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Brittney Novotny lost her bid to become a member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives in midterm elections Tuesday, Nov. 2.
Out of 8,600 ballots cast, Novotny, who is transgender, received about 35 percent of the vote.
Her opponent, virulently anti-gay Rep. Sally Kern, will return to office for a fourth term.
Kern made national news saying that homosexuality is a worse threat to the country than terrorism.
Oklahoma has term limits, which means Kern can run for the House only two more times.
Novotny would have become the first transgender state legislator in the United States had she been elected.
In addition to running a fairly conservative district, Republicans swept statewide offices. Mary Fallin, the state’s new Republican governor, won her race by 20 points. Four of the state’s five congressmen will also be Republican.
Democratic incumbent Al McAffrey, who is gay and represents part of Oklahoma City in the state House of Representatives, won his race with almost 70 percent of the vote.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition November 5, 2010. | <urn:uuid:41c69944-0e21-4df3-9961-32958c000747> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dallasvoice.com/tag/mary-fallin | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968788 | 237 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Most of you who have spent time researching colonial families in the area of Albany, New York are familiar with the marriage and baptism records of the Reformed Dutch Church of Albany, originally published by the Holland Society of New York in their early yearbooks (1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1922/23, 1924/25, 1926/27), and then published as one collection titled, Records of the Reformed Dutch Church of Albany, New York, 1683-1809 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1978, reprinted 1999, 2003). As the title would suggest, these published records only covered the years up to 1809 (the last entry is for a baptism date of March 13, 1809).
The Albany church records, post 1809 are less accessible but were published in the Dutch Settlers Society of Albany Yearbook (volumes 36-37, 39, 43). The transcriptions were made by the late Howard A. McConville who for many years was the Schenectady Town Historian. The records were published in three sets. The years January 1809 to August 1823 are found in volumes 36-37 (1961-62), the years July 1823 to January 1850 in volume 39 (1963-64), and the years January 1850 to January 1865 in volume 43 (1970-72). The records for the first two sets of years (1809-1823, and 1823-1850) were photocopied by William B. Bogardus and were found in the William B. Bogardus Collection (Box 5, CHU AA-123). I scanned the pages and they are now available online.
Baptismal Records, First Dutch Reformed Church of Albany 1809-1850.
There are a handful of Brower entries in the records. Researchers of many other Albany area families of the early 1800s should also find the records to be useful. | <urn:uuid:a1ba2e9b-1bfc-4b6d-8b54-7e8d7f8a89e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://brouwergenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/06/baptismal-records-of-first-dutch.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961389 | 395 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Jordan Proposes New Israel Peace Strategy
ALGIERS, Algeria - King Abdullah II of Jordan has proposed a new peace strategy that drops traditional Arab demands that Israel give up all land seized in the 1967 war and offers the Jewish state normalized relations with Arab countries, according to a text of the proposal seen Friday by The Associated Press.
The proposal did not appear to have enough support to be adopted at an Arab League summit starting Monday in the Algerian capital. But even placing such a far-reaching change in strategy on the agenda would have been unthinkable in past league gatherings, suggesting new thinking in the peace process with Israel.
Those who believe that the hearts and minds of the peoples of the Middle East aren't being swayed, should look again. The freedom/peace train is rolling right along and picking up passengers at an unprecedented rate. | <urn:uuid:c1834371-de1c-45b8-88d6-b53c00fe6bcb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://awesternheart.blogspot.com/2005/03/gift-that-keeps-on-giving.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94575 | 168 | 1.679688 | 2 |
The Way of the Christian Samurai
As Christians, we are called to be both servants and warriors for Jesus Christ.
The samurai, whose very title means “one who serves,” were skillful warriors of feudal Japan who devoted themselves fully to the service of their masters, willing even to sacrifice their lives in service to their lord. Christians are also called by their Lord, Jesus, to take up their cross and follow Him, and to seek to lose their life for His sake (Matthew 16:24-25).
While fantastic legends and stories of the samurai are plentiful, The Way of the Christian Samuraidraws from primary sources – notes, essays, and books written by real samurai from Japan’s feudal era. Their advice on everything from overcoming fear, giving counsel to others, serving one’s Lord, and self-sacrifice are remarkably applicable to the life of the modern Christian.
Author Paul Nowak ties the advice of these servant-warriors of old, pointing out how the selections from samurai texts relate to Christian teachings found in the Scriptures.
The book is a matchless resource for Christians intrigued by the mythos of the samurai or Japanese culture, or for pastors and other spiritual leaders who are looking for anecdotes that illustrate Biblical ideals. Christian parents whose children enjoy Anime or Manga will find it a useful tool in understanding their children’s interests and in ministering to them.
“The value of this book is in its ability to show us what true servant hood is by examples of the writings of the samurai of old.
After reading it, I have a much better sense of what service and self-denial is. More importantly, it has helped me see more clearly the example that Jesus set, and has encouraged me that I can do much more in imitating it.”
“Anyone looking for a good devotional will benefit from reading this book. Christian martial artists, on the other hand, need this book. As we navigate our various martial arts, we take inspiration from accurate depictions of these ancestral warriors. Nowak empowers us to be inspired by their selfless dedication to their master that serves as an excellent model for the dedication we should show to Christ.”
- Steven King, Armchair Interviews
“I think it is very interesting to look at the Asian culture and use it to apply to Christianity. Certainly kids are being exposed to it more and more as that’s where essentially all of their cartoons are coming from now. I pray that God will bless you and your book.”
– Michael L Stine, Glorified Publishers
“The excerpts on serving one’s lord are eye-openers for any Christian with a “soft” view of service that rarely goes beyond activities at their local church. The willingness of a warrior to give himself completely to his lord underscores what it means to make oneself part of the “body of Christ”….The Way of the Christian Samurai is truly an unusual book among the many published that seek to link Christianity to various Eastern religions or philosophies. It’s uniqueness lies not in any success in doing so, but in its insistence that any such linkage must be judged by the known truths of the Christian faith.Given the limited focus of the book, its acknowledgment of the superiority Biblical teaching, and its usefulness in shedding light on often ignored facets of the Christian way, it is an important book that can be read with profit by those in the Church.” | <urn:uuid:bb2d1716-cb58-463c-8520-50ff37736693> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eternalrevolution.com/collections/frontpage/products/the-way-of-the-christian-samurai | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966619 | 718 | 1.726563 | 2 |
DIY remodeling yields rewards, vexations
- Do-it-yourself remodeling projects often dictate their own timetable.
- Contractors make a lot of money by taking over botched DIY jobs.
- Plan carefully and know your limitations of skill and patience.
By day, John Melton, 42, is a human resources manager at a construction company in Phoenix.
By night, weekend and vacation, he's the quintessential do-it-yourself home remodeler, equipped with a workshop, tools, materials and the know-how to get such jobs done.
John Melton wiring for lighting
His latest DIY home remodeling project, a family room makeover, took longer than he'd expected, but his budget, about $3,500, was pretty close to the final cost, and the results were well worth the time and money, he says.
His chief objective was to replace a water-stained drop ceiling that made the room feel small and included a ceiling fan with a decorative spike that put anyone of above-average height, including Melton himself at 5 feet 10 inches tall, in danger of head injuries.
The DIY remodeling project was supposed to take less than a week, but instead it consumed 24 days over a three-month period due to two construction-related surprises -- a two-inch variance across the room in framework above the drop ceiling and a piece of header board that stuck out into the room -- and a family emergency that took Melton out of state for a time.
About a third of Melton's budget, $1,300, was used to buy a ceiling-plank system that he cut to size and then installed in the family room. Other purchases for the DIY home remodeling project included wood, drywall, Sheetrock compound, nails, screws, insulation, can lights, electrical wire, some tools he expects to use again in the future and a new ceiling fan.
Melton wasn't born a home remodeling wiz. He says he started out as a young man with small projects, buying tools and gathering knowledge over time.
"I did minor things in my late 20s and slowly, slowly took on more and became more confident," he says. "I do a lot of research on methods and tools and whatnot before I tackle something, and it just sort of built over time. I built my tools over time and built my knowledge over time, not taking on too much too early."
Planning is crucial to DIY home remodeling. Melton says he makes sketches on graph paper and lists of materials, tools and tasks, laying out each step before he begins.
Melton's wife is an auditor at a county community college system, giving her the skills to help with what Melton calls "the money side" of his projects. The Meltons have two children: one in kindergarten, the other in middle school. The couple financed the family room remodeling project with an income tax refund, six-month interest-free financing from a home improvement store and current paychecks while the project was under way.
"We didn't want to put the whole thing on a credit card and pay it off over a year. We wanted to knock it out," Melton says.
Melton says being a do-it-yourselfer saves money, gives him greater control over his projects and provides enjoyment in the process and results. He also chronicles his efforts in a personal blog at www.AZDIYGuy.com.
DIY remodeling tips
Do-it-yourselfers don't always save money, says Katie Hamilton, co-author, with her husband Gene Hamilton, of "Home Improvement for Dummies" and other home remodeling books. In fact, she says, do-it-yourselfers can be a home improvement contractor's best customers.
"Do-it-yourselfers actually make money for the contractor because they mess up the work, and then they have to hire a contractor to redo it," she says.
John Melton installing ceiling planks
Botching a DIY home remodeling project can prove costly, especially if pricey materials, such as $55-a-roll wallpaper, are ruined, Katie Hamilton warns.
Still, she says homeowners who are inclined to do their own remodeling should go for it, while being mindful of their own degrees of enthusiasm, skill and willingness to learn over time. She also says some projects, like removing wallpaper, are grunt work that anyone can perform at odd hours, while other projects, such as Melton's family room makeover, take more time and skill. Still other projects, such as refinishing a wooden floor, can be divided into smaller jobs -- some handled by a pro, others taken on by the homeowner.
It's crucial to plan carefully and build up slowly to bigger projects, as Katie Hamilton says and Melton's experience demonstrates.
"A person who is more organized definitely has the advantage. The more you think through and make your lists and do your homework, the better the result is going to be," Katie Hamilton says.
Another consideration is space, which can be a challenge in a small home or condominium.
"It's not fun when your house is a work zone, and you don't have the space to put the new cabinets that are arriving," Katie Hamilton says.
Two solutions are to convert an attached garage into a work and storage space, or if the home is vacant, designate an interior room for these purposes. Homeowners who are very cramped space-wise might be happier hiring a pro. | <urn:uuid:2ca11e68-2445-4c9e-8de8-f4b811c77e88> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bankrate.com/finance/real-estate/diy-remodeling-rewards-vexations.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972293 | 1,149 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Some time ago, I commented favorably on an essay by philosopher Richard Rorty titled Religion as Conversation-stopper. In his essay, he responds to another essay by Stephen Carter in which the latter said, “One good way to end a conversation — or to start an argument — is to tell a group of well-educated professionals that you hold a political position (preferably a controversial one, such as being against abortion or pornography) because it is required by your understanding of God’s will.”
Carter says that one consequence of this is that it is considered bad form, at least in intellectual circles, to bring in religion-based arguments on matters of public policy. He thinks that banishing religion-based discourse from the public sphere is a bad thing but Rorty disagrees, saying that allowing it privileges religion in unjustifiable ways. As Rorty says, “Carter seems to think that religious believers’ moral convictions are somehow more deeply interwoven with their self-identity than those of atheists with theirs. He seems unwilling to admit that the role of the Enlightenment ideology in giving meaning to the lives of atheists is just as great as Christianity’s role giving meaning to his own life.”
If a religious person is allowed to use statements of the form “I base my views on my religious beliefs” as an argument on matters of public policy, then it should be perfectly appropriate for others to respond that “I base my views on Enlightenment values” as a counter-argument, and we immediately reach an impasse. There is no way to resolve this issue other than by voting or by force.
In arguing with religious people about the existence of their god, I have found that they invoke two things that can be called ‘argument-stoppers’ that are the equivalent of Rorty’s conversation-stoppers. The two statements are:
1. God can do anything
2. God’s ways are inscrutable to us
For example, as I wrote earlier, the idea that Jesus rose from the dead in his physical body and ‘ascended into heaven’ poses some problems as to what happened subsequently to the body. Is it still floating in space? Or is Jesus the only person in heaven with a physical body? Wouldn’t that be awkward?
When you ask Christians these kinds of questions, you will most likely discover that they had never occurred to them and they will struggle to find a way to answer you, coming up with one ad hoc solution after another, each leading to further complications. When they inevitably fail to arrive at anything that satisfies even them, they will say something along the lines of “Well, since god can do anything, he would have found a way to resolve this seeming contradiction.”
When they say this, it is interesting to push them on the issue by saying that the whole thing seems needlessly pointless. Why go to all the trouble of resurrecting the physical body and then having to find ways of disposing of it later? Why not simply resurrect his ‘spirit’ only since that is what they think exists now, to the extent that they think of it at all? Again, the question will not have occurred to them and they will come up with new ad hoc solutions but eventually you can be sure that they will utter a variation of argument-stopper #2 and say that god must have good reasons for doing things in this complicated way but that we mere mortals are not privy to those reasons as yet but may find out when we go to heaven or at the Rapture, whichever comes first.
In a way, these two arguments (“God can do anything” and “God’s ways are inscrutable to us”), when used in tandem, are irrefutable. They have the power to stop the argument dead in its tracks since there is no way to counter them. Since religious people can play these trump cards at any time, it would seem to be pointless to argue with them at all.
But what is interesting is that religious people never play these trumps right at the beginning of the discussion. Although they are the ultimate ‘get out of jail free’ cards, they will go to extraordinary lengths to find arguments and reasons for their beliefs and will only play them when they have been squeezed into a corner and have little or no choice. At what point they feel compelled to resort to this depends on the level of sophistication about their religious beliefs and their knowledge of science. And when they do use it, they never do it with a sense of triumph, that they have won the argument. It is always with a sense of resignation, that they have been forced to say something they would prefer not to have said. It is as if they know that saying these things means that they have really lost the argument.
When I argue with religious believers, I never expect to ‘win’ in the sense of having them say they agree with me. They may agree with me later after thinking about it but people rarely concede defeat in an argument at the time of having it, especially if the issue involves deep beliefs like religion.
What I do is argue until they invoke these two argument-stoppers because those are the markers I use to determine if I have won the argument. And they know it too, even if they are unwilling to say so publicly. Once that point is reached, I do not pursue it further. This enables you to avoid going round in circles. | <urn:uuid:be00ec81-ebbe-408e-9890-29e243c9f5df> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/2012/06/11/argument-stoppers-in-religion/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976488 | 1,140 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Guinness record holder ghazal singer to spread Gandhian message
Hyderabad, Nov 21 (IANS) After setting the Guinness world record by singing in most languages at one concert, a popular Telugu ghazal singer now plans to spread the peace message of Mahatma Gandhi across the world.
Kesiraju Srinivas, popularly known as Ghazal Srinivas, will sing at peace concerts in war-torn Iraq and Afghanistan besides, Iran, South Africa and Middle East.
The singer set the Guinness record by singing in 76 languages at a concert at Vijayawada on Jun 2 and 3. He recently received the certificate for his feat from the Guinness.
He not only set a record but also used the occasion to pay tribute to Mahatma Gandhi by writing and singing a ghazal on his Satyagrah philosophy. The concert held on the concluding eve of Mahatma Gandhi's Satyagrah centenary celebrations highlighted his message of peace and non-violence.
'Gandhiji's message is more relevant today as we see violence in almost every part of the world. I decided to sing in different countries to spread his message,' Srinivas told IANS.
'Gandhiji is not the past but he is the future for this country and the world,' said the singer, who participated in a peace walk from Delhi to Multan in 2005.
He will begin the tour with a concert in Baghdad in January next year. He will also sing at similar concerts in Tehran and Kabul the same month.
Srinivas also plans similar concerts in Sri Lanka, Dubai, Qatar, Bahrain and Muscat in February. Lanco Group of companies, of which he is the brand ambassador, will fund his tour.
Srinivas, who began singing ghazals in his childhood, will perform in Canada at a programme proposed to be organised by Toronto Telugu Association.
He also plans to sing in 125 languages at a concert in Rashtrapati Bhavan, the official residence of President of India and also at the United Nations.
'Many people know what Gandhiji said but they don't know what he did. That is why I tried to pay tribute to his satyagrah in the form of poetry,' he said talking about his feat.
He sung the poem in 76 languages - 39 Indian languages and 37 foreign languages. The programme, which began on the evening of Jun 2 continued till the early hours of Jun 3.
In fact, he sang the poem in 100 languages but only 76 languages were taken into account for Guinness record. 'To enter the record book, it was compulsory to sing in each language for at least two minutes,' he said.
It took over a year for him to learn and record the song in different languages. He worked with experts of various languages and translated the song into their language.
The singer translated his song into foreign languages of various countries including Mozambique, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Germany, Portugal, Italy, China, Armenia and Ethiopia.
Hailing from Palakol in West Godavari district, Srinivas has sung 600 ghazals since 1986. The ghazals were penned by eminent Telugu poets C. Narayan Reddy. He himself also wrote a few ghazals.
What makes him different from many other ghazal singers is that he uses only one instrument 'Kanjeera' during the performance.
Read More: Indira Gandhi | Rajiv Gandhi | Sonia Gandhi | Armenia | Mozambique | Vijayawada | Delhi | Gandhi Nagar | East Godavari | Gandhi Smarak Nidhi | Gandhi Nagar Bazar | Feroz Gandhi Nagar Faridabad | Gandhi Camp Tso | Gandhi Samarak Nidhi | Gandhi Bazar | Gandhi Gate Dinanagar Ndtso | Gandhi Nagar Fazilka | Mahatma Fule Bazar | Vijayawada Municipal Offi | Vijayawada Bus Stand | N.song | Kab | Duba
4TH C V RAMAN INT'L FELLOWSHIP LAUNCHED FOR RESEARCH
May 21, 2013 at 10:07 PM
WE WILL BRING A NEW LAW TO REGULATE FIXING : JITENDRA SINGH
May 21, 2013 at 10:00 PM
COURT ALLOWS FIVE DAY POLICE CUSTODY FOR THE IPL FIXERS
May 21, 2013 at 9:58 PM | <urn:uuid:b3ca4598-4185-4112-990a-f40eee83b7b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newstrackindia.com/newsdetails/40483 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956227 | 926 | 1.625 | 2 |
While women's health topics seem to monopolize conversation at the water cooler, more men are discovering the importance of understanding their health issues.
It used to be considered an act of weakness to discuss such personal topics as prostate health, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, coronary artery disease, or stroke. Men, by nature, are typically less open with respect to their personal health.
Yet discussing topics of health that pertain to them with other men might be the ...
Men are becoming more health-conscious | Gustafson
According to Men's Health Magazine, Boise, Idaho, is the new place to be for men who look for health, happiness and quality of life.
The magazine conducts regular surveys on health issues and, among other criteria, points out geographical differences.
Other advantageous places in the United States are San Francisco and San Jose. All three cities scored high marks for physical and mental health for a number of reasons, including low crime rates and relatively short commuting ...
Mens Health Issues
May 24, 2013
Rodale Announces New Publishing Partner For Men’s Health Italy
NEW YORK, May 23, 2013 /PRNewswire/ – Rodale Inc., global healthy lifestyle...
May 23, 2013
Panasonic Wins 2013 Men’s Health Grooming Award
SECAUCUS, N.J., May 22, 2013 — /PRNewswire-iReach/ — Panasonic today announced that the Panasonic ER-GB40 Wet/Dry Beard/Hair Trimmer has been selected...
May 22, 2013
The Man Who Did 30 Ironmans—In One Year!
Photo courtesy of James Lawrence
Few guys are lucky—or crazy—enough to do one Ironman (a 2.4-mile swim + 112-mile bike + 26.2-mile run) in a lifetime, let alone...
Mens Health Books
January 7, 2013
Clinical Men’s Health: Evidence in Practice, 1e
Here’s the first evidence-based guide to focus solely on the various health conditions that unequally affect men. This text provides a biopsychosocial approach to diseases and disorders of male patients from birth through infanthood, childhood, and adolescence, and from early through late adulthood. Replete with current evidence-based guidelines...
January 6, 2013
Penis Power: The Ultimate Guide to Male Sexual Health
In this revolutionary guide to male sexual potency, urological surgeon Dr. Dudley S. Danoff talks candidly to men and their partners about the topics they are often too embarrassed to discuss with their doctors. Dr. Danoff debunks common myths about male sexual anatomy, including questions about penis size, stamina, and libido. Drawing upon case...
January 5, 2013
The Prostrate Dilemma: The Devil if you Do and the Devil if you Don’t (aka The PSA Shuffle) (Steve’s Health Before Wealth!)
An essay on the awful Prostrate Cancer Dilemma. Yes, it’s the Devil if you Do and the Devil if you Don’t.
[Article - 3881 words - 7 pages]
Read More →
Mens Health Articles
May 24, 2013
Expands Rodale's Relationship with Edisport Editoriale
NEW YORK, May 23, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Rodale Inc., global healthy lifestyle publisher, today announced that Men’s Health Italy will be published by Edisport Editoriale, expanding the company’s relationship with the long-time publishing partner of Runner’s World Italy. Men’s Health Italy will publish 10 issues a year beginning with the July 2013 edition. Previously, Men’s Health Italy was published by...
May 24, 2013
Keeping a file of random clippings is an old-fashioned thing to do, but sometimes it offers you unexpected connections. Sometimes it’s a connection that you don’t even want to see. But there it is, so what are you going to do about it?
In June, 2009, South Africa’s Medical Research Council published a report which said that over a quarter of South African men – 27.6 per cent – have raped somebody. Almost half of those men admitted to raping two or three women or girls. One in thirteen of...
May 24, 2013
It amazes me to think that women’s health care in the 21st century is still drastically inferior to men’s in many ways, and both men’s and women’s health care is not where it should be. Women’s issues are lagging in research efforts and in dollars invested. And communication about women’s health issues is not as clear as it needs to be.
I learned this first hand when I was told at age 42 that I needed a complete hysterectomy. I didn’t know what I was getting into.... | <urn:uuid:8c58dd3f-6d35-48aa-9c95-4fcff8f7640a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://menshealthissues.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938652 | 1,027 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Makerere University College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES) has been recognised among leaders and visionaries in promoting a Green Revolution in Africa by The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) Forum.
The University was on September 28, 2012 recognized as one of the best institutions for the commitment and excellence in areas of Academia & Research during AGRF Awards gala dinner in Arusha. Others in this category were, The African Centre for Crop Improvement, at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa; and Advocacy Organizations - Rural Urban Development Initiatives (RUDI), Tanzania.
Dr. Richard Edema Receives the Award from Koffi Anan in Arusha Tanzania
S. Korea’s Saemul Movement introduced as an effective rural development model to spiral economic transformation in developing countries
Developing countries have the capacity to develop and address the challenges of urbanisation, poverty, low agricultural productivity, poor infrastructure and unemployment using the available resources.
The assurance was made by The President of the Saemaul movement Jai Chang Lee while delivering a public lecture on the South Korea’s Rural Community development model at Makerere University on October 19, 2012. He said economic development can be achieved through a special reform program to transform the rural communities.
Jai Chang said Korea, a former colony of Japan was devasted by the Korean war that continued for three years from 1950 and became one of the poorest countries in the world with a per capita income below US$ 100, but today, it has developed to become the 9th largest economy in the world using a simple community model that was established in by the late President Park Joeng Hee in 1970.
Makerere University College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences(CAES) is in advance stages of negotiation to start a new program for capacity building to be funded by USAID and Michigan State University(MSU) starting October 2013.
Following several meetings the college management, USAID and MSU representatives, agreed on five main areas of priority in their last meeting held on October 4, 2012.
These areas include Policy Analysis, Entrepreneurship and Business development, Sanitary and Phyto- sanitary (SPS), Climate Change and Nutrition. A team of three namely Denis Mpairwe, Dr. Mnason Tweheyo and Prof. John Muyonga were appointed as contact persons for the project. The latter, Prof. Muyonga is to coordinate. | <urn:uuid:94ae3231-e928-4bbe-9599-2b8865f19d8b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://caes.mak.ac.ug/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949896 | 510 | 1.5 | 2 |
British or English – a false choice?
On my way to the Hay Festival last weekend, I drove through the charming Welsh town of Crickhowell. My son, sitting in the back, asked why it was that the streets were bedecked with Welsh flags alongside the bunting and Union flags celebrating the Diamond Jubilee.
My answer was that the people of Crickhowell were proud to be Welsh and proud to be British at the same time. Wales is part of the United Kingdom and, I explained, there was no contradiction in flying both flags. The royal heir to that broader kingdom, I pointed out, is designated the Prince of Wales.
The story is a bit more complicated than that, of course. I might have mentioned that another man designated Prince of Wales, Owain Glyndwr, had largely destroyed Crickhowell Castle in the early 15th Century - the ruins of which still stand in the town, a relic of what has been called the Last War of Independence.
The border town has witnessed more than its fair share of bloodshed and battle between Welsh separatists and the English crown over the centuries, and the proud display of British and Welsh colours this weekend might be seen as an echo of an historical and political compromise.
I am reminded of my son's question by today's speech from the Labour leader Ed Miliband. He refers to the "false choice" between the union and its constituent parts. "Having to say, Scottish or British, Welsh or British, English or British. I don't accept any of that," he said.
As a boy, like many others, I remember writing my address like this:
24 Ledcameroch Road
My identity was summed up by simple concentric circles, each aspect of my background fitting neatly into another. I was as much a resident of my house as I was a citizen of the world.
History, though, is littered with examples of what happens when the peaceful ripples of my uncomplicated Venn diagram are disturbed by the winds of some identity crisis. What might happen if the line of my address reading United Kingdom was removed?
Ed Miliband appears today to be responding to the warnings raised by the left-leaning think-tank IPPR last January in a paper entitled: The dog that finally barked: England as an emerging political community.
The report argued that, with a referendum on Scottish independence looming, Labour was caught "between the Scylla of the failure of its English regionalist project and the Charybdis of its dependency on its block of Scottish and Welsh MPs". The party, IPPR claimed, was in denial about the English question.
Polling data produced by YouGov found that 63% of people in England now describe themselves as English rather than British (see my post Is brand Britain losing its lustre?) and suggested that there was widespread and growing resentment at the perceived advantages enjoyed by other parts of the UK.
But Mr Miliband must tread warily if he wishes simultaneously to appeal to aggrieved English voters and counter those who would wish to break up the United Kingdom. His chosen path is to support the celebration of English pride and English character but not an English parliament or greater English autonomy.
In other words, his offer is for conceptual rather than physical Englishness.
While I was in Hay last weekend, I bumped into Rhodri Morgan - Labour's First Minister of Wales from 2000-2009 and a committed support of Welsh devolution.
I asked him whether he thought the people of the principality wanted still greater separation from the UK government in Westminster, following their yes vote in the referendum on extending the powers of the National Assembly last year. He was convinced they did, but that project was on hold at the moment as everyone held their breath to see what would happen in Scotland.
Wales, if Mr Morgan is correct, wants more political autonomy while retaining the accommodation represented by those flags in Crickhowell: a form of governance which is physical as well as conceptual.
The question for Mr Miliband is whether Labour's proposals for England can credibly only relate to the latter. | <urn:uuid:cf3dfb83-8c80-4f73-920b-918348ae9981> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18355571 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97854 | 836 | 1.78125 | 2 |
OUTSOURCING RAPID METHODS
A new alternative to bringing a rapid screening system in-house is to partner with a contract analytical lab that offers rapid
detection as a service. With overnight shipping widely available, there's still much to be gained by being able to release
products within two days.
Look for an accredited lab that is certified in current good manufacturing practices. Such labs will understand the demands
of the regulated environment. Ask about their experience with validation services and, if there's a future possibility of
bringing testing in-house, with method transfer. In addition to having a robust rapid screening system, the lab should be
equipped to perform follow-up testing on any samples that test positive.
Some laboratoies are capable of mapping organisms at the genetic level. This strain typing process uses repetitive extragenic
palindromic sequence polymerase chain reaction (rep-PCR) to identify and track organisms. Because it can be used to catalog
any mutations or seasonal changes over time, strain typing can be a significant benefit to facilities plagued by a recurring
ADOPTING RAPID METHODS IN PHARMA
As a growth-based method, AK-amplified bioluminescence has the advantage of being able to test products with a wide range
of physical characteristics. This includes clear, opaque, highly pigmented, acidic, and viscous products, whether filterable
or not. Both AK-amplified and traditional methods rely on batch or lot sampling, enrichment, and incubation. While the traditional
method depends on laboratory technicians visually inspecting hundreds of samples one at a time over multiple days, the rapid
method assays up to 120 samples in about one hour using a light-measuring instrument called a luminometer. Results are objectively
recorded and presented in clear, color-coded tables and graphics, so no "judgment calls" are needed to interpret the results.
Transitioning pharmaceuticals and other regulated products to a rapid release method is straightforward and is, in fact,
encouraged by many global regulatory bodies, including FDA. A contract laboratory with experience in this method should be
able to assist its clients in validating their product or group of products for routine release using a rapid method. This
typically entails side-by-side testing to ensure the rapid method is as sensitive as the traditional method. Once this comparability
protocol is completed and the validation data is submitted, the RMM is effectively implemented.
A good RMM provider may have regulatory compliance expertise on staff, as well as drug master files (DMFs) accepted by FDA.
DMFs include data for specificity, limit of detection, robustness, ruggedness, and equivalence, and can be used to supplement
or streamline the validation of a company's rapid system. This may save significant time in both preparation of regulatory
filings, and in FDA's review and approval process.
Tina Sturgill is senior director of biologcial sicences at Celsis Analytical Services, St. Louis, MO, TSturgill@celsis.com | <urn:uuid:b5f6fc03-3f2d-4c0e-832f-58f8d3a55dcc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.biopharminternational.com/biopharm/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=718075&sk=&date=&pageID=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930272 | 645 | 1.820313 | 2 |
The situation is worse than we thought. U.S. News & World Report (7/7/2011) came out with a story titled "Educators Implicated in Atlanta Cheating Scandal," saying that "for 10 years, hundreds of Atlanta public school teachers and principals changed answers on state tests in one of the largest cheating scandals in U.S. history, according to a scathing 413-page investigative report released Tuesday by Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal." The report says that more than three-quarters of the 56 Atlanta schools investigated cheated on the 2009 standardized National Assessment of Educational Progress. Eighty-two teachers have confessed to erasing students' answers. A total of 178 educators, including 38 principals, many of whom are black, systematically fabricated test scores of struggling black students to cover up academic failure. The governor's report says that cheating orders came from the top and that widespread cheating has occurred since at least 2001. So far, no Atlanta educator has been criminally charged, even though some of the cheating was brazen, such as teachers pointing to correct answers while students were taking the tests, reading answers aloud during testing and seating low-achieving students next to high-achieving students to make cheating easier.
