a British king is something unique: "We can't just pull a service off the shelf, as this has never been done before", he says, "What it needs to be is dignified, raise our spirit as a nation, remind us of the eternal love of God and involve the multicultural communities of Leicester". There is also the possibility that this could be a state occasion, with royalty attending, but it's too early to say.
What's certainly true is that the archaeologists were extraordinary lucky to stumble across the body since they could only dig three trenches. King Richard was buried under the choir of Greyfriars church which was destroyed during the dissolution of the monasteries in 1538. There were even plans to build on the site, during Victorian times but, fortunately, it remained vacant. It's still the place where employees of Leicester Social Services park their cars, although space is now limited because of the tent covering the excavation.
Leicester is now congratulating itself on its good fortune and is getting ready for a boom in tourism. There's already a Richard III walk, which takes you to places that the King visited, although the inn where he stayed before he set off for battle has been replaced by a Travelodge.
Bosworth Field, where he met his untimely end, is a half hour drive away and there's an excellent visitor centre located near the battle field. If you can get there on the weekend of August 18/19, then hundreds of medieval re-enactors will bring history to life as knights, archers and soldiers faceoff to recreate this decisive and bloody battle. Pity the poor man playing King Richard III and, if you do join in, make sure you're not on the losing side - you may end up underneath a car park...
All pictures copyright Rupert Parker. | <urn:uuid:e3b1312c-28eb-415d-aa54-8cdbf0fa5dba> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/rupert-parker/richard-iii-leicester-exhibition_b_2646278.html?ncid=GEP | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281353.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00070-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969986 | 687 | 1.929688 | 2 |
Madison Museum of Contemporary Art
Each year during Art Fair on the Square, jurors walk around and award ten artists 'Best of Show.'
This weekend, an estimated 150,000-200,000 people will crowd Capitol Square to attend the 54th annual Art Fair on the Square.
The overall economic impact of the fair on the local community is estimated at $25 million, according to a 2011 Chamberlain Research survey. It showed that on average, art fair attendees spent $127 per day on purchases unrelated to the actual art -- namely food, accommodations, and other travel expenses.
Last year, artists totaled around $2.7 million in sales, averaging $6,069 per artist. Madison Museum of Contemporary Art director Stephen Fleischman says popular artists often make tens of thousands throughout the weekend.
Art Fair on the Square is one of MMoCA's largest fundraisers. The museum has free admission, and receives no money from the city of Madison. It operates on more than $2 million per year, around $375,000 of which comes from the fair.
Fleischman calls the fair "highly competitive," with around 1,500 applicants vying for just 475 booths.
A panel of four jurors chooses the artists based on images of their work. The jurors change from year to year and are usually artists with expertise in their field, Fleishman says. Jurors are looking for artists with originality, craftsmanship and innovative use of materials.
"I wanted to make sure things were of a really high quality that would reinforce that this is one of the top shows in the country," says Susan Gardels, one of last year's jurors.
As "a protection of the integrity of the fair," Fleischman says jurors view each application "blindly," without the artist's name attached to their work.
"It's not supposed to be about who knows who or who likes who, or who doesn't like who," Fleischman says. "It's supposed to be about the quality of the images."
Each year during Art Fair on the Square, jurors walk around and award ten artists "Best of Show," a distinction that comes with the opportunity to participate in the following year's fair free-of-charge. The jurors also invite 90 artists to participate in next year's fair without having to re-apply. Gardels says jurors do not judge artists based on the perceived "popularity" of their booths, because crowd levels can vary throughout the day.
Gardels admits the judging process can be "grueling." It took her five hours to walk through and review all the booths. She says she walked with a "decoy juror," who held her clipboard. She didn't want artists to identify her as a juror.
"You try to be as innocuous as possible," she says.
This year's fair will feature 75 artists from around Wisconsin and artists from nearly 40 different U.S. states. One artist, Sinan Atilla, is coming from Istanbul, Turkey, to sell his carved Meerschaum products. Meerschaum is a soft, white mineral mined from the plains of Anatolia.
"[Art Fair on the Square] is one of the most supportive audiences that the artists encounter," Fleishman says.
When asked what will be different about this year's fair, Fleishman replies, "nothing and everything," and compares it to a graduating class.
"It's a great tradition, but all the pieces are different from year to year," he says. | <urn:uuid:11ef1440-21b2-485a-9227-9ab3a2bd1f2b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://isthmus.com/arts/art-fair-on-the-square-brings-thousands-of-wallets-to-downtown-madison/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279933.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00124-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978189 | 723 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Friends of Terwilliger spearheaded work with PGE to cut down a number of large “invasive” black locust trees in the Bancroft Right-Of-Way (ROW). These trees were threatening the main power lines coming up Bancroft St. PGE was told to leave them in place on the ground for Urban Forestry to handle.
April 26th was the 200th anniversary of famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted’s birthday.
Various lectures, symposiums, and discussions have been going on in 2022 to celebrate and call attention to the Olmsted family’s prolific and groundbreaking work.His sons, John Charles and Frederick Law Jr., carried on his work and worked in Portland on various projects starting in 1903. Most notable was their parks master plan for the city that recommended a “South Hillside Parkway” that became Terwilliger Parkway. A proclamation issued by Mayor Wheeler and the Portland City Council perhaps sums up best the impact of the Olmsteds:
On behalf of Friends of Terwilliger, Earthwise Law Centerhas recently submitted two sets of formal comments to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) regarding the proposed upgrades and improvements to Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC):
FOT is concerned that the inadequate Draft Environmental Assessment and the VA’s conclusion of “no significant impacts” to Terwilliger Parkway by their Washington, DC office, will prevent effective mitigation in the final designs and construction and cause real harm to the Parkway and environment.
Friends of Terwilliger (FOT) met with Multnomah County Commissioner Sharon Meieran on Thursday November 11, 2021 to brief her on the status of the Marquam Hill Connector, Southwest Corridor Light Rail Project and concerns that FOT has about these transportation projects and their potential to negatively impact Historic Terwilliger Parkway. We also met with our congressional representatives’ staff virtually.
The Marquam Hill Connector is part of the Southwest Corridor Light Rail Project (SWCLRP) proposed by TriMet to provide a connection from the proposed new MAX station at Gibbs Street to Marquam Hill. Marquam Hill has become a complex area as it is home to Oregon Health & Science University (OSHU), the Veterans Administration of Portland, the Shriners Hospital, residences and supporting businesses, and attracts over 18,000 employees, patients, students, and residents each day from all around the region.
It’s been a long time coming, but Terwilliger Parkway has finally been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1985 the Portland Park Bureau hired a consultant to prepare nominations to the National Historic Register for several older city parks. But then they never submitted them to the National Park Service for listing. Now FOT has completed the task!
September 13, 2019 as the “Harvest” full moon rose over Mt Hood, about 50 neighbors gathered at Eagle Point for a ice cream social viewing sponsored by Friends of Terwilliger and Homestead Neighborhood Association (HNA). In 2020 we sought to continue the tradition in a Covid-19 appropriate way.
Throughout Portland, developed public parks and playgrounds are closed to limit the rate spread of Covid-19, but Terwilliger Parkway footpath and bike lanes are still open for use We can continue to walk, jog, or cycle in Terwilliger Parkway enjoying the nature and its splendid views as spring bursts forth, but let’s protect and look out for one another by practicing a few simple rules:
The Portland Bureau of Transportation has largely completed the installation of new LED light fixtures on the light poles along Terwilliger Parkway between Duniway Park and Capitol Hwy. The change is notable!
A few months ago, a realtor’s “For Sale” sign in Terwilliger Parkway prompted concern from neighbors and Parkway supporters, fearful that a development might threaten the integrity of this linear park. This led to calls to both Friends of Terwilliger and the Portland Parks & Rec (PPR).
On November 26, 2019, Commissioner Nick Fish and PP&R Director Adena Long presented “A Sustainable Future” to the Portland City Council for discussion and guidance. This is the first step to determine funding options for PP&R.
Friends of Terwilliger (FOT) Board Members met with the new Portland Parks and Recreation (PP&R) Director Adena Long and PP&R City Nature Manager, Rachel Felice recently. The goals for the meeting were to provide Director Long with information about FOT and its mission of protecting and advocating for Terwilliger Parkway, to describe the challenges FOT sees for the Parkway today, and to review the partnerships FOT has established with PP&R over the past 30 years.
November’s restoration work party brought us back to the Norris “foundation” to remove tree and ground ivy as well as blackberries. This 2-acre site was once considered by the Portland chapter of the Rhododendron Society for its test garden before locating to its current site at Crystal Springs.
Thanks to everyone who attended Friends of Terwilliger’s 2019 Harvest Moon Social September 14th. The moon made a spectacular appearance but so did this Barred Owl. Eagle Point offered a wonderful vantage point to view this event.
Students from Lewis & Clark College, as part of their New Student Orientation (NSO) Service Day, helped Friends of Terwilliger “groom” Eagle Point in preparation for the upcoming Harvest Moon Social September 14th. Check out the before and after photos!
A trio of big development proposals with profound implications for Terwilliger Parkway are working their way through the public approval process. All three relate to OHSU and how people get there and are located on Terwilliger at Campus Drive. It’s early in the process for all three proposals and FOT is determined to be there every step of the way to advocate for the preservation and enhancement of the parkway. The involvement and support of you, our Friends, will be critical to whether or not these projects improve the parkway or alter it irreparably.