Teacher and principal exam cheating is not restricted to Atlanta; it's widespread. The Detroit Free Press and USA Today (3/8/2011) released an investigative report that found higher-than-average erasure rates on tests taken by students at 34 schools in and around Detroit in 2008 and 2009. Overall, their report "found 304 schools where experts say the gains on standardized tests in 2009-10 are so statistically improbable, they merit further investigation. Besides Michigan, the other states (where suspected cheating was found) were Ohio, Arizona, Colorado, Florida and California." A Dallas Morning News investigation reported finding high rates of test erasures in Texas. Six teachers and two principals were dismissed after cheating was uncovered.
In 2007, Baltimore's George Washington Elementary School was named a Blue Ribbon School after the number of students who passed state reading tests shot from 32 percent to nearly 100 percent in just four years. Last year, The Baltimore Sun reported thousands of erasures on those tests. Susan Burgess, the school's principal, had her professional license revoked after an investigation by state and city school board officials.
Why is there widespread cheating by America's educators? According to Diane Ravitch, who is the research professor of education at New York University, it's not teachers and principals who are to blame; it's the mandates of the No Child Left Behind law, enacted during the George W. Bush administration. In other words, the devil made them do it. | <urn:uuid:d36a0423-0e08-42ce-9603-578bc12aa11d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2011/07/20/education_is_worse_than_we_thought/page/2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972878 | 538 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Letters to the Editor
Published September 14, 2011
The Crude Truth About Iraq
We should all thank former Bush administration adviser Meghan O’Sullivan for the honesty in her Sept. 11 Outlook commentary, “We shouldn’t pull out of Iraq, for their sake and ours,” in which she argued that the “most compelling” reason for maintaining the U.S. occupation of Iraq is to secure that nation’s oil.
I am among millions of Americans who have argued for years that oil was at the heart of our war with Iraq, even though many of us were labeled conspiracy theorists for doing so — even within this very newspaper. While we Americans may love our oil, the public has never supported the idea that our soldiers should kill and die for it, that we should be invaders and occupiers to secure it and that we should spend hundreds of billions of tax dollars to go after it. | <urn:uuid:7b441897-1356-4c5f-9c5a-78bc3fe9b8f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thebushagenda.org/article.php?id=802 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970086 | 192 | 1.71875 | 2 |
The U.S. State Department has designated the Commander Nazir Group, or CNG, and its sub-commander Malang Wazir, as terrorists. As a result of this designation, all property subject to U.S. jurisdiction in which CNG and Malang have any interest is blocked. Moreover, Americans are prohibited from engaging in any transactions with CNG, Malang, or to their benefit.
The Pakistan-based group has been in operation since 2006 and has run training camps, dispatched suicide bombers, provided safe haven for al-Qaida fighters, and conducted cross-border operations in Afghanistan against the U.S. and its allies. CNG is also responsible for assassination and intimidation operations against civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
CNG leader Commander Nazir was killed earlier this year in South Waziristan. Malang was immediately named a key sub-commander of the Commander Nazir Group. He has overseen training centers and has sent fighters to Afghanistan to support the Taliban. Salahuddin Ayubi, who is also known as Bahwal Khan, was named to replace Nazir.
In a statement, CNG vowed to continue its activities, including supporting al-Qaida and conducting attacks in Afghanistan.
Although the Commander Nazir Group and Malang have been behind numerous attacks against international forces in Afghanistan, the group has also been known to attack targets in Pakistan. In May 2011, CNG broke a ceasefire agreement and attacked a Pakistani army camp in Wana, Pakistan, with missiles and rockets.
In March 2008, Malang claimed CNG responsibility for a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device attack in front of an army brigade headquarters in Zari Noor, South Waziristan, Pakistan, which killed five Pakistani soldiers and injured 11 more.
The terrorism sanctions placed on the Commander Nazir Group and Malang Wazir demonstrate the United States’ commitment to eliminate the ability of terrorists to execute violent attacks and to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat terrorist networks. | <urn:uuid:5b4d09d8-3c68-4d63-a922-072aad75e291> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://editorials.voa.gov/content/commander-nazir-group-named-terrorist/1614546.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972846 | 406 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority issued a notice today to all ISPs in Pakistan to block few URLs which were related to election rigging. Since Pakistani service providers didn’t have proper infrastructure to block individual URLs, they blocked the whole domain.
Blocking websites in Pakistan is not new. Government authorities do this many times in the past, but they could not achieve their goal. Technologically speaking there are always some back doors to accomplish their desires so you will see lot of solutions to watch youtube videos in few days.
This is not important that YouTube is blocked, this is important that WHY it is blocked. Some of you might be thinking that it is being blocked due to some vulgarity, nudity, mujras and some questionable material that might be corrupting our society & culture. But this time YouTube is blocked due to some political situation rather than Cultural.
I personally watched few videos of electoral rigging those were placed on YouTube. I cannot provide you the link because I am in Pakistan and I cannot open YouTube . Moreove I do a trace rout an it ends up on PIE (Pakistan Internet Exchange). | <urn:uuid:d7b49db0-0d54-4470-b203-f6f29081174c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://shafiq.pk/2008/02/23/youtube-blocked-in-pakistan-by-pta/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970013 | 223 | 1.757813 | 2 |
As one who has been plugged into the net since 1993 I am always keeping my finger on the pulse of what is going on the technology world, but in particular for the last few years I’ve been staying very close to the mobile industry. As CMO of a mobile app development company, Action App – I see evolution and changes taking place daily that can affect the way that business is done in this fast paced sector.
If you are an app developer for iOS apps then you have probably received the email from iTunes regarding new image requirements namely that they be “Retina resolution” or above. Now, on the surface to the layman this may seem innocuous but upon further investigation we find that there may be a bigger reason behind the new Apple iTunes image requirements.
“When you create or update your apps in iTunes Connect, you must upload screenshots that are high-resolution. We require your screenshots as high-resolution images so that your app is optimized for the Retina display.
The requirements for high-resolution images are 960 x 640, 960 x 600, 640 x 960, or 640 x 920 pixels. Images must be at least 72 dpi, in the RGB color space, and the file must be .jpeg, .jpg, .tif, .tiff, or .png. You can update your screenshot files at any time in iTunes Connect.”
I also discovered that you cannot make any other changes to existing apps without upgrading images as well. So, the bad news is that you have to upgrade your images if you intend to do any updates of your existing apps and all future apps must conform. The good news is that it will force all of us on the developer side to offer the highest quality images possible and lets us know the the iPhone 5 is getting closer and closer…
The iPhone 4 was the first of the popular smartphone line to include a retina screen, so it makes sense that if Apple is coming out with the iPhone 5 in the summer-fall of 2012 the 3GS will probably be phased out soon thereafter. This follows a pattern with Apple as they evolve, hardware that doesn’t support the new technology is phased out to make way for the next “must have device”.
So, what are some of the “alleged features” being introduced in the new iPhone 5 release?
According to iPhone5Latest :
The iPhone 5 will be at least 4G and possibly 4G-LTE – For the less techno, LTE stands for long term evolution and at 12mbps download rate versus 5-6mbps download rate it is considerably faster than regular 4G.
The obvious difference you see from the image above from iPhoneLatest.com is how much BIGGER the iPhone 5 is supposed to be, probably at least 3.7 to 4.3 inch screen! I know for me, that is a biggie. That’s been a complaint of mine about the iPhone from day one.
It is also rumored that the new iPhone 5 will have a better front camera and possible as high as a 10 MP rear facing camera. Pretty cool stuff for those of us that use our iPhones as cameras. I did several months of citizen journalism using my iPhone, uploading images and videos live from the scene – They are phenomenal tools!
More details as we get them - | <urn:uuid:fb4f7bab-81a7-4a6a-95dc-1ed7f827a066> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://action-app.com/tag/image-requirements/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950564 | 684 | 1.554688 | 2 |
The emerging conventional wisdom is that, with the selection of Paul Ryan as Romney’s running-mate, the 2012 election has suddenly become a serious matter. Rather than a purely negative campaign, the GOP is aiming for a mandate – a higher-risk, higher-reward strategy. And the Democrats are aiming for a counter-mandate, to bury the Ryan budget once and for all. Whichever side wins the election, the ship of state will be set on a definitive course for years to come.
But I suspect the conventional wisdom is wrong. The structure of American political institutions and norms makes it extraordinarily difficult for either party to seriously turn the ship of state. To enact major reforms requires either a substantial majority or at least some cooperation from the party out of power. The former is not likely, for either party, and if post-election an incentive for the latter is to emerge, I’d like to know what it is.
Let’s take a trip down memory lane, to 2008. The Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate, with large majorities, and won the Presidency with the largest percentage of the vote achieved by a Democrat since 1964. It was the clearest “mandate” election since 1980. And what happened? The GOP responded by declaring a policy of wall-to-wall obstruction, which, if not perfectly enforced, came pretty close. And the Democrats, faced with that obstruction, had to consider what the impact of a series of party-line votes would be on their most marginal members. The result was legislative triage: we got a catch-all stimulus bill, and an insurance-company-friendly version of health-care reform that passed by a whisker. And this was followed by a massive Republican tide in 2010.
Suppose Republicans take the Presidency and both houses of Congress in 2012. The largest plausible Senate majority will fall short of being filibuster-proof. The largest plausible popular vote majority will fall short of Obama’s victory in 2008. If the Republicans interpret their victory as a mandate, that means trying to pass major changes to core entitlements, large upper-bracket income tax cuts, large cuts in discretionary spending (apart from defense), and the elimination of tax deductions popular with the middle class. Why would the Democrats cooperate in passing any of this? Why wouldn’t they adopt the kind of wall-to-wall opposition that characterized the Republican opposition after 2008?
Perhaps they couldn’t whip their members as effectively as the Republicans did. But if the Democrats suffer large losses in the Senate, their caucus – like the Republican caucus in 2009 – will have shifted left, and will contain fewer members vulnerable in a general election. Moreover, 2014 will be a midterm election after a change in party in the White House, which typically means that the incumbent party loses seats. Democrats will, precisely because of defeat, be more unified, and will feel they have the wind at least somewhat at their backs. And they wouldn’t have to whip quite as effectively as the Republicans, because a 2013 Republican majority in the Senate, under any plausible scenario, will be smaller than the Democratic majority was in 2009.
And the stakes, for the Democrats, couldn’t be higher. What, exactly, does the Democratic Party exist for if it votes for upward redistribution of wealth through the tax code, privatization of Medicare, block-granting Medicaid, and gutting domestic discretionary spending? If they can’t stand united in opposition to that kind of agenda post-election, the party would simply collapse from lack of rank-and-file support.
But what if the Democrats win? What if President Obama wins a solid reelection victory of 3-4 points, the Democrats retain a thin majority in the Senate, and make gains in the House. That would be a clear repudiation of the Ryan budget’s priorities. Clearly, the Republicans, post-election, would have to reconsider those priorities, and work with the new Democratic majority on common goals.
Or, you know – not. In the worst-case-scenario for Republicans, they won’t have lost a huge amount of ground. It’s unlikely they’ll lose the House, and they are very likely to make gains in the Senate even if they don’t gain a majority. They will certainly have lost winnable seats in both the House and the Senate that can be attributed to having chosen candidates that were too conservative – but that was true in 2010 as well, and those losses don’t seem to have changed the priorities of the Republican electorate. This Congress has the lowest approval rating in recorded history. If most incumbents survive an election held under those circumstances, what’s their incentive to change their behavior?
Moreover, the Republican Party’s entire identity in the age of Obama has been oriented around opposition. The party’s leaders have told their members that they are the only thing standing in between the administration and the destruction of America as their members know it. They can’t simply change their tune because they lost an election. They will have to continue to fight the good fight – for the sake of the country. What else are they going to say – “the American people have spoken, and they have chosen Socialism?”
We do not live under the British constitution, where an electoral dictatorship can pretty much do whatever it wants, constrained only by the knowledge that there will be another election that could devastate them if they don’t deliver the goods for the people. The American political system requires either a very large majority or a high degree of receptivity to cooperation to enact major legislative changes. The median voter theorem dictates that large and stable majorities should be very hard to assemble, while the successful ideological and demographic sorting of the parties has made cooperation much more expensive. The result is a system that frustrates accountability. And, since accountability is risky for incumbents, the current system serves the interests of a stable majority of legislators.
The battle is indeed joined, and it does represent a sharp contrast of visions in terms of budget priorities. And yet, in terms of tangible consequences, it may yet be as Fortinbras’s captain said of his impending battle with the King of Poland:
Truly to speak, and with no addition,
We go to gain a little patch of ground
That hath in it no profit but the name. | <urn:uuid:e9a0075e-1c29-4d65-8e80-5284efa73bb9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theamericanconservative.com/millman/will-the-2012-election-have-consequences/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965588 | 1,319 | 1.625 | 2 |
Reported with Chronicle Washington Bureau writer Edward Epstein
Good behavior, but few minds changed
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi grasped the president’s hand and warmly congratulated him, and the president appeared pleased after his State of the Union address — the sixth of his presidency. He leisurely went through the House chamber talking to lawmakers, signing autographs and hearing reaction for several minutes afterward.
Maybe that’s because he escaped some real heat — Democrats behaved as they listened to the address. Given the recent hisotry of opposition conduct during the annual presidential visit to the House chamber, that was no small accomplishment for members of the party that took control of both houses last November.
There’s some history when it comes to this speech. Republicans booed and outright laughed at Democratic President Bill Clinton during some of his State of the Union appearances. It got so bad that before Clinton’s 1999 speech, the GOP speaker of the time, Rep. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, actually sent out a letter ordering his GOP members to behave.
And in 2005, when Bush said the only way to save Social Security was through private accounts, there were audible murmurs of discontent in the opposition Democratic ranks.
Tonight, all was quiet on the booing front.
On the cheering front, Bush’s Republicans were, of course, far more enthusiastic than the Democrats — perhaps because they felt the need to encourage their beleaguered president.
“The president delivered a very tough message under very tough circumstances,” said Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Gold River (Sacramento County), immediately afterwards. “The question now is the response from Congress an the American people.”
But that may not be easy. Lungren, who has also been California’s attorney general and a Republican candidate for governor in 1998, said, “This was the single most difficult State of the Union I’ve ever seen. The president came before Congress with the lowest poll ratings since President (Richard) Nixon and in the midst of an increasingly unpopular war to state his case.”
Still, he added, Bush “did far better than I expected — and the reactions from the audience were far better than I expected.”
But Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, not surprisingly, saw it in different terms.
“I’ve seen so many of these speeches, both as a member of the House and since 1992 in the Senate,” she said. “It’s the most disjointed one I’ve heard, with a rambling argument on the war on terrorism. I’m a little perplexed. I thought there was very little news.”
That sentiment was echoed by Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, who called it “a strange speech.”
“Other than the stuff at the end about those (American heroes), it was nothing new,” Farr said. “All these things he suggested (on global warming and health care), he could have done long ago — and California has already done all this stuff.”
Farr also cited Bush’s call to reauthorize the “No Child Left Behind” program and those to develop alternative fuels, saying, “He makes all these promises and never puts up any money in the budget to get them started.”
Even some Republicans, who lead the way for most standing ovations, were unhappy with some of the president’s proposals.
Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., said on Bush’s immigration stance, “some of the applause seemed a little muted.”
Gingrey’s district in Northern Georgia has had an influx of illegal immigrants coming to work, prompting the congressman to note, “We want a secure border first and foremost.” | <urn:uuid:81233aee-602a-44b2-a891-17968947283d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/page/524/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968967 | 811 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Nikolas Giakoumidis, Associated Press
KASTANIES, Greece — Greece announced on Monday that it will soon begin building a 6-mile-long (10-kilometer-long) fence topped with razor wire on its border with Turkey to deter illegal immigrants.
Thousands of illegal immigrants cross from Turkey into Greece at this point each year, often traveling from there to other parts of Europe.
Greek Public Order Minister Christos Papoutsis went to the border village of Kantanies on Monday to announce that work on the 13-foot-tall (4-meter-tall) fence will start next month and is expected to be finished by September at a cost of more than €3 million ($4 million). It will stretch from Kastanies to the Greek village of Nea Vyssa, near the northeastern town of Orestiada.
"This is an opportunity for us to send a clear message ... to all the EU that Greece is fully compliant with its border commitments," Papoutsis told reporters. "Traffickers should know that this route will be closed to them. Their life is about to get much harder."
Greece is one of the 26 European nations in the Schengen Area, which has external border controls but not ones within the zone. Since Greece is on the southeastern edge of the area, and Turkey has not signed the Schengen Agreement, Greece is required to maintain its border controls.
During Papoutsis' visit to Kastanies, about 40 people protested nearby, saying the fence is a violation of human rights and should not be built at a time when Greece is suffering a deep financial crisis that has led to punishing austerity measures and high unemployment. About 200 riot police stood by, but no violence occurred during the demonstration.
Papoutsis said the fence will be coupled with a network of fixed night-vision cameras providing real-time footage to the new command center.
Most of Greece's 125-mile (200 kilometer) border with Turkey runs along a river known as Evros in Greece and Meric in Turkey. The new fence, which Turkey's government has not opposed, will block a short stretch of dry land between the two countries. Greece already is receiving emergency assistance at the Evros border from the EU border protection agency, Frontex.
On Monday, three men seen entering Greece at the point where the fence will be built told The Associated Press they are illegal immigrants who fled Syria's violence.
One of the men, who identified himself only as Said, 24, said the trio had been walking for seven days, and that he hopes to reach an uncle in Hungary, which also is a member of Europe's Schengen Area.
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Are you a Christian?
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9:2 Behold, six men came from the way of the upper gate, which lies toward the north, every man with his slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man in the midst of them clothed in linen, with a writer`s inkhorn by his side. They went in, and stood beside the brazen altar.
9:4 Yahweh said to him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark on the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry over all the abominations that are done in the midst of it.
9:6 kill utterly the old man, the young man and the virgin, and little children and women; but don`t come near any man on whom is the mark: and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the old men that were before the house.
9:7 He said to them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go you forth. They went forth, and struck in the city.
9:8 It happened, while they were smiting, and I was left, that I fell on my face, and cried, and said, Ah Lord Yahweh! will you destroy all the residue of Israel in your pouring out of your wrath on Jerusalem?
9:9 Then said he to me, The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of wrestling [of judgment]: for they say, Yahweh has forsaken the land, and Yahweh doesn`t see.
9:11 Behold, the man clothed in linen, who had the inkhorn by his side, reported the matter, saying, I have done as you have commanded me. | <urn:uuid:f273cfda-0eda-4697-bbb0-c029b2cb9f81> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.godrules.net/library/web/webeze9.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978041 | 395 | 1.804688 | 2 |
“Strengthen Access to Justice by Improving State Court Funding”: President Zack
All of us in the legal profession know there’s a crisis in the state courts: some of the country’s largest and most important state systems, including New York and Florida, face new cuts to already inadequate budgets. There is no magic bullet to this problem, which is exactly why the ABA has formed the Task Force on Preservation of the Justice System chaired by David Boies and Ted Olson. The task force will recommend many possible solutions. But there is one potential, $15 billion answer to the problem that can be tapped into, right now, and Congress is getting behind it.
The answer is to leverage an existing program in the Department of Treasury to collect long-overdue court-ordered fines, restitution and other financial obligations from federal tax refunds. The reason the National Center for State Courts estimates that there’s an accumulated total of $15 billion in unpaid fees and restitution is because courts and crime victims do not have the resources to collect on those avoiding their responsibilities. This program would offer a practical, fair way to secure those funds.
The effort is carefully crafted: only the dodgers of debts associated with criminal convictions and major traffic violations are targeted. Those owing civil judgments and traffic tickets are not. This new effort would not cost the federal or state governments a dime: the program is already operational and any minor, additional expenses would be reimbursed from the refunds. And states can opt in so there’s no mandate to join. It’s an easy, innovative way to direct more funds toward cash-strapped court systems.
The fact that the idea has early, bipartisan traction underscores how smart and creative it is. Rep. Paulsen (R-MN) and Sen. Wyden (D-OR) have introduced identical bills in the House and Senate as the “Crime Victim Restitution and Court Fee Intercept Act.” All lawyers should thank these two for their efforts.
Hundreds of lawyers from across the country have been asking their legislators to get on board during “ABA Day in Washington,” the association’s annual volunteer lobbying effort on Capitol Hill. ABA Day-organized visits to congressional offices have been focused equally on three issues vital to a functioning U.S. justice system. Besides building momentum behind this new court funding mechanism, bar leaders have pressed for faster, less contentious handling of judicial nominations in order to reduce the high vacancy rate on the federal bench. There’s also been a major push to spare Legal Services Corporation from the budget ax, since the tight economy has legal aid in high demand.
The ABA is an extremely effective national voice of the profession before the federal government, and the association’s focus is on the issues we know matter most to you: essential justice system protections and reforms. But our voice is always stronger when you add yours. I encourage you to reach out directly to your legislators. Ask them to strengthen access to justice by improving state court funding, reducing judicial vacancies and protecting legal aid providers. | <urn:uuid:6da3349b-eaa9-40df-8b20-e687800e08cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.abanow.org/2011/04/strengthen-access-to-justice-by-improving-state-court-funding-president-zack/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949671 | 632 | 1.570313 | 2 |
POINT PLEASANT — The Robert and Louise Claflin Foundation recently donated $15,000 to the Point Pleasant River Museum’s Pilothouse Training Simulator Project for new steering equipment.
It was reported the Claflin Foundation presented this donation in order to help promote local job training, economic development, and employment opportunities through the museum’s pilothouse simulator.
“This is an excellent opportunity for the Claflin Foundation to become instrumental in enhancing community development,” says Claflin Foundation President Stephen C. Littlepage. “The need for job training, our river resources and Mr. Fowler’s ability to analyze the need for this simulator project will make an impact on this community for the next several years.”
It was stated that the opportunity to use the pilothouse as a training facility is now available at the River Museum. In order to qualify as a Coast Guard Certification training simulator, it was also stated that new equipment had to be installed at the museum including steering arms, flanking rudder controls, and rear window and computer software.
“Our pilothouse will be as good as any simulator in the business,” states museum director Jack Fowler. “This is an economic grant that will position us to participate in the riverboat pilot training business.”
As previously reported, the pilothouse, which was named after the late Captain O. Nelson Jones, has the potential to not only benefit the museum, but benefit Point Pleasant by attracting trainees to come to Point Pleasant, providing revenue for other area businesses. It could also cut down on the costs for local trainees, who now won’t have to travel far from home to receive the proper education.
The museum has also received several other grants for recent upgrades to the pilothouse simulator. The pilothouse also includes six 50 inch television screens and ten computers and several different scenarios for the potential pilot to experience.
For more information on the pilothouse simulator project, contact the River Museum at 304-674-0144. | <urn:uuid:bb5a88d5-bb64-4446-a702-90a11aecd96f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mydailyregister.com/view/full_story/20587632/article-Claflin-Foundation-donates-to-River-Museum%E2%80%99s-pilothouse | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962491 | 426 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Sir John Eliot Gardiner's 1991 recording of the Brahms Requiem was notable for its brighter take on this work, which featured very brisk tempos and what some called an unsentimental approach. Well, this effort, which offers the same orchestra and choir, features marginally faster tempos, better sound and different but quite capable soloists. I have quite a few Brahms Requiems in my collection and I've heard a few others, and this new one by Gardiner is the fastest, with Gardiner's 1991 coming in a close second. But is that in any way a telltale indication of the artistic worth of the performance?
Of course not, but it tells you Gardiner's leaner approach is more Classical than Romantic, and more spirited than probing. Let me say right off, too, that this recording features the best choral singing in this work I've ever heard, and while the Brahms Requiem allows for many different vantage points, I would take Gardiner's interpretation here over anyone else's. Gardiner imparts a truly energetic sense: try his sixth movement, "Denn wir haben…" for about the most dramatic and compelling version of this music you'll hear. And so much else is convincing, especially the third panel, "Herr, lehr doch mich", whose ending brims with vitality and glorious, heavenly music. The latter pages of #2, "Denn alles Fleisch…", also take on a brighter, more optimistic character than usual.
But, you ask, is this brighter approach appropriate to a Requiem? Brahms, you'll remember, wanted his Requiem to serve as a consoling and comforting experience, not as a commemoration of the dead or an examination of the afterlife. Brahms was not a man of deep faith: Dvořák commented, "He believes in nothing." That assessment was probably a bit harsh, as Brahms might more accurately been called an agnostic. But then we don't know for sure what he was. We do know, however, that this is not a Requiem that featured a Dies Irae or other more traditional or more terrifying associations with death. Neither did Brahms set Latin texts. So, his Requiem was indeed different in mood and character from most other Requiems and thus can certainly be regarded as brighter and deserving of less Wagnerian and less funereal approaches.
Gardiner's soloists, baritone Matthew Brook, and soprano Katharine Fuge, are quite splendid. In "Herr, lehre doch mich", Brook is simply stunning and sings with total commitment. Fuge sings beautifully in "Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit", her voice having an almost angelic purity in its slightly restrained tones.
The Schütz pieces, which come first on the disc, are included because, as the album notes explain, Brahms admired Schütz and the texts both composers use here partially overlap. In any event, the two Schütz settings are beautifully performed by the Monteverdi Choir and make nice companion works. The sound is vivid and powerful on all selections.
As for comparisons, I recently reviewed the Christian Thielemann rendition of the Brahms Requiem on a Unitel Classica/Cmajor DVD and found the performance quite beautiful, despite the fact the timing is about fifteen minutes slower than Gardiner's! As I say, Brahms allows for different vantage points of this work, including some radically different ones. If you prefer a more Romantic and probing approach to the Requiem, then Thielemann may well satisfy you. The Philippe Herreweghe recording on Harmonia Mundi and Marek Janowski on Pentatone also feature brisk performances and are eminently worthwhile. Levine's earlier RCA recording features moderate tempos and very fine singing by Kathleen Battle and Håkan Hagegård.
In sum, despite fierce competition in this great work, Gardiner must be given the edge over the others.
Copyright © 2012 by Robert Cummings. | <urn:uuid:61ec501c-a01b-4bcc-a7b2-cf5424fce1de> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.classical.net/music/recs/reviews/s/sdg00706a.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951999 | 841 | 1.625 | 2 |
An appointment with the devil’s doctor
Somewhere deep in hell there’s a savvy psychiatrist who knows exactly how to lure you to the underworld.
“He really understands human nature. He knows people’s weaknesses, knows where to pounce,” says Max McLean. “Screwtape is the predator and he has his eye set on every man on earth.”
McLean plays the lead in “The Screwtape Letters,” a play adapted from the C. S. Lewis satirical novel of the same name. The story centers on Screwtape, Satan’s senior demon who advises his nephew how to win over an unsuspecting human.
“He says, ‘The safest road to hell is the gradual one,’” quotes McLean from the script. “Screwtape just wants to encourage the path that we’re already on, our go-with-the-flow/don’t-resist-anything nature.”
Lewis, a deeply religious man, created this morally backward universe in which God is the “enemy” to show how temptation seduces spiritual followers.
“It’s probably one of the best examples of reverse psychology in literature,” says McLean.
Listening to a sermon in church which might tell you how to act just doesn’t have the same effect as hearing it from the devil’s perspective, McLean points out. And audiences need not be Christians, or religious at all, to connect with the show.
“Screwtape puts a mirror to our behavior,” says McLean. “Some of the laughs are kind of uncomfortable, because you’re thinking ‘I wish he wouldn’t remind me that I do that.’ ”
Reason to believe
C. S. Lewis had a long spiritual journey before writing “The Screwtape Letters”: He dabbled in aetheism, paganism and mysticism before settling into Christianity.
“The road he went on contributed so much to the irony and cynicism of this story,” says McLean. “He really understood an audience that had trouble believing.”
If you go
‘The Screwtape Letters’
Friday, 8 p.m.
Saturday, 4 p.m. and 8 p.m.
Cutler Majestic Theatre
219 Tremont St., Boston | <urn:uuid:3710c69f-3cb3-4598-a5f9-fa360f7fc746> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.metro.us/boston/entertainment/arts/2012/11/26/an-appointment-with-the-devils-doctor/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932963 | 524 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Risk Assessment or Risk Acceptance: An Activist's Perspective on Why the EPA's Attempts to Achieve Environmental Justice Have Failed and What They Can Do About It
AbstractThe Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is charged with safeguarding the well-being of environmental justice (EJ) communities. Sadly, EJ communities are often burdened with gathering their own evidence of harm to prompt regulators to action. This article provides a case study of how one grassroots organization, Citizens for Environmental Justice, uncovered evidence of public health problems that are linked to living near heavy industry in Corpus Christi, Texas. It demonstrates that even when dedicated citizen activism produces strong evidence of harm, regulators are often slow or unwilling to act. We conclude by arguing that the use of risk assessment to establish harm can provide a shield to delay regulatory action and protect industry at the expense of EJ communities. | <urn:uuid:80ac3589-90bc-4264-b5e4-07588aa53dc1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.deepdyve.com/lp/mary-ann-liebert/risk-assessment-or-risk-acceptance-an-activist-s-perspective-on-why-qlfc6JlAky | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934141 | 175 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Some Personal Experiences Starting Community Gardens, by Sam Rose
My initial reasons for coming to La Paz, Baja California Sur were similar to many folks who have migrated here from the interior of Mexico and from abroad. The region is celebrated worldwide as an ecological hotspot and the city enjoys a relatively high quality of life with regard to economy and security. I had been invited to help develop the outdoor education programs for an NGO, Ecology Project International, which links students and scientists in the outdoor classroom located at the Sea of Cortes, or as Jacques Cousteau referred to it, “the aquarium of the world.” I spent this time collaborating with local students, teachers, and scientists to create environmental education courses, field trips, and camping excursions on the islands and coasts of this geologic masterpiece. With my students, we investigated wildlife raging from mega-fauna, such as blue whales and sea turtles, to more foundational species in the ecological pyramid, like sea stars and urchins.
After nearly five years managing these programs, I seized an opportunity for a change in my professional career. I have a degree in Plant Science and a Master’s in Education, and my dream had always been to marry these two interests. I informed my employer of my imminent departure, and in August of 2010 I began to cultivate a part of the property I rent in La Paz (around 5,500 square feet). By December I was selling my organic produce in a local farmers market that was just starting up. The extra cash was nice, but mainly this was an experiment to see if organic urban agriculture could be a viable endeavor in this region.