A Metro steering committee has decided that a new Southwest Portland light rail line will travel out Barbur Blvd. from downtown Portland to Tigard and Tualatin. A planned station at SW Gibbs St. (below the tram) is intended to serve OHSU and other Marquam Hill institutions that are located several hundred feet up a steep hillside with Terwilliger Parkway lying in between. TriMet and Metro have proposed a “Marquam Hill Connection” to get people up the hillside from the SW Barbur MAX station to OHSU. Three of the proposals involve a combination of above-ground elevator towers and bridges and ramps, most of which would be located in Terwilliger Parkway and will necessitate the removal of many trees and significant alterations to the park. A fourth proposal is to build a pedestrian tunnel under the hillside with an underground elevator to bring people up to OHSU.
In our last newsletter, we announced receiving a Portland Parks Foundation grant to conduct a targeted social media campaign.The object of our campaign: to engage a new, younger, generation of volunteers to help preserve Terwilliger Parkway for the future.Looking to get the word out about Terwilliger Parkway, we hope to target audiences of younger adults.
One Saturday morning in July, Friends of Terwilliger(FOT) hosted a water/Gatorade table to engage with Parkway users. We wanted to know the who, what, and why stories behind people’s choice of Terwilliger Parkway as a place to exercise and enjoy day and night. We counted over 300 people exercising in the 4 hours we were there: half were runners and a third cyclists.Walkers, dogs with owners, strollers, and a skateboard were there too! Of the 300 active exercisers, we were able to engage with 200 asking them 3 questions:
Friends of Terwilliger has contacted the Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC) to express our concern for the Totem Pole in the Terwilliger Parkway. The Totem Pole has numerous holes inflicted by wood-boring woodpeckers and is in need of protective restoration, repainting, and care.
The RACC public art “Totem Pole” is located at the Elk Point Viewpoint in the Terwilliger Parkway and was carved by Chief Lelooska in 1959. It became a partof RACC’s Public Art Program in the late 1980’s.
Earlier this winter Friends of Terwilliger board member Wesley Risher wrote to the City of Portland’sUrban Forestry to find out how to replace the dead Douglas-fir tree (Pseudotsuga Menziesii) planted as part of BES’
Say Hello to Friends of Terwilliger’s dedicated president Anton Vetterlein. Anton has contributed hundreds of volunteer hours to benefit Terwilliger Parkway and Portland’s natural landscapes. A graduate of University of Oregon’s architectural school, he has an eye for design and the tenacity needed to keep the city adhering to the Terwilliger Parkway design guidelines.
It is this beautiful woodland native plant, Oregon Grape, Mahonia aquifolium, that can be found growing along Terwilliger Parkway and throughout most of the city. Oregon designated the Oregon grape blossom as the official state flower in 1899. The following description of this remarkable plant has been adapted from the Portland Nursery website (http://portlandnursery.com/plants/natives/mahonia.shtml).
Have you ever noticed the need for street repairs or clean-up as you run, walk or bike in Terwilliger Parkway; or anywhere in the city for that matter? PDX Reporter provides this easy connection with our city departments and employees.
Friends of Terwilliger volunteers have spent thousands of hours over the past 23 years removing invasive vegetation in Terwilliger Parkway.Perhaps chief among the bad-news invasives is English or Irish ivy.We all know what it looks like and that it is Bad—but what is it, really?
What does the Totem Pole at Elk Point, within the Terwilliger Parkway, have in common with the 1959 Oregon’s Centennial Celebration, Operation Deep Freeze, New Zealand, Antarctica, The Oregon Zoo and John F. Kennedy?
You’ve probably been hearing the term partnership more often lately. Especially here in Portland where collaborative spirit runs deep. Partnership is defined as an association of persons for business, companionship, or an alliance of persons for a common enterprise. Friends of Terwilliger (FOT) has been in existence over 30 years and find ourselves in the company of many like-minded and similarly focused organizations.Here’s the story of one of them.
What would you say is the most identifiable and “iconic” thing about Terwilliger Parkway? The views and lush natural vegetation may be what people most like about Terwilliger, but they don’t really signify the parkway itself. The roadway and adjoining path are the spine of the linear park and are the most significant piece of park infrastructure, but they aren’t very iconic. We think that the historic streetlights that line the roadway are its most identifiable feature.
English Ivy (Hedera Helix) was brought to Oregon in the mid-1800’s as a way to remind early settlers of home. What started out as an innocent plan has come to represent one of the toughest problems Portland’s natural areas face today. It now invades more and more of our parks and will ultimately destroy our cherished tree canopy unless we remove it now. By allowing ivy to grow unchecked it will climb trees where it will mature, produce seeds, and continue the “seeds of destruction” by being transported by non-native birds.
Friends of Terwilliger (FOT) continues to partner in restoration grants awarded in SW Portland. As a founding member of the West Willamette Restoration Partnership (WWRP), we help define the restoration parameters to measure and areas to target for invasive plant removals, as well as coordinating and doing restoration work. | <urn:uuid:b4c3afb2-d752-4174-9b32-ccac72927f22> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://terwilligerfriends.org/news/category/news | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572163.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815085006-20220815115006-00665.warc.gz | en | 0.950793 | 2,539 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Our Opinion: Tighten the visa waiver program
There is no silver bullet to protect Americans from every would-be terrorist. The case of Tashfeen Malik is a unsettling example of how even someone who arrives in the U.S. as the spouse of an American may in fact be a twisted fanatic willing to abandon her baby in order to shed innocent life.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Malik entered the U.S. on a fiancee visa. "After a background check by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security," the Times explained, "she was granted a conditional green card last summer."
The so-called K1 visa that Malik used is one of many kinds of visas, and the background checks are supposed to flag any ties to terrorists. But of course maybe Malik hadn't established any such links at the time — which was well before she reportedly pledged allegiance to an Islamic State leader.
Yet if a terrorist wants to enter the U.S., finding a suitable marriage partner seems like one of the least likely options. A far more appealing course would be to enter under the Visa Waiver Program, which lets in more than 20 million people from 38 countries each year without a visa.
In 2013, for example, more than 2 million of the visitors were from France and Belgium, which have seen a stream of homegrown radicals travel to the Middle East to fight for the Islamic State.
It's not as if visitors under the waiver program are unscreened. They are checked against relevant databases at several points to see if they are security threats. And the waiver program itself requires participating countries to share intelligence about terrorist suspects as well as criminal and biometric data, in addition to data about lost and stolen passports.
But concern that would-be terrorists could nevertheless exploit the Visa Waiver Program has been growing — and spiked after the massacres in Paris.
That's why both houses of Congress are looking at tightening the program.
Both House and Senate versions require greater compliance by partner countries in information and intelligence sharing. And they require anyone who has traveled to Syria or Iraq in the past five years to get a traditional visa rather than be eligible for a waiver.
A regular visa requires the traveler to interview with a consular official and to supply more information than the waiver process demands, then wait for a period.
It would be foolish and counterproductive to junk the waiver program altogether, since the vast majority of those who use it come to the U.S. for legitimate reasons. But the events in San Bernardino are a reminder that even valuable programs that govern entry into the nation need a close look every now and then.
TALK TO US
If you'd like to leave a comment (or a tip or a question) about this story with the editors, please email us. We also welcome letters to the editor for publication; you can do that by filling out our letters form and submitting it to the newsroom. | <urn:uuid:9043f2a4-07fa-499f-883b-aacb78cc4e2d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.reformer.com/stories/our-opinion-tighten-the-visa-waiver-program,295955 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280730.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00250-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959135 | 596 | 1.867188 | 2 |
What do New York and Japan have in common? Well, one thing is they are both short on places to grow food. New York is famously short on space, and Japan already imports 60% of its food supply.
Both Japan and the USA are planning space-age spaces to grow their vegetables.
In Japan they are called ‘vegetable factories’: often disused factories which have been converted to provide a growing environment with specially controlled light, temperature, humidity and air composition.
New York plans to exploit unused rooftop space rather than the insides of buildings for its urban vegetable production. Vegetables will be grown using a ‘water-based, soil-free method’.
Now how long before we start seeing synthesized meat?
Would you eat vegetables grown in a factory? Or do you prefer to know that they were grown outdoors?
About the authorLucy | <urn:uuid:b13c2fbb-1438-4a2f-b75e-b2d16d82195a> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://pocketcultures.com/2009/07/21/space-age-vegetables-of-the-future/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570793.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808092125-20220808122125-00673.warc.gz | en | 0.960375 | 183 | 2.53125 | 3 |
In the UK, the term ‘bird food’ covers all manners of seeds and feeds - whatever the quality! The term has become the generic catch-all category for anything that can be fed to birds. If it can be placed on a bird table, it’s to be considered a bird food.
Not at Haith’s, though. Haith’s consider their bird foods as ‘bird diets’ – a world apart from the pile it high, sell it cheap, tuppence a bag bird foods found in some stores. Is this difference worth paying more for? Haith’s seem to think so...
I’m coming round to the idea that the ‘bird food’ market has gone mad! Last week, I picked up a bag of bird food (I won’t mention the company, but it wasn’t Haith’s) containing large slices of dried banana. The mix was called a ‘hedgerow mix’. I don’t want to pick hairs but...am I the only person who’s never seen bananas growing in hedgerows? (I have of course seen plenty of banana skins in hedgerows!).
I cannot think of a single wild bird that would expect to see dried banana on the bird table, can you? I know that parrots and parrot-like birds (exotics) will eat them – but I can’t see a Dunnock giving dried banana a whirl.