This experiment turned into a proposal for a bigger-picture project: a community garden. A friend, Erika Goetz, and I had been talking about initiating a community garden for a while. My former job had placed me in contact with potential funders, and it was time to put our case together. The state of Baja California Sur is Mexico’s least populated state, but it is experiencing one of the fastest paces of growth in the country. Like many other places in the world, this pressure is leading to water scarcity and environmental degradation. We are experiencing rampant urban expansion and seeing “food deserts” emerge that are in part causing an epidemic of illnesses -- heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and health-related problems from obesity and inadequate diet. There is a lack of physical activity, especially for vulnerable groups (youth, elderly and women), and many residents complain of an unraveling of the social fabric because of scarcity of opportunities for youth in marginalized communities. All of these factors are impacting the quality of life celebrated in this region.
Our idea was that community gardens could help to alleviate these deficiencies and we put together a proposal explaining how. In January of 2011, a supporter leant us a basically abandoned lot (around 6,000 square feet) in the center of town and gave us $5000 (U.S. dollars) to get started. With a few friends, on a voluntary basis, we began by painting the walls around the property with construction lime and cleaning up the rundown building located there. We installed a bathroom and created a tool shed. We marked out around 25 gardening parcels and ran water spigots to each one.
Once the grounds were presentable, we opened the doors to the community. The goal was to provide a community space, a green oasis in the city, where residents could cultivate organic produce, learn about healthy food preparation, exchange knowledge on sustainable home technologies, and strengthen community connections. We got the word out every way we knew how: we used mass emails; sent messages to already established list-serves through personal contacts; made appearances on local radio and television; published press releases and articles; made signs for the garden inviting the public; and created a blogspot webpage and facebook account. Alongside our outreach, we started offering free workshops on organic gardening and related subjects. Sometimes we would lead the courses ourselves, other times friends of the garden would offer their expertise at our venue.
Interest grew. We managed to get the garden parcels adopted, and we were training at least 80 participants at our workshops. We realized it was time to take this project to the next level, so we decided to create a nonprofit organization to amplify and expand our activities. During the summer of 2011 we put together a larger proposal and submitted it to the International Community Foundation, a group that was already financing social development programs in the region. Our grant was accepted and we created the organization called “Raíz De Fondo,” which translates more or less to “deep roots.” We are now an officially recognized nonprofit in Mexico.
With a little over a year having passed since we started this initiative, we now manage three community gardens in La Paz which serve as platforms for our educational and community development activities. In these spaces we continue to offer gardening parcels for adoption, free gardening and kitchen workshops, a seed library, and school visits. The community response has been incredible. We have six part-time employees to supervise the three gardens and manage the organization, in addition to the dozens of volunteers that help with the physical maintenance and improvements at each garden.
The local government is starting to take notice, too. We have been approached by several agencies within the municipality who want to integrate our model and workshops into social development projects that they are already implementing. This translates into funding to increase the amount of work we can do to reach the marginalized populations that could be most impacted, both within La Paz and in more rural areas.
Of course we cannot do everything ourselves. Our plans for the future include a systematic approach of training local community leaders to create their own autonomous community gardens. We also want to beef up our teacher trainings and garden curriculum so that schools can further our mission. Our student visits currently include just garden activities but we are going to integrate food preparation for this next academic year. We are initiating a series of workshops this season on water catchment and urban reforestation with local species. We are also starting a cooperative garden store so we can get better products for the organic garden and kitchen. Finally, we are creating a curriculum called “Empowering Youth Entrepreneurs in Community Gardens.” The idea is to combine organic gardening with leadership development, project planning, and marketing trainings to help young people grow and sell their organic produce in these food deserts that exist in their neighborhoods.
As far as lessons learned, I would recommend the following:
- Once you get an appropriate space and seed money for a community garden, go for it. It only takes a few months to get beautiful vegetables growing, and once the party gets started and the doors are open, the guests start arriving. Modifications can be made later on and you’ll have more knowledge and input from the participants who jump on board along the way.
- Take advantage of local media, bulletin boards, and web resources to get the word out. Just make sure you have something to offer if you are sending out an invitation. Have clear short-term goals that you can accomplish. Small successful steps will keep spirits high and encourage volunteers and participants to keep on working hard for your vision.
- Offer free courses and workshops. You can lead these or other experts in your community can lead these. Most people are eager for a forum in which to share their knowledge. Courses are a great incentive to get new people to come to your garden, and a percentage of them will donate their time or money to help with its development.
- Focus on the basics and then expand the scope of your community garden initiative. Sometimes we can be victims of our own ambition and get burned out in the process. It’s probably better in the long run to hone smaller projects and then integrate larger ones little by little.
- Look for a diversified portfolio of funding because you never know if you might get cut off. We offer free workshops and suggest donations. We sell basic organic gardening supplies at a discounted rate which leaves a bit of money for the part-time employees. One of our gardens will be offering a few CSA memberships in the form of weekly baskets of vegetables to help make ends meet. We have applied for grants through a variety of institutions, both private and public.
- We also started a Kickstarter campaign. Please give it a visit before July 6th and share it with your contacts!
- Most importantly, have fun while working hard. Turn on the music during work sessions. Have some refreshments available for volunteers. Celebrate each success. The tone you create obviously has much to do with the amount of community integration you achieve. Reach out to neighbors, agencies, and local businesses, and, without pressuring anyone, let them know that the doors are open and their participation is welcome.
There are millions of ways to go about starting a community garden. These experiences are what has worked for us in our local context.
Sam Rose is a member of edibleschoolyard.org and the director of Raíz De Fondo A.C. in La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico. | <urn:uuid:08e2dd01-0ba2-484b-8999-aca8132f7e43> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://edibleschoolyard.org/project-blog/2012/06/27/some-personal-experiences-starting-community-gardens-sam-rose | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966692 | 1,875 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Geneva / Niamey — The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Peter Maurer, has begun a visit to Niger and Mali in order to assess and be in a position to report to the international community on the situation from a humanitarian viewpoint in those two countries.
ICRC operations in Niger and Mali, April - October 2012
Mr Maurer, who arrived yesterday, will visit Niamey and Agadez in Niger before continuing on to Mopti and Bamako in Mali. He will conclude his visit on 24 October.
Mr Maurer will meet with senior government officials in both countries and with leaders of the two countries' Red Cross Societies. The primary topics will be the consequences in humanitarian terms of the Malian conflict and the ICRC's operations to meet the immense needs of the people affected.
"The ICRC is very concerned about the conflict's effects on the people living in northern Mali," said Mr Maurer upon his arrival. "The crisis is also affecting other countries in the Sahel, such as Niger." Thousands of people had fled the fighting, he said, either to safer parts of Mali itself or across the border into Niger, Burkina Faso and Mauritania. His visit was intended to attract international attention to the plight of people exhausted and weakened by a succession of food shortages and by the conflict raging in northern Mali.
The ICRC has been distributing food in northern Mali since July and plans to reach 420,000 people by the end of the year. It continues furnishing medicines and other essential items for the hospital in the city of Gao, as well as for community health-care facilities throughout the north.
President Maurer's visit follows the appeal for further funds (25 million Swiss francs, or over 20 million euros) launched by the ICRC in September for its work in Mali and the broader region. "The funds currently available, said Mr Maurer, are unfortunately not enough for the humanitarian aid needed".
ICRC staff are hard at work in Niamey and Agadez, in Niger, and in Bamako, Gao and Mopti, in Mali. The organization also has personnel based in Kidal and Timbuktu. | <urn:uuid:f7953ccf-34ae-4ddd-84e0-877ea57f4c7b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://allafrica.com/stories/201210221273.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972042 | 455 | 1.601563 | 2 |
JERMAINE JACKSON - BIOGRAPHY
Possessing one of the most elegant voices in the annals of popular music, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame alumnus Jermaine Jackson’s imprint on the musical landscape is so indelible that an optimum barometer has been set for future generations of performers. From a youngster in Gary, Indiana, to an embraceable solo artist, Jermaine’s contributions to the pop music spectrum are incalculable.
With bursts of eclectic harmonic fusion, Jermaine’s undulating guitar baselines crescendo into rhythmic explosions(!), taking international audiences by storm. His superlative studio recordings, action videos and dynamic stage routines are emblematic of his inestimable contribution to the world of entertainment. And his insightful business aptitude and undying love for the music that has shaped generations account for the enormity of his commercial success.
In 1962, Jermaine, as a member of The Jackson Brothers, enjoyed his first studio recording (local label) titled “Big Boy.” This morphed into a local hit and set the stage for the 1969 partnership with Motown Records. Subsequently, the group, now the Jackson 5, made live appearances on the top-rated Ed Sullivan, American Bandstand and Soul Train television shows.
In the 1970s, they were the first act in recording history to have their first four singles ("I Want You Back", "ABC", "The Love You Save" and "I'll Be There") reach the pinnacle of Billboard’s Hot 100. Also, "Mama's Pearl", "Never Can Say Goodbye" and "Dancing Machine" reached Billboard’s Top 5 and all reached number 1 on the R&B charts. Realizing their multitudinous gifts, the brothers composed and produced many of their own studio recordings during that decade.
Jermaine’s illustrious solo career began in 1972 with the platinum cover of the R&B classic “Daddy’s Home,” a Billboard Top-Ten hit and a Motown Records release. Soon a plethora of successes followed, including “Let’s Get Serious,” “Let’s Be Young Tonight,” "Do What You Do," “Don’t Take It Personal” (# 1 on Billboard’s R&B charts), and multitudes more.
And it was in 1976 that they filmed their own primetime television show for CBS and a Saturday morning ABC TV animation series.
After fulfilling commitments to Motown, in 1984 Jermaine accepted the invitation to join forces with Arista Records to release the album Dynamite, which featured the mega-disc "Do What You Do" and a number of duets. This was followed by the album Don’t Take It Personal, which housed numerous emotive singles and a continuum of well-produced albums. In 1985, Jermaine co-produced Whitney Houston’s biggest-selling debut album, Whitney Houston, which contained three hit singles and his duet with Whitney. His airwave success swept not only America, but in the same year, his duet with Pia Zadora in the UK, “When the Rain Begins to Fall,” topped many singles charts.
Although Jermaine’s vocal prowess is obvious, his versatility as a performer was accentuated in 1984 when the brother’s embarked on the highest-grossing concert tour till that time – The Victory Tour. To witness him playing bass riffs, singing and dancing to the syncopated beat of forever classics was a visual that is cherished by millions of attendees and video aficionados. That, coupled with success as a Jackson 5, validated the multitalented star as one of the most influential recording artists to ever command center stage. Additionally, in the early 1990s, he recorded an album and several singles for La Face Records.
Jermaine alone enjoys the distinction as the only artist to perform as co-lead singer with the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. Their one-two punch kept their music on the charts and laid the foundation for the gush of artists who’ve acknowledged them as their primary creative influences, among them Celine Dion, Justin Timberlake and Usher.
In 1992, Jermaine’s role as a pivotal member of both of the brothers’ successful groups was highlighted in the video and television special The Jacksons: An American Dream, which Jermaine co-executive produced. He also co-executive produced The Jackson Family Honors special for NBC, which benefited charities.
In 2010, to the delight of his loyal international fan base, Jermaine co-starred and executive produced the television documentary series The Jacksons: A Family Dynasty on the A&E network. This insightful, six-part series gave a rare glimpse into the Jackson Family and debuted with 2.8 million viewers.
Another performing highlight of Jermaine’s remarkable career was the unforgettable reunion performance on one of histories most watched television specials, Motown 25. The show signaled a pivotal point in the thrilling career of this entertainment icon. And in 1997, to the delight of family, friends and supporters, Jermaine and his brothers (The Jacksons) received the ultimate professional tribute: induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Also in 2010, Jermaine performed a solo concert in Gambia for the International Kanilai Cultural Festival before 30,000 excited fans at Bakau’s Independence Stadium. In addition to his solo repertoire, a special tribute to The King of Pop and songs from both The Jackson 5 and The Jackson’s kept the vivacious throng thrilled.
As a father, husband, philanthropist, musician and composer, Jermaine, who is deeply religious, leverages his high-profile status – whether on Larry King, network television or other media outlets ¾ to emphasize the plight of the less-fortunate, not in word, but in deed. In traveling the world, he has seen the best and the worst that mankind has to offer, and he has, along with his caring wife Halima, contributed his time and financial resources in assisting those in desperate need.
Jermaine’s love of life and family was no more obvious than at the memorial service for his younger brother. When he sang “Smile” to billions, tears flowed like the Nile from grieving faces of admirers everywhere. According to a long-time industry insider: “Jermain’s emotive rendition of that standard was never sung better.”
For Jermaine, the show must go on, and it has: he plans to record more albums and to tour as a solo performer. And in the event of a brothers’ reunion, make no mistake about it: You’ll be the first to know.
(Jermaine and his family express their sincerest gratitude for the tremendous support you granted them during a most difficult time.)
By Phil Brown | <urn:uuid:5ed73596-445b-4344-a12b-c163ae9f9907> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jermainejacksonentertainment.com/bio | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950894 | 1,467 | 1.59375 | 2 |
I am the Hulk
by James Schamus Illustrated by James Goodridge
Reviewed by Fernando C. (age 6)
Fernando C. is a student in Mrs. Matsuno's 1st Grade Class
At the beginning of Hulk, Bruce Banner was a good protector. Hulk was in back of the protector. The protector was typing. The Hulk went back to life. The other guy died because Hulk attacked him. When Hulk scraped the road, he destroyed the whole town.
I like Hulk because he is strong. My favorite part is when Hulk destroyed the whole town. My favorite character is Hulk because he can jump and because he is strong. This story reminds me of Hulk video game I have at home. I get to destory things when I am playing my game.
I wish a lot of children would read this book because it is exciting. | <urn:uuid:6f968f6a-6536-4666-bbbd-d14ae8abe29e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://spaghettibookclub.org/review.php?review_id=8742 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975161 | 176 | 1.539063 | 2 |
As a Christian, I agree with the American Humanist Association and others who believe that the Memorial Peace Cross in Bladensburg at the intersection of Route 1 and Bladensburg Road should be taken down, although I have different reasons than they do. As the government cannot establish religion, the argument for allowing the Peace Cross to remain is that it is not primarily a religious symbol. Instead, it is considered a general symbol of sacrifice, of what the veterans of World War I did.
I do not want the cross of Christ to be used for militaristic and patriotic purposes. The cross is not a symbol of the sacrifice of violent people with weapons defending a country while they try to kill people from other countries; it is the symbol of the son of God dying peacefully, telling his followers to put down their weapons, and dying for the sake of hope for the forgiveness and salvation of even those who put him to death.
I believe that using the cross as a symbol of what our military did is blasphemy, equivalent to taking the Lord's name in vain, using the cross where God and Christ would not want it to be used. The Peace Cross is there as a Christian symbol. It is not just a “t” or a plus sign. It should be used only for the purpose of praising Christ, not for praising our military, so if it’s not going to be used for praising Christ, please instead just take it down.
The Rev. Brian P. Adams is pastor of Mount Rainier Christian Church. | <urn:uuid:7c74a66d-1e9e-4b0a-802f-407489c03d8c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gazette.net/article/20120927/OPINION/709279900/1122/NEWS/Cross-should-not-be-used-as-symbol-for-military-actions&template=gazette | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953375 | 312 | 1.625 | 2 |
A landslide in Great Smoky Mountains National Park occurred on the Newfound Gap Road (U.S. 441) about 11 a.m. Monday in North Carolina, about 1 mile south of the state line at Newfound Gap.
Park road crews cleared the road of the debris and then managed the area with flaggers allowing alternating one lane of traffic through a parking area adjacent to the slide.
Traffic continued to be managed through this area during the daylight hours.
Because of concerns over more mud and debris falling from the hillside onto the roadway and out of concern for motorists and Park employee’s safety, Park officials closed the road to all traffic overnight Monday.
The road reopened at 7 a.m. Tuesday and flaggers were on site to direct traffic around the slide area.
On Tuesday a detour was put into place to allow two way traffic through a parking area adjacent to the slide area.
In order to keep Newfound Gap Road open, Park officials will keep the detour in place for a couple of weeks while they continue to monitor the slope's activity to determine its stability.
Park officials are advising motorists to drive cautiously and adhere to the 15 mile per hour speed limit.
... read the rest of the story by Subscribing now. | <urn:uuid:612358de-dccf-4186-b8e4-eb2ebd93c5da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.seymourherald.com/blog/2010/03/30/traffic-affected-by-newfound-gap-landslide/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955415 | 261 | 1.625 | 2 |
I struggle a lot with my Muse. Whether she is a disembodied genius, a demon in the back of my mind, or function of my own imagination matters little. I hear her sing. She gives me more stories than I have time to write. She shows me many worlds, many lives, and many dreams.
I have tried to discipline her. Over the years, I have introduced rules and structures to funnel her inspiration where I feel it should go. She just laughs at me.
I am not sure I would care as much if I had not allowed myself to be distracted by the idea of money. Lord Mammon snarls. He is the tormentor of all artists. He tells us all the simple truth, "You have to make money to support yourself." How sweet is a lie wrapped in the truth?
Yes, every writer needs to make money if they are going to continue working. We read countless books and blogs on how to monetize our work. Could there ever be a bigger waste of time?
A writer needs to focus on their craft. We lie to ourselves and say that we are all publishers now. Why can't we see that the publishing industry was a discrete phenomenon? It arose for its time, served its purpose, and now it is time to let it die. It was the business of Lord Mammon, not the Muse.
Let us rediscover some foundational truths:
There is no such thing as a writer, there is only the storyteller.
There is no such thing as the musician, there is only the performer.
There is no such thing as the painter, there is only the artist.
There is no such thing as the storyteller, there is only the artist.
There is no such thing as the performer, there is only the artist.
The artist is the servant and the master of the imagination.
I am an artist who tell stories. No more, no less. I work to perfect my craft in hopes that the stories I tell are not just my stories. I hope they are your stories too. I have to trust that our stories are good enough, compelling enough for you to want more.
We have to stop wanting the instant gratification of the quick buck, and try to build something that will last. A good story will always outlive its teller. The moment a good story enters another person's mind and finds its way into their heart, it has done what it was meant to do.
I need to trust my Muse. I need to trust my readers. I need to trust you all to do the same. | <urn:uuid:96615265-a1e1-4bbb-bee1-3270cb2b6ec9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dashpunk.com/blog/?author=Eric%20Dorsett | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983863 | 534 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Peter J. Henning, a professor at Wayne State Law School, specializes in issues related to white-collar crime and follows them for DealBook’s White Collar Watch.
The prospect of a corporation being charged with a crime has become controversial over the past few years as the Justice Department has ramped up its investigations of companies for overseas bribery, health care fraud and environmental violations.
To mitigate the effect of a criminal conviction on a company’s employees and shareholders, federal prosecutors now often use deferred and nonprosecution agreements that allow the government to tout the fact that it has punished a corporation for what it considers misconduct without necessarily pursuing a criminal conviction. After all, the collateral damage from such a conviction can put a company out of business. (Think of the late accounting firm Arthur Andersen.)
A deferred prosecution agreement involves the government filing charges against the company and agreeing to dismiss them if it complies with the terms of the agreement. When there is a nonprosecution agreement, the Justice Department announces what it would have charged the company with, but does not do so as long as it complies with the agreement.
There is not much difference between the two in terms of future conduct, although companies prefer the nonprosecution agreement because nothing is ever filed in court, so they can claim never to have been charged with a crime. These agreements can be helpful in dealing with the inevitable private claims filed against corporations by their shareholders.
A recent settlement by way of a nonprosecution agreement between the Justice Department and General Re, a subsidiary of Warren E. Buffett‘s Berkshire Hathaway, over what prosecutors say was bogus reinsurance transactions highlights how an agreement allows the company to end an investigation at minimal costs while the government gets to declare a victory. But as these types of agreements become more common, the question arises whether they provide any real benefits in deterring future misconduct or making corporations more responsive to their obligations to conduct business in compliance with the law.
General Re admitted in the nonprosecution agreement that its officers agreed to a bogus reinsurance transaction in 2000 that helped the American International Group burnish its balance sheet. The government said the transaction was fraudulent because no real risk was transferred from A.I.G. to General Re, so it was window-dressing for A.I.G. to remove some of its obligations off its books while General Re garnered a $5 million fee for a no-risk deal. Five individual defendants from General Re and A.I.G. went to trial and were convicted, receiving sentences ranging from one to four years, and two other General Re officers entered guilty pleas.
General Re’s settlement with the Justice Department brings the case to a close, with the company agreeing to contribute to a settlement with A.I.G. shareholders, make a payment to a consumer fraud fund and pay a penalty to the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, the company agreed to keep in place for three years internal controls it had previously instituted, such as greater participation in its audit committee meetings by Berkshire Hathaway executives and use of a risk committee to examine its reinsurance transactions. The payments total less than $100 million and do not entail significant changes in how it currently does business.
The General Re agreement does not include a provision frequently seen in deferred and nonprosecution agreements: a corporate monitor. This can be a lucrative position for monitors, who usually hire their own law firm or consulting shop to conduct the internal reviews and who can charge almost as much as they want because the company is in no position to object. These positions became a bit controversial a few years back when the United States attorney in New Jersey, Christopher J. Christie, now the state’s governor, was criticized for appointing friends and supporters as monitors, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft.
The Justice Department has entered into more than 150 deferred and nonprosecution agreements since the early 1990s, when it first started to employ them, with 23 entered in 2009 and 24 in 2008. That’s not many cases when you consider that more than 30,000 defendants are charged annually in federal courts with narcotics violations. But corporate crime investigations often involve well-known public corporations, and the misconduct can impact thousands of workers, investors and customers.
There are no guidelines on when to use one type of agreement rather than the other, and the decision to enter into one is left to the Justice Department because there is no judicial review of the agreement or its implementation. The agreements avoid the so-called “Arthur Andersen effect,” in which a firm is put out of business because of the misconduct by a few of its agents, inflicting severe damage on innocent employees and owners (or shareholders for a corporation).
While that is a good thing, it certainly raises the question whether corporations can fend off a criminal prosecution by claiming it will cause so much collateral damage that they should not be charged with a crime. If that is the case, then they may end up viewing a criminal investigation as another cost of doing business, like a tort suit or civil penalty, if the potential consequences are mitigated to such a great degree.
No one knows for sure whether these agreements are the best way to conclude corporate crime investigations, and their development has been largely haphazard. A recent report by the General Accountability Office on the Justice Department’s use of the agreements raises a fundamental question about their utility.
While the Justice Department touts deferred prosecution agreements and nonprosecution agreements as an effective means to combat corporate criminality, the G.A.O. pointed out that the department “cannot evaluate and demonstrate the extent to which D.P.A.’s and N.P.A.’s — in addition to other tools, such as prosecution — contribute to the department’s efforts to combat corporate crime because it has no measures to assess their effectiveness.”
Measuring deterrence is almost impossible, because there is no way to know whether a corporation and its employees have changed the way they act because of the possibility of a criminal prosecution or the presence of a deferred or nonprosecution agreement. No company has been found to have violated its agreement, although Bristol-Myers Squibb appears to have come close a few years ago. If a company is caught up in a new investigation, it usually involves a different type of transaction or line of business that does not violate an earlier agreement.
Deferred and nonprosecution agreements have become almost the norm for concluding corporate criminal investigations, but it remains an open question whether they are the best way to proceed. Some argue that corporate criminal liability should be eliminated because a corporation cannot be deterred effectively through criminal sanctions. That, however, is unlikely to occur any time soon because there is fairly strong public support for maintaining the threat of criminal prosecution as a means to police businesses.
As such, we are left guessing at this point whether deferred and nonprosecution agreements do any good, or are they just a means for corporations to buy their way out of potential liability.
– Peter J. Henning
Born overseas and educated in the United States, workers in the heart of the tech industry are in a kind of suspension as the Senate considers the immigration bill.
Stocks regained ground in New York after global investors were rattled by signs of a slowdown in Chinese manufacturing and a potential easing of central bank support for the economy.
The regulator of accounting firms said that Ernst & Young had been too willing to trust figures supplied by corporate executives and had failed to improve its procedures.
Refining Canada’s petroleum-soaked oil sands produces petroleum coke, and the question of what to do with it has found at least one answer in Detroit, where a large coke pile covers an entire city block.
A nonprofit group representing scientists dings officials at both ends of the political spectrum for global warming distortions.
An online conversation with a young energy activist turned solar entrepreneur.
The sitcom, which is likely to have additional episodes produced, has Mr. Crystal playing a once-great comic who tries to revive his career.
The product, rather than the model’s body, may be the focus of new campaigns. Or not.
A new campaign suggests that Mike’s Hard Lemonade is a versatile drink for occasions beyond the backyard barbecue.
A federal judge’s ruling could halt the resale of digital music as well as other digital good like e-books.
A world-renowned physicist meets a gorgeous model online. They plan their perfect life together. But first, she asks, would he be so kind as to deliver a special package to her?
The Winklevoss brothers have moved on from their battle with Mark Zuckerberg and are more active than ever.
Children of mothers with cancer must learn this painful lesson early: the vulnerability of the figure on whom they have grounded their existence. With varying degrees of fearful awareness, such children intuit that the mother who comforts by murmuring “I am here” will not always be there.
A new report from ConsumerLab.com shows that some bottled varieties of green tea appear to be little more than sugar water, while some green tea leaves are contaminated with lead.
Age has its privileges, and a new study suggests that one of them may be immunity to some flu pandemics.
Kenneth deRegt, the executive in charge of Morgan Stanley’s once-powerful fixed-income department, is retiring. | Jamie Dimon is looking to mend fences with regulators. | Tesla Motors repaid a federal loan nine years ahead of schedule. | A look at the battle over Herbalife.
Sign up for the DealBook Newsletter, delivered every morning and afternoon, and receive breaking news alerts throughout the day. | <urn:uuid:4dcbc56a-b854-4a10-97e3-56430e910ce2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/01/25/for-monday-am-admitting-misconduct-while-avoiding-charges/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967344 | 1,995 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Rightly called the "Manchester of South India, Coimbatore is known for its textile mills and as a result, it's own unique saris. From engineering goods that constantly keep step with the latest technology available to its beautiful temples, visit Coimbatore to see the side of India that is suave and modern.Population: About 1,446,034Climate: Coimbatore enjoys quite a pleasant record as far as weather is concerned, with summer temperatures ranging from 23.3°C and 39.4°C while winters are equally pleasant with temperatures from 20.7°C to 32.8°C.Main Language(s): Tamil and EnglishTime Zone: GMT + 05:30Phone Area Code: 0422Best Time To Visit: Exposed as it is to the Palghat gap of Western Ghats, Coimbatore enjoys a salubrious climate. And while it might be considered too warm for most domestic tourists during the summer, international visitors find the sun a welcome companion.Airport Distance from City Center: 13 kmsTaxi Rates from Airport to City: Taxi services available at Rs. 150 / Rs.200 to city centre.
Coimbatore boasts of some great south Indian food but does not have any specific dish that is unique to the place. That should not stop the avid food lover though since there are many eating places here. Try the south Indian fare that can be tangy, spicy and wonderfully tasty.
For the tourist that is more choosy and comfortable with the more regular continental or north Indian food, there are several restaurants and hotels that cater to the same.
73, Arokiasamy Road
Sri Aarvee Hotels
311 - A, Bharathiar Road
64, Balasundaram Road
A.T.T Colony, (near R.T.O. office)
Hotel Nilgiri's Nest
739-A, Avanashi Road
Coimbatore is a city like any other city in India and has its share of festivals and celebrations. While there is no festival that is unique to the place, there are several functions that take place as part of different celebrations in the different temples that the city has.
The major Indian festivals are celebrated here with as much zest as it is in other parts of the country but the ones that are more significant are those that are closer home and matter to Tamil Nadu as a whole.
These state specific festivals include Pongal, the harvest festival and the Tamil new year where people buy new clothes, cook special meals and visit the temple to thank God for all that is good with life.
© Jet Airways (India) Ltd. | <urn:uuid:6d439413-691d-454a-9e96-a27259d8623d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jetairways.com/EN/EU/PlanYourTravel/CityGuide/Coimbatore.aspx?CN=Coimbatore | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950367 | 556 | 1.523438 | 2 |
The new food safety recall for salt really got our attention. How could salt be contaminated with salmonella?
If your blog's named The Salt, you've just got to find out. So we dug into the story, and found that it's a collision of two distressing trends: contamination of herbs and spices, and safety issues with organic products.
Over the past week, 21,000 more Americans claimed unemployment benefits, the Labor Department reports. Like most economic news, that's the bad news. The good news, reports the AP, is the that the four-week average is down 2,500, which "still signals a healthier job market."
The Commerce Department also has some good news on the economy: Orders for durable goods rose 3 percent, last month.
The AP reports that this marks a gain for the second straight month. The AP adds:
As the Republican presidential hopefuls head into their final televised confrontation Thursday night at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville (at 8 p.m. ET on CNN), NPR's Ari Shapiro reports that the debate could sway the outcome of the close race. | <urn:uuid:d6171f5f-596e-4b0f-ad82-54f8b58839dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kazu.org/npr-news?page=4592 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9507 | 229 | 1.585938 | 2 |
April 10, 2012
Commerce City – The Gateway News received a news tip from an Adams County resident about a large pile of dead pigs located at about Imboden Street and 88th Avenue . It was reported that the pigs had been laying in the ditch for several days. When a reporter was confused about the location of the dead pigs, that person found a dead goat and another dead pig along 88th Avenue, east of Imboden.
Tri County Health Department’s Environmental Health division has been contacted and will give us a report as further information is available. If you observe any dead animals please contact them at 303-288-6816 and ask to speak to an environmental health inspector. | <urn:uuid:19a2ce87-4b49-402e-9e2d-274e6bd4481b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wtfrackorg.blogspot.com/2012/04/dead-animals-observed-in-adams-county.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973635 | 143 | 1.5 | 2 |
A 13-year-old spaniel named Biscuit was rescued by Santa Barbara firefighters Monday after she fell into a drainage pipe at the north end of Cieneguitas Road.
A man was walking in the area with his three dogs when Biscuit tumbled tail-first into the uncovered 12-inch pipe. It was a 10-foot vertical drop, but firefighters — assisted by County Animal Control — were able to reach the dog from a horizontal vault.
Firefighters gave Biscuit oxygen during the rescue. They made a cinching device with an anchor strap and used two pike poles to maneuver it around the dog's torso and front legs. They pulled her to safety, and the whole ordeal lasted around 45 minutes. | <urn:uuid:4290c661-e1f6-4a42-aa62-5af560932fea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://independent.com/news/2013/mar/05/firefighters-rescue-dog-trapped-drainage-pipe/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980045 | 152 | 1.625 | 2 |
WARWICK — This postcard-pretty village of neat homes, cozy shops and manicured lawns was the mid-Hudson bull's-eye for Hurricane Sandy.
What some call the storm of the ages toppled scores of 2-foot-thick trees that downed power lines and left about eight of every 10 village homes without power.
Some senior citizens were stranded on the estimated 10 percent of village streets that were closed, often forced to light burners on gas stoves to keep warm.
About three-quarters of Warwick's small businesses lost power — and millions of dollars of business, Mayor Michael Newhard says, although a few remained open, thanks to generators.
And after a gas shortage forced waves of New Jersey drivers to pack its streets in search of fuel, Warwick's two gas stations closed Friday after they ran out of gas.
"What a nightmare," said police Officer Vinnie Cossentino, directing traffic Friday afternoon at the Sunoco on Grand Avenue, just minutes before it ran out of gas.
"It's been cold, man, very cold — and no light," said Luis Nunez, wearing at least three layers. He lives in a powerless home off a mostly closed Oakland Avenue, where blown transformers lit up the sky Monday night.
"The cleanup is going to take months," Newhard summed up Friday afternoon.
But in this southern Orange County village, where volunteer firefighters and others have spent sleepless nights cleaning streets littered with downed trees and wires, that cleanup has already begun.
By Friday afternoon, New-hard said, the number of powerless homes had been cut in half to about 40 percent.
Main Street was noisy with the grinding sound of generators at businesses like Yesterdays restaurant and pub, which was serving a modified menu of soups, sandwiches and other fare in a warm room.
Warwick Valley Telephone workers were putting up new poles for new power lines.
And while many folks without heat or power have just about had it, others looked at the death and destruction Hurricane Sandy brought to places like New Jersey and Staten Island and counted their blessings.
"I don't even want to complain," said Jerry Schlichting of Frazzleberries gift shop, which was open, thanks to the generator he had just bought. | <urn:uuid:543556db-a1df-4316-aa6b-d2a69d0a2429> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20121103/NEWS/211030317/-1/NEWS35 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976954 | 468 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Quebec bans religious teaching in publicly subsidized daycares – and Ontario stands by…
La belle province is soooo far ahead of Ontario in soooo many ways.
- You do not have to go to a designated store to buy booze – just stop at the local dépanneur
- In general, they have better tastes in food and in clothes
- One word: bagels
- In general, Quebecois are much more relaxed and less anal retentive than their neighbours to the west.
And finally, they have only one – secular – school system. They abandoned the wasteful discriminatory and anachronistic catholic system in 1997.
Quebec, which has grappled with efforts to limit the place of religion in its public institutions, has decided to bring secularization to the tot-and-toddler set. Starting in June, publicly funded daycares that teach a particular faith to their young charges risk losing their government funding.
Yup. Soooooo far ahead! Congrats to the Charest government (and the Bouchard government in 1998) for showing the cojones that successive governments at Queen’s Park have lacked!
This post has already been read 430 times! | <urn:uuid:cc71d2ad-b7c0-43dc-b5cf-4922c393cdb3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://trashysworld.ca/2010/12/23/quebec-bans-religious-teaching-in-publicly-subsidized-daycares-and-ontario-stands-by/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9571 | 252 | 1.609375 | 2 |
How can you lower your heart attack risk without losing weight?
A new and very rigorous study shows that a Mediterranean diet full of fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, fish and olive oil can lower the risk of stroke and other serious heart trouble by 30 percent. The improvement was not linked to weight. The researchers followed some 7,500 people in Spain who were at risk for having heart problems for five years to see how dietary changes might help. Their findings were published online Monday by the New England Journal of Medicine.
Do Russian defendants have to appear in court?
Nope. They don't even have to be alive. The trial of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer for Hermitage Capital Management Ltd., which was once Russia's biggest foreign equity investor, is set to start next week. Magnitsky died in 2009 at the age of 37 while in pretrial detention after alleging committing the biggest known tax fraud in Russia, a theft of $230 million from the national treasury. The case sparked a diplomatic row, with the U.S. imposing sanctions on Russian officials accused of playing a role in Magnitsky's death, and Moscow retaliating by barring American citizens from adopting Russian orphans.
What strange creatures are washing up on the Washington state coast?
The jellyfishlike critters, which look a bit like clear, wide-necked light bulbs with antenna, are called salps. They were responsible for clogging the intake at California's Diablo Canyon Power Plant last spring and now appearing in huge numbers on and near the shores of Washington state. Though no one has seen such an explosion in the population of salps before, the suspicion is that it is a response to a sudden abundance of plankton triggered by climate change. | <urn:uuid:e86f3992-9c3c-4515-9e9b-2eca90dfa9e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://washingtonexaminer.com/talking-points-new-heart-study-dead-defendant-jellyfish-invasion/article/2522543 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972222 | 352 | 1.773438 | 2 |
All victims have rights that include:
- Assistance in obtaining immediate medical care, if required.
- The right to request to be notified of court proceedings; including arrest, arraignment, and release of the offender.
- The right to be protected from harassment from an employer for appearing as a witness if you have received a subpoena.
- The right to have property returned to you if it was seized by police in the investigation or prosecution of the crime committed against you.
- The right to make an application for compensation for any bodily injuries you have suffered as a result of the crime.
- The right to request to be informed of services and agencies that can help you-including the assistance of a Victim Advocate.
To receive more information about these and other rights of crime victims and the services that are available to help you, call: | <urn:uuid:fb065b26-e932-413c-9b37-c6aa3362c471> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wcsu.edu/police/victimassist.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953565 | 171 | 1.6875 | 2 |
- The Enterprise
- The Recorder
For 10 years, the emergency communications system in St. Mary’s County has offered spotty coverage for first responders. There are certain areas where mobile and portable radios won’t work — usually by the water’s edge, but also in other parts of the county.
New radio towers are being added to fill in those gaps, as part of a complete overhaul to the next generation of technology in emergency communications. One of them will soon be erected in Valley Lee. In cooperation with the state, a new tower was earlier went up in Bushwood.
Those two towers are being added to the existing four in Leonardtown, Mechanicsville, California and Dameron. In cooperation with the state, a new tower went up in Bushwood and the other one is pending for Valley Lee.
It’s going to cost $110,000 more than planned for the Valley Lee tower, the county commissioners were told Tuesday, for a total of $860,000.
It was estimated to cost $750,000 for the new tower at the county’s trash and recycling convenience center in Valley Lee, said Bob Kelly, director of emergency services and technology. The bids, put out by the state, came in higher than expected and Kelly requested $110,000 from contingency funds for the tower. The commissioners approved the move.
“I suspect construction will start very quickly,” Kelly said.
The cost increases stem from new state regulations for stormwater management and building a 1,000-foot gravel road to the tower from the trash convenience station, Kelly said.
Commissioner Dan Morris (R) wanted to know how close the tower would be to Leah’s House, a women’s shelter on Happyland Road in Valley Lee. Commissioner Cindy Jones (R), who lives nearby, said it was about a mile away.
The Valley Lee tower will be 330 feet tall.
The commissioners have entered into a $34 million contract with Harris Corp. to build and maintain the new emergency communications system during the next 15 years.
A batch of 1,900 new radios have already been purchased. The second phase of work includes four more new towers, followed by three more in the third phase for a total of 13 towers.
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It still needs to get better for gays at the University of Notre Dame.
That's the overall reaction to news that school officials are not adding sexual orientation to the school's non-discrimination policy even after months of student and faculty advocacy for a policy change.
And yet, a university spokesperson said, Notre Dame will take "student suggestions" for "several new steps to better support of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and questioning members of its community."
Specifically, Notre Dame will "make ally training more widely available" and offer "education to First-Year Orientation commissioners," at the same time "expanding" a "Safe Space initiative" and "improving hall staff training."
Apparently, administrators have not decided on whether to approve a self-governing gay-straight alliance ( GSA ) student organization.
For more than two decades, Notre Dame has refused to grant official status to a gay student group.
Meanwhile, news of the status quo in nondiscrimination came in an April 25 press statement issued by Dennis Brown, an assistant vice president of public information and communications.
The statement offered no reason or explanation for why sexual-orientation protections would not be added.
However, Brown said in e-mail correspondence, "We may have more to say on our rationale." Brown also said he "would check on the timing of the GSA decision."
The "It-Needs-to-Get-Better" meme has become a rallying cry for the 4 to 5 Movement, a student-led initiative ( including some faculty ) calling on Notre Dame to catch up with its top-ranked peer public and private schools, as well as other Catholic colleges and universities that already offer legal protections on the basis of sexual orientation in admissions and employment.
Last February the 4 to 5 Movement released an "It Needs To Get Better" video wherein students, faculty and staff call out the university for failing, year after year, to approve an official GSA and to include legal protections for LGBTQ community. The video has more than 20,000 hits on YouTube.
Currently, Notre Dame policy "does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, sex, disability, veteran status or age."
As students held a candlelight vigil April 25 in response to the decision, 4 to 5 Movement leader Alex Coccia voiced disappointment that adding a sexual-orientation nondiscrimination clause would not be brought before university trustees who have final authority on the matter.
"It would be an enormous way to change the campus climate and allow people to feel safe in the classroom, on campus, and in the workplace," he said in e-mail correspondence.
"This change is so extremely important," Coccia added. "Until this change is made, we can never have full inclusion for the GLBTQ community on campus."
It was 15 years ago when Notre Dame trustees voted against adding sexual orientation to the non-discrimination clause.
Making sexual orientation a "protected category" could inhibit the school in its ability to "make decisions that are necessary to support Catholic Church teaching," according a statement, released by the trustees on Feb. 5, 1997, the day of the vote.
At the time of the decision, Notre Dame issued a "Spirit of Inclusion" statement, which strongly condemned anti-gay harassment but fell short of banning discriminatory practices.
"We choose not to change our legal nondiscrimination clause, but we call ourselves to act in accordance with what we regard as a higher standardChrist's call to inclusiveness, coupled with the gospel's call to live chaste lives," wrote then university president the Rev. Edward A. Malloy, CSC, who strongly opposed changing the policy.
The "Spirit of Inclusion" supports gay students, faculty, and staff and condemns harassment and discrimination, stating, "We consciously create an environment of mutual respect, hospitality, and warmth in which none are strangers and all may flourish."
Fifteen years later, Coccia said, the "Spirit of Inclusion" does not go far enough. "We have always said that [ it ] not only calls but morally requires us to provide [ legal ] protections," he said.
Notre Dame's Peter Hollanda professor of film, television and theatertold Inside Higher Ed that faculty members also view the push for gay rights as a moral issue. The lack of a sexual orientation nondiscrimination policy, he said fosters "a climate of anxiety."
To make the university a more welcoming, in 1997 Notre Dame established the Core Council for Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Students, an administration-run group, including students and administrators, that addresses gay issues by providing resources and planning educational events. Core Council also advises the vice president for student affairs on LGBTQ needs.
"The university has made significant progress over the past 15 years in its support for gay, lesbian, bisexual and questioning students," said the Rev. Thomas P. Doyle, CSC, student affairs vice president, in a statement.
"But we've always emphasized the desire to continuously improve and to be responsive to student concerns. The conversations between students and the administration both recently and over the past several years have been very important," said Doyle.
For his part, university president the Rev. John I. Jenkins, CSC, said, "In all of our efforts, we seek within the context of Church teaching to better realize the ideals expressed in the university's 'Spirit of Inclusion' statementto create an environment of mutual respect, hospitality and warmth.
Nonetheless, gay and lesbian alumni voiced frustration.
"President Jenkin's administration continues to deny the two central tenets that students, staff, and faculty have been asking for: Acceptance of a gay and lesbian student organization or gay/straight alliance and sexual orientation protection on the University's legally-binding non discrimination clause," said Liam Dacey, a former chair of Gay & Lesbian Alumni of Notre Dame & St. Mary's College ( www.glandsmc.org ) .
Dacey added, " [ The president's ] advisers are continuing to advance the pattern of hostile discrimination to a significant portion of their community."
One measure of such hostility came in January 2010, when a student newspaper, The Observer, ran a cartoon that seemingly promoted violence against gays.
In the cartoon, two people are talking:
"What's the easiest way to turn a fruit into a vegetable?"
"A baseball bat."
A subsequent Observer editorial apologized for the "offensive comic," saying, "There is no excuse that can be given and nothing that can be said to reverse the damage that has already been done by this egregious error in judgment."
Still, an initial online posting of the comic suggested "AIDS" as the punch line instead of "baseball bat."
The cartoonist, moreover, reported the paper preferred "not to make light of fatal diseases," according the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation ( GLAAD ) , which monitored the incident.
Alumna Elizabeth M. Karle also voiced dissatisfaction with Notre Dame's decision.
"While continued dialogue is certainly welcome, enhancing awareness of the 'Spirit of Inclusion' is an inadequate response to student concerns regarding a gay/straight alliance and an inclusive non-discrimination policyboth of which are fully compatible with Catholic social teaching and already realities at other Catholic colleges and universities," said Karle who is a former GALA-ND/SMC secretary.
Jack Bergen, the newly elected GALA vice-chair of programs, said, "The response from the University is not surprising given the current lack of support for GLBT students and is inadequate to meet their needs."
"While progress has been made, Notre Dame remains behind every other major institution we compare ourselves against. Once again Notre Dame will fall to the bottom of ladder when it comes to inclusion of GLBT students. What a shame," said Bergen.
Yet Notre Dame's press statement also said the university would consider making the "Spirit of Inclusion" statement "more explicit and effective."
"Notre Dame will strive to enhance awareness of existing practices and protections among students, faculty, and staff. The avenues for reporting harassment and discrimination will be clarified, strengthened, and better publicized," the statement said.
What also raises eyebrows about the "Spirit of Inclusion" is its implicit assumption that gay students are somehow likely, perhaps, to be unchaste compared with non-gays.
"Notre Dame is making the same mistake that many church leaders make when dealing with lesbian/gay issues," said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of the gay-positive New Ways Ministry.
"They assume that the first and most important way to respond to lesbian/gay people is to focus on any potential sexual activity that might occur," he said.
"Sexualizing lesbian/gay people is discriminatory, demeaning, and dehumanizing," DeBernardo added.
Based in Mt. Rainier, Md., New Ways is a ministry of healing and reconciliation for LGBT Catholics and the Church.
DeBernardo added, "The Notre Dame administration does not treat heterosexual people in the same way, though they are equally as likely to be in violation of Catholic teaching on sexuality."
"Church teaching is clear that lesbian/gay people must be included in Catholic organizations and that no discrimination should occur in their regard. A non-discrimination policy is the most basic way to put that teaching into practice, and it has been instituted in Catholic institutions, including colleges and universities, around the country," explained DeBernardo.
"Notre Dame's refusal to do so shows an absence of will to do so on the administration's part, in spite of the fact that a clear Catholic rationale for doing so exists," he said.
A 1978 graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Chuck Colbert is a co-founder of GALA-ND/SMC and a former co-chair of the organization, which is not affiliated with the Notre Dame Alumni Association.
�Copyright. Chuck Colbert. All rights reserved.
LGBT name game at
Notre Dame Magazine
by Chuck Colbert
Even as advocates at Notre Dame pressed school officials to make the university gay friendly, a policy change at the Notre Dame Magazine signals a step backwards.
The magazine, which is distributed free of charge to tens of thousands of alumni worldwide, does not allow use of the word "marriage" in the classnotes section to acknowledge legal same-sex wedlock.
The new block-out policy came to light in the most recent issue of the magazine ( Spring 2012 ) in a letter to the editor.
"When I was married in the District of Columbia on June 18, 2011, my friend and classmate Lorie Masters was kind enough to write about this joyous occasion in the classnotes section of the winter issue. You, however, saw fit to change the word 'marriage' to 'united in a ceremony,'" wrote a 1981 law school alumnus, Allyn Amato of Alexandria, Va.
He continued, "Not only is your editorial policy intellectually and logically flawed, it is also downright insulting both to my husband and to me. We are married and have exactly the same legal status as any heterosexual couple married in the District of Columbia."
"The attitude evidenced by your editorial policy is, in my view, most decidedly hypocritical and anti-Christian. Please answer me this question: Had I married a Jewish or Muslim woman outside the Catholic Church, would you have edited the column in the same manner? I think not," wrote Amato.
News of the policy change disheartened at least one alumnus, Jack Bergen of Walpole, Mass., newly elected vice-chair of programs for the Gay & Lesbian Alumni Association of Notre Dame/ St. Mary's College ( GALA-ND/SMC ) .
"I'm disappointed," he said over the telephone. "Marriage is a state issue," Bergen continued. "If a particular state recognizes the union of same-sex couples as marriages, then I think it should be reflected as such."
Editor Kerry Temple explained how the change came about. "Until three or four maybe five years ago, the magazine's classnotes section carried news of same-sex unions and called them marriages," he said in e-mail correspondence.
"Then some very vocal alums protested and the result was a meeting of administrators during which it was decided not to use the word marriage, but to use other terminology, such as civil union or partnership ceremony," said Temple.
"The rationale was that for the vast majority of our readers the word marriage means the sacrament of matrimony," he added.
And yet the issue here is civil marriage and not sacramental marriagecivil rights, not sacred rites.
The magazine policy change comes at time when same-sex civil marriage is now legal in six states, including Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont and the District of Columbia.
This past summer, the Catholic governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, signed marriage equality into law. More recently, Catholic governors in Maryland and Washington signed similar legislation, although roll- back efforts in those two states by ballot measure referenda are likely to challenge the new laws.
For a short time gay couples could marry in California until the November 2008 passage of Proposition 8 banned same-sex marriage.
In fact, Notre Dame alumnus and a former GALA-ND/SMC ( www.galandsmc.org ) co-chair Tom O'Brien of Los Angeles married his partner Oct. 30, 2008, at the Beverly Hills Courthouse while same-sex marriage was still legal.
Asked about the magazine's new policy, he offered comments, taken from a letter written at the time to family and friends.
"Both of us have seen wonderful examples of love, honor, commitment and loyalty in our lives. We believe marriage to be a beautiful expression of that love and commitment; and are thrilled to be able to stand before you and publicly and legally confirm what we have shared together for 14 and-a-half years," O'Brien wrote.
"For both of us, the most powerful moment of the wedding came when we heard the words: 'By the power invested in me by the State of California…'" he added.
Nonetheless, O'Brien acknowledged the struggle same-sex marriage is for Catholics. "Some family members and friends whom we love and who love us dearly have struggled with the notion of gay marriage. We recognize that it represents a major shift for society and one that will occur fitfully," he wrote.
"But we hope that everyone can recognize that over the past 14 and a half years, we have become better people for having found each other. We are happier and more fulfilled as a result."
Neither editor Temple nor university spokesperson Dennis Brown, an assistant vice president of Public Information and Communications, would say, when asked, if any gay alumni had been part of discussions about the policy change.
However, Temple said the objection to the policy "has prompted some discussion here," adding, "As more states have allowed same-sex marriages and as society changes, I would think further review is warranted."
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A Squeaky Kiss-and-tell Situation
Wednesday - May 20, 2009
Most people think that bringing a mouse that cost $2 at the pet store to a veterinarian doesn’t make sense. Since appointments run between $40 and $60, why not just buy a new mouse for $2?
We veterinarians, however, beg to differ. To domesticate and acquire a living creature as a pet means to take responsibility for its care and well-being. Yes, there are limitations to our duty as a pet owner, but if the solution to a mouse’s health problem is simple and relatively affordable, do we not have an obligation to do what is right?
The following story is about a family that loved their mouse maybe a little too much, as you will see for yourself. As usual, the names and furry faces have been changed to protect the innocent.
Lauren and her daughter Kayla appeared one day at our hospital. They brought with them a small cage draped with a cute Mickey Mouse towel. You see, their mouse Squeaky was shy and afraid of large dogs and, of course, cats. Squeaky was a 1-year-old male mouse that was losing fur. As I asked numerous questions about Squeaky, I couldn’t help but notice his incessant scratching. I soon found myself scratching my hand for no apparent reason.
I hate when that happens. There must be a medical term for actions induced by observing an individual displaying the copied behavior. You know, yawning because someone else yawned or looking up at the sky because others are gazing upward. Thank goodness Squeaky wasn’t drooling. That might be embarrassing and difficult to explain to Lauren and her daughter.
“Dr. Kaya, we think Squeaky has a problem. He spends a large amount of his waking hours scratching and he’s losing fur because of it. We think he has mange.”
“Did you surf the Web to come to this conclusion?” I asked. Computers have a wealth of knowledge, and many times clients have diagnosed their pets even prior to coming in to our office.
“No, we just have a feeling that’s what it is.”
Curious, I sensed there was more to this story.
“Well, I think your feeling is right on the nose. I’ll just do a skin scraping and look under the microscope. If we’re lucky, we’ll see the critters that are causing Squeaky so much discomfort.”
A few minutes later I called Lauren and Kayla over to the microscope to view the dastardly creature. Although microscopically small, the sharp mouthparts viewed hinted at the pain and suffering inflicted by Myobius musculi (skin mite of mice). Mother and daughter seemed especially silenced by the viewing.
“Hundreds of these mites are wreaking havoc across Squeaky’s body. But don’t worry; I have medication that will take care of the situation.” They still seemed unnerved.
“Is there a problem?” I asked gingerly.
That’s when the whole story poured forth. Months before, Lauren and her daughter went to a dermatologist for a rash that encircled their mouth. The dermatologist suggested the rash came from exposure to an animal. Enter Squeaky. Since acquiring their furry friend, mother and daughter got into the habit of kissing their mouse before they put him to bed. Goodnight mouse ... hello rash.
Zoonotic diseases (medical conditions transferred from pet to human) are a real concern. As pet owners, we need to practice good hygiene and model that behavior to our children. Yes, Lauren and Kayla loved Squeaky, but boundaries must be set. This time it was only a rash, but it could have been a lot worse. Just check the CDC (Center for Disease Control) website and you’ll see what I mean.
Should you kiss and tell? It’s up to you, but I would, especially if you play on the Wild Side.
Pet tips: Always wash your hands after playing with your pets.
Speak with your veterinarian about zoonotic diseases specific to your pet to minimize your risk.
No problem is too small. Seek veterinary advice if you think your pet is suffering from a medical condition. We owe it to them.
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Dispelling Myths of the Right
David Maraniss wrote a book about President Obama called Barack Obama: The Story. I haven’t read it yet, but I did see Maraniss on several shows discussing the book and it has caused a stir on both the left and the right. I’ve always thought he was a straight shooter and about as objective as any writer of politics can be.
I think a lot of the negative reaction from the left towards his book was because of the way the crazy right was spinning it, which has become the norm for the right these days. They take one little kernel of information (or plucked sentence) and manufacture a massive lie, complete with conspiracies and dire implications and then push it out into the public sphere through surrogates, including “respected” Senators, Representatives, Governors, pundits, bloggers and radio blowhards. And of course, network and cable talking heads then dutifully pick it up and further pound it into the public consciousness. A perfect example of this was seen when Donald Trump, or as I called him at the time, “Balloon Boy”, was appearing on the half hour at MSNBC to blow his birth certificate dog whistle.
David Maraniss wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Post that is worth a read. It disproves some of the craziness floating around in right wing circles with actual facts, history and truth…what a concept. Here is a snippet…
Not all of them are “birthers,” but the notion that the president was not born in the United States remains at the epicenter of the anti-Obama mythology. Here is the conspiracy that would have had to exist if Barack Hussein Obama II were not born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on Aug. 4, 1961:
First, the local newspapers would have had to have been in on the scheme, because they ran notices of his birth among all the other local births that week. Second, the Immigration and Naturalization Service would have had to have been covering something up, because INS officials were closely tracking Barack Obama Sr. when he was at the University of Hawaii on a student visa from Kenya. They thought that he was a bigamist — which he was, having married a woman in Kenya before coming to the States — and a womanizer, which he also was. INS documents in the weeks and months before and after the son’s birth clearly establish the father’s whereabouts and the birth of his son. Finally, the name of Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann, was unusual enough that doctors and nurses in Honolulu remembered it and her giving birth. One prominent doctor was asked by a young journalist if anything interesting had happened in the medical world that week, and he responded, “Well, Stanley had a baby!”
What concerns me is that many people – way too many people – when presented with these facts, still refuse to believe that he was born in Hawaii. Whether it’s because of racism, partisanship, stupidity, paranoid schizophrenia or the constant brainwashing by the above mentioned surrogates, it has gotten out of control. When the Speaker of the House of Representatives, who is a couple of heartbeats away from the presidency, panders to those who believe them, it proves that the the Grand Old Party ain’t so grand anymore.
Cross-posted at Angry Black Lady Chronicles
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John Donne: The Reformed Soul
By John Stubbs
|Encountering a new biography of John Donne should be an unabashedly pleasant experience. The subject is as complex a figure as can be found in all of English literature, the raw narrative of his life is inherently fascinating, and the issues grappled with in his prose and verse are evergreen in their power to involve. The anticipation a reader should feel upon first looking into John Stubbs’ large (600 pages) new biography of Donne, for instance, should be sweet indeed.In fact, it’s that initial act of picking up the book that threatens to dash the whole ship against the rocks.
You pick it up, you look at the front cover (naturally, it’s the anonymous Donne portrait, all sideways glances and pouty lips). Then you flip it over and read the blurbs and summaries on the back (in this case, you’ll see that Hilary Spurling, Robert Nye, and the redoubtable Jonathan Bate himself have praised the book, and also that it won the Royal Society of Literature’s Jerwood Award for a work-in-progress). And finally, you look at the inside flaps on the dust jacket, to get a little more summary and to take a look at the author’s photo and read his bonafides.
It’s at this point that the problem with John Donne: The Reformed Soul arises. Because that’s not the author’s son or grandson looking back out at you, that’s the author himself. And the note below informs you that he took his degree in 2005.
John Stubbs was born in 1977. Which makes him, by a quick calculation, roughly twelve. Your present reviewer owns no article of clothing that isn’t older than our biographer. The battered manual typewriter on which the analog-version of these words is being hammered out (with tyrannical young co-editors impatiently toe-tapping in the background) is a whopping 130 years older than Stubbs.
First instinct is to say: surely that doesn’t matter! The author’s age should have as little impact on how his work is judged as would his hair color, or the astrological sign under which he was born. The proof, surely, is in the pudding.
But is it really? Is it always? If a small child, cherubic face all streaked with ingredients, ran up to you and shoved that pudding under your nose, proudly saying “Me make pudding! You eatee?” – well, surely you’d be justified in declining? Surely even the most Gaia-esque Earth Mother type would decide that in this case, the proof need not be in the pudding?
John Donne is the most brain-cracking of all the so-called Metaphysical Poets. His verse – the best of it – is steeply recondite, to an extent equaled by none of his contemporaries (it’s sheer twisty beauty is surpassed only by Shakespeare, and not always even then). His sermons in their searching, frequently gorgeous prose carry the eschatological tradition of Augustine and Aquinas into new lands of self-doubt and fragile hope.
In the nearly four hundred years since his death, Donne has attracted the earnest contemplation of a veritable who’s who of literary figures, from Jonson to Dryden to Johnson to Swinburne to T.S. Eliot. Learned dons and docents have spent their entire scholarly careers studying his works, prying symbol from structure, grappling with the brain that could create it all.
So there looms one question larger than all the others over John Donne: The Reformed Soul: What can John Stubbs, barely age 30 and writing largely in his late twenties, possibly have to say about John Donne?
If only the publisher hadn’t included that photo! If only the author-bio had omitted any dates! All through the actual act of reading the book, the fingers keep creeping back, back, to take another look at the mewling child on the back jacket-flap. The reflex is so instinctual it feels positively illicit. John Stubbs was just mastering the rudiments of speech in 1980. He was attending his Senior Prom (you just know he’d have had a date; he looks like Orlando Bloom, only with a brain) in 1994. His earliest exposure to the actual writings of John Donne can have happened not much earlier than that. Even if, from that moment on, he did nothing but eat, sleep, and breathe Donne every day (to put it mildly, not a likely proposition), that still gives him only a handful of years of familiarity with his subject.
And his subject requires more than a handful of years. Donne was everything in his life: an Elizabethan buccaneer, a successful courtier, an unsuccessful courtier, a welcomed prospective son-in-law, a despised (and briefly imprisoned) no-longer-prospective son-in-law, a fervent Catholic, a fervent Protestant, a devoted husband and an articulate misogynist, a thoroughly jaded man of the court and, it may permissibly be imagined, a man deepened by grief and time into a genuine searcher after faith. Even in an age of violent contrasts, few Elizabethans (fat, fat and lazy to call Donne anything else … for Donne, anyway, ‘Jacobean’ is a distinction without a definition) experienced such personal and professional extremes.
He began simply enough, much in the manner of the nearly three generations of young men who’d made their way to the court of Elizabeth: he had money, brains, winning manners, connections, enormous literary ability, and the ambition that comes from having all those things. He wanted a place at court and was continuously denied it – his abduction of his young wife (and subsequent dismissal and blackballing by her father, who, as Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal of England, was particularly effective at blackballing) didn’t help his cause, and even years later, King James was deaf to the entreaties of Donne’s friends and patrons, urging him only to take up the churchman’s life.
Eventually cold poverty forced him to accept such a position (entry level only; the King had already promised his friends that if Donne chose the ecclesiastical path, his rise would be swift and high) and go from there. He had a wife and a growing family to support, and a position was essential. When he was made a Doctor of Divinity in 1615 at Cambridge, the divines there objected on the grounds that Donne was a mere careerist, ‘unconvinced in faith’ (that clattering you might be hearing is a whole faculty of pots calling the kettle black), but the King’s fiat carried the day and paved the way for Donne to become dean of St. Paul’s, from the pulpit of which he delivered some of the most impassioned, personal, and well-nigh impenetrably intelligent ruminations on God, death, and the afterlife ever composed.
And the whole time, he brought to all the twists and turns of his life an intellect and fierce, though conflicted, morality that were unmatched in his day and have seldom been matched in all the ages since.
In light of which-all it behooves repetition: what can such a young man possibly have to say about John Donne? What can John Stubbs, who got his degree in 2005 while he was writing this book, possibly have to say aboutthe vast and deep subject that is John Donne?