It’s madness to include banana in a wild bird food (as far as I’m concerned) for two very good reasons: 1). The consumer is paying for something that probably won’t get eaten, and 2). There are dozens of more appropriate seeds, fruits and foods to include which will provide life-saving calories, extra protein, higher levels of calcium (Ca) and moisture.
And that’s why I think the ‘bird food’ market has gone mad; it’s gone mad developing new ‘bird foods’ when it should be focusing on providing safer, more nutritional, cleaner, better researched bird diets – but that takes much more effort than throwing a few dried bananas into a mix and calling it a hedgerow mix.
Quality product research and scientific development of bird diets is a tough brawl and few bird food companies are willing to invest their funds in the direction of food safety and nutrition when the government do not (currently) penalise providers of poor quality and potentially unsafe diets. (When I say ‘unsafe’ I’m drawing your attention to seed mixes that contain far too much dust and waste husk as these may damage a bird’s respiratory system). Haith’s do re-invest profits into scientific development of bird foods – working with experts via Haith’s PRO (their professional avian nutrition programme) and they now create safer ‘bird diets’ as a result.
So no two bird foods are the same, really. Even straight foods – like Sunflower Hearts and Peanuts can differ greatly between suppliers.
If you don’t deal direct with Haith’s, though, how do you know if the bird food you’re purchasing is clean and safe for birds? I can offer you two very simple ways of checking: 1). Ask the supplier to confirm their seeds have been cleaned, and 2). (my personal favourite) Run your own simple – but effective – test:
• Sink your hand into the open bag of bird seed and sift the seed through your hands for a few moments and then notice how much dust is released into the air. The same amount of dust may well find its way into a bird’s air sack. If the dust is making you cough or sneeze, imagine what it could be doing to the birds!
• Now remove your hand from the bag and take a closer look at your hand...is there a film of dust on it? Again, that film of dust is on each seed and as birds sift and sort through the bird food they’re exposed to the dust. Bear in mind also that someone’s paying a price for this dust (you!).
• Finally, here’s a fun practical experiment: add some water to a see-through beaker and place a few tablespoons of seed in it, and then observe what happens...is a layer of dust floating on the surface? It’s impossible to eliminate dust completely, but common sense will tell you if the seed mix has been cleaned or not. (Keep in mind that some bird diets – softfoods for example – aren’t cleaned and polished, they are grinded into a ‘meal’ to aid consumption by smaller softbills).
• If in any doubt, talk to your supplier. Demand to know if the seed has been cleaned!
Professor John E. Cooper sums up Haith’s focus on safe bird diets: “The contribution of food provided by the public to the long-term survival and success of wild birds depends upon a number of factors, not just quantity and type of food. The quality of the seeds and other constituents that are being fed is also important. In collaboration with Haith’s I have been carrying out laboratory testing of bird diets, with particular reference to physical features such as the presence of dust (which can be harmful to a bird’s respiratory system) and extraneous husk (which can damage delicate tissues and allow entry of pathogens). My findings to date suggest that the diets offered for sale by different companies in Britain vary in terms of cleanliness and consistency.
In my view, the important message is that, while year-round feeding of wild birds can be beneficial to a wide variety of species (both “garden” and “farmland”), if the practice is to contribute significantly to avian health, welfare and conservation it must involve the use of high quality seeds and other constituents. This could be an opportunity for farmers, naturalists, bird food manufacturers and members of the public to work together more closely.”
So there you have it, no two bird foods (or bird food companies) are created equal.
Thank goodness Haith’s is focusing more of its efforts on quality and science and leaving the bananas in the fruit bowl. Is this difference worth paying a little more for? I think so.
Have a wonderful New Year. | <urn:uuid:e985099d-b881-451c-a6b7-06e7c288c3fb> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://haiths.com/blogs/garden-bird-blog/are-all-bird-foods-created-equal | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571210.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810191850-20220810221850-00478.warc.gz | en | 0.947961 | 1,350 | 2 | 2 |
If you like this article, take a look at the entire magazine.
Omega-3 fatty acids are essential fats. Although not produced by the human body, essential fats are required for your optimal health. Omega-3 helps to prevent cystic fibrosis, cognitive decline, rheumatoid arthritis, certain cancers, pulmonary hypertension, heart disease and strokes.
Receive industry news, special offers and marketing ideas when you subscribe to our newsletter. | <urn:uuid:47afc679-21ef-4ed3-bf63-f4cda0828d82> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://getfoxcontent.com/product/omega-3-an-essential-fat/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573118.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817213446-20220818003446-00675.warc.gz | en | 0.879592 | 96 | 2.078125 | 2 |
WASHINGTON -- NASA and Microsoft Corp. announced Tuesday plans to make planetary images and data available via the Internet under a Space Act Agreement. Through this project, NASA and Microsoft jointly will develop the technology and infrastructure necessary to make the most interesting NASA content -- including high-resolution scientific images and data from Mars and the moon -- explorable on WorldWide Telescope, Microsoft's online virtual telescope for exploring the universe.
"Making NASA's scientific and astronomical data more accessible to the public is a high priority for NASA, especially given the new administration's recent emphasis on open government and transparency," said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
Under the joint agreement, NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., will process and host more than 100 terabytes of data, enough to fill 20,000 DVDs. WorldWide Telescope will incorporate the data later in 2009 and feature imagery from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, known as MRO. Launched in August 2005, MRO has been examining Mars with a high-resolution camera and five other instruments since 2006 and has returned more data than all other Mars missions combined.
"This collaboration between Microsoft and NASA will enable people around the world to explore new images of the moon and Mars in a rich, interactive environment through the WorldWide Telescope," said Tony Hey, corporate vice president of Microsoft External Research in Redmond, Wash. "WorldWide Telescope serves as a powerful tool for computer science researchers, educators and students to explore space and experience the excitement of computer science."
Also available will be images from a camera aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, when publicly released starting this fall. Scheduled to launch this May, LRO will spend at least a year in a low, polar orbit approximately 30 miles above the lunar surface collecting detailed information about the lunar environment.
"NASA is excited to collaborate with Microsoft to share its portfolio of planetary images with students and lifelong learners," said S. Pete Worden, director of Ames. "This is a compelling astronomical resource and will help inspire our next generation of astronomers."
This agreement builds on a prior collaboration with Microsoft that enabled NASA to develop 3-D interactive Microsoft Photosynth collections of the space shuttle launch pad and other facilities at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The images featured on Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope will supplement existing imagery and data available on NASA's Web site, the Planetary Data System and other sources.
The WorldWide Telescope is a Web 2.0 visualization environment that functions as a virtual telescope, bringing together imagery from ground- and space-based telescopes for a seamless, rich media guided exploration of the universe. Through WorldWide Telescope and Microsoft technology, people will be able to pan and zoom in on these images and the most interesting locations on Mars and the moon without distorted views at the poles.
Attracting millions of users since its release last spring, WorldWide Telescope provides a base for teaching astronomy, scientific discovery and computational science. Tours with narration, music, text and graphics create interactive learning experiences that allow people to search, explore and discover the universe in a new and unique manner. Additional information and a free download of WorldWide Telescope can be found at:
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NASA press releases and other information are available automatically by sending a blank e-mail message to firstname.lastname@example.org. To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send a blank e-mail message to email@example.com. | <urn:uuid:4693395c-1828-442f-9923-945008862a57> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/mar/HQ_09-067_Microsoft_WorldWide_Telescope.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281424.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00333-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.853764 | 727 | 2.578125 | 3 |
During the 19th century, Mandarin, Florida had become a small farming community that would ship oranges, lemons, grapefruits and other fruits and vegetables northward, to Jacksonville and points north, via the steamships and other boats that traveled along the St. John's River; and in 1864, the Union ship, Maple Leaf, would hit a Confederate mine and sink, just off the shore of Mandarin Point; and in the winters of 1867 to 1884, Harriet Beecher Stowe would stay here. Today, Mandarin has become part of the huge city of Jacksonville, Florida, with live oak trees draped with long tangles of Spanish moss lining the roads and waterways, while the tannin-colored waters of the St. John's lapping the shores of the village where Timucuans, Spaniards and Englishmen had come to explore by canoe, on foot and horseback. Farmers, citrus growers and even Civil War soldiers, along with all their respective families, would travel by boat and steamship; and now school children jump off their buses and run along the riverfront boardwalk and up the pathway that leads to the 1875 homestead. The society has become responsible for a few historical sites around the area, like the Mandarin store and post office, that had become the heart of the village in 1911; now a museum and the Walter Jones Historical Park. This park would be the first such historical park in the city of Jacksonville; representing a typical 1800s Mandarin homestead, with restored 1875 farmhouse and 1876 sawmill and barn. The society sponsors the Florida Heritage Lecture Series, tours, educational programs and special family events for school groups and visitors. Enterprise Rent-A-Car has a couple of locations here, where you will be able to rent a great vehicle to take you wherever you want to go, whenever you want and much cheaper than the other modes of transportation located in the state.
You won't ever find a better time to use Enterprise Rent-A-Car. The new Enterprise Printable Coupons program offers you the BEST deals online or off. The Enterprise Printable Coupons can be downloaded and printed from the main Enterprise web site. Enterprise is GREAT!
This is the world's biggest private collection of original manuscripts and documents, first founded in 1983 by California real estate moguls, David and Marsha Karpeles, who wanted to stimulate interest in learning for the entire community, but especially for its children. Their services are free of charge and will provide some of the most incredible readings and information in the world. Wanting to make the documents more accessible, the library has branched off into ten museums around the United States, with docs and manuscripts being rotated between them each quarter. They all showcase a daily general exhibit as well as one or more special scheduled displays during the year; while it continues to aggressively enlarge its web content. Every one of these libraries is housed in a historical building; and the one in Jacksonville area is situated in the former First Church of Christ, Scientist building that is a 1921 neoclassical building in the Springfield neighborhood. The library has an antique book library containing volumes from the late 19th century and a children's center. Other Karpeles locations include; Santa Barbara, California; Buffalo, NY.; Tacoma, Washington; Charleston, South Carolina; Newburgh, NY.; Duluth, Minnesota; Fort Wayne, Indiana; Shreveport, Louisiana; and Alvin, Texas. A few examples from their collections include; Beethoven's Emperor Concerto, Darwin's Theory of Evolution, Einstein's Theory of Relativity, the first printing of the Ten Commandments from the Gutenberg Bible from 1455, Webster's dictionary, the Confederate Constitution, the Bill of Rights, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, Amelia Earhart's Certificate of Landing for her solo flight across the Atlantic ocean, Norman Rockwell pencil drafts exhibit collection and many more that are sure to interest and often excite you and your family. The easiest way to visit this and other exciting sites around the area is to check out the great rates at Enterprise Rent-A-Car, where you are sure to get the best deal on an economical vehicle, along with the friendliest people in the car rental business. | <urn:uuid:37085e61-6665-4a61-b79d-c31dd7f4c41d> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.rentalcarmomma.com/enterprise/orangepark.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719908.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00158-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955782 | 867 | 2.078125 | 2 |
B&B rooms in beautifully restored lighthouse in the middle of the Hudson River, outside of New York. 2 nt min stay on weekends.
This beautifully restored lighthouse was built in the 1800's and is on the Hudson River, NY. It is a museum open to the public in certain hours and also a B&B. It is the perfect place to enjoy a quiet and relaxing holiday in the middle of the river. The lighthouse is accessed by a half mile walking trail or by personal boat. It is 107 miles from New York.
There is a trail leading up to the lighthouse and it is surrounded by amazing flora and fauna. Once in the lighthouse you can enjoy stunning views of the river. The usual outdoor activities include bird watching, picnics, fishing and just relaxing.
There are 2 double bedrooms, a bathroom with hot and cold water that is shared by all the guests, plus a kitchen for if you wish to carry food out with you. For families who would like to rent both rooms, accommodation can be arranged for extra guests. A hearty breakfast is included in your stay. There is limited electricity supply to the lighthouse and there is a composting toilet. The parlor, where guests can gather, has a toasty coal stove for winter and cool river breezes in summer, and has west facing windows overlooking the Esopus Creek.
The lighthouse was built in 1835 on a man-made island and restored in 1990. There is no smoking and no pets allowed.
The price for 2 people for a night is just $250 with breakfast included, and $40 for each additional person.
Two night or two room minimum on weekends.
Please click Go to Website to book.
To leave a review please email email@example.com with the property name, your name, date of stay, review title and text. | <urn:uuid:91645cc5-28cc-4c80-ac10-28b6c6235ef5> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.quirkyaccom.com/saugerties-lighthouse | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573399.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818185216-20220818215216-00072.warc.gz | en | 0.952546 | 406 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Computers and mobile devices store, process and transfer highly valuable information. As a result, your organization most likely invests a great deal in protecting them. Protect the end point and you protect the information. Humans also store, process and transfer information -- people are in many ways are nothing more than another operating system, the Human OS.
Yet if you compare how much organizations invest in securing their computers versus how much effort they put into teaching employees how to safeguard information, you would be stunned at the difference. For example, organizations typically invest in the following resources to protect an end device:
Virtual private networks
Host-based prevention systems
Now go down that list and add up the cost for securing each computer. Then add support contracts, help desk phone calls, and how many full-time employees it takes to maintain all of this technology. You probably end up spending $100 or $200 a device.
Now, let's go through the exact same process for people. How much to secure each employee? Hear those crickets chirping? Your organization is most likely spending 20 to 50 times more on securing computers than on securing the Human OS, if it's working with those employees at all.
If finding the dollar amount for each computer is too complex, try a simpler metric. Count how many people you have on your information security team. Now, out of all those people, how many focus on securing technology and how many on securing the Human OS? You probably will end up with a very similar metric, something like 20-1 or 50-1. And organizations still wonder why the human is the weakest link.
Technology is important, and we must continue to invest in and protect it. However, eventually you hit a point of diminishing returns. We have to invest in securing the Human OS as well, or bad guys will continue to bypass all of our controls by simply compromising the human end-point.
Think of it in these terms: Fifteen years ago was the wild, wild West of hacking, the golden age of worms. Cyberattackers could easily compromise millions of systems by randomly scanning every system on the Internet and break into anything that was vulnerable, which was most systems in those days. We in the security community felt a great deal of pain and invested heavily in securing computers. Nowadays, computers come out of the box with firewalls, minimized services, automated patching and memory randomization. Fifteen years later, it has become much harder to compromise a computer.
But in those same fifteen years, what have we done for the Human OS? Nothing. As a result, the Human OS is still stuck in the days of Windows95, WinNT or Solaris 2.5. There is no firewall on by default, all the services are enabled, and this operating system is happy to share data with anyone that asks.
Until we begin to address the human problem, the bad guys will continue to have it easy.
Lance Spitzner is the training director for the SANS Institutes Securing the Human program. | <urn:uuid:cff13d79-587e-4033-98b3-6c0616cbebd0> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.cso.com.au/article/445088/it_time_start_patching_human_os/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279169.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00217-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952358 | 619 | 2.609375 | 3 |
by Vicky Cerino, UNMC public relations
Dr. Ferrans will be the UNMC Eppley Cancer Center grand rounds speaker and the college’s 20th Visiting Nurse Scholar.
Dr. Ferrans, associate dean for research and professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Nursing, will present “Research: Exposing the Deadly Difference” during an April 14 Eppley Cancer Center grand rounds luncheon presentation on campus.
The UNMC College of Nursing and The Nebraska Medical Center also will co-host a community presentation and reception that evening.
Dr. Ferrans also will make other presentations at the college and The Nebraska Medical Center, as well as meet with individuals.
The professor, who also is deputy director of the University of Illinois Center for Population Health and Health Disparities, has conducted studies focused on quality of life and disparities in health care for 20 years. She is funded by the National Institutes of Health.
An important part of her research has focused on cross-cultural issues, including approaches to increase validity of data and participation in research for minority populations in the United States.
Ann Berger, Ph.D., who will direct Dr. Ferrans’ visit to the UNMC College of Nursing, said Dr. Ferrans’ talk will focus on a program in Chicago to increase early detection of breast cancer among women of diverse backgrounds and economic levels.
The luncheon will be held at noon in the Durham Research Center Auditorium. Lunch will be served on a first-come, first-served basis. No reservation required.
Reservations for the dinner presentation are required. RSVP by April 2 to firstname.lastname@example.org or call 559-6565. Those who make reservations are asked to provide name, nursing license number, state of licensure, address, phone number and e-mail.
Free continuing education credits are available during both talks.
Date Published: Monday, March 23, 2009 | <urn:uuid:80232dbc-3c50-4ef7-b65f-fa6fd97f29b4> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.unmc.edu/ihs/blog/2009/03/01/march-2009-medical-center-to-host-internationally-recognized-nurse-scientist/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719646.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00128-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947654 | 404 | 1.570313 | 2 |
...The pain didn't bother me. In fact, I welcome it: It meant I was alive.
But the universe isn't fair. Things don't work out neatly, pain, hardship and challenges divided equally among those best equipped to deal with them. Sometimes individuals have to be Atlases and carry the weight of the world alone. It shouldn't happen that way, but it does.
It is good to be taught humility when we are young. If we do not exeperience pain as children, we will cause pain as adults.
A world without pain, loss, betrayal, hate, death, loneliness? Impossible!
sometimes, in pursuit of a greater peace, a man must stand by and lets those he loves suffer the injustices of men ho cares only about their own beliefs and nothing about the faith or feelings of others-- even when it pains him to the very core of his spirit
Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Every day we present the best quotes! Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends | <urn:uuid:f9603ad0-315b-47c7-98b5-0adfa8c2462a> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.azquotes.com/author/17610-Darren_Shan/tag/pain | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721595.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00478-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963557 | 212 | 1.507813 | 2 |
International sporting events have become veritable opportunities for people from diverse countries to intermingle and exchange culture in boisterous and fun-filled environment that is largely barren of political debates. Although sporting events are still characterised by concerns such as racism and other forms of prejudices, they have become events that command global attention. The on-going FIFA World Cup in Russia is anemblematic illustration of the potency of these events. Beyond the carnival like atmosphere they present for participants, hosting international sporting events also holds significant benefits for the hosting country. It is now a compelling tool for nations to exert soft power and showcase indigenous culture and innovation. Additionally, the events are maximised to benefit the local economy. Countries upgrade existing infrastructures and invest in new ones in preparation for such events. This is only natural because countries want to project their best image to visitors from other countries. In spite of the corruption that characterised the hosting of the All African Games in 2003, that event necessitated the construction of the magnificent Abuja National Stadium. And of course the success of the All African Games and the age grade football tournament that was held four years earlier emboldened the country to bid for the right to host the Commonwealth Games in 2014. In spite of our strong bid Nigeria was denied the right; and it was eventually given to Glasgow, Scotland. We did not host the tournament but today we are reaping the benefits of that bid.