Not, as it turns out, much.
With all due respect to Spurling, Nye, Bate et al, it’s difficult to understand where their enthusiasms come from. Whatever strengths this book may have, the ability to spark enthusiasm certainly isn’t one of them.
This isn’t from want of Stubbs trying; he never met a colorful period detail he didn’t like. Gypsies, dancing bears, sea-dogs and mountebanks lose no time in making their appearance, and when they appear the reader’s hopes that this might be a sober, scholarly work begin to vanish. Not much in the ensuing hundreds of pages will invite those hopes back. This is mostly the cuss-and-codpiece kind of historical biography that yearns not to be the best but to be a bestseller.
Certainly Donne’s life affords all the raw material for a bestseller – but it would perforce be a work of fiction. Because of the very complexity that burns underneath Donne’s confessional mode in verse and prose, those confessions can virtually never be taken at face value. Yet Stubbs does this again and again, mapping the sermons and especially the poems onto the events of Donne’s life as snug as a glove. The man who would take this approach with any author is running a great risk; the man who would do it with the Metaphysical Poets – to say nothing of their ‘monarch of wit’ – is virtually guaranteeing misreading.
Take for example the poem ‘The Perfume,’ which recounts the clandestine visit an impetuous young lover makes to his mistress’ house one night. The figure in the poem creeps along the house’s corridors, making every effort to be quiet, but his presence is revealed to the girl’s father by the strong perfume the young lover is wearing. Stubbs writes:
“These are events from a poem he wrote as a young man. It was classed as an ‘elegy’, and became known as ‘The Perfume.’ It might be the lusty account of an actual adventure; it might all be made up.”
The biographer of any literary figure (especially one so multi-faceted as Donne) owes it to his readers always to assume the latter. But this would have left Stubbs with a book that was much shorter and, one suspects, much less fun to write. So, only twenty pages later, while ruminating about an early portrait of Donne, Stubbs has already convinced himself:
“The youngster in this picture was making his first excursions into the theatres and taverns on the Bankside, sneaking to his girlfriend’s chamber in the dead of night, and trying not to creak the fixtures too loudly.”
Needless to say, there is no evidence that the young John Donne did any such things; that they’re recounted as facts so soon after the author himself pointed out the possibility that they could be complete fabrications tells the reader quite a bit about what kind of book Stubbs wants this to be.
(That ‘dead of night’ is far from being alone, incidentally; the book is liberally stocked with cliches. Some of them, like the mention of a ‘girlfriend,’ are just anachronistic. Others – ‘rule with an iron fist,’ ‘perish the thought,’ ‘lily-livered,’ etc – betray a lazy pen, or else an overconfident one).
Stubbs never varies from identifying Donne’s moods and mindframes, and the resultant portrait is as intimate as it is fraudulent. When talking about the emotional turmoil Donne’s wife felt after losing three of their children in one year (in itself a supposition, though an allowable one), Stubbs writes “Donne still clung to his wife. However much he was away from her, there was no question in his mind of their marriage ever being shaken.” When
talking about Donne’s decision to become a churchman, Stubbs writes “But his friends were generally supportive.” When talking about King James reading a tract Donne had written, Stubbs writes of him “leafing through the tract after a day’s hunting.” When talking about a summer in Donne’s youth, Stubbs writes, “Donne himself, that summer, was at large in London, footloose but listless.”
The book is rife with this kind of nonsense, and as comforting (or worse, humanizing) as such details may be to the general reader who wanders in from less exacting genres, they can’t help but annoy those who open this book wanting an accurate picture distilled from scholarly rigor. Surely such details would have annoyed Donne himself, who only published a handful of poems in his life and mentions often in his letters the high value he places on
Occasionally, this tendency to ‘add color’ to the proceedings is taken to such extremes that it becomes funny in ways its author probably didn’t intend. Take for instance the point where Stubbs is describing Sir George More’s reaction when Harry Percy, the earl of Northumberland, brings him the news that Donne has secretly married More’s young daughter:
“A fly on the ceiling of More’s study would have been able to offer no report of the interview with Northumberland: it would have been blinded by spittle. Sir George went wild at the disclosure.”
If the reader overlooks the fact that this bizarre little scene is founded on yet another cliche (to be a fly on the wall), the thought of More’s spittle having the range and accuracy to blind a fly on the ceiling is pretty damn amusing. Surely the poor blinded fly could still have reported on what it heard?
It’s possible – far-fetched, but possible – that all of these defects might have been, if not absolved, at least counter-balanced if Stubbs were to write brilliantly about Donne’s writings. History has shown – most notably in biographies of Rimbaud and Lord Byron – that such dichotomies are possible; at the onset, there is grounds for hope.
Alas, doomed. That the rippling subtleties and wrenching self-examination of Donne’s poetry elude our young author is not surprising – they’ve eluded far older men, some able poets among them. And we will never know if Donne’s various prose compositions equally baffled Stubbs, because he doesn’t engage with them in any way other than as a trove of explicitly biographical minutiae. Ironically, this often prevents any hint of the living man from being audible.
The book is not without its charms, despite the tangled undergrowth the reader must hack through to find them. Stubbs is far more intelligent than the populist tack he’s taken here, and this intelligence is evident in the sheer amount of information he’s sorted through and explained clearly. If the reader is wary enough to keep constantly in mind Stubbs’ fanciful
inventions, they will come away from this big book knowing everything factual there is to know about Donne’s life and times. No such caution is necessary when reading R.C. Bald’s magisterial (and slyly witty) 1970 life of Donne, but in its long-gone absence, our young author’s book is at least adequate.
And as a debut, it’s wonderfully auspicious. Ben Jonson once remarked – with his characteristic mix of brutal honesty and unerring accuracy – that all of Donne’s best things were written before he was twenty-five years old. Even if we agree with this, we must admit it can be said of very few writers. Stubbs has demonstrated that he can research, and he’s shown a very welcome desire to reach a broad audience. If he can manage in subsequent books to do both while doing violence to neither, he may yet produce masterpieces. When he’s just a little older.
Steve Donoghue’s writing has appeared in numerous journals and broadsheets including Punch, The Tatler, The Boston Gazette, Encyclopédie, The London Quarterly Review, McClure’s, L’Aurore, and The American Mercury. He hosts the literary blog Stevereads, at stevereads.blogspot.com | <urn:uuid:55e936e4-4203-42b4-a1d8-98b100c1debe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/you-eatee/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969172 | 3,459 | 1.765625 | 2 |
As camera phones become more and more sophisticated, will they ultimately replace point-and-shoot cameras?
closed as not a real question by PearsonArtPhoto, Jay Lance Photography, rfusca♦, John Cavan♦, labnut Apr 20 '11 at 8:49
It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.
I don't believe that camera phones will replace true P&S cameras. The limitations of the phone form factor will be the barrier conditions. having the flush lens and small size requirements limit the image quality. It is not to say that camera phones will not continue to advance, it is more that the requirements of being a "phone" will outweigh the requirements for being a camera. Just from looking at my phone with the small flash, the flush small lens, and the battery life of a gnat when shooting pictures I think it is not well suited to being used as a camera.
People will be willing to carry a camera for taking pictures on vacations and other events that provide more control than what the phone can do. It is not a question of the electronics being capable it is just how the technology is packaged and if it will be pleasing to the consumer.
I still have separate music player and telephone as I find that a device can typically do one thing very well, or many things mediocre. I would prefer to have one device that does one thing very well.
I don't think there's any question that camera phones will take over mass-market point & shoot cameras. The question isn't really if, but when.
The iPhone uses a 1/3.2"-format sensor (using the weird standard where 1" = 16mm, so 15.5mm²). This is smaller than what's used in most point & shoot cameras (especially the good ones), but isn't so far off.
In fact, take a look at the specs for the Canon Powershot A200, announced June, 2002. Sensor the same size as the iPhone, and a fixed-focal-length lens of around the same range. But, only 2Mpix, and ISO from 50 to 400 (and we can bet that 400 was pretty bad).
And the iPhone isn't even state-of-the-art for camera phones — for that, look at the Nokia N8, which has a 1/1.8" (36.8mm²) sensor with max ISO of 1200 and apparently very nice optics to boot. This clearly competes with a lot of point&shoot cameras now, at least on some levels.
So, it's pretty clear that the best current camera phones handily beat at least some of the P&S digicam field from a decade ago, and I think it's reasonable to assume that in much less than another decade, phone cameras will beat today's crop.
A larger form-factor may always have room for a level of quality that literally can't be squeezed into a camera phone, but from that direction, there's pressure from low-end dSLRs and especially mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras. Right now, there's a pretty impressive bunch of high-end P&S cameras (more than I would have predicted), but I think it really can't last. Camera phones have two major advantages: 1) people have them already, and 2) the fact that they phones are now software platforms makes them so superior in many ways. Not only can one fundamentally change the camera uesr interface, one can post-process in the field, and instantly share the results.
So yeah: it'll happen. In fact, it is happening. When is an open question, but mostly the discussion over which value of "soon" to pick.
Update as of April, 2011: TechCrunch ran an article yesterday titled iPhone 4 About To Be Flickr’s Top Camera. Point & Shoots? Pretty Much The Opposite. The title pretty much says it all. Of course, Flickr has an inherent bias, since the iPhone can automatically upload pictures with no extra steps, but still, I think it's plenty illustrative of future trends. As TechCrunch puts it:
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Contrary to looking at the problem from a "when phones cameras will be comparable to P&S", which is inevitable advancement of the technology (although I won't commit to a 5 years time frame), there is another path - P&S cameras will become cellular enabled! I see no reason why a camera like the Digital Elph can't include a mobile phone chipset (kind of what MODU's vision was all about). Then, the above question will become meaningless, as now you have a cell phone with P&S camera quality.
At the bottom line, it does not matter what way you look at it - phones become cameras or cameras become phones. It is all about convergence and there is no doubt that this is the way of the consumer market future.
I'm going to take a different tact from the other posters... I don't think it matters. There are some certain facts in all of this that are relevant:
Given the above, both formats will, I think, do very well for any forseeable future. They compete, in a sense, but not entirely. However, I agree with ysap, the convergence is clear, but I do think that there will always be a segment of the population that wants the advantages of the dedicated hardware and, hence, P&S will persevere.
There are point-and-shoot cameras that already have many features of a phone - microphone, speaker, touch screen, WiFi connectivity, similar form factor. I see no reason why there would not be a model in near future that is fully capable of mobile networking, including making phone calls. The network rates are already cheap enough to afford this. After all, easy instant sharing seems to be a buzzword for selling P&S cameras.
Camera phones will largely replace point and shoots in the consumer and hobbyist markets. However for the prosumer, true professionals and enthusiasts markets, I seriously doubt this will be the case.
Camera phones tend to have the ability to implement many features in software to compensate lack of physical space for some features. On the other hand, cameras may change shape and size drastically to accomadate features while at the same time being capable of any amount of soft-features.
Lenses, sensor size, compression circuitry, real time enhancement circuits such as light and color balance, anti-blur and many similar features are very different implemented as hardware or cannot be simulated effectively.
As I see it, this means there is a need for cameras in general that camera phones cannot fill due to restrictions inherent to the product.
Someone could come out with a phone that had interchangeable lenses or one or two extra features. Perhaps even a phone for photographers, but they still would not have the same depth of features or quality as high-end point and shoot cameras.
Actually, the prediction is that within 5 years point and shoot cameras will start to fade in favor of camera's built into mobile devices (they will be less phone and more... well who knows whats going to be packed into them in 5 years). Personally, I think this may take a little longer but is inevitable with the amount of money the mobile market commands today and more importantly the growth it has seen in the past few months and years.
After a fast search it would seem I am not alone in thinking this. See this article title The future of the point-and-shoot (there isn’t one) for more.
To take it in a larger context, the phones are starting to be called "hand-held devices". They are Turing complete and have specs that leave '90s desktop computers in the dust. How long will it be until I come home, plug my phone/handheld/whatever-it-will-be-called into a a dock that has a power source, keyboard, speakers and monitor and use the processor on it to my web browsing and programming?
I said that so I could say this, low end point n shoots for simple snapshots will be integrated into that and the demand for cheap cameras will drop off, especially as the devices get smarter. But I expect that major camera manufacturers will partner with handheld manufacturers to make a decent enough product.
I don't see the entire compact camera market going away though. I like my 12x zoom. I don't know if that can be out into a the same space as something I want to talk to pull out and start talking on.
But then, I go out with the specific goal of getting a few good pictures to show off. I bought my compact for the specs of picture clarity at large sizes and lower light, the zoom, and the full manual settings.
One final thought:
If I made handhelds, I'd figure out a way to make is easy to mount the thing on a tripod for group photos. The typical screw on the bottom might be too costly in precious handheld device space. ...maybe a special clamp?
There has been a trend towards multi-function phones that do everything possible. The thing is, people are starting to look towards "appliances", which are devices designed to do one thing well, with the most simplistic controls.
A point-and-shoot camera is simple. You switch it on. Point it at someone and press the big button.
On a multi-purpose devices, the workflow cannot be this simple as you have to tell the device what function you want it to perform and then use one of the multi-purpose buttons to take the picture.
Ergonomically the multi-purpose device has to make similar compromises. People want slim phones, but it is easier to hold a chunky camera that gives you a steady grip.
Most of the photographers here are being photographers, and are answering "No," because even compact cameras will continue to enjoy image quality and handling benefits over phones, at least as far as we can predict.
But that wasn't the question. The question was will they ultimately replace point-and-shoot cameras, and in the marketplace, I think the answer is mostly "Yes." Most people aren't that picky about image quality, and don't want to carry around a bunch of different devices. Already, the iPhone 4 will soon be the most popular camera on Flickr, and some have attributed the death of Flip compact video cameras to the smartphones. That's not to say that the compact segment will disappear entirely; there will always be something like the S95 and G12 for people who want a more serious compact camera, but I think you'll see more and more people foregoing the P&S for their phone.
The answer is much larger than a debate about cameras.
The technology is advancing quickly and the cell phone is acquiring a number of capabilities that are giving it a unique place in our lives.
It is thus becoming an essential device that all people must have with them at all times.
So does this mean it will displace the P&S camera?
No, not really. It is extending photography to the vast number of people who were not photographers in the first place. So many more people are becoming photographers, in the limited sense of everyday snapshots.
Some of these people, through exposure, will aspire to better photographs and migrate upwards to more capable cameras. These will be P&S cameras because their experience with cell phones will condition them to expect nearly the same convenience.
Some of the existing owners of P&S cameras will instead use their new cell phones simply because they are conveniently always available and the quality in any case is good enough for them.
And still others will have multiple devices for multiple purposes just as today many DSLR owners also have a P&S camera.
So the market will be layered with cell phones owning a vast proportion. P&S cameras will have lost somewhat to this while it will also gain some of the new converts to photography.
My cloudy crystal ball says that the cell phone will have brought so many new converts to photography that enough of them will upgrade to P&S cameras to offset any losses to the cell phone.
And for many people it is not a case of either/or but rather using different tools for different circumstances.
Photography, as a hobby, will be the winner.
lol no... P&Ss like G12 (bigger sensor), SX30 (35X zoom!) will always be better than any camera phones. And, I agree that camera phone are getting better with every new release, but so are the P&Ss!
If ever, any phone company can incorporate a DSLR within a phone, only that day they will overcome P&Ss :D | <urn:uuid:08b422e5-0f2d-4004-a910-f8becfa32230> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/7541/will-point-and-shoot-cameras-be-able-to-compete-with-camera-phones/11100 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96475 | 2,661 | 1.710938 | 2 |
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QUEER AFRICAN READER - CONCEPT PAPER
Fahamu’s Pambazuka Press will be publishing a Queer African Reader [working title] in June 2011, in response to the increasing homophobia and transphobia across the continent which aims to silence the voices of African Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) people.
The Queer African Reader seeks to make a timely intervention by bringing together a collection of writings, analysis and artistic works that engage with the struggle for LGBTI liberation and inform sexual orientation and gender variance. The book seeks primarily to engage an African audience and will focus on intersectionality while including experiences from a variety of contexts including rural communities, from exile, from conflict and post-conflict situations as well as diverse religious and cultural contexts. The book seeks to explore issues ranging from: identity, tactics for activism, international solidarity, homophobia and global politics, the feminist movement and LGBTI rights, religion and culture, reconciling the personal with the political.
We are using an alternative framework for the book based on a participatory model in which we seek prospective contributors and the broad queer activist community to discuss possible topics to be included that will push analysis and thinking within this distinct and diverse movement across the continent. Through collective, participatory discussion from the queer African community, to the extent that we were able to access the community with limited resources (we will mostly use multi-media platforms such as a wiki, email, listserves, social networking sites and discussion forums to spark contribution), we will identify themes with potential topics within each and put out a call for abstracts to potential collaborators.
Significantly we will hold a two week writers' retreat once abstracts and first draft contributions have been selected so that ten African LGBTI leaders, thinkers and activists can use the space to reflect, share their ideas and writing, peer review each other’s work, have access to sources and resources provided by prominent academics. The writing retreat will be fully sponsored and contributors will be provided an honorarium for their writing, which will enable them to take the time away from their activities to put together a critically reflective piece.
Along with the critical analysis from the continent contributed from ten African activists, the book will include personal stories, creative writing, poetry, photography and other art forms from the African LGBTI community. In addition, we will select five pieces of reflective work from the African Diaspora.
To amplify African LGBTI voices.
To strengthen analysis on issues related to African LGBTI rights.
To strengthen African LGBTI activism through the development and exploration of themes of relevance.
Enhanced writing skills, knowledge and access to learning for LGBTI activists.
Contribute to the documentation and historic archiving of African LGBTI life experiences, thinking and positions.
A strengthened LGBTI movement able to articulate its frame in an African context and through African experiences.
CALL FOR ABSTRACTS - QUEER AFRICAN READER
Project Consultant: Sokari Ekine
Proposed Editors: Sokari Ekine, Hakima Abbas
We are writing to invite you to participate in the publication of an African LGBTI / Queer Reader [The Reader] to be published by Pambazuka Press in June 2011. The Reader is being published in response to the increasing homophobia and transphobia across the continent which aims to silence the voices of African Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender and Intersex people.
The African LGBTI / Queer Reader [Working Title] seeks to make a timely intervention by bringing together a collection of writings and artistic works that engage with the struggle for LGBTI liberation and inform sexual orientation and gender variance. The book seeks to engage with primarily an African audience focusing on intersectionality and will include experiences from rural communities, post-conflict situations, religious experience as well that of immigration and displacement.
We are proposing an alternative framework for the book based on a participatory model in which we ask prospective contributors and the broad queer activist community to discuss possible topics to be included that will push analysis and thinking within this distinct and diverse movement across the continent writing from the standpoint of both personal stories and experiences as activists. We feel this is important because of the multi layered issues which exist historically, regionally and politically with regards to sexual orientation and gender variance in Africa as well as the overall struggle for African liberation.
We hope to facilitate the writing of key African LGBTI leaders, activists and thinkers by providing a two week retreat where activists can create the space to reflect, share their ideas and writing, peer review each other’s work, have access to sources and resources provided by prominent academics and the institution. The writing retreat will be fully sponsored and contributors will be provided an honorarium for their writing which will enable them to take the time away from their activities to provide a critically reflective piece.
Submissions can be any of the following: essays, personal stories, poems, art work, photography, short stories.
Possible Topics - not including personal stories, poems, stories
We have identified eight themes which are listed below with a brief summary of each. We are suggesting each of you think about the theme[s] that interest you and suggest specific topics on which you could write or would like to see addressed.
1. WHAT’S IN A LETTER:
We repeatedly use the terms lesbian, gay, bi-sexual transgender and intersex but what do these mean in your own experience, your own community and country? How limiting or inclusive are these labels? Are they appropriate and do they reflect your own experiences? Does the identity cause more problems than the behavior? Does gender variance provide a more appropriate entry point for discussion in Africa given silence around all sexualities? How do we organize across definitions? Why should we?
2. RESISTING OPPRESSION - TOWARDS LIBERATION:
What kind of strategies have been used or could be taken up to resist / challenge queer oppression?
Should the struggle for LGBTI Rights be framed within a Western construct which sees Rights as instruments and legislation or should the struggle for rights be constructed within a framework of movement building around which the oppressed organise?
How has the reliance on the NGO Industrial complex supported or hindered movement building? If the latter, what possible alternatives are there to organising and fund raising? How can we move towards more collaborative and collective ways of working which support movement building? What kind of strategies have been used or could be taken up to resist / challenge criminalisation and homophobia including that coming from religious institutions and the media?
3. PINK COLONIALISM AND WESTERN MISSIONARIES:
What are the problematics of internationalising campaigns and how do we work with allies in the West? How do we overcome donor dependence as a movement? Do the donors and bilaterals save us from ourselves? How do we measure victory e.g. in Malawi and Uganda?
3. A CHANGING WORLD: SOUTH AFRICA AND THE BRICS:
Does South Africa have a particular role to play in supporting queer liberation in Africa? Does the shift in global power create opportunity or threat for African queer liberation? What other geo-political factors determine the course for queer liberation?
5. AFRICAN QUEER LIBERATION AND CLASS STRUGGLE:
What are the intersections between the broader social justice movement in Africa and the movement for queer liberation? Why should one care about the other?
6. ARE GAY MEN FEMINISTS?
What political frames are useful in our movement building? While LBT activists have tended towards feminism does it exclude GT men? How do we address patriarchy and sexism in our movements and personal relationships even among women-identified folks? Why do many straight identified African feminists resist taking on queer issues as a feminist issue in Africa?
7. GOD AND QUEER – INCOMPATIBLE OR INSEPERABLE IN AFRICA
Does the movement have to come from a secular space? Given that many African queer folks identify as religious how do we overcome fundamentalism? The US right wing church are using Africa as a battleground for queer bashing – why is this effective? What of countries with majority Muslim populations or Islamic law for queer liberation?
8. RECONCILING THE PERSONAL WITH THE POLITICAL:
What particular role has been / can be played by those engaged in activism through the creative arts? What has been / is the personal cost to working as social justice activists often working in relative isolation and in hostile environments? How can we better balance our lives as social justice activists with that of social people and the need to care for ourselves? | <urn:uuid:e224188f-289e-46c4-88cb-4279ae52d969> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.equality.org.za/index.php/article/index.php/component/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=34&Itemid=11&limitstart=20 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937023 | 1,770 | 1.625 | 2 |
"Now, after street protests and change of power, we are at the third stage of the revolution. This is characteristic not only for Yemen, but for all Arab countries where revolutions took place. This is the stage of struggle with corruption."
So says Yemeni Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Tawakkul Karman in this interview.
Merwa Abdelkadar, the Saudi representative at the G(irls)20 Summit speaks about global challenges.
"I think one of the most important things in the world that needs to be fixed is the unfair situation of women specifically in the Arab world (...) Unfortunately, although women constitute more than 50 percent of the population, their potential is stifled as they struggle to maintain their rights." | <urn:uuid:24a64e8e-439b-4579-8728-9529f6338d56> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.womendialogue.org/microblog/post/kuwait-appoint-women-lawyers-judges | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959374 | 150 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Alaska’s Goose Creek Correctional Center was Under Budget and Ahead of Schedule Despite Long Winters and Difficult Access
The Matanuska-Susitna Borough and the State of Alaska Department of Corrections, as owner and operator, respectively, brought online the new medium-security Goose Creek Correctional Center (GCCC) under budget and ahead of schedule, thanks to design-build delivery and collaboration.
Moreover, the project received the highest national award, in the correctional facilities category, from the Design-Build Institute of America for 2012.
“The project was designed and constructed in less than three years, a testament to the high level of process organization and communication skills achieved, and to how a large, top-quality project can be produced on time and within budget through a D-B approach,” said Projects Administrator Gary Donnelly of Neeser Construction Inc. (NCI). The project was ahead of schedule by approximately four months.
The 1,536-bed correctional center for long-term male felony offenders is sited in a rural area 75 miles northeast of Anchorage. Driving to the site during the winter months requires dealing with snow and ice conditions, long hours of darkness and frequent encounters with moose on, or crossing, the roads.
Alaska has a short construction season compared to the rest of the country; things are usually in-closure, or enclosed, due to the weather by mid-October, when workers battle heavy snow and wind. The long winters and exceedingly short summers, which are routine in Alaska, did not deter the construction team’s construction window, which is limited by the hours of daylight and months of below zero temperatures, in terms of schedule or cost.
“We have to get the buildings enclosed as quickly as we can and try to beat the winter weather,” said Donnelly. “The first season we got in the ground in May 2009 and we had four buildings enclosed by the end of October or mid-November of 2009. It would have never happened without design-build.”
“NCI, the different design firms, and the folks from the DOC, and their consultants, established a tremendous working relationship that allowed the project to move forward in a way that made sense,” said Donnelly.
“The design revolved around the needs of the Alaska DOC. There was a lot of work that went in, as a collaborative team, which helped keep the project on schedule and on track,” said Donnelly. “Which up here in Alaska is a critical issue.”
In addition to the Alaska-based architects and engineers, there were additional AE firms involved in the project from Washington, Colorado, Texas, California, South Carolina and Nevada —comprising a 40-member D-B team from 14 different AE firms, seven contractor/subcontracting companies, and a 12-person owner team with design professionals for each discipline.
On the occasions where travel to Anchorage was not practical or possible, participation was achieved through the use of virtual meeting software, and large-screen projections of drawings and diagrams, for real-time discussion and evaluation.
The design strategy was based on paralleling the construction schedule, which began with the support visitation building because it was the most challenging of the five structures, and it contained the central boilers and ventilation units for the entire prison campus.
“This allowed all buried utilities, and the HVAC system serving all [five] buildings, to be constructed in the first year, along with enclosure of approximately 190,000 square feet of the most complex building on the campus,” said Richard M. Reed, project architectural lead and principal at KPB Architects.
Design proceeded to complete outside administration, warehouse, vehicle maintenance and general housing buildings in phases to dovetail with the construction schedule. Peak activity on site had four buildings and related sitework under construction simultaneously. Construction of general housing was begun and finished in the final year, along with landscaping the entire campus.
The entire prison campus was designed and built in less than three years, “which we feel quite proud of, and there is three winters in a period like that,” said Reed. “We are driving winter or summer and negotiating all of the challenges that frequent any project in Alaska. This one was a huge one.”
At its peak, the project had nearly 450 trades people on site at any given time and cumulatively employed more than 1,200 construction workers.
RISE Alaska was the representative for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and was on-board from start to finish with several people on the site at one time.
“This was one of the largest vertical construction projects that's ever taken place in Alaska,” said Purchasing Officer Russ Krafft at the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. “It's like building an entire university campus at once.”
“We were in the ground early,” said Krafft. “There were zero claims on the project.”
GCCC is the largest publicly funded vertical construction project ever done in Alaska and the $223 bond is the largest single bond ever written in Alaska.
GCCC is comprised of five primary buildings. The two largest buildings, general housing and support visitation, are adjoined by a 250-foot by 1,000-foot movement yard and bounded by a secured, perimeter double-fence. The movement yard provides secure circulation between the two buildings and includes ball fields and courts for outside recreation. Indoor recreation facilities include two gymnasiums and exercise rooms centrally located in general housing.
Academic and vocational education programs, the central kitchen and dining facilities, segregated housing, and visitation functions are located in support visitation. The three smaller buildings located outside the secured perimeter fence include a multi-bay vehicle maintenance shop, a high-stack warehouse, with five-weeks storage capacity for dry and refrigerated foods, and the publically-accessible outside administration building to process visitors, train and exercise staff, and to house the master control tower. The outside administration building gets its name from its siting outside the secured perimeter, while inside administrative facilities are located in the general housing and support visitation buildings as well.
There are three dining halls with 250 seats, each. All inmates coming from general housing, plus staff, are fed in two 20-minute shifts. A secure corridor connects the food service area, which is located in the support visitation building, to the segregated housing units.
The client did not seek LEED certification but NCI did employ a life cycle cost analysis to the selection processes for material durability, damage resistance, building systems, equipment and controls, including energy-conservation measures in terms of thermal performance, mechanical systems, plumbing design, energy supply, heat generation and electrical service.
The RFP established an energy goal of 20 percent greater than ASHRAE 90.1-2004. NCI targeted a goal of exceeding the referenced ASHRAE standard by 30 percent. The as-built result fell between the two goals.
The general housing project needed to be concrete on both the interior and exterior of the exterior wall — an insulated sandwich panel of eight inches of concrete, four inches of core insulation and four inches of concrete on the inside, explained Reed. “It was a massive —16-inch thick wall.”
Glazed CMU wall is used in the shower areas because of its low maintenance cost in terms of paining and repairs. Low-flow showerheads and urinals were installed. Waterless urinals were not considered due to sanitary concerns.
Willoughby calculated an estimated $350,000 in security plumbing fixtures were installed in the medium-security facility.
Ozone water treatment technology is implemented in the prison laundry. The treatment for water is similar to UV treatment for air; it kills bacteria and germs such that hot water is not needed. Ozone utilizes cold water, which eliminates the water overheating process and saves gas usage, and uses less water per cycle. It also reduces the wear and tear on fabric.
In areas, such as Alaska, with significant months of snow-covered ground, the ground surface, or snow, has a high-reflectivity, and requires significantly less light fixtures to accomplish the same lighting levels. The number of light fixtures, on site, is appropriate number for non-covered ground, but control of some of the lights to be turned off during months of snow-cover, can be managed in the security control console in master control.
If there ever was a power outage, the facility is prepared. Reed explained they have two to three weeks of emergency power; a huge array of generators, and on-site fuel storage, both diesel and natural gas. If there is a crisis, inmates and staff will have water, fuel, heat, electricity, and food for two to three weeks.
“It is really a community,” said Reed. “It is almost self-contained.”
The project was financed by the sale of revenue bonds that will be repaid by the state through 25 annual lease payments. Borough taxpayers are not paying for the project.
The new correctional center doubles the number of available beds in the State of Alaska Department of Corrections in-state system and also provides overflow capacity for un-sentenced prisoners from local pre-trial facilities.
A National DBIA Winner
The Design-Build Institute of America recognized GCCC by honoring the project with a National Design-Build Award for 2012 in its correctional facilities category. According to DBIA, the 2012 National Design-Build Award program is the most competitive, to date, and the submission by Neeser Construction Inc. was rigorously judged by a panel of owners and DBIA professionals.
“Goose Creek is a particularly stunning example of what ‘design-build, done right’ means,” said Susan Hines, managing director, public relations and information, at the Design-Build Institute of America.
The award will be presented at DBIA’s annual conference in New Orleans on Nov. 7-9, 2012.
“There have been representatives from other facilities in the country that have visited GCCC and they give it very high marks,” said Steve Fishback, AIA, who served as the architect for the State DOC. “We think the quality is very high and are proud of the end product.”
Donnelly could not agree more and said “we met and more often exceeded the State’s quality expectations.
“The craftsmanship is spot on. By correctional standards, it is a very nicely done facility. The operator could not be happier and the Borough is happy too because it came in within the numbers it needed to come in at.”
Being received ahead of schedule gave the State of Alaska DOC more time to acclimate their staff and get ready for business.
The State is undergoing a very soft, slow ramp-up. Prisoners began arriving in July 2012. As of Sept. 25, the facility held just under 300 inmates. According to the Borough’s website operations phase-in will continue until October 2013 and it is anticipated that full occupancy will occur in fiscal year 2014.
Officials at the State of Alaska DOC declined to be interviewed for this article.
Goose Creek Correctional Center
Facility Type: Medium-Security Prison
Construction Budget: $223 million
Number of Beds: 1,536
Area (square feet): 450,000 square feet
Start Date: May 2009
Completion Date: August 2011
Owner/Operator: Matanuska Susitna Borough, State of Alaska Dept. of Corrections
Owner Representative: Lee Sherman, Dept. of Corrections
Project Manager: Roe Sturgulewski, RISE Alaska
Design-Build General Contractor: Neeser Construction Inc.
Architect: KPB Architects
Structural Engineer: Engineering & Development Services
Mechanical Engineer: Coffman Engineers
Detention Equipment Contractor: CML Specialties
Security Electronics Contractor: Engineered Control Systems
Lighting Fixtures: Kenall
Security Systems: Engineered Control Systems
Video Surveillance: DVTel, Bosch
Video Visitation System: Renovo, Southern Folger
Intercom/Communications Systems: Harding, Atlas Sound
Touch Screen Access/Control Systems: Schneider Electric, ELO
Jail Management System: TAC
Perimeter Security System: Senstar
Security Fencing: USA Industries, Tymetal Corp.
Security Glazing: Allied Protective Glazing LLC
Security Locks: Southern Folger Detention Equipment Co.
Security Equipment: Norix Group Inc.
Detention Accessories: Norix Group Inc.
Security Plumbing Fixtures: Willoughby
Plumbing Fixtures: Bradley Corp.
Power Plant Systems: NC Power Systems Co.
Roofing: Firestone Building Products
Insulation: Western Insulfoam
Floor/Wall Systems: Site cast concrete
Ceiling System: Gordon Corrections Division, Armstrong World Industries, Inc.
Food Service and Refrigeration Equipment: Refrigeration & Food Services | <urn:uuid:7d194c8b-eaa4-4f6b-8268-77b210394be4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.correctionalnews.com/articles/2012/10/31/testament-design-build | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955147 | 2,717 | 1.515625 | 2 |
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Getting involved in campus life is the quickest way to become a part of the University community, to create one's own college experience, and gain life-long friendships.
Campus life activities are built around the concepts of encouraging students to express his or her talents and to have fun with fellow students.
Select a link below to learn more. | <urn:uuid:8d510541-7755-4de7-ab44-7d0ad1945a94> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.frostburg.edu/dept/cs/campus-life/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954685 | 116 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Gap in levees prompts debate
Published: Wednesday, February 9, 2011 at 11:23 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, February 9, 2011 at 11:23 a.m.
HOUMA — Officials may move forward with preliminary design of a floodgate on Bayou Little Caillou though they’re not sure where they’ll get the money to build it.
Terrebonne Levee Board members Tuesday discussed the possibility of contracting the design project.
Levee Director Reggie Dupre and board President Tony Alford said they want to get the project moving. They say they’re aggressively fighting for more state and federal money for the Morganza levee project and want to have the floodgate design ready.
“You don’t design things you have no intention of building,” Dupre said. “We suspect we’re going to get additional funding, and we don’t know what all these projects are going to cost. But we do know that there’s a hole in the system, so we need to figure out what the cost to fill that will be and what we need to fill it.”
A preliminary-design report is required to apply for permits. Dupre said Tuesday he didn’t know how much it would cost to draft the report.
The Levee District is moving ahead with work on the local Morganza-to-the-Gulf hurricane-protection system, about 72 miles of levees and floodgates that aims to protect most of Terrebonne and part of Lafourche from storm flooding. Hundreds of millions of dollars of work is in various stages of design and construction.
But the agency lacks money to complete projects in the middle of the system, between bayous Little Caillou and Grand Caillou. That results in an eight-mile gap some Terrebonne residents worry could leave them vulnerable.
Joe Eskind, an east Houma resident who has been lobbying for flood protection for the area, said he is concerned the Levee District is creating a “big funnel” that will send floodwaters farther into east Houma.
The gap is planned to be closed with Morganza levees and a floodgate on Bayou Little Caillou. Some of the levees in that area are also being redesigned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Alford said the Levee District doesn’t want to invest in getting permits for those levees until it is sure of the path, which the corps is expected to determine by April.
With major projects about to get under way, including a huge barge floodgate on the Houma Navigation Canal that should go to construction this year, Dupre said the district is entering a “big unknown” as far as project costs. The Navigation Canal floodgate is estimated to cost $60 million, but officials won’t know the exact cost until they receive bids for this month.
After that, Dupre said the district’s priorities will be to first build the levees that connect to that floodgate and then a Morganza levee below Falgout Canal Road that the parish is contributing money toward. That levee project is already short of money. The parish is contributing $14 million, but it will cost $20 million to build.
Construction of the Navigation Canal floodgate and adjacent levees will deplete the district’s Morganza money. Dupre said whatever money can be wrangled from the state will go first to cover any overruns on the Navigation Canal floodgate and next to make up the difference on the Falgout Canal Road levee. After that, it could be applied to the Little Caillou floodgate and neighboring levees.
“Even though the funds aren’t there, we’re going to pursue these permits as fast as we can so we’ll have them in hand ready to go to construction just in case the state or even the (federal government) has money available,” Alford said.
State Rep. Gordon Dove, R-Houma, said local legislators have requested $40 million in state construction money to help pay for the remaining segments of Morganza.
Alford said the district will also work with federal lawmakers to lobby for money.
Terrebonne Parish Councilman Joey Cehan, who represents Chauvin and parts of east Houma, said the parish plans to build the East Houma Surge Levee, which will run between La. 56 and La. 57, to 8 feet in height this spring. The parish also plans to raise the Ward 7 levee in Chauvin to 10 feet. Those projects would help prevent flooding while the Levee District closes gaps in the system, he said.
“Everyone is fighting really hard,” he said.
Staff Writer Nikki Buskey can be reached at 857-2205 or firstname.lastname@example.org.
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:afda8499-dffb-41f9-9488-53fdc8e36fd7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20110209/ARTICLES/110209353?Title=Gap-in-levees-prompts-debate | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943942 | 1,080 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Welcome to L.A.S.O.!!!
|About Us / Mission
Towson Latin Blog
LASO @ Facebook
L.A.S.O is the Latin American Student Organization
and was founded in 1997 at Towson University.
We are a strong and growing organization that celebrates our heritage and culture by sponsoring educational and social activities on and off campus.
Hispanic vs. Latino, What's the Correct Terminology?
Fact: L.A.S.O. was originally named H.S.A. for Hispanic Student Association that name was changed in 1999 to Latin American Student Organization.
The name change came about upon our understanding between the two terms "Hispanic" and "Latino".
We learned that the term "Hispanic" refers to only those of the European and Spanish ancestry. On the other hand, "Latino" is more of an all inclusive term that refers to all people of the Spanish speaking countries and those of different ethnicities.
This is an interesting fact to know because although we, as Latinos in America, have now grown to become the largest minority group in the United States, people have yet to comprehend the proper terminology and we at Towson University embrace the learning of culture and diversity.
=== === ===
Want to learn more ...
Join us at our Wednesday meetings at 5:30pm in the Center for Diversity in the University Union!
See the L.A.S.O. Calendar for more details. | <urn:uuid:93a7682c-b023-41b4-98be-c15b968b7980> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.towson.edu/laso/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935253 | 303 | 1.617188 | 2 |
President George W. Bush signing the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.
The National Review's Andrew Stiles is still upset with Democratic messaging on reproductive rights:
Welcome to the scorched-earth phase of the Democrats’ “war on women” campaign, and the beginning of a ruthless offensive to hold their Senate majority, and possibly to retake the House, in 2014.
Democrats have nearly perfected the following exercise in cynical electioneering: 1) introduce legislation; 2) title it something that appeals to the vast majority of Americans who have no interest in learning what is actually in the bill, e.g., the “Violence Against Women Act”; 3) make sure it is sufficiently noxious to the GOP that few Republicans will support it; 4) vote, and await headlines such as “[GOP Lawmaker] Votes No On Violence Against Women Act”; 5) clip and use headline in 30-second campaign ad; and 6) repeat.
I'm not sure if Stiles knows this, but the Violence Against Women Act predates the Democratic "war on women." It was first passed in 1994 by a vote of 61-38 in the Senate and 235-195 in the House. It was reauthorized in 2000, and again in 2005—with little opposition from Republicans. And indeed, Senate Republicans joined Democrats last year to reauthorize the new VAWA, with the included protections for Native American women and other groups.
The problem, as it has been for the last two years, is a conservative minority of the House Republican conference. Indeed, it's the same minority that has rejected equal pay laws, and pushed anti-abortion bills that sharply reduce the reproductive autonomy of women. If the "war on women" has had any traction as a rhetoric framework, it's because those things are unpopular with voters.
Stiles is free to complain that a political party is being unfair by playing politics, but if he wants to solve the problem, he should push his allies to abandon their current drive to make life more difficult for women.
The more interesting tidbit in Stiles' piece is this:
Republican aides are increasingly convinced that taking the House back in 2014 is going to be Obama’s sole focus over the next two years. “Democrats are not presenting a good-faith effort to get legislation passed,” a Senate GOP aide says. “They simply want to have Republicans on record voting for or against, and to use those votes in political campaigns next year. They’re going to label us as obstructionists and extremists, and try to win back the House and a 60-vote majority in the Senate so they can push their real agenda.”
I doubt that Democrats can take back the House in 2014. It wouldn't just run against the general pattern—where the president's party loses seats in the midterm—but Democrats would have to fight an uphill battle against a large number of incumbent legislators, with all the benefits that come from incumbency. Then again, the public is unhappy with the Republican Party, and if the GOP's position continues to deteriorate, a 2014 sweep is definitely on the table for Democrats.
Again, however, it's worth noting the odd complaint behind Stiles' observation. If Democrats are planning to label Republicans "obstructionists and extremists," it's because Republicans have been acting as obstructionists and extremists. In just the three months since the election, Republicans have:
- Held the economy hostage to massive spending cuts (the fiscal cliff).
- Launched a crusade against the administration on the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, with the clear goal of generating a scandal.
- Filibustered a Cabinet nominee over aforementioned pseudo-scandal.
- Threatened to allow a huge round of austerity (the sequester), if the president doesn't agree to another round of spending cuts (which would also harm the economy).
In between, Republicans have continued to endorse the right-wing policies of Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, and the newest star in the GOP—Ted Cruz—is a far-right ideologue.
Are Democrats exaggerating the extremism of congressional Republicans? Probably. But it's easy to do when the GOP is so eager to help.
You need to be logged in to comment.
(If there's one thing we know about comment trolls, it's that they're lazy) | <urn:uuid:05894130-c738-4775-bb04-f670d5e8b302> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://prospect.org/article/extremist-republicans-dont-want-be-attacked-extremism | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961699 | 902 | 1.554688 | 2 |
This report provides a synopsis of the progress made by the Partnership during 2012. Thank you to all the governments, NGO’s, Agencies, Academic institutions, GLISPA Fellows and other participants for working together to making 2012 a year of action for island conservation and sustainable livelihoods.
GLISPA Highlight: SIDS Expert Group Meeting in New York City
“We need partnerships for SIDS to achieve our sustainable development goals,” stated Ambassador Feturi of Samoa during the SIDS Expert Group Meeting at UN Headquarters in New York City on 23 to 24 April 2013. This meeting was held as part of the preparatory process towards UNSIDS 2014.
“Through GLISPA we have shared concrete innovative ways we can address our common problems in a constructive and proud way.” Ambassador Takesy of Federated States of Micronesia stated during the Steering Committee meeting. The meeting consisted of three different meetings – a small Executive Committee focused on governance, a broader Steering Committee meeting focused on strategy and a high level briefing. Ambassador Ronny Jumeau was elected chair of the GLISPA Steering Committee.
Event Spotlight :: Islands deliver two successful events and support a revised programme of work on island biodiversity at CBD COP-11
CBD COP-11 was a significant meeting for islands. After two years of review the revision of the
special work programme for islands within the Convention on Biodiversity was adopted
at COP-11 in Hyderabad. Island Innovations was co-hosted by Seychelles and India to celebrate the progress made by island Parties and Parties with islands as well as catalyze new commitments to island biodiversity conservation and livelihoods. This event report summarizes the decisions, commitments and outcomes.
Islands are taking action! Learn how islands are showing the way to effectively conserve biodiversity and sustainable livelihoods. Further action is need that builds on what works. Commit to take action now!
Upcoming Island Innovations @ CBD COP11 and updates on the in-depth review of the programme of work on island biodiversity. 2012 IUCN World Conservation Congress. New Rio+20 Leaders Valuing Nature video released and much more…
Event Spotlight :: Good News Out of Rio+20 as Six Heads of State Commit to Invest in Nature
“We are all united in our determination to see us do better to preserve and to nurture the world’s oceans. This really is a historic opportunity to come together to renew our commitment to the marine environment of our world,” stated Prime Minister Gillard of Australia.
Event Spotlight:: Rio+20 Securing the Island Future We Want
“Islands need action now!” was the message passionately stated by The Hon. Ronny Jumeau, roving Ambassador for Climate Change and SIDS issues (Seychelles) during the opening of the agenda item on the in-depth review of the programme of work on island biodiversity.
The GLISPA Biannual Report provides a concise synopsis of the progress made by the Partnership from 2010 to 2011. Thank you to all the governments, development partners and individuals to their commitment to action over these years.
The GLISPA Steering Committee held its annual meeting in Washington, D.C. on the 31 January to 1 February 2012. The meeting was co-chaired by Ambassador Jumeau (Seychelles) and Dr. Spencer Thomas (Grenada),.
Event Spotlight :: Building Momentum across the Caribbean
The Report of the GLISPA Steering Committee Meeting held from 22 to 23 February 2011 in Washington DC is now available. This report provides a summary of the outcomes attained as well as meeting highlights.
The GLISPA Steering Committee held its second meeting for 2011 via teleconference. The meeting focused on ongoing discussions on GLISPA financing since it was identified during the February Steering Committee meeting in Washington DC (Feb 2011) there was an unexpected funding shortfall from IUCN. In response to the concerns of the Steering Committee, IUCN has provided a commitment to both islands and GLISPA.
“Hawai`i has the potential to be a pioneer and advocate for green growth,” said U.S. Ambassador Kurt Tong, Senior Official to APEC, at the APEC 2011 and Green Growth Hawai’i Briefing in Honolulu on August 9, 2011. | <urn:uuid:bc759970-155b-4e49-be0b-efb5dea551c0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://glispa.org/?page_id=536 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941695 | 897 | 1.601563 | 2 |
it’s not very often I agree with the daily mail - but today is one of those days.
this morning, a colleage pointed me towards this story - simply, a very overweight family of 4 that collectively clock in at more than 80 stone.
to make it worse, the parents havent worked for 11 years and still recieve benefits.
to me, this sums up a serious problem with both the benefits system and our response to obesity.
one option is higher tax on unhealthy food, which punishes the responsible majority. it’s exactly the same argument against higher alcohol taxes. responsibility is at the heart of the argument.
We tax alcohol and cigarettes already because we accept they are bad for our health. However (in the case of alcohol) it’s the excess consumption that causes the problem, not responsible levels. which is also why i think alcohol duty is a wholly inappropriate tax which is causing untold damage to our community pubs, but that’s another blog.
We dont tax food in this way - and rightly so. but what we dont do is recognise that food is a progressive contributory factor - you dont get obese overnight. As I see it, someone who weighs 15 stone did, at some point, weigh less than that. The problem is when individuals dont recognise that they are allowing their weight to become a problem. And it isnt just a problem for the individual - it’s a problem for society. From NHS money spent on diabetes patients to the cost (time and money) or fire fighters having to act as a rescue/taxi service it isnt just a matter of someone liking cake. (and trust me, i really do like cake.)
So how do we deal with it? for me, it starts with the managing the problem. Anyone who wants to sign on as obese can do - but there is a strict programme of weight loss that’s incorporated into their benefits. after a period of time, if they have failed to lose the weight, they lose the benefit. It’s worth saying that i believe in investing in a proper rehabilitation program - as with drug and alcohol addicts. The main thing is that the responsibility to take action lies with the individual, and if there is one thing that the current Government hates, it’s empowering individuals to take action for themselves - and society suffers as a result. | <urn:uuid:b3a62175-f4c5-42d0-9467-39cb470cb0c2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nickpickles.co.uk/?tag=obesity | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965362 | 488 | 1.75 | 2 |
The beloved Dog Whisperer, Cesar Milan, might be able to work magic on all types of dogs, but according to a former employee, he didn’t treat his two-legged friends so well.
In a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Wednesday, Sean Hawkins, the former executive director of the Cesar and Ilusion Milan Foundation, alleged that he was unlawfully fired after seeking treatment for his alcoholism.
The court documents reveal Hawkins began working at the foundation in May, 2009.
Listed in these court documents were numerous financial contributions Hawkins claimed that he garnered for the foundation during his tenure as executive director.
“Plaintiff was suffering from alcoholism during the relative period of this complaint, which substantially impaired many of his normal life activities. Alcoholism is a disability recognized by the California Fair Employment and Housing Act “FEHA,” read the documents.
Hawkins claims that he was “encouraged and directed” to enter a treatment facility for his alcoholism, which he did on June 1, 2010.
He says he was told he was a valuable employee and “You will have your job and your salary when you return to work.”
After 30 days in a rehab facility Hawkins claimed to return to work where he suffered retaliation for entering the treatment center.
He claimed another person was hired in his place while he was in rehab and he was told he no longer was the executive director of the foundation and that he complained about the changes in his employment.
He states was ultimately terminated from his job on July 20, 2010, “a mere two weeks after he returned from a protected leave and after he complained about being stripped of his job.”
The lawsuit asks for Hawkins to be reinstated and for an amount of money to be determined by the court at trial. | <urn:uuid:dd4c7f66-b932-403b-83b0-9ece6735c8dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://radaronline.com/exclusives/2010/11/dog-whisperer-former-employee-sues-being-fired-after-booze-rehab/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990004 | 376 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Since the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy in the mid-1990s, HIV infection has evolved from a near-certain death sentence to a manageable, chronic disease. Still, little is known about the long-term effects of HIV on human health. Two studies being presented today on cardiovascular health and HIV suggest that HIV-infected patients develop cardiovascular disease at a much earlier age than those without HIV and are more likely to die after hospital admission for a heart attack.
Daniel Pearce, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA, United States
Charles Hicks, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, United States | <urn:uuid:6cdd930f-3706-44ea-b55f-4abac4988bd5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.microbeworld.org/index.php?option=com_jlibrary&view=article&id=9346 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943097 | 129 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Children’s Book of the Week: Christmas Books
Every year we get the same Christmas books from the library, and I love that they’ve become such a part of our holiday ritual. We do have some Christmas books of our own that get year-round use (Mary Engelbreit’s The Night Before Christmas, The Polar Express, Mortimer’s Christmas Manger, and The Nativity) though I’m considering putting them away this year and bringing them out with the ornaments next year.
Here are the ones we love from the library:
Christmas in Noisy Village by Astrid Lindgren, illustrated by Ilon Wikland
Oh, I love this book so much. It’s from a little Swedish girl’s point of view, telling us how they spend Christmas in Noisy Village, a little group of three farmhouses where there are a bunch of children (and so it’s always noisy). There are all these homey, old-fashioned traditions (the children bringing their sleds out into the woods to gather wood, because everyone has to help out with Christmas work), but everything they do is also completely understood by any kid right now: baking cookies, waiting for Christmas to come, a Christmas feast. I just love that it’s all wrapped up in these old-timey words like “This cooky smell is the kind I like best” and “Christmas Eve is the longest day of the year. Waiting for presents is what turns your hair gray” and “I wish Christmas would come oftener, don’t you?” The kids all love this book as much as I do, and I’m so glad to see it’s still in print.
The Mole Family’s Christmas by Russell Hoban, illustrated by Lillian Hoban
Russell Hoban, how we worship you! This is such a great book. Delver Mole and his parents do their mole work, digging underground and being very nearsighted. Delver hears about Christmas from a mouse, and starts to dream about asking Santa for a telescope — because he’s heard about these things called “stars” but is too nearsighted to see them. His family knows that, in order to get a present from Santa, you need a chimney, so they go through all the trouble of making a chimney so they can ask Santa for the telescope. There’s some harrowing action with the local owl, but in the end it’s the owl who delivers the moles’ letter to Santa and makes Christmas happen. Like every Hoban book, this one is enormously fun to read, and the illustrations are wonderful.
Peter Spier’s Christmas by Peter Spier
My aunt turned us on to Peter Spier when she gave us People, which is a book that, after two years, is still one that can absorb the kids for hours. Christmas is no different. There are no words, just these lovely detailed illustrations that you get completely lost in. You follow a family as they prepare for Christmas (grocery shopping! decorating!), have Christmas (complete with feasting and church and presents), and then clean up afterwards. Every time you look at it you’ll notice something new, especially in scenes like the shopping mall or the church, where there are loads of people doing all kinds of different things (well, ok, in church they’re all mainly doing the same thing, but that’s what makes finding the fussy child even more fun). There is something incredibly magical about this book that I’m not even sure I can describe. This one is out of print (as is The Mole Family’s Christmas), and prices on amazon.com are ridiculous, but it shows on on eBay at more reasonable prices (and, in fact, I just snagged us an eBay copy because someone else got the library’s copy this year, and I found that I really missed it).
Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree by Robert Barry
Last year my mom said to me, “What’s that Christmas book about the tree that’s too big, and they keep cutting off the top, and more and more animals get the tree bits as it gets smaller and smaller?” Apparently it was one we had read when I was little, but I had no idea what she was talking about. Using my almost-librarian skills, however, we figured out that it was Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree and quickly inter-library loaned us a copy of it.
It’s great. Wonderfully effortless rhymes, and my mom’s synopsis is pretty much what happens. Mr. Willowby, a rich man, orders an enormous tree, one that’s just a trifle too enormous, so he cuts off the top and gives it to his maid. But the top bit is just a bit too big for the space where she puts it, so she cuts off a bit, and everyone else who gets the tree top does too, until finally a mouse family takes the last little tippy top bit and it’s perfect. I actually got us our own copy of this this year too (despite me telling my mom last year not to get it because we don’t need any more books) because it’s so wonderful, and we can fit it in with my new plan of packing away the Christmas books.
There’s another we got this year, but it’s the first time we’ve gotten it, so I can’t really call it one that has worked itself into our Christmas library book tradition. It’s An Early American Christmas by Tomie DePaola. DePaola lives in New Hampshire, and I guess he got curious one year about how Christmas used to be celebrated. Turns out it wasn’t really celebrated at all. So he tells the story of a family that comes from Germany and who does celebrate Christmas, and all the things they do, and how the other people in the town eventually celebrate Christmas more as well. There’s some really neat stuff here that I didn’t know about, like folding paper decorations and coating them in wax to hang outside on the bushes, or all the different kinds of cookies they make (as well as a maddening reference to “the Christmas pyramid” that isn’t explained any further — what could that be?). Henry has really been taken in by this book, making all kinds of paper hearts-in-hands and birds to hang on our windows.
One other that we got this year that I love but the kids are not quite as into is Little Tree by e.e. cummings. But I really love e.e. cummings, so that’s why I love this book. It’s just a lovely little poem about picking out a tree (a little tree) and bringing it home. I will say that the book we got from the library is illustrated by Deborah Kogan Ray (the one on amazon.com is illustrated by Chris Raschka), and I really love her pictures. She also illustrated this book we have by Charlotte Zolotow called The White Marble that is such a marvel of children’s bookery — I keep wanting to review it here but it’s such an enigma I’m not sure I can do it justice. At any rate it’s a summer book so I can wait until then. Anyway, seek out Little Tree if you want a nice poem-in-a-book in your Christmas book collection. | <urn:uuid:598b9a9f-7e43-44d5-bf96-68bd9caa0867> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://worldofjulie.com/?p=2496 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960328 | 1,605 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Office: Stark Learning Center
Dr. Kenneth M Klemow
Professor of Biology and GeoEnvironmental science, Dr. Kenneth Klemow, is involved with students in the classroom and through extensive field research. While most students know him as the professor for the spring-semester Principles of Modern Biology course, biology majors take one of his upper-level offerings. These offerings include Ecology, Field Botany, Medical Botany and Plant Diversity. Dr. Klemow has incorporated the talents of over fifty undergraduates into his research program, on projects ranging from wetland ecology and mapping to medicinal attributes of plants. He also serves as the curator and director of Wilkes’s Rosenthal Herbarium, and its Wetland and Restoration Ecology Laboratory.
Dr. Klemow has taken a leadership role in education and information-exchange initiatives with the Pennsylvania Biodiversity Partnership, the Ecological Society of America, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Science. He is a Certified Senior Ecologist and is listed in the Pennsylvania DEP Registry of Wetland Consultants and Professional Botanists. He is an active practitioner of science, being the owner of a private consulting company that conducts wetland delineations and other biological assessments.
Dr. Klemow received his B.S. in biology from the University of Miami. He later earned a M.S. and Ph.D. from the State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse.
In Dr. Klemow's words...
"I enjoy teaching at Wilkes because I have the opportunity to interact closely with highly motivated students. I especially like our truly supportive learning atmosphere in which students view their classmates as colleagues and not as competitors. Thus, students are focused on mastering the material, and do not have to worry about whether their neighbor is trying to sabotage their efforts. I also like the many opportunities to offer courses and research projects with faculty in other disciplines. Those collaborations really engage the students, and demonstrate that students and faculty together comprise a single group of active learners.
Although Wilkes students are highly diverse in many ways, the student body can be described as being both intelligent and hard working. Students are sincere, honest, and actively seek both personal and professional growth. Most of my students are individuals that are fun to be with, yet have the maturity to know that success comes through dedication to academic excellence." | <urn:uuid:b7b4ed13-4191-49d4-b1f1-759975594b19> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wilkes.edu/pages/969.asp?pidm=6138 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962627 | 487 | 1.75 | 2 |
Doug Rye, licensed architect and the popular host of the "Home Remedies" radio show
More on insulation
Foam is great but cellulose is still a favorite
The response from last month’s column has been amazing. I did not expect so many calls from folks who said their house had no insulation in the walls. Well, we are thrilled when we learn that the columns are giving you solutions to your energy efficiency problems.
My favorite call was from a lady in south central Arkansas. She asked who she could call to get the RetroFoam insulation for her house. Well, since I only knew one company in Arkansas that installed RetroFoam, I gave her the phone number of the one who helped us with the Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas’ home makeover last year.
Because she lives far from the company, I told her that I didn’t know if that company would be able to assist her. She said, “They have to because they have the answer to my problem. My walls are wet every winter and have been that way for years.”
I asked her several questions about the house and I am convinced that insulating the walls would solve her problem.
I feel certain that every person reading this column believes that insulation is important, but you may have questions about which kind to use, how much it costs and how much you need. So let’s take a closer look.
First, I want you to know that all insulation does not perform equally when the temperature is hot or cold outside the house. So, you immediately think to yourself, “That is when you need insulation, when it is hot or cold outside” and you are exactly right.
For many years I’ve been extolling the virtues of cellulose insulation and it remains a favorite of mine. I first learned about cellulose insulation, which is made from recycled newspapers, in the 1970s when I was working for the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA), overseeing construction of energy-efficient housing for low- and moderate-income families and senior citizens.
I learned about it from a builder in Mountain Home, Ark., who was using it to soundproof apartments. I decided to use it to soundproof FmHA-financed apartments and that’s when I found that it was also great for air insulation.
By metering many of the apartments and houses we built, I saw that the utility bills were always at least 20 percent less on structures insulated with cellulose. Because it works so well and is affordable, the use of cellulose insulation has mushroomed in recent years.
So, how do you use it? For existing homes, it may be feasible to spray dry cellulose in your walls. This can be done by simply drilling two-inch holes in the walls (sometimes interior, sometimes exterior) and spraying the cellulose through those holes, which can be easily patched when you are done. As for your attic, it is totally feasible in most cases to add cellulose insulation to any existing insulation you may have.
My rule of thumb is that when you are finished, you should have a minimum of 12 inches total of attic insulation. For example, if you have six inches now, add six more inches.
If your house is pier and beam with a crawl space, you can spray cellulose or foam insulation on the interior of the perimeter foundation wall. This will prevent pipes from freezing, loss of ductwork heat and the floors of your home will stay warmer in the winter.
Insulation is a very important part of energy efficiency, and because it will still be hot when you receive the next Illinois Country Living, and cold weather will be just around the corner, I will complete the Insulation Course 101 in September. In that issue, we will take a greater look at foam insulation.
Until then, stay cool.
Doug Rye, the “Doctor of Energy Efficiency-the King of Caulk and Talk” can be heard on several different Illinois radio stations. Or you can go to his Web site at www.dougrye.com, e-mail him at email@example.com, or call 888-Doug-Rye or 501-653-7931. You can also sign up for a free newsletter and order his “how to” videotapes.
For those who enjoy podcasts, you can simply visit the iTunes store and enter “Doug Rye’s Home Remedies” in the search window. You can listen to Doug anytime on your computer, iPod or smart phone.
© 2013 Illinois Country Living Magazine.
Designed and Maintained by Cooperative Design and Print. | <urn:uuid:caa0d929-6fcc-4457-b55f-e73be2a76872> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://icl.coop/icl/archive/archive/08_11/energy.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967824 | 973 | 1.742188 | 2 |
The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) was created on January 9, 1983, through an internal Department of Justice (DOJ) reorganization which combined the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA or Board) with the Immigration Judge function previously performed by the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) (now part of the Department of Homeland Security). Besides establishing EOIR as a separate agency within DOJ, this reorganization made the Immigration Courts independent of INS, the agency charged with enforcement of Federal immigration laws. The Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer (OCAHO) was added in 1987.