The government is set to launch the much anticipated Abuja Rail Mass Transit project, otherwise known as Abuja Light Rail or Abuja Metro later this month. The metro-style regional light rail system totalling 78 km was conceived in 2007 as part of government’s preparation for anticipated right to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games. The rail project which cuts across major cities within Abuja and adjoining states such as Nassarawa and Niger is the first of its kind in Nigeria and truly befits the status of a world class capital city like Abuja. On 7th May 2007 the government announced theaward of an $841m (about N107.648b) contract for the construction of the metro rail system, and slated for completion in 2012, as a boost for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.At the groundbreaking ceremony, former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, stated that upon completion, the metro rail system would have the capacity of transporting 20,000 passengers per hour to any direction in the city. The project took off with a distance of 60 kilometres, with Lot One covering Area 10 Garki, the Central Business District, Wuse District, Utako Motor Park, Jabi Life Camp, Karmo, Gwagwa, Kuba, with a short link to Idu Junction, while Lot Three would cover the Abuja National Stadium Complex, Idu and the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport. The project was awarded to Messrs China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) and Messrs CPCS-Transcom International of Canada. The initial four years completion target could not be met due to funding challenges, but the cheering news is that the project is now ready for inauguration.
The Abuja Light Rail project is a demonstration of long term planning and enduring commitment to nationally beneficial projects devoid of political manipulations. It has proved that if we are committed to improving the country by putting in place long term beneficial projects, the country will be better for it. The project has gone through four different administrations starting from Olusegun Obasanjo. If our country could be this audacious in preparation for a possible right to hostthe Commonwealth Games, perhaps it will benefit us more to start positioning ourselves for another possible opportunity to host the Games or even Olympics in few years to come. Such mind-set will propel us to replicate the Abuja Light Rail in other cities in the country and hasten work on the intercity rail projects across the country. The current administration deserves commendation for the completion of this phase of the project especially considering the economic situation of the country.
Whilst the completion of the project is commendable, the government needs to be reminded that the same vigour that saw the actualisation of the Abuja Light Rail project should be translated in the interstate rail projects that are currently clouded in uncertainty. The recent spate of accidents involving trucks on our roads are urgent signs that we must invest on rail as a means of haulage to avert impending disaster. Let us ask ourselves the question: if we were to bid for the Commonwealth Games in 2026, do we have any chance of winning with the current infrastructure? If the answer is no then let us imagine the possibility of hosting and begin preparation in earnest. It will benefit our nation. | <urn:uuid:cadf3f51-e657-40cf-98b7-afefa898b833> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://shipsandports.com.ng/abuja-light-rail-2026-commonwealth-games/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571745.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812170436-20220812200436-00477.warc.gz | en | 0.946048 | 955 | 1.914063 | 2 |
A team of scientists from the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore (CSI Singapore) at the National University of Singapore, National University Cancer Institute Singapore (NCIS) and National University Hospital Singapore (NUH), discovered a distinct mutational signature and nine significantly mutated genes associated with nasopharyngeal cancer, paving the way to developing novel therapies for this deadly disease.
The research group, led by Professor H. Phillip Koeffler, Senior Principal Investigator at the CSI Singapore and Deputy Director of NCIS, has conducted the first successful comprehensive genomic study of nasopharyngeal carcinoma, which has a particularly high prevalence in Southern China and Southeast Asia, including Singapore. The findings provide an enhanced road map for the study of the molecular basis of this form of cancer.
The novel study was first published online in the prestigious journal Nature Genetics on 23 June 2014.
Nasopharyngeal carcinoma arises from the epithelial lining of the nasopharynx, the upper part of the throat behind the nose. Unlike cancers that have been extensively studied, such as breast and colon cancers, there is currently limited understanding of the molecular biology of nasopharyngeal cancer. To date, no targeted therapy has been established and there is an urgent need for a comprehensive genomic landscape of this disease to guide the development of novel therapies.
In this study, the researchers analysed the genomic DNA and proteins of over 100 nasopharyngeal cancer patients in Singapore through advanced biological technologies. The research revealed that many genes are mutated and dysfunctional in the nasopharyngeal tumour cells, and some of them cause and exacerbate the disease. The analysis also showed enrichment of genetic lesions which affect several important cellular processes and pathways. Furthermore, a number of novel druggable candidates, which are proteins that have the ability to bind with drugs with a high affinity, were uncovered through this comprehensive study.
Dr Dechen Lin, Research Fellow at CSI Singapore and first author of the scientific paper, said, "This malignancy has been somewhat neglected because nasopharyngeal cancer is very rare in the US and Europe. However, the disease is particularly common in Southeast Asia, especially Singapore. Our current study offers immediate translational significance for nasopharyngeal cancer research, specifically, for identifying tailored targeted therapies for the patients, who continue to suffer because to date, no such regimens have been established."
Prof Koeffler said, "We wanted to boost the understanding of the etiology as well biology of nasopharyngeal cancer with the hope for improvements in diagnostics, prognostics and therapy, which will promote the well-being of Singaporeans. By completely deciphering all human genes at the single nucleotide level, our current findings provide an important foundation for the study of the molecular basis underlying this malignancy. More importantly, many potential therapeutic drugs have surfaced from our analysis, with some of them already in use for treating other types of tumours. Therefore, the results have the potential to rapidly facilitate the development of novel treatment strategies for nasopharyngeal cancer patients."
With the discovery of these previously unrecognised genetic defects in nasopharyngeal cancer, Prof Koeffler and his team will explore the detailed molecular mechanisms of these defects in the next phase of research. Associate Professor Loh Kwok Seng from NUH and NCIS, as well as Associate Professor Goh Boon Cher and Associate Professor Lee Soo Chin, from CSI Singapore and NCIS, who are authors of the paper and doctors to many of the patients involved in the study, will evaluate whether some of the genetic defects can be explored in the clinic to effectively treat this disease.
Explore further: Scientists discover novel genetic defects which cause oesophageal cancer
The genomic landscape of nasopharyngeal carcinoma, DOI: 10.1038/ng.3006 | <urn:uuid:31f463ae-2bb5-4471-bf01-92c27b1d7e32> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-06-potential-avenues-treatment-deadly-nasopharyngeal.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282935.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00236-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941591 | 792 | 2.28125 | 2 |
Who Qualifies for an HSA?
Who is Eligible to Establish an HSA?
Any individual who meets all these requirements may establish an HSA:
- Is not enrolled in Medicare (generally, under age 65)
- Is covered under an HDHP (and not covered under any other health plan that is not an HDHP)
- Cannot be claimed as a dependent on another person’s tax return.
HSAs cannot be joint accounts.
What is an HDHP?
An HDHP is a high deductible health plan. You are responsible for determining if you are covered by a qualified high deductible plan before opening an HSA. If you are unsure, you should contact your health insurance provider.
An individual HDHP must have an annual deductible which is not less than $1300 and the plan must have a maximum annual out-of-pocket limit of $6550 for 2016 and 2017.
A family HDHP must have an annual deductible which is not less than $2600 and the plan must have a maximum annual out-of-pocket limit of $13,100 for 2016 and 2017.
Fees may reduce earnings on HSAs.
The information provided in this page is not intended to be legal or tax advice. You should consult your attorney or tax advisor for information that relates to your specific circumstances.
Product descriptions herein do not take the place of required disclosures under federal and state regulations. Please contact us for disclosures appropriate to these accounts. | <urn:uuid:cb3d76fe-7a27-41cc-9729-d6e2b0637f3e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.statebankofalcester.com/personal/health-savings-accounts/who-qualifies/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285289.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00143-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940757 | 305 | 1.53125 | 2 |
The Dept of Transportation announced some more numbers for the CARS program (Cash for Clunkers). With 180,000 sales processed, the Ford Focus is no longer the top vehicle being purchased. (Source: Autonews). Instead, the Toyota Corolla is now the number one vehicle consumers have purchased using the up to $4,500 in rebates when they trade in their 'clunker' to be recycled.
The top five vehicles purchased so far:
- Toyota Corolla
- Ford Focus
- Honda Civic
- Toyota Prius
- Toyota Camry
Over 80 percent of the trade-ins were light trucks, sport utilities, pickups and vans. 59 percent of the new vehicles are passenger cars. The fuel economy of the trade-ins has average 18.5 mpg, while the fuel economy of the new purchases is averaging 25.3 mpg.
Federal reimbursements have been sent out to the tune of $775.2 million so far.
The Senate is expected to pass (without amendments) the same version of the bill the House passed last week to fund the program with another $2 billion. If any amendments were approved, the House and Senate would need to get together and work out the bill. With the House already on recess, that would delay the funding of the program.
The Obama administration has stated they would have to suspend the program at the end of the week if new funding was not approved by Congress. | <urn:uuid:9fed9681-c738-4a57-ae4b-a2243de3c5a8> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://hybridreview.blogspot.com/2009/08/cash-for-clunkers-numbers-updated.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721555.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00180-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958816 | 296 | 1.632813 | 2 |
If you’re searching for a way to spruce up a savory dish such as meat, fish, pasta or vegetables, Tamari may be just the condiment you’re looking for. If you’re unfamiliar with Tamari or have never tasted it before, we’re here to provide you with all the information you need to understand the true significance of its remarkable flavor.
Read this complete guide to learn about the distinctive taste profiles of Tamari, a brief history and some different foods to pair it with. We’ll also cover some fascinating history and properties of umami, a rich and savory taste commonly identified in Tamari. Let’s dive in!
Table of Contents
What Is Tamari?