EOIR is also separate from the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices in the DOJ Civil Rights Division and the Office of Immigration Litigation in the DOJ Civil Division.
As an office within the Department of Justice, EOIR is headed by a Director who reports directly to the Deputy Attorney General. Its headquarters are located in Falls Church, Virginia, about 10 miles from downtown Washington, DC.
Office of the Director
Board of Immigration Appeals
Office of the Chief Immigration Judge
Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer
Office of the General Counsel
Office of Management Programs
Office of Planning, Analysis & Technology
EOIR is responsible for adjudicating immigration cases. Specifically, under delegated authority from the Attorney General, EOIR interprets and administers federal immigration laws by conducting immigration court proceedings, appellate reviews, and administrative hearings. EOIR is committed to providing fair, expeditious, and uniform application of the nation's immigration laws in all cases.
EOIR's primary mission is to adjudicate immigration cases in a careful and timely manner, including cases involving detained aliens, criminal aliens, and aliens seeking asylum as a form of relief from removal, while ensuring the standards of due process and fair treatment for all parties involved. In support of this mission, EOIR has identified certain goals and initiatives intended to:
- Increase productivity and timeliness of case processing by setting appropriate standards, streamlining procedures, and implementing staff-generated recommendations.
- Implement the case processing goals of the Institutional Hearing Program, rendering a final decision in each criminal alien case prior to the alien's release from incarceration.
- Improve customer service by providing easier access to information through expanded use of technology (e.g., automated telephone systems and Internet).
Updated September 2010 | <urn:uuid:2c86aa9e-5e53-443c-8fd6-4b858ffaa41d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.justice.gov/eoir/orginfo.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934028 | 484 | 1.59375 | 2 |
SARASOTA (CBS4) – A pair of prognosticating sea cows on the west coast have split when it comes to who they think will win the Super Bowl.
On Friday, researchers at the Mote Marine Lab in Sarasota dropped signs with the logos of the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Ban Packers into a tank which a pair of manatees, Hugh and Buffet, call home. Both have been trained to touch signs with their snouts.
Twenty-six-year-old Hugh picked the Steelers and 23-year-old Buffett picked the Packers. It should be noted that manatees generally have terrible eyesight.
The manatees were born in captivity and have never lived in the wild. The marine lab studies their behavior through training exercises to understand how to protect the marine mammals in the wild.
(©2011 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.) | <urn:uuid:de3fe790-0f91-44d8-bf8a-9202077602da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://miami.cbslocal.com/2011/02/06/manatees-split-on-super-bowl-picks/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962686 | 212 | 1.726563 | 2 |
While working with Brad Stone on his story about Facebook’s odd ads, I became curious about the apparent randomness of the ads I was seeing on the site. To borrow a line from Morrissey, they said nothing to me about my life. Some ads used information from my Facebook profile just to get my attention, like “Free gifts for men in Brooklyn!” But where was the precise demographic targeting that is the great promise of Web marketing?
A look at Facebook’s “Create an Ad” page inspired an experiment. Facebook lets advertisers aim their messages at people in certain places or age ranges, but also at those who have particular keywords in their profiles. I realized I had posted almost no information about my favorite bands, hobbies and so forth, making it hard for anyone to focus on me. So I beefed up my profile with a keyword bonanza: surfing, snowboarding, skateboarding, knitting, cooking, Xbox, Star Trek, Star Wars, Harry Potter and so forth. (Keywords are for experimental use only and do not reflect actual interests. Except maybe Star Wars.)
This produced some quick changes. Among other customized ads, I started getting the surfing- and cooking-themed campaigns shown above. In fact, foodies seem to be a big target for Facebook advertisers. But there were still plenty of junkier ads, like the Oprah one, which would seem to violate Facebook’s policy regarding the need for some connection between the image and the product being advertised. Unless Oprah is in need of debt relief.
For those who can’t get enough Web ads, Facebook helpfully offers an “Ad Board” with a whole slew of them. What do you see there? And why do you think you are seeing these ads in particular? Let us know in the comments. | <urn:uuid:c89ba4d5-ffd2-4835-a50a-7501fead46cb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/whats-in-your-facebook-ads/?ref=davidfgallagher | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961834 | 374 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Personnel Security Consultants Holds Children’s Art Contest for Child Abuse Awareness in Indian Country
For a third year in a row, Personnel Security Consultants, Inc. (PSC), an American-Indian owned security firm located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, launched a children’s art contest on February 18 for Native American elementary and middle school children. The best illustrations will be featured in a calendar intended to raise awareness of child abuse with calendar sales benefiting a local nonprofit that offers child abuse prevention and treatment programs, the First Nations Community HealthSource (FNCH) clinic.
“The whole purpose of the calendar is to recognize child abuse—what the signs are and who to report it to,” said Michele Justice (Navajo), PSC founder, president and chief executive officer. Justice started her business nine years ago to aid tribes in conducting background checks to meet federal law. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently named PSC one of 100 winners of the Blue Ribbon Small Business Award, representing the best small businesses in America. (Read: Native-Owned Security Firm Makes List of 100 Top Small Businesses in America)
Justice uses her position to promote positive change, specifically protecting Native children.
“When I do training I still meet so many people who don’t know what the signs of abuse are,” Justice explained. “We’re hoping that the calendar will help serve those communities we haven’t visited.”
In 1990, Congress passed the Indian Child Protection and Family Violence Prevention Act, which requires investigations for employees, contractors or volunteers who have contact with Indian children. But despite the law, abuse, incest and other crimes against Indian children still prevail, a PSC press release states. American Indian/Alaskan Native children experienced a rate of child abuse and neglect of 16.5 percent per 1,000 Indian children, compared with 10.8 percent for white children, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
“Their artwork is beautiful and what they say is beautiful,” Justice said. “We incorporate children’s art and words in the calendar to help spread the message of safety and pride in our heritage.”
This year’s theme of the contest is “What makes you proud to be a Native American?” Children in kindergarten through the eighth grade may enter. Deadline for submission of artwork is May 31. Twelve winners will be chosen and receive a prize package, including school supplies, and be showcased on PSC’s website for a vote for the calendar cover throughout the month of July. The cover winner will be recognized at the unveiling reception during Native American Heritage Month in November and receive a donation to his or her community. For contest rules and entry forms, go to PSC’s website at pscprotectsyou.com.
PSC is seeking calendar sponsors. Past sponsors include Exhibit Solutions, Fieldprint, International Security Network, Isotopes, Navajo National Oil and Gas Company, Office Max, Rock Gap Engineering, TeamScreen Solutions, Staples and U.S. Bank.
For more information about PSC, go to pscprotectsyou.com. | <urn:uuid:f56d3da5-94c3-4b98-b18f-b0759462e7ad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/02/20/personnel-security-consultants-holds-childrens-art-contest-child-abuse-awareness-indian | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930906 | 662 | 1.625 | 2 |
January 24, 2012
LIGHT IN THE ATTIC
“Essential to anyone searching for modern folk’s head waters.” – Q Magazine
“The old-timey accompaniment and Dalton’s bluesy vocals perfectly suit Hardin’s exquisitely sad songs.” – Uncut
Karen Dalton was a remote, elusive creature. A hybrid of tough and tender with an unearthly voice that seemed to embody a time long past. As is often the case with such fragile beings, she instinctively understood that the only way to survive the harshness of the world around her, was to keep herself hidden. So it comes as no great surprise that she rarely sang in public or ventured into the unnatural setting of a recording studio. Only twice, for 1969’s It’s So Hard To Tell Who’s Going To Love You The Best and then again for 1971’s In My Own Time, was she coaxed from her habitat into the studio. Other times she made music in casual settings, sitting around a kitchen table or wood burning stove with her friends, singing and playing until daybreak.
In 1966, Carl Baron brought his reel to reel over to her remote cabin in Summerville, Colorado and recorded one of those exquisite musical evenings. Karen and Richard Tucker were rehearsing for a gig when Carl hit the “Record” button. The result is a 45-year-old tape, carefully exhumed, documenting Karen at her most raw and unfiltered. On it are Fred Neil and Tim Hardin songs we’ve never heard Karen give voice to before, as well as traditional songs she uncannily makes her own, including a devastating version of ‘Katie Cruel’, that is so powerful, it is as if the ghost of Katie Cruel seeped into her blood. This recording is a window to her Summerville cabin opened, allowing us to eavesdrop on Karen Dalton at her most pure and unaffected. | <urn:uuid:d451146a-5858-460e-a5fe-d8e669c7a1a7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://miaindiemusic.com/?tag=light-in-the-attic | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96209 | 412 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Ashcroft v. Mattis - 431 U.S. 171 (1977)
U.S. Supreme Court
Ashcroft v. Mattis, 431 U.S. 171 (1977)
Ashcroft v. Mattis
Decided May 16, 1977
431 U.S. 171
ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT
Once the District Court had decided that the defendant police officers were not liable in appellee's suit against them for shooting and killing his son in an attempted escape from arrest, the suit no longer presented a live "case or controversy" entitling appellee to a declaratory judgment as to the constitutionality of Missouri statutes permitting police to use deadly force in apprehending a felon, and hence this Court is unable to consider the merits of the Court of Appeals' holding that such statutes were unconstitutional. Any emotional satisfaction that appellee would obtain from a ruling that his son's death was wrongful is not enough to meet the case or controversy requirement.
547 F.2d 1007, vacated and remanded.
Appellee's 18-year-old son was shot and killed by police while attempting to escape arrest. Appellee filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the police officers in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. He sought to recover damages, and also to obtain a declaratory judgment that the Missouri statutes authorizing the police action were unconstitutional. [Footnote 1] The District Court held that a defense of good faith had been established, and denied both forms of relief. No appeal was taken from the denial of damages, but appellee did seek review of the denial of declaratory relief. The Eighth Circuit held that declaratory relief was available and remanded for consideration of
the merits of the constitutional issue. Mattis v. Schnarr, 502 F.2d 588 (1974).
On remand, appellee filed an amended complaint, in which he made no claim for damages. The Missouri Attorney General was allowed to intervene in defense of the statutes, and the case was then submitted on stipulated facts. The District Court upheld the statutes, Mattis v. Schnarr, 404 F.Supp. 643 (1975), but was reversed by a divided Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, 547 F.2d 1007 (1976). The Attorney General brought an appeal under 28 U.S. C § 1254(2) from the holding that the state statutes were unconstitutional.
Although we are urged to consider the merits of the Court of Appeals' holding, we are unable to do so, because this suit does not now present a live "case or controversy." This suit was brought to determine the police officers' liability for the death of appellee's son. That issue has been decided, and there is no longer any possible basis for a damages claim. Nor is there any possible basis for a declaratory judgment. For a declaratory judgment to issue, there must be a dispute which "calls, not for an advisory opinion upon a hypothetical basis, but for an adjudication of present right upon established facts." Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Haworth, 300 U. S. 227, 300 U. S. 242 (1937). See also Maryland Casualty Co. v Pacific Coal & Oil Co., 312 U. S. 270, 312 U. S. 273 (1941). Here, the District Court was asked to answer the hypothetical question whether the defendants would have been liable apart from their defense of good faith. No "present right" of appellee was at stake. Indeed, appellee's primary claim of a present interest in the controversy is that he will obtain emotional satisfaction from a ruling that his son's death was wrongful. [Footnote 2] Appellee's
Motion to Affirm 5-6, n. 1. Emotional involvement in a lawsuit is not enough to meet the case or controversy requirement; were the rule otherwise, few cases could ever become moot.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded with instructions to direct the District Court to dismiss the second amended complaint.
It is so ordered.
These statutes permit police to use deadly force in apprehending a person who has committed a felony, following notice of the intent to arrest. Mo.Rev.Stat. §§ 559.040 and 544.190 (1969); see Mattis v. Schnarr, 502 F.2d 588, 591, and n. 4 (CA8 1974).
The second amended complaint also alleges that appellee has another son who,
"if ever arrested or brought under an attempt at arrest on suspicion of a felony, might flee or give the appearance of fleeing, and would therefore be in danger of being killed by these defendants or other police officers. . . ."
3 App. in Mattis v. Schnarr, No. 75-1849 (CA8), p. 5 (emphasis added). Such speculation is insufficient to establish the existence of a present, live controversy. | <urn:uuid:3bd0bbea-6c02-41d1-b46b-e566e810be22> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/431/171/case.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95637 | 1,062 | 1.609375 | 2 |
The Site Plan Review Committee (SPRC) was formed in the early 1970's at the request of the County Board as a Committee of the Planning Commission. Formation of the SPRC was an attempt to provide for a forum to resolve site plan issues before the proposals got to public hearing, in order to reduce the number of deferrals and length of discussion necessary at public hearings.
The Site Plan Review Committee reviews all site plans and major site plan amendments requests which are submitted to the County Board and the Planning Commission for consideration. The major responsibilities of the Site Plan Review Committee are the following:
As stated above, the SPRC currently consists of Planning Commissioners and members of other County Board appointed Commissions also serve on the SPRC. Commissions who wish to have representation on the SPRC have done so, again subject to requesting the SPRC Chairman that they have representation and notifying the staff coordinator. Some Commissions choose to have an alternate member in case the primary member is not available for a specific meeting; both representatives are listed on the SPRC membership list.
In addition, a number of citizen members (including ex-Planning Commissioners) also serve on the SPRC. The ex-Planning Commissioners serve either because they have been requested to by the SPRC Chairman or because they have requested themselves. In any case where there is some question as to membership, the policy has been that the SPRC Chairman and the Chairman of the Planning Commission must agree on the appointment.
In April, 2004, two documents were developed to guide the operation of SPRC:
Planning Commissioner Steve Cole, SPRC Chair
Members of the Planning Commission
Advisory Group Representatives: | <urn:uuid:8032e3d8-ee87-4507-84c7-90d51aad86d0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.arlingtonva.us/departments/Commissions/plancom/PlancomSPRC.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965889 | 339 | 1.539063 | 2 |
People traveling to central Florida from overseas will see some changes in the coming months.
Orlando International Airport is spending almost $500,000 on new equipment that should help to shorten lines while also maintaining air security.
It's a familiar sight at OIA, lines of people in the security checkpoint area but there are also big lines in the customs areas as travelers return from overseas flights.
Caroline Costa and her family are heading back to Brazil with a lot of shopping items, and they dread wading through customs lines.
"We buy the things and it's so heavy," said Costa. "We can't carry and so I don't know how we will send all those things because, I think, we all can't."
Orlando International Airport wants to speed the process for roughly 1.8 million incoming international travelers each year.
They are testing a Canadian version of a system now used in Australia called Smart Gate.
Passengers just scan their passports and enter declarations at a kiosk. Some versions also scan your face to ensure it matches your passport.
Sen. Bill Nelson said the result is fewer questions from customs officials.
"And then when they have the person to person contact with the customs officer he can be making an assessment with regard to anybody being up to no good instead of having to go through all of the administrative stuff," said Nelson. | <urn:uuid:6c2a6fea-f53c-43cd-8346-da86db1a4426> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wesh.com/news/central-florida/orange-county/OIA-to-spend-500-000-on-equipment-to-shorten-lines/-/12978032/17652940/-/lcr689z/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961384 | 278 | 1.601563 | 2 |
NAJAF, Iraq -- She is a 49-year-old divorced mother of seven children. He is a well-off farmer, with his own wife and children. Theirs is a secret betrothal, with perfunctory vows exchanged alone in a bedroom for an ephemeral union.
''Mutaa," a 1,400-year-old tradition alternately known as pleasure marriage and temporary marriage, is regaining popularity among Iraq's majority Shi'ite Muslim population after decades of being outlawed by the Sunni regime of Saddam Hussein.
According to Shi'ite religious law, unmarried women may enter into pleasure marriages with men (married or not) for periods as brief as a few minutes or as long as a lifetime. Dowries, too, range from virtually nothing to millions of Iraqi dinars.
Shi'ite clerics, including Iraq's highest religious authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, have sanctioned mutaa despite the social stigma attached to the marriages.
Women's activists in Iraq last year fought an effort by constitution drafters to endorse some form of Sharia, or Islamic law, in matters of marriage and family. The new national charter includes an article that allows Iraqis to choose their marital status according to their beliefs, and reinforces the primacy of civil authority in family law.
What an unexpected result of freedom.
I've had a few "mutaa's" in my life.
Originally Posted by BENDIS!
Heh. Well, we can at least say we accomplished that.
Join the Prime-Punch revolution!
Buy The Gathering!
I am surprised more people haven't commented.
They must think its a parody thread or something.
And theyre worried about us corrupting their morals?
Oh yeah another fact about Muslims-- every seven years Muslims males go thru what they call "pon far" where they must go back to Mecca and find a mate or they will die.
So they're related to the vulcans?????Originally Posted by stevapalooza | <urn:uuid:c525ecc4-39e8-4ee5-ab75-d2b1220a22e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.606studios.com/bendisboard/showthread.php?52654-Will-A-Free-Iraq-Mean-An-End-To-The-Sanctity-Of-Marriage | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950785 | 417 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Dr. Carole Barbato Honored at Awards CeremonyPosted Nov. 9, 2010
Dr. Carole Barbato, professor of communication studies at Kent State University at East Liverpool will be honored at an awards ceremony held by the Ohio Historical Society on Nov. 6. Barbato, will be honored alongside Kent State University’s Mark Seeman, professor of anthropology; Jerry Lewis, professor of sociology and Laura Davis, professor of English.
Barbato and her colleagues are recipients of the 2010 Ohio Historic Preservation Office Preservation Merit Awards for preparing an "exemplary documentation to nominate the May 4, 1970, Kent State Shootings Site to the National Register of Historic Place," said Mary Beth Hirsch, member of the Ohio Historical Society. In February, the May 4 shooting site was placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the Department of the Interior.
Patrick Andrus, the reviewer with the National Register of Historical Places for the Department of the Interior, commented that the submission authored by the four Kent State faculty members was very well done. “It really speaks for itself, demonstrating the exceptional importance of the events that took place at Kent State,” Andrus said. It did a good job of providing the historical significance in the context of the anti-war movement and the later impact and significance the events had in American politics.”
Barbato believes it is an honor to be a part of May 4 scholars who attempt to uncover truths of what really happened on that infamous day.
On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire into a crowd of unarmed Kent State students killing four and wounding nine others. Those who perished included Sandy Scheuer, William Schroeder, Allison Krause and Jeffrey Miller.
“In my research and activity related to the Kent State shootings I am always mindful of the fact that it could have been me,” Barbato said. “It is the obligation of this educational institution to teach the facts related to the shootings and to place it in historical perspective.”
Through the successful application to place the site on the National Register of Historic Places, the May 4 site Walking Tour and the May 4 Visitors Center were created. The dedication of the site took place on May 3.
The Kent State professor’s application may be found at http://www.nps.gov/nr/feature/weekly_features/KentStateShootingSite.pdf | <urn:uuid:a39c7bef-98fe-447f-a085-109381771678> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kent.edu/cci/news/newsdetail.cfm?newsitem=32CD9D96-FA64-E41C-72E17E87E4CB0FFE | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950277 | 497 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Absinthe rocked the world of Paris a century or so ago, with such pervasive and controversial force that it was called the "green fairy." You can see a famous 1890s painting of said fairy, and much else about the liquor that's been enjoying a reconstituted revival, via this link.
One of the things we took in during our visit to San Diego was a stop at the Maritime Museum, which is downtown and consists of several vessels (including not one but two submarines, including a Russian one dating from the cold war).
The star attraction, though, is the Star of India, which the museum bills as the oldest active sailing ship in the world. The ship doesn't sail often, mind you; in November, the largely volunteer crew takes it out in San Diego's harbour for a spin, and it returns to service as a floating museum.
To keep the Star of India ship-shape, maintenance is an ongoing challenge. The morning we were there, this volunteer was removing laquer on the top deck, in preparation for a new application to come later. Not the easiest work, and it shows the dedication of the people keeping a slice of maritime history on top of the water.
A great thing about having a very curious 11-year-old is that you learn all kinds of things, just by being around. Nick has asked me to record Nova, the PBS program, which I hadn't been watching regularly for years. I've been enjoying them anew, including one called Riddles of the Sphinx, from which I learned, well, much of what I now know about one of the world's best-known structures. It was absolutely fascinating.
This past weekend, the missus packed a picnic lunch, the kid picked out some road tunes and I filled up the tank with gas. We didn’t’ actually use that much, mind you. Cupids, after all, is barely an hour outside St. John’s.
That said, it was a pretty transporting daytrip, in part because of the fete that Cupids is putting on to celebrate its 400th anniversary. We’re planning at least one more trip before the summer is out – there were things still on our list, and we saw plenty that we wanted to explore.
Cupids 400 With some solid government support and private sponsors, Cupids 400 has a website worthy of the significance of the event – the first planned English settlement in what is now Canada. This is your anchor, whether or not you can make the trip.
At the very least, learn about John Guy, the Cupers Cove colony founded in 1610, and remarkable stories involving the archeology and scholarship that have flourished in recent years.
If you can make the trip, this site is the best place to start. You’ll get a sense of what you can see, including the brand-new Legacy Centre, which is a terrific community museum. (The online component isn’t quite there yet, but I’m hoping that can be beefed up.) You can also read some of the background of the digs that have put Cupids on the archeological map lately.
Cupids Cove Chatter Chatter uses a blog format for quick updates on what’s happening around the community, which has been decked out for the summer. Cupids and its neighbours are hosting numerous activities – concerts, plays, get-togethers, you name it – well beyond the standard tourism centre. I’ve been kept abreast of Chatter postings thanks to the diligent work of Twitter friend Margaret Ayad, who has helped keep Cupids top of mind for a whole online community. Meanwhile, look for lots of links, including a Flickr group to see what’s been going on so far.
New World Theatre Project Rabbittown Theatre of St. John’s has branched out to Cupids for this season, with a program that’s kind of ambitious: it’s staging two Shakespearean plays, plus three originals (including a dinner theatre). We caught three of the productions in a single day, including the effervescent Chris Driedzic’s brief one-man show on the fire that destroyed the legendary Globe theatre. You can find out about productions and times here.
Elsewhere this week
Twitter of the Day Earlier this winter, the people who count such things announced that 50 million tweets were moving into the ether every single day. Woof. Even if you follow a moderate number of people or organizations, it’s impossible (and, to be blunt, just not a good idea) to keep up with everything they say. The appeal of Twitter of the Day is that particularly clever or insightful or colourful things get picked for you.
15 Things You Should Know About Breasts Sounds dirty, but boy, is it not. This infographic is packed with information that everyone should know, but given that it’s published by OnlineSchools.org, I suspect it’s meant mainly for older students, and particularly boys at that. Some inaccurate assumptions about smoking, cosmetic surgery and breastfeeding get the fact-checking they’ve had coming. This is a great public health tool, but it may not please all parents or grown-ups, nor is it appropriate for young kids. [UPDATE: This link is no longer active.]
Lost map It didn’t have a name, but the Island on Lost sure saw a lot of action, from a plane crash to a temple to a freighter exploding into bits just offshore. Fans of the recently concluded TV show will be intrigued to see what a Virginian mapmaker named Jonah M. Adkins came up with after (apparently) following the show quite closely – a map with many of the key settings, from Jacob’s cave to Jughead to the various Dharma stations. Look for links to buy a copy, plus notes from the mapmaker himself.
A highlight of my visit to Washington in April: the Abraham Lincoln exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, which included his inconic stovepipe hat. It had never occurred to me that the hat was a style choice, made for a political effect; that is, Lincoln was already tall enough, but chose a hat to ensure that everyone in a crowd could pick him out.
Here's a Flickr stream to keep an eye on: John Guy 2010 is gathering photos for the upcoming Cupids 400 celebrations. The pick above, by Dennis Flynn, is from a "baby shower" that was held in March for the first English child born in Canada.
A site that is helping a local cancer fundraiser evolve into a bit of a movement is the starting point for this week’s tour around the web. We’ll also check in some musical celebrations, keep up to date with heritage properties and learn about what makes cats ticks. Or purr, as the case may be.
Shave For the Brave The first Shave for the Brave happened in 2006. In a few short years, it’s gone from a relatively small fundraiser for St. John’s-based Young Adult Cancer Canada, pulling in about $40,000 that first year to five times as much last year. Shave for the Brave now seems to have household name recognition in our area, with hundreds of kids and adults alike signing up to have their hair shaved off, with proceeds going towards programs aimed at young adults dealing with a cancer diagnosis.
Shaving season is coming soon (with a major mass-shave at the Avalon Mall on March 6, for instance), so now is the time to register and collect pledges. How much would your friends and colleagues pay to see you lose your locks? Now’s a good time to find out. The site has plenty of information about what it calls “the coolest cancer fund-raiser in Canada.”
Elsewhere this week
ECMAs 2010 Ruckus on the Edge: Juno Week A couple of musical events are on the calendar for the coming weeks. The East Coast Music Awards are coming up in March in North Sydney; you can check out the nominees and such now, but keep an eye on the site for the weekend, as the ECMAs do boost their online presence.
Meanwhile, there are just over seven weeks now do the Junos in St. John’s. The so-called Ruckus on the Edge celebration is still a little scanty on the details (i.e., who’s playing and when) but you can get a sense of how the full week will shape up. You can even enter a tune in a contest for the theme song. Hurry: the deadline for that is next week.
17 Things Worth Knowing About Your Cat I love The Oatmeal, which makes web-based infographics that are spot-on with the facts and fun to look at besides. This one is a list of remarkable facts about the common housecat, from their well-known visual acuity to the famous scientist who invented the cat door. Historic Trust The Newfoundland Historic Trust has been a force in the province since the 1960s, and has played a strong role in preserving – and cherishing – important houses, churches and other buildings. Its website has been freshly re-launched. Look for a Flickr-powered slideshow that will take you right around the province.
The Archers The longest-running soap opera in the world is a British radio serial that airs six days a week, just as they’ve been doing since 1950. The story of the goings-on of a fictional farming village is also pretty addictive, even though there are more characters than anything in Dickens or Trollope. You can listen to BBC Radio 4 live if you like for your daily 13-minute serving, but you may find it easier to subscribe to the podcast. (It’s worth noting that The Archers is the most popular online program offered by the BBC.) The companion site is filled with detail, including synopses, character biographies and interactive features.
Doodle Have you ever tried to get a group of different people – like volunteers on a committee, for instance – in the same place at a same time? It can be a bit of a challenge, particularly if people work in different places and have different schedules. Here’s a tool that can really help you. Doodle is a web-based tool that allows everyone to select scheduling options, or even make a group decision, without so much as a phone call.
If there’s on thing that Newfoundlanders love to do, it’s to root for their own. Consider Canadian Idol (when in season), various Facebook groups that have the arbitrary purpose of just gathering a bunch of Newfoundlanders, and – most recently – a campaign to put St. John’s on the next Canadian edition of Monopoly.
Monopoly Canada You can buy Monopoly editions devoted to everything from the Simpsons to golf to even I Love Lucy. National editions abound, and for the next Canadian edition, the public has been invited to make the choices. Through the last couple of weeks, St. John’s has done well, but as I write this, has slipped from 6th to 10th place in a matter of a couple of days.
It’s not just getting a square on the board, of course, but which square. That is, the highest votes get the royal-blue colours that usually go to Boardwalk and Park Place, the next three get the deep green colours, and so on. In other words, a motivation for residents and/or supporters of various cities to keep voting (you can do it once a day), to get or hold on to a prestigious colour.
There are still more than three weeks to vote. Let’s see where the dice land.
Elsewhere this week
A History of the World in 100 Objects Earlier this month, BBC Radio 4 launched what’s already turned out to be a fascinating series: an attempt to tell the history of civilization, through a set of objects. I’ve been hearing some of the segments live through streaming radio; here, on the companion site, you can not only learn more, but contribute to the project – or, as they put it, “make history” yourself.
You can follow each day’s contribution through a podcast, the blog, supplementary information, and more, all in collaboration with staff at the British Museum. As host Neil MacGregor put it, the creators are passionate about physical objects, namely “things made by somebody with hands just like ours, for a purpose we can still hope to understand.”
My Parents Were Awesome There comes a point when people – the teenage years, as young adults, maybe later – when people realize their parents are not space aliens but interesting, worthy human beings. My Parents Were Awesome is a collection of photographs that readers submit from years past (many, many years, on occasion) showing their parents. Some of the photos are hilarious, some are depictions of the time that taste forgot, and some are quite touching.
Bettween It’s Bettween, not between, but that’s the point: this is a tool in which you can track conversations (i.e., replies) between two particular Twitter users.
Age of Persuasion episodes Friends of mine, who have an evidently more pure ideal of what CBC Radio should be, were shocked the network started a half-hour program on advertising. For me, The Age of Persuasion with host and marketing guru Terry O’Reilly is one of the smartest, best produced programs on the network, with weekly insights that go well beyond how commercials work. If you miss the show, you can stream it here, plus past episodes; downloads or podcasts, unfortunately, are still off limits because of copyright issues.
Epic Win FTW If the title of this site doesn’t make immediate sense, we’ll catch you up. “Epic win” is one way of saying “astonishingly cool,” and FTW stands for “for the win.” Which, um, kind of makes the title redundant. But don’t worry about that; instead, check in regularly for loads of cool things, especially hilarious pictures, often with a fanboy edge.
John Gushue is a writer in St. John's, and is currently on leave from his job with CBC News in St. John's. John is on Twitter right here.
There's a potter in the house, so this bit - a discovery in China that rolls the clock back on the start of ceramics by a millennium or so - will likely interest her more than me. But I found it pretty fascinating all the same.
Dot Dot Dot is Morse code for the letter 'S,' the full message Guglielmo Marconi claimed to have received atop Signal Hill in St. John's in 1901. It ushered in the age of telecommunications. My maternal grandfather worked as a telegraph operator for Canadian Marconi on Signal Hill for many years.
As well, I have a habit of overusing the ellipsis when I write ... as frequent readers might notice. | <urn:uuid:73e6a7d8-a536-4de6-8211-8af3e178f0a7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://johngushue.typepad.com/blog/history/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963206 | 3,156 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Michael Isikoff, NBC- It seems straight out of a Cold War spy movie. A group of Cuban undercover agents sneak into the U.S. and set up a secret pro-Castro network in south Florida — receiving instructions in code through late night radio transmissions from handlers in Havana. But the FBI gets wind, tails the agents, intercepts their messages and busts them, sending the agents off to federal prison, their ringleader for life.