Tamari is a type of Japanese soy sauce. Compared to typical soy sauces, this condiment has a richer and milder taste. The main difference between tamari and typical soy sauce is ingredient ratio. While typical soy sauce is made with about half soybeans and half wheat, tamari is made with soybeans and contains little to no wheat. Despite of a richer taste and a darker color, tamari and typical soy sauces have about the same amount of sodium. Try reduced-sodium options) if you are looking for a way to reduce your sodium intake.
A Brief History of Tamari
The history of Tamari dates back to the seventh century AD when it was initially brought from China to Japan. It was discovered that cooking and fermenting soybeans produces a dark red paste, which the Japanese named “miso.” The ripening process of miso produced a protein-rich liquid later dubbed “Tamari.” This name translates to “that which accumulates.” This product marks the origin of Japanese soy sauce.
What Does Tamari Taste Like?
Despite tasting more mellow than most soy sauces, Tamari’s high soybean concentration gives it a deep, rich umami flavor. It adds a smooth, savory and almost meaty taste to essentially any dish it accompanies.
Tamari is commonly paired with soups, noodles, dumplings, rice and other Japanese dishes to enhance their flavor, adding just the right amount of salt and texture. To give your meal a deeper, more exciting blend of flavor, consider adding some Tamari Soy Sauce!
What Is Umami?
Umami is the perfect way to describe Tamari — it’s a meaty, savory flavor that comforts the taste buds. It typically describes various meats, fish, broths, gravies, cheeses and vegetables. If you’re a fan of savory foods but don’t enjoy excessive amounts of salt, umami is likely your preferred taste.
A Brief History of Umami
You’re likely familiar with the four basic taste groups — sweet, sour, salty and bitter. However, a fifth identified taste was added to the mix in the mid-1980s. Professor Kikunae Ikeda first discovered this distinctive savory flavor in the early 19th century when tasting boiled tofu in kombu dashi, a kelp-based broth.
This taste was eventually given the name umami, a Japanese term that translates to “deliciousness” or “pleasant savory taste.” Umami is often present in foods that contain the amino acid, glutamate, such as parmesan cheese, mushrooms, miso and seaweed.
Umami was officially chosen as the name for this fifth taste in Hawaii in 1985 at the Umami International Symposium. For umami to become an independent taste, researchers had to prove it was not a combination of other tastes and used its own taste receptor. Since their success, umami has become a widely popular flavor with food manufacturers, especially those seeking lower-sodium alternatives.
Properties of Umami
Umami has various properties that distinguish it from the other four taste groups. Now that we’ve covered a brief history of umami, let’s look at some significant characteristics that highlight the essence of this unique and delicious taste:
- Long-lasting flavor: Many have described umami as having a mild but lasting aftertaste that spreads across the tongue and throat and roof and back of the mouth. Though it may not be ideal as a standalone taste, it complements numerous other foods wonderfully.
- Varied foods: We may not always realize it, but umami is in foods we eat every day. Glutamate is present in multiple foods, including cheese, meat, vegetables and even green tea!
- Easily achievable: This delicious flavor is surprisingly easy to achieve when cooking. Glutamate is in many condiments that may be sitting in your pantry — salad dressings, ketchup, soy sauce, miso, truffle oil and more.
- Savory and mouthwatering: Umami provides a savory, mouthwatering sensation — this is probably its most significant identifying factor.
- Effective food enhancer: Umami’s savory quality can round out contrasting flavors, making them taste even better.
- Less sodium intake: Use umami rich condiment such as tamari in place of salt to reduce sodium.
What Foods Does Tamari Taste Best On?
Tamari complements many savory dishes to create a delicious, balanced blend of flavor. If you’re looking for different foods to try with Tamari, here are 11 meals you might consider pairing this sauce with:
To create the perfect comfort meal, try brining your turkey with Tamari. This is a great way to prevent the bird from toughening or drying out, as the salt and water mixture allows the turkey to absorb moisture. Refrigerate your Tamari-brined turkey to use for sandwiches and future meals, or wow your family and friends on Thanksgiving!
Try out this mouthwatering honey soy glazed turkey for another great turkey recipe. This recipe will surely satisfy. It has a diverse blend of flavors that includes sweet honey and molasses, red pepper flakes, garlic powder, tender turkey and plenty of Tamari Soy Sauce.
If you’re a diehard pasta fan, Tamari adds an extra delectable taste to various noodles. Consider tossing ramen, udon or soba noodles with Tamari to create a rich and irresistible flavor!
Try out this Thai noodles with spring vegetables recipe if you’re looking for a tasty way to add Tamari to your noodles. This dish is perfect for a delicious meal. It creates a flavorful blend of gluten-free Pad Thai noodles and Tamari Soy Sauce, along with other veggies and seasonings. Top it with some sesame seeds for extra garnish.
You can also add extra flavor to an ordinary bowl of rice by mixing it with some Tamari Soy Sauce! Whether steamed or fried, rice is a great dish to pair with this tasty condiment. For a delicious meal that blends steamed Japanese rice with Tamari, try out this Oyako Donburi recipe — chicken and egg with rice. Pick up some boneless chicken breasts, onion, mushrooms, vegetable oil, rice and Tamari Soy Sauce, and cook up this dish for your next meal.
Tamari is an excellent dipping sauce for dumplings. Mix Tamari, rice vinegar, and toasted sesame oil. Add some chili oil if you like it spicy. It also pairs wonderfully with potstickers, a type of Chinese dumpling that’s steamed on one side and pan-fried on the other. If you’re having homemade Chinese food, consider adding lamb potstickers to your spread. This dish calls for a pound of lean ground lamb, fresh ginger and onion, a large egg and some Tamari Soy Sauce. With this delicious recipe, you’ll likely find it impossible to eat just one.
A steaming, savory bowl of soup is the perfect meal for a chilly day. However, it can taste even better when you add some Tamari to your broth. Consider trying this easy Asian noodle soup recipe. This dish is simple and fun to make, and it only takes minutes. All you’ll need is some chicken broth, mushrooms, onions, seaweed, thin rice noodles and 3 tablespoons of Tamari. Give this soup recipe a go for your next meal!
For a more veggie-based soup, you can try out this creamy miso broccoli soup. This hot, delicious dish creates a savory blend of fresh chopped broccoli, peas, onion, white beans, garlic, Tamari Soy Sauce and other ingredients. You’ll likely find yourself making this soup over and over again after just one taste!
Chicken is a versatile meal. You can cook and prepare it in multiple ways — fried, grilled, baked, roasted and more. You can also use a range of seasonings and flavorings — one of them being Tamari Soy Sauce.
There are endless options for chicken dishes you can pair Tamari with. If you need some inspiration, try this delicious honey and Tamari chicken recipe! This dish creates a delightful blend of savory, tender chicken with the sweet taste of clover honey while adding some fresh veggies, spices and rice.
If you’re looking for another chicken and Tamari-based dish, this slow cooker Asian sesame chicken will make your mouth water. With just the right combination of chicken, apple cider vinegar, sesame oil and Tamari Soy Sauce, dinnertime will surely be a delight.
If you enjoy seafood, consider enhancing the flavor of your fish with some Tamari. Many fish pair nicely with Tamari, including cod, barramundi, salmon and more. This halibut with white wine, Tamari and lemon recipe is the perfect concoction of flavors — tangy citrus, tender halibut fillets, dry white wine and fresh, thinly-sliced vegetables.
For another delicious fish recipe, try out these coconut fish sticks! If you love the taste of sweet coconut and seafood, this recipe captures both of these flavors perfectly. All you’ll need is some tilapia fillets, coconut flakes, mayonnaise, a teaspoon of Tamari Soy Sauce and one large egg to whip up these fish sticks. These are ideal appetizers to accompany your next meal and are delightful to eat on their own — give them a try!
Cooked vegetables are a delicious, healthy meal with an array of possibilities for garnishes, seasonings and flavorings. Tamari Soy Sauce is an excellent condiment to add to your veggies for a boost of flavor.
For a fun, easy vegetable recipe, try out these grilled vegetable skewers. These are perfect for warmer seasons, as you can cook them outside on the grill. Consider serving these as a dinner appetizer for your next summer cookout. Pick up some fresh vegetables, wooden skewers, spices and Tamari and try these out!
This spicy beef and vegetable stir fry is another great way to combine cooked vegetables and Tamari for a mouthwatering flavor. This recipe will likely become a favorite with its unique blend of sweet brown sugar, spicy ginger, chili garlic paste and plenty of fresh vegetables.
Though salad is a simple side dish to serve alongside your entrée, it’s delicious when paired with the right blend of condiments, toppings, garnishes or dressings. Try making this crisp chicken curry salad for a great way to pair Tamari Soy Sauce with your salad. This recipe integrates a balanced blend of tender chicken breast, curry powder and cayenne pepper, red lettuce leaves, fresh veggies and more.
You also might consider tossing up some roasted spring vegetable cobb salad. With the perfect combination of garbanzo beans, sweet honey, apple cider vinegar, Tamari and fresh arugula and veggies, this salad is ideal for enjoying on a warm summer afternoon.
Pork is another delicious meat to pair with Tamari for an extra savory and mouthwatering flavor. Try cooking up some hoisin pork stir fry in a large frying pan or wok for a tasty pork and Tamari recipe. All you’ll need is a pound of pork tenderloin, some grapeseed oil, snow peas, sliced bamboo shoots and Tamari hoisin sauce. Your next dinner entrée will surely be a hit with this irresistible dish.
Additionally, try this delicious Japanese ginger pork, or Shoga-Yaki! With this recipe, season pork with potato starch, vegetable oil and sake, then top with a rich ginger sauce containing Tamari for an ideal blend of sweet and savory flavors.
If you’re looking for a healthier meat substitute to lower your cholesterol and provide an excellent source of iron, you might consider pairing some Tamari with tofu for your next meal. Try this Tamari tofu recipe if you need a simple, tasty dish to cook. Pick up a package of tofu, some grapeseed oil and a generous amount of Tamari Soy Sauce. You can also add any desired seasonings such as onion, garlic powder, cumin or red pepper flakes.
Get Tamari From San-J Today
After you’ve read about the origins and flavor properties of Tamari and umami, we hope you’re inspired to try pairing some Tamari with your next meal. These delicious dishes all incorporate the irresistible savory taste to create meals that will last in your memories.
At San-J, we offer a wide selection of quality, fresh and delicious Tamari Soy Sauce products. Our Tamari is carefully brewed and fermented for up to six months for a rich, authentic flavor. Our sauces contain no artificial flavors, colors or preservatives. They are also Non-GMO verified by the Non-GMO Project and certified gluten-free by the Gluten-Free Certification Organization. We also provide lower-sodium Tamari options for those looking to reduce their salt intake. No matter your dietary needs or preferences, we have products for everyone to enjoy. | <urn:uuid:47276e45-4610-4f50-bcff-8256418f418a> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://san-j.com/blog/the-taste-profiles-of-tamari/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573029.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817153027-20220817183027-00276.warc.gz | en | 0.909287 | 2,948 | 2.4375 | 2 |
In this Section we examine knowledge in society in its practical contexts: how is the generation and dissemination of formal knowledge organized in the academic and education system? How is economically useful knowledge produced, who pays for it, and (how) can knowledge as property be clearly defined and deployed for profit? How does knowledge change in the age of digital information technologies? And finally, how do more informal areas of knowledge – from practical know-how to a basic knowledge of politics – develop? In addition to practical contexts, a key issue here is also the claims to validity associated with the term ‘knowledge’ – in other words, the extent to which those involved in academia or in politics, for example, can claim to possess objective knowledge, whether superior knowledge is possible in matters of political dispute, what form of academic organization gives rise to reliable standards of truth and falsity, and whether such standards are always desirable in cognitive terms. The broader context in which such issues are located is the theory of our society (or societies) as a whole. How is human co-existence structured (at present), how are the major economic, political and cultural orders of this co-existence (in different parts of the world) related to one another, and how do the mutual dependencies in question shape the very way we live our lives? The traditions of Social Theory in which the Section explores these questions range from classical political theories through to Poststructuralism and Systems Theory; particular emphasis is placed on Marxist analyses of the capitalist social order. | <urn:uuid:27224a64-1283-4a04-8315-d65d6fe1b12e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.soziologie.uni-jena.de/en/departments/sociology-of-knowledge-and-social-theory | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570977.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809124724-20220809154724-00467.warc.gz | en | 0.945434 | 304 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Treats stomach ulcers, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), and conditions that cause your stomach to make too much acid, such as Zollinger-Ellison syndrome. Also helps heal a damaged esophagus. This medicine is a proton pump inhibitor (PPI).
There may be other brand names for this medicine.
First - Lansoprazole, Heartburn Relief 24 Hour, Prevacid, Prevacid NapraPAC 375, Prevacid NapraPAC 500, Prevacid SoluTab, Prevacid Solutab, Prevpac, Rite Aid Lansoprazole
When This Medicine Should Not Be Used
Do not use this medicine if you have had an allergic reaction to lansoprazole.
How to Use This Medicine
Delayed Release Capsule, Liquid, Tablet Disintegrating, Delayed Release
- Your doctor will tell you how much of this medicine to use and how often. Do not use more medicine or use it more often than your doctor tells you to.
- If you are using this medicine without a prescription, follow the instructions on the medicine label.
- Take this medicine before you eat and for the full time of treatment, even if you begin to feel better after a few days.
- Capsule: Swallow the capsule whole. Do not break, crush, or chew it.
- If you cannot swallow the capsule, you may open it and spill the contents onto 1 tablespoon of applesauce, Ensure® pudding, cottage cheese, yogurt, or strained pears. You may also use 60 mL (1/4 cup) apple juice, orange juice, or tomato juice. Swallow this mixture right away. Do not chew or crush the granules. If you used juice, refill the cup 2 more times with juice and drink the remaining mixture.
- Capsule given through a feeding tube: Open the capsule and mix the contents with 40 mL (about 2 1/2 tablespoons) of apple juice. Do not use any other liquid. Inject or pour the mixture into the nasogastric tube. Flush the tube with more apple juice to rinse all of the medicine from the tube.
- Oral tablet: Dry your hands before you handle the tablet. Do not crush, chew, break, or cut the tablet. Place the tablet on your tongue, with or without water, and allow it to dissolve. Swallow the particles right away.
- Oral tablet with an oral syringe: Dry your hands before you handle the tablet. Do not crush, chew, break, or cut the tablet.
- 15-milligram tablet: Place the tablet in the oral syringe and add 4 mL (1 teaspoon) of water.
- 30-milligram tablet: Place the tablet in the oral syringe and add 10 mL (2 teaspoons) of water.
- Shake the syringe gently until the tablet dissolves and is mixed well.
- Use the mixture within 15 minutes.
- Refill the syringe with water. Use 2 mL (1/2 teaspoon) water for the 15-milligram tablet, or 5 mL (1 teaspoon) for the 30-milligram tablet. Shake the syringe gently. Give the mixture to make sure all of the medicine is taken.
- Oral tablet with a feeding tube: Dry your hands before you handle the tablet. Do not crush, chew, break, or cut the tablet.
- 15-milligram tablet: Place the tablet in the syringe and add 4 mL (1 teaspoon) of water.
- 30-milligram tablet: Place the tablet in the syringe and add 10 mL (2 teaspoons) of water.
- Shake the syringe gently until the tablet dissolves and is mixed well.
- Inject or pour the mixture into the feeding tube within 15 minutes.
- Refill the syringe with 5 mL (1 teaspoon) of water and shake it gently. Flush the tube with the water to rinse all of the medicine from the tube into the stomach.
If a dose is missed:
- If you miss a dose or forget to use your medicine, use it as soon as you can. If it is almost time for your next dose, wait until then to use the medicine and skip the missed dose. Do not use extra medicine to make up for a missed dose.
How to Store and Dispose of This Medicine
- Store the medicine in a closed container at room temperature, away from heat, moisture, and direct light.
- Ask your pharmacist, doctor, or health caregiver about the best way to dispose of any outdated medicine or medicine no longer needed.
- Keep all medicine away from children and never share your medicine with anyone.
Drugs and Foods to Avoid
Ask your doctor or pharmacist before using any other medicine, including over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and herbal products.
- Tell your doctor if you are also using ampicillin, atazanavir (Reyataz®), digoxin (Lanoxin®), ketoconazole (Nizoral®), sucralfate (Carafate®), tacrolimus (Prograf®), or theophylline (Theo-Dur®). Tell your doctor if you use a blood thinner, such as warfarin or Coumadin®, or an iron supplement, such as ferrous sulfate or ferric gluconate.
- Make sure your doctor knows if you are also using a diuretic (water pill, such as bumetanide, chlorothiazide, ethacrynic acid, furosemide, hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ), indapamide, metolazone, torsemide, Bumex®, Demadex®, Diuril®, Edecrin®, Lasix®, Lozol®, or Zaroxolyn®), or certain medicines to treat high blood pressure (such as atenolol, enalapril, lisinopril, losartan, metoprolol, olmesartan, valsartan, Accupril®, Cozaar®, Diovan®, Lotrel®, Toprol®, or Zestril®).
Warnings While Using This Medicine
- Make sure your doctor knows if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, or if you have liver disease, osteoporosis, seizures, or a history of low magnesium levels in your blood.
- Tell your doctor if you have phenylketonuria (PKU). The tablet form of this medicine contains phenylalanine (aspartame), which can make this condition worse.
- This medicine may cause hypomagnesemia (low magnesium in the blood). This is more likely to occur if you take this medicine longer than 1 year, or if you take it with digoxin or certain diuretics (water pills). Stop using this medicine and tell your doctor right away if you have seizures, dizziness, a fast or pounding heartbeat, or muscle spasms.
- Tell your doctor right away if you have diarrhea that does not go away, stomach pain, and fever while taking this medicine.
- You may be at risk for Clostridium difficile colitis (also called C diff) if you take this medicine. C diff is an inflammation of your large intestine that causes diarrhea. You have a higher risk of this condition if you are also using antibiotics, are elderly, or have other health conditions.If you have severe diarrhea, ask your doctor before taking any medicine to stop the diarrhea.
- This medicine may increase your risk of broken bones in the hip, wrist, and spine. This is more likely if you are older than 50, if you receive high doses of this medicine, or you use it for longer than 1 year.
- This medicine is sometimes given together with other medicines to treat ulcers. Make sure you understand how to use the combination of medicines.
- Make sure any doctor or dentist who treats you knows that you are using this medicine. This medicine may affect the results of certain medical tests.
- Your doctor will need to check your progress at regular visits while you are using this medicine. Be sure to keep all appointments.You may need blood or other lab tests to check for unwanted effects.
Possible Side Effects While Using This Medicine
Call your doctor right away if you notice any of these side effects:
- Allergic reaction: Itching or hives, swelling in your face or hands, swelling or tingling in your mouth or throat, chest tightness, trouble breathing
- Blistering, peeling, or red skin rash
- Fast or uneven heartbeat
- Seizures, muscle spasms, or tremors
- Severe diarrhea that does not go away, stomach pain, and fever
If you notice these less serious side effects, talk with your doctor:
- Constipation, diarrhea, nausea, or stomach pain | <urn:uuid:da3af684-102a-4825-9e87-06fe2b96c80d> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.mybwmc.org/library/45/0565 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719646.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00127-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.852739 | 1,853 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Academics is included with a curriculum section that deals with different settings required under curriculum of a school such as Subject Settings, Examination Settings, Subject Details Settings, Subject Group Settings, Subject Group Details Settings, Syllabus Settings, Class wise Elective Settings, Elective Allotment of Students, Grade settings, Classwise Exam Mark Entry, Student wise exam mark Entry, Progress Report , Classwise Progress Report, Termwise Consolidated Report etc.
Attendance information of students with previous records makes student presence easy to track.
Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) refers to a system of school based evaluation of students covering all aspects of their development process. CCE is an established education system under CBSE for evaluating performance of students from classes 6 to 10. The new system was introduced in the year 2009 to reduce stress faced by students appearing board exams.
Module deals with student promotion under each academic year.
Adding of new courses, new classes, new batches, assigning classes to different course, allotment of students to various batches etc. can be done using course maintenance. | <urn:uuid:a56016a4-9b3e-4eac-93da-8cbf7c2398f9> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.edsys.in/academics-management/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281649.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00443-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929524 | 220 | 2.15625 | 2 |
App could transform farming and address food shortages
16 November 2013 Last updated at 00:38 GMT
A 29-year-old developer from Ghana has created a mobile app that he hopes will transform the livelihoods of farmers and help address food shortages.
Edison Gbenga Ade created the platform, which provides access to markets and information about prices, to help farmers negotiate better deals and improve the timing of getting their crops to market.
He is working with a group of young farmers who use the app to guide them through the farming process. | <urn:uuid:08faaa5a-69b3-49f7-873f-9b614597da0c> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.bbc.com/news/business-24957131 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280504.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00144-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961395 | 112 | 2.140625 | 2 |
The Israelites Bring Donations to Build the Tabernacle
"Of all the nerve!" cried Yankel. "Every year, I give a donation from my hard-earned money to that new yeshiva in Volozhin so that the boys can study Torah - and what do they use the money for? To buy a new suit, horse and buggy for their fundraiser. They'll never see another red ruble from me again!"
Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin and the yeshiva fundraiser were reviewing their list of donors. "I can't understand why Reb Yankel didn't give a thing this year? He always gives a sizable donation. Why don't we pay him a visit?" suggested Rabbi Chaim.
Two hours later they found themselves in Yankel's living room. When Yankel complained about the suit and horse the rabbi explained that they helped the fundraiser make a good impression. "Anyway," explained the rabbi, "which money goes where depends on the intention of the donor. If the donor has pure intentions, without ulterior motives, the money goes straight to the boys studying Torah. If however, the intention is less pure, then it goes to the suit of the fundraiser. Even less pure motives, it will go to the horse!" (Although still a mitzvah, it isn't as great as the other levels.)
The Torah introduces Betzalel as the architect of the Tabernacle. (He was the grandson of Chur, who was killed trying to prevent the Golden Calf.) The Torah says that Betzalel was able to think deep thoughts - aware of all the kabbalistic secrets of the universe! Then the Torah says that he was an expert craftsman who could work with copper, silver, gold and wood. Asked Rabbi Chaim: This is a strange combination. After praising someone with knowledge of all the secrets of heaven and earth, isn't it a little demeaning to add, "By the way, he's also a great goldsmith and carpenter!?"
The answer, explained Rabbi Chaim, was that Betzalel was able to sense the thoughts of the donors and used the donations according to their intentions. The ones who had the best intentions, had their gold used for the "Holy of Holies." The ones with lesser intentions, for lesser things. To know this one must understand all the secrets of the universe.
SHABBAT & THE TABERNACLE
This week's Parsha describe the details of the construction of the Tabernacle.
Question: Why such detail? Even the Temple of Solomon in the biblical Book of Kings does not contain so many details. It's not like we ever intend to return to the desert and rebuild it.
Question: In two places (Exodus 31 and 35), the Torah precedes the construction of the Tabernacle with the laws of Shabbat. What is the connection between them? Answer: The oral law derives from this exactly what is forbidden on the Shabbat. The Torah says "don't do work." What constitutes work? Don't build the Tabernacle on Shabbat. (Even though the temple service overrides the Shabbat, such as bringing offerings and playing music, that was only after the Temple was completed. However the construction was only considered a "preparation for the mitzvah" and was forbidden.) Once we know that you can't build the Tabernacle on Shabbat, we can learn from the details of Tabernacle construction all of the 39 categories of forbidden work on Shabbat.
Another connection is the fact that what the Temple represents in space (a place where one can feel closer to the Almighty), Shabbat represents in time. On Shabbat, no matter where you may be physically, you are close to God.
The Torah forbids making fire on Shabbat: "Do not ignite fire in all of your dwellings on the Shabbat" (Exodus 35:3). Although, as we mentioned, the 39 categories are derived from the construction of the Tabernacle, the Torah specifically mentions fire to tell us that we are responsible for every classification of work, and not only for doing all 39 categories.
Question: Why was fire chosen to teach us this?
Answer: Fire is essential to work in general, as it is needed to forge tools that enable us to perform all types of activities. Fire can also be seen as a reference to electricity (essentially a spark) with which one can make machines that span every category of activity. (Rabbi D. N. Lesser)
There is an age-old Jewish custom to keep precooked food on a small flame throughout Friday night, and to eat it steaming hot on Shabbat morning. The Sages say that "whoever does not eat 'cholent' (warm food) on Shabbat morning, is suspected of being a non-believer!" What is the meaning of this statement?
The Talmud refers us to the Sadducees, a group that accepted only the Written Torah but rejected the Oral Torah. There was a similar group at a much later period called the Karites (who still exist in small numbers today). They were the first "fundamentalists" who took the Bible text literally.
A famous story occurred about 200 years ago. The Karites brazenly claimed to the Sultan of Turkey that they were the original Jews, and the others came later! The Sultan demanded a public debate between a rabbi and a Karite over this issue. When arriving at the Sultan's palace, the Karite removed his shoes, as was the custom, and left them at the door. The rabbi, however, held his shoes in his hands as he entered the Sultan's chamber.
When asked to explain his strange behavior, the rabbi replied, "We have an old tradition that at the Burning Bush when God commanded Moses to remove his shoes, there was a Karite standing there who walked off with them." Concluded the rabbi, " We therefore always keep our eyes on our shoes in the presence of Karites!"
Upon hearing this, the Karite started to protest, "That is totally ridiculous! Everyone knows that in the time of Moses there were no Karites!" And that was the end of the debate.
Since the Sadducees denied the Oral Torah which connects the forbidden acts on the Shabbat with the construction of the Tabernacle, they focused on the text "Do not ignite a fire" and forbade all use of fire on Shabbat. Their homes would be dark, and they would eat only cold food on Shabbat (not fulfilling any of the other Shabbat requirements).
The Sages of the Talmud explain that the prohibition is merely to not "ignite" fire on Shabbat, but if the flame was lit before the start of Shabbat, or the food was cooked beforehand and kept warm on the fire all night long ("cholent"), then it is perfectly permissible. That's why the Sages say: One who does not eat cholent is suspected of being a non-believer - i.e. of denying the Oral Torah.
THE PEOPLE RESPOND WITH GUSTO
The Torah describes the energy of the people to supply the building materials. "The men came with the women" (Exodus 35:22). Some explain this to mean that the women were first in line. Our tradition is that the women did not worship the Golden Calf, or sin with the spies. (How's that for women's lib?) And when asked to donate to the Tabernacle, they were there first.
Others understand this just the opposite, that the men who had sinned with the Golden Calf needed to atone, as it says: "Where a Baal Teshuva stands, even someone always pious cannot stand!" So they went up to a higher level than the women who never sinned in the first place.
The needed materials were quickly attained, and it was necessary to announce not to bring any more. The Torah tells us "the material was enough and had left over" (Exodus 36:7).
Question: If it was enough, that implies exactly enough. So how was there "left over"??
A Chassidic rabbi offers the following answer: If there would have been exactly enough, everyone would have been proud and haughty that their contribution was what made it. When people are conceited, God conceals His presence, so their pride would not have allowed the resting of the Shechina (Divine Presence) in the Tabernacle. Only because there was some left over, and everyone felt that maybe their donation wasn't even used, this caused them to be humble - providing a fertile environment for the Shechina.
SPINNING THE GOATS
"And all the women, whose hearts were elevated with wisdom, spun the goats" (Exodus 35:26). But people usually spin wool, not goats!
The Sages infer from this verse that they actually spun the wool while it was still on the goats! A very innovative method, to say the least. This wool was used to create coverings for the Tabernacle. It was appropriate that this task be done by women, since the beauty of Jewish society lies in women's modesty which brings the Divine Presence (that the Tabernacle represented).
The goat represents stubbornness. We will stubbornly stick to our values in the face of a world that is often at odds with us. | <urn:uuid:c9bd20d3-3af0-4e6f-9768-496ccbf4c4ec> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.aish.com/tp/b/lp/48962326.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281331.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00219-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976013 | 1,975 | 1.90625 | 2 |
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