Today, the story of those spies — called La Red Avispa, or the Wasp Network — rolled up by the feds 14 years ago is barely known in the United States. But its members, now known as the Cuban Five, are national heroes in Cuba — the subjects of mass demonstrations, their pictures on billboards and posters – and their petitions for freedom are championed around the world by Nobel Prize winners, celebrities like Danny Glover, even former President Jimmy Carter. | <urn:uuid:5472a015-9a8e-4e32-a1a3-372274ad634d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.democracyinamericas.org/latest-news/cuba-pushes-swap-its-spies-jailed-in-us-for-american-contractor-held-in-havana/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945224 | 186 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Although the reputation of the club industry has improved during the past 30 years, the business practices of some club operators could send the industry back in time.
Industry experts recall the beginning of the health club industry boom in the 1970s as an almost lawless time, with few rules governing the business practices of club owners and operators. It wasn't uncommon for a prospective client to hand over a wristwatch as collateral when agreeing to a membership. As health club laws were enacted, some club operators who had shady dealings were banned from certain states and were told they couldn't do business there for the next two or three years, says Rick Caro, an industry leader and president of the consulting company Management Vision. Caro says the club industry's reputation today is improved, if only slightly.
“If you trace it back five or 10 years, we were often No. 2 or No. 3 behind used car salesmen in terms of complaints for bad business practices,” Caro says. “Today, we're much lower in the list. We still might be in the top 20, but we're not No. 1 or No. 2 the way we had been.”
However, the business practices of club owners and operators are still under scrutiny by the public, the media and government agencies. Some recent headline-grabbing cases involving health club owners may have some people thinking that the industry hasn't come far enough since the 1970s.
Both New York City and the state of New York has had its share of misgivings involving the club industry. An article in the June issue of the Harvard Business Review cites an investigation by the New York City Council a few years ago. The council concluded that 41 percent of clubs in the city didn't explain their fees in writing, 81 percent didn't give potential members a contract to read at home, and 96 percent didn't inform customers of all the ways they could legally cancel a contract. Gail McGovern and Youngme Moon, the authors of the magazine article, also report that the U.S. Better Business Bureau receives thousands of complaints a year about the health club industry, putting it in the top 1 percent for the volume of complaints received.
Perhaps the most well-known case of bad press involving the fitness industry relates to the negative publicity that Bally Total Fitness has received in the past few years. Bally was taken to task in a 2001 investigation by then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer for its sales and marketing practices. Bally settled in 2004, agreeing to improve its cancellation policies, monitor compliance with them and make restitution to customers.
Late last month, the company announced it would restructure through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. The restructuring comes after years of growing debt, changes in accounting procedures that delayed financial filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) at least two times, an investigation by the SEC into accounting practices of the chain, the resignation of two CEOs, an internal investigation that blamed former executives for accounting issues, and a delisting from the New York Stock Exchange after Bally's stock dropped below $1. (For more on Bally's recent news, see page 8.)
A recent self-published book by a former Bally trainer, Richard Thomas, also makes claims about operating practices at Bally clubs. In his new book, “Fat Power: A Former Bally Total Fitness Employee Ventures into the Corrupt Gym,” Thomas claims that Bally “is a criminal enterprise.”
Thomas worked at a Bally in Brooklyn, NY, for 13 weeks in 2004. During that time, Thomas, who was a boxer but had no prior experience as a personal trainer, says he was told selling as many memberships as he could was more important than training clients.
“The supervisor told me, ‘We don't care how good of a personal trainer you are. We just care how many contracts you bring in,’” Thomas says.
Thomas's supervisor was Kevin Mathieu, a Bally fitness director who has been an employee of the company for the last eight years. In the book, Thomas questioned Mathieu's business practices. He alleges that Mathieu told a client that Bally only took checks if the full amount was paid. When the client said she didn't have the full amount in her account, Mathieu allegedly responded, “How much money do you have in your bank account?”
In another instance, after a client fainted during a workout, Mathieu allegedly told the rest of the trainers at a staff meeting, “It's good when a client faints; it gives them an incentive to buy personal training sessions.”
Mathieu denies any and all allegations made by Thomas.
“Absolutely not. Incorrect. No way,” Mathieu says of Thomas's claims. He added that Thomas was unproductive and “wasn't a good hire,” but he wished Thomas well.
“He's a very smart individual, very intelligent,” Mathieu says. “He wasn't ideal for the position.”
Thomas also questioned Bally's $19 down, $19 a month advertisement, which attracted a lot of customers. Thomas says that the deal only applies for members who sign up for three days a week and are only permitted to use the gym during off-peak hours. Otherwise, the cost to go anytime and to any Bally location is $3,000 for three years, Thomas says.
Thomas had other issues during his employment at Bally and sued the company for $175,407.50 in back pay, overtime and punitive damages. The case went to the New York State Supreme Court, which upheld previous rulings in favor of Bally.
Matt Messinger, spokesperson for Bally Total Fitness, says he has not seen Thomas's book and cannot comment on it or the allegations in it.
Sometimes the practices of smaller club owners also catch the glare of the media spotlight. Take the case of Manny Butera, who at one time was the largest World Gym franchisee in the world. Today, at least 10 lawsuits have been filed against Butera and his business operations, a number that Caro calls highly unusual for one club owner. Butera filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December and personal bankruptcy in April.
Financial troubles forced the 17-year fitness industry veteran to close five clubs in Georgia, three clubs in Tennessee and two presale locations in Huntsville, AL. Butera, who once owned 16 clubs and managed 35 others, now owns six clubs renamed as Fuel Fitness, headquartered in Brentwood, TN. His management company, Total Fitness Systems, now manages one club in Texas.
“My investors pulled out of the deal in December of 2005 right after we were unable to secure the purchase of World Gym,” says Butera, who had tried to purchase the franchise business prior to it being sold to Planet Fitness last October. “We didn't have enough capital to keep everything afloat.”
Two of Butera's largest creditors — United Leasing and Leaf Funding Inc. — filed suit to recover the losses on defaulted equipment leases. United Leasing sued Butera; his wife, Jennifer Butera; and his former business partners, Brian and Tacy Ball, and Dirk and Robyn Parkinson, for more than $1 million for allegedly defaulting on four equipment lease agreements for clubs in Tennessee.
In turn, the Balls and Parkinsons sued Butera. In a February filing with the Nashville division of the U.S. District Court, the Parkinsons allege that Butera forged signatures on lease documents and used their financial statements to take advantage of their names and credit without their knowledge or consent. The case is now in the discovery phase, says Larry Ahern, a Nashville attorney representing United Leasing in the lawsuits.
Leaf Funding Inc. sued Butera and his business partners for failing to make lease payments, failing to insure the property and improperly moving or transferring equipment, according to an Oct. 13 filing with the U.S. District Court, Middle District of Tennessee.
Leaf Funding Inc., which estimated its damages at $2.9 million, signed a master lease agreement with Butera, Jennifer Butera, Brian Ball and Dirk Parkinson in May 2005. The creditor financed 710 pieces of fitness equipment but initially only recovered 250 pieces of equipment after Butera closed the clubs in Georgia.
Later, the equipment was discovered in three locations in Huntsville, AL, (a storage unit, a presale space and a large warehouse) and at a World Gym in Leamington, Ontario, Canada, owned by Butera's brother, Rick Butera, and other business partners.
As part of a contractual arrangement between Star Trac (the manufacturer of the equipment) and Leaf Funding, Star Trac repossessed the Leaf-financed equipment in both cities in January, according to an April filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court. In April, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court authorized the sale of the leased equipment.
Butera says the leased equipment from his club in Duluth, GA, was transferred to his brother's World Gym in Leamington after the Georgia club closed in May 2006. However, in court documents, Leaf Funding asserts that it was not aware that the equipment had been moved across international borders until after it had been transferred to Canada. Butera says he made every effort to restructure the equipment leases with Leaf, but it fell on deaf ears.
“We told them that we were heading down a path that wasn't sustainable,” he says.
Although Rick Butera and Manny Butera are brothers, they run separate operations, Butera says. In fact, World Gym required Rick Butera to sign an agreement stating that Manny Butera would not have any involvement with investing or consulting for his World Gym in Leamington. Manny Butera had operated his facilities as World Gyms for several years, but in November, World Gym broke ties with him.
“It was mutual but forced upon us,” Chris Rondeau, the CEO of World Gym, says about the split. “We didn't like the ethics and background of the person in charge, and we decided not to have him associated with World Gym because of the business ethics behind him.”
At this time, World Gym plans to continue its contract with Rick Butera, Rondeau says.
A stone's throw away in a neighboring state from the Fuel Fitness headquarters is Peak Fitness, a growing chain in the Carolina region which had 14 clubs at the beginning of 2006. By the end of the year, Peak Fitness, run by Fitness Management Group Inc., Charlotte, NC, acquired 13 more clubs and opened seven others.
In July 2006, Peak Fitness bought eight Capital Fitness Spa Health Clubs, which had been operated by former Capital Fitness Chief Executive Officer Rick Quinn. In late 2005, Capital Fitness assessed a $25 “upfit” fee to its members who had already paid their monthly, annual or lifetime dues. In a letter to members, Capital Fitness explained that the fee would help pay higher electric bills and $1.5 million in club upgrades. With 40,000 members at the then-six Capital Fitness clubs, the $25 fee could have generated a cool$1 million. Quinn said members were not given enough notice about the added fee, and after several objections and complaints, Capital Fitness backed off on its additional fee.
“When we did this, we knew we were going to get questions and a bit of controversy,” Quinn told the Raleigh News & Observer in December 2005. “All we're trying to do is make sure we're here, that we're here long term.”
The Beyond Fitness clubs that Peak Fitness acquired in 2006 received much more criticism. Beyond Fitness, which changed its name to So Fit before the Peak Fitness takeover of its five clubs, was at the center of an investigation by the TV station ABC11 in the Raleigh/Durham, NC, area. The investigation found mold at one gym and broken equipment at each of the four gyms that ABC11 visited.
ABC11 reporter Diane Wilson attempted to talk to Randall Rohm, the owner of the facilities at the time. With the camera rolling, Wilson approached Rohm in the parking lot of a Beyond Fitness, but he denied he was Rohm, instead saying that he was “Craig.” Later, the reporter says Rohm acknowledged that he was the man she spoke to in the parking lot. However, his lawyer and he later denied that again. Two former Beyond Fitness employees identified the man in the parking lot as Rohm, Wilson says.
In a statement to ABC11, Rohm said that several of the clubs had been painted, equipment had been updated and sanitary conditions were being improved.
“As you know, 70,000 members are not always neat and tidy,” Rohm said in the statement.
Prior to the sale of Beyond Fitness to Peak Fitness, the North Carolina Attorney General's office received more than 350 complaints for all the Beyond Fitness clubs over a three-year period, according to the TV station, and the Better Business Bureau listed the club with an unsatisfactory record, with more than 200 complaints during that time. The clubs drew consumer complaints related to deceptive advertising, unsuitable facilities and equipment, improper billing, failure to pay refunds, bounced checks, and collection practices.
Rohm also allegedly took money upfront for dozens of pre-paid memberships for a planned location that never opened. The North Carolina Attorney General's office recovered more than $50,000 in refunds for 182 consumers.
The North Carolina Attorney General's office filed a lawsuit against Peak Fitness in March for issues related to the former Beyond Fitness clubs and for issues related to the current club. Attorney General Roy Cooper alleges that both Rohm and the current owner, Jeff Stec, sold pre-paid contracts without state-required bonds, which are used to pay refunds if a club goes out of business.
Also in the lawsuit, Cooper says Peak Fitness displayed a newspaper advertisement that he said was misleading. The ad claimed that members could access any of the 34 Peak Fitness clubs for $19.99 a month. In the fine print below the price, the ad stated that certain restrictions applied, based on a 24-month paid-in-full membership. Rather than paying $19.99 a month, consumers were required to pay $479.76 at the time the contract was signed.
Peak Fitness agreed to remove the ads despite insisting they were not misleading. The company did not have any members complain about paying for the two-year membership that was advertised, says Ken Hanley, the CFO of Fitness Management Group Inc.
“You have the option to do it or not do it,” Hanley says. “It's not like they get six months into the deal and realize, ‘Oh, wait a minute. I'm being overcharged.’ The fine print isn't like you see on a lot of these car dealers that put it where you can't see it without a magnifying glass. It was completely legible.”
The lawsuit was still in the discovery phase as of the end of May. Noelle Talley, a spokesperson for Cooper, says the goal of the attorney general's office is to protect consumers.
“We want to make sure that consumers who are going to these facilities are getting what they pay for, and consumers who respond to these ads get what was promised to them,” Talley says. The attorney general's office also is working to ensure that dissatisfied former members of the former Beyond Fitness clubs now being operated by Peak Fitness receive refunds.
“The ownership and operation with these clubs has been very confusing, and that's one of the things we're seeking through the discovery process to get enough information so that we can find out exactly who owned what club and who operated what club at what time,” Talley says. “That's why we eventually resorted to going to court because we just weren't able to get the satisfaction for these consumers that they deserve.”
“It's a real sore spot for us,” says Hanley. “The Beyond Fitness club, we knew they had some issues with the attorney general's office and some member complaints but certainly had no idea how bad it really was. Now that we've acquired the Beyond Fitness chain, [former Beyond Fitness members and the attorney general's office] finally have somebody they can get to, more or less. The old Beyond Fitness guys scattered, and there was no way for the state to even get in touch with the individuals.”
Peak Fitness is trying to distance itself from Rohm, Beyond Fitness and the troubles that occurred under Rohm's watch. Hanley says Peak Fitness has taken on about 20 outstanding complaints with the Department of Justice from under Rohm's ownership.
“It's similar to going and buying a used car,” says Ian Byrne, a Charlotte lawyer representing Peak Fitness. “Someone owned it before you, but you're not responsible for it if it ran somebody over when someone else had it. Peak doesn't assume liability for anything that Beyond did. They're not responsible for any of Beyond's obligations.”
Hanley says Peak Fitness, which opened its first club in 1999, will continue to expand, with plans to open five more clubs this year.
Better Days Ahead
Despite the issues that these club owners and others face, owners are making a more conscious effort to be more open with consumers about their business practices, the Harvard Business Review article says. The magazine cites Life Time Fitness's 30-day money-back guarantee and the pay-as-you-go options offered by clubs such as Curves and 24 Hour Fitness as examples of better business practices in the industry.
“More and more club operators realize that the proper and ideal way to run the business is on a monthly dues basis with very few dollars pre-paid upfront,” Caro says, “which puts much more pressure on the businessman to have a better business plan to start with and a better understanding of how the business will operate.”
Caro points out that club operators are also doing a better job of capitalizing the business at the outset and are improving business skills by raising money through proper sources. Landlords of club facilities are asking for tougher terms in terms of collateral and guarantees, Caro adds.
“With 29,000 commercial clubs, you're always going to have some people who don't behave and at worst, violate laws,” Caro says. “But I think it's less true of the industry than ever before. I think we're much better business people than we were previously.” | <urn:uuid:0f4c0d9f-2c50-491e-94d8-a4964b5a5ee9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://clubindustry.com/mag/eye-industry | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980758 | 3,881 | 1.617188 | 2 |
By Lars Dalseide
Tulsa, Oklahoma --(Ammoland.com)- The second week of the Curator’s Corner move from Thursday to Monday nights stayed in Oklahoma yesterday as battling Curators went completely gaga over an Oklahoma owned piece of American history.
The owner? Former U.S. Marshal and Pryor, Oklahoma Police Chief Austin Whitaker.
The gun? A Smith & Wesson .38 revolver.
The history? How about Pretty Boy Floyd?
“Whitaker was involved in a manhunt for Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd,” explained Davis Arms & Historical Museum curator Jason Schubert. “After they caught him, the FBI agent who was running the operation took this gun off of Floyd and gave it to Whitaker.”
What else makes this revolver so special? Well, nothing.
“It’s any revolver that you’ve ever seen,” said National Firearms Museum Director Jim Supica. “The Smith & Wesson 1905 worked, it was simple and it was effective. They became the basic police revolver through the 20th Century.”
Charles ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd’s Smith and Wesson .38 revolver from Davis Museum in Oklahoma
The Smith & Wesson Model 1905 is a double action .38 special revolver on a standard K-frame. With just over 600,000 ever made, this popular model was ultimately replaced with the semi-automatics at the close of the 20th Century.
Before they called it a wrap, Supica went on to praise the collection at Davis Arms.
“Davis does an outstanding job, they have a wonderful collection. I lived here for a couple of years and made it over there every chance I had.
“We want people to understand the role that firearms played in America and the story of Americans and their guns. We’re both working on getting that out to people.”
To see more spectacular firearms like the Smith & Wesson owned by Pretty Boy Floyd, tune in to the Sportsman Channel every Monday afternoon at 5pm eastern for Cam & Company on NRANews.
NRAblog is your connection to the programs of the NRA. It is a project of the NRA’s Media Relations Division. Visit: www.NRAblog.com | <urn:uuid:c3568b7b-f1f1-4793-96cc-d2d7ad0d352a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ammoland.com/2013/02/pretty-boy-floyds-smith-wesson-revolver/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946031 | 486 | 1.601563 | 2 |
- Special Sections
- Real Estate
Smoky days likely
to continue; all
for rest of season
Eastern Sierra residents have been hit hard in the past few weeks by smoke from a big fire on the Westside, and it’s not over yet.
Although cooler days accompanied the latest storm system that moved into the Sierra beginning Wednesday, the same storm system came with strong winds blowing west from the San Joaquin Valley.
That means smoke from the 4,875-acre Sheep Fire located in Sequoia Kings Canyon National Park will continue to move into the Eastern Sierra for some time, unless there is a change in the wind’s direction.
The smoky air has violated both state and federal standards for air quality several times in the past few days, with the greatest violations in the Owens Valley.
“It violated state standards in Mammoth earlier this week and violated both state and federal standards in Bishop and Independence several times over, several different times,” said Ted Schade, Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District’s director.
The number of particulates in the air has at times reached 180 micrometers of particulate matter (PM-10) in some places, with the federal standard being set at 150. State standards are even stricter; 50 micrometers is considered a violation of state standards.
Schade is losing patience with the smoke, even as he understands why the park service allows the fire to burn.
“I’m letting them know we’re tired of our skies looking like Los Angeles and that this is becoming a health hazard,” he said. “We (Great Basin and other air pollution control districts in the area) pitched a fit and reminded them that the standards are there for a reason. They sometimes forget there are about 25,000 of us living over here. But that’s all I can do. If there was even an inch of that fire in our district, I could give them a ticket. But I can’t.”
The good news is that there should be less smoke than before, given that the cooler temperatures mean fire activity is slowing down, according to park spokeswoman Debra Schweizer.
“Temperatures have been in the nineties and they are expected to go down into the seventies for the next few days,” she said.
The park service is aware of the problems on the Eastside and is considering them as they do fire management plans, she said.
There is still no estimated date for the fire to go out, since it is being allowed to burn unless it threatens human safety or property. The fire is being monitored but allowed to burn by park officials for three reasons, Schweizer said.
One, it was started by lightning and is considered to be a natural occurrence. Two it is not threatening any structures or human life.
Three, it is considered to be a good way to get rid of more than a century’s worth of dead and down trees and brush, the result of years of fire suppression. One hundred years of fire suppression policies are now being re-evaluated and this fire is helping to thin a dense forest that could later burn in a catastrophic manner.
This “overstocked” forest also makes for a smokier than usual fire, Schweizer said. “From the perspective of forest managers, this fire is doing everything we could have hoped for.”
Tuesday, Sept. 7, was the biggest day of growth for the fire so far, she said. On Tuesday Eastern Sierra residents got a lungful as the fire added another 500 acres. Its previous growth rate had been more like 200 acres a day, average, Schweizer said.
Another small fire also added to Eastern Sierra residents' misery. The Buckhorn Fire is a five-acre fire that started late last week behind the Minaret Range in the North Fork of the San Joaquin River drainage. That fire is being monitored but is not being actively suppressed because it is in a wilderness area, Inyo National Forest Service officials said. | <urn:uuid:8f397527-09d2-4fc4-b5d6-ade94d04d694> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mammothtimes.com/content/where-theres-fire-theres-smoke | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955822 | 879 | 1.5625 | 2 |
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TURTLE: THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY
Description: TURTLE: THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY is the story of a little loggerhead turtle, which follows in the path of her ancestors on one of the most extraordinary journeys in the natural world. Born on a beach in Florida, she rides the Gulf Stream all the way to the frozen north and ultimately swims around the entire North Atlantic to Africa and back to the beach where she was born. But the odds are stacked against her just one in 10,000 thousand turtles survive the journey. Along the way she faces many hazards, she loses her brothers and sisters in the Sargasso Sea, comes face to face with creatures of the deep and nearly dies at the hands of fishermen. A sunfish guides her to safety and a humpback whale shows her the way north. And when she finally reaches the frozen north, she sees the greatest celebration of life on the Earth but she also discovers deep and powerful changes happening in the oceans - the ice is melting and sea levels are rising it could halt the Gulf Stream, flood the turtle's birthing beaches and end a way of life. Then her calling comes, she must return home. Under a million stars, she crawls out of the sea to lay her own eggs and keep Turtle: The Incredible Journey alive. | <urn:uuid:3db7bf47-4cd4-412e-b28a-ad84af987cc1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.metacritic.com/movie/turtle-the-incredible-journey/trailers/2371044 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946508 | 285 | 1.835938 | 2 |
South Bend leaders are still debating how to deal with a rising groundwater issue after the recent closure of the city's Ethanol plant.
New Energy Plant filed for bankruptcy and closed in November, shutting off pumps that pushed about 6.2 million gallons of water out of the ground everyday.
Since then, many residents living nearby have reported flooding and water damage in their basements.
On Wednesday night, city leaders held their third public meeting to discuss the issue.
They discussed several possible solutions, including turning the plant's pumps back on.
But, taking action is complicated because the plant's owners are currently in bankruptcy court.
In order to get the pumps back on, Mayor Pete Buttigieg would have to make a request to the bankruptcy judge.
If it's approved, the city would likely have to foot the bill, which could be as high as $30,000 per month to keep all the pumps on.
And that doesn't include any work that might have to be completed if the city goes that route.
"It's not as easy as turning them on, because those ran through a process that is no longer operating," said Public Works Director Eric Horvath. "And, so we've got to somehow go around that process and that would take significant piping work."
Other solutions debated at Wednesday's meeting include adding a city well to help drain the water or taking legal action.
But, many residents are frustrated with how long it's taking the city to act.
While leaders debate a solution, the rising water under their homes is causing costly damage.
Common Council Vice President Oliver Davis told residents at the meeting they understand their frustrations and are working as quickly as possible toward a permanent solution.
"You have invested in your homes, so going back with this long-term solution, it could also hopefully as you look at it, not only solve problems, but restore property values," he said.
Horvath says the city will continue to monitor ground water levels; it installed two devices, allowing them to take weekly readings.
He has a meeting scheduled Friday to develop a groundwater model, which will help the city determine what would happen if they did turn New Energy's pumps back on.
In the meantime, the health department will hold two meetings next week for residents affected by the rising water.
From 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 30 and Thursday, Jan. 31, they'll explain how residents can cleanup some of the water and mold damage.
The department will also provide some cleaning supplies. | <urn:uuid:5edf78ca-f6a0-44f1-aefe-e28470627d62> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wndu.com/home/headlines/As-city-debates-solutions-resident-frustration-over-groundwater-issue-rises-188152281.html?site=mobile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979488 | 529 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Painted models, guns added
When West Germany rearmed in the 1950's the Bundeswehr based its armament on the German experience in WWII. Among its requested specific types of weaponry was a light armoured personnel carrier (Schützenpanzer
- SPZ) for its scouting forces. The result was the "SPZ Kurz" (short) introduced in 1958. It remained in service until the late 1970'sWikipedia
has more information on the originalMicro Armor Mayhem
has some photos of this model on his website (scroll up a bit).
This model consists of 5 miniatures on a sprue. They are unpainted and buyers will have to add gun barrels from thin wires or bristles. The turret is fixed.
1.328 w x
4.784 d x
0.523 w x
1.883 d x | <urn:uuid:d862f199-1e13-4a53-af83-dcc11a9bf053> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shapeways.com/model/406238/1-300-bundeswehr-hotchkiss-spz-kurz-x-5.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943957 | 175 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Overpass projects well underway
It took construction workers building the 196 Street overpass just two hours to install the steel girders that will carry cars and trucks over the busy railway tracks of the Roberts Banks rail corridor.
The span went up Dec. 11.
The installation was “extremely well planned and organized,” said Ken Zondervan, design and construction manager for the city of Surrey.
The next big milestone for the project will take place the evening of Tuesday, Jan. 22, when steel girders are scheduled to go up across the Langley Bypass.
Traffic on the Bypass will be shut down for a few hours late that night while the span is installed.
The more expensive steel allows longer, thinner girders than the concrete spans that make up the rest of the overpass, Zondervan explained.
The specially treated steel requires no more maintenance than concrete, he added.
Zondervan said work on on the other elements of the 196 Street overpass are going well.
“It’s on or slightly ahead of schedule”
The same applies to the related 54 Avenue project, which is on schedule or slightly ahead, with pile-driving well under way, Zondervan said.
But work on the 192 Street span is slightly behind schedule because the relocation of gas and electrical lines was delayed.
The three overpasses in Langley are known as the “combo” project that will connect 192 Street south of the tracks to 196 Street near Willowbrook Shopping Centre.
There are currently about 18 trains a day using the corridor, which connects the Roberts Bank port to the Canadian rail network.
Planners estimate the number could eventually climb to 38 trains a day, with many as long as 4,000 metres.
The number of trucks and cars trying to cross the tracks is also expected to go up.
Currently, the 54 at-grade road crossings along the corridor handle 340,000 vehicles per day.
That number is expected to grow to 560,000 by 2021.
Part of the project in Langley will be an advanced train warning system with flashing signs that let drivers know that if they stay on a certain road, they will be stopped by a train.
That allows traffic to detour to other routes with overpasses.
Work is also progressing on two other overpasses in Langley that are part of the Roberts Bank Rail Corridor project, which is funded by the federal, provincial and municipal governments, along with TransLink, Port Metro Vancouver and four railway companies.
Sand has been preloaded along Mufford Crescent and Highway 10 (Glover Road) for the Mufford overpass project, and clearing work has begun on the 232 Street overpass, just north of Highway 1. That overpass is being built to allow for an extension of the Rawlison rail siding, which will cross 232 Street. Trains will be parked there on occasion to wait for trains travelling in the other direction, prompting the need for an overpass.
Another lengthened rail siding is just being completed on the rail line in Cloverdale, and now crosses 184 Street. However, it is not expected that trains will be sitting on the portion of the siding that actually crosses the street. | <urn:uuid:ef923c70-941f-4c3d-8843-d85d1c4bd5ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.surreyleader.com/news/186204391.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954633 | 679 | 1.5625 | 2 |
7:1-2, 10, 25-30
Jesus, I truly believe and hope in you
and your Gospel. You have touched me by the example of trust you had in your Father's plan. I adore
you and thank you with my whole heart.
Lord, help me to trust
more in your divine providence.
1. A Way Out When Cornered:
A cornered bear
reacts by the instinct of self-preservation and fights until death. Christ, however, shows an
altogether different attitude when challenged. He seems always to be calm and in control of every
situation. He knows that not a single hair will fall from his head unless the Father deliberately
permits it to occur. Many times our fears corner us to the point that we get spooked. To conquer our
fears, we need to believe more, hope more, and love Christ much more.
2. The Force
It is interesting to note that Jesus originally planned to stay behind in Galilee.
But out of charity and trust in the Father's will, Jesus set out on the perilous journey to Judea.
Once there, he forgot the danger that loomed before him. Christ felt a renewed strength as he had
compassion for the lost sheep in Judea. Nothing could diminish his resolve to feed the spiritually
hungry, cure the sick, and teach the ignorant. Love gave Christ the capacity to give himself more.
Love protects life from prejudices and complaints.
3. Proof of God's Love:
soldiers tried to arrest Jesus, but they were thwarted. The Father had decided that his Son was not
to be given up yet. Cancer, global warming, the nuclear bomb, terrorism and natural disasters –
things that might seem to be threats to us should not make us fearful. Trust is really trust! Jesus
invites us to trust, and this is powerful. Saint Paul says, "All things work together for good for
those who love God" (Romans 8:28). The important thing in life is for us to keep our thoughts
and efforts focused on God's will and to go about doing good, generously serving others. "Seek his
kingdom, and these other things will be given you besides" (Luke 12:31).
My Lord and Savior, I know that my vision is often short-sighted.
me to love and to trust. Enlarge my heart so that I can
endure adverse situations and
predicaments for the sake of my
eternal salvation. Jesus, I trust in you!
Today when contradictions flare up at the workplace or at home,
I will not sigh in despair. Rather, I will make an act of hope: "Long live Christ the | <urn:uuid:e1f783af-d578-455f-b75e-21a4f5944c1a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://catholic.net/index.php?option=dedestaca&id=9087&grupo=Liturgy%20%20Devotions&canal=Daily%20Meditations | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949472 | 572 | 1.789063 | 2 |
A few years ago lets say 2-3 I started to look up in the sky more. Especially at night looking at the stars and the moon. Very peaceful and relaxing a feeling of wonder. I impressed myself recently when I looked in the sky last week and saw two what I thought were stars in the sky and I said to myself "Those are new" so I did a little Google search and supposedly Venus and Jupiter can be seen in the sky with Venus being the brighter star (because its closer) and Jupiter being more faint. Venus is higher in the sky and Jupiter is underneath it.
I had a similar experience. Whenever I exit a building, day or night, the first thing I do is look up . I'm always amazed by the sky's vastness and beauty. (I'm equally amazed that no one else ever seems to look up at it, even when they see me looking.)
One evening last week, when I exited the office building, I immediately noticed something unusual to me: two bright objects which were very close. I figured one was Venus, but wondered about the other one--and why I'd never seen this before.
Now recently for the first time this spring I have been looking at plant life more. Noticing the different colors. The yellows, purples, whites and so on. When I am walking and noticing the different colors I get a peaceful calming feeling.
My father and I built a large greenhouse when I was 13 (it kept me sane during middle school), so I developed an early appreciation of flowers and plants. Even these days, one of my guilt-free indulgences is buying a bunch of oriental lilies just budding so I can enjoy the blooming process.
But even with that, last week, after putting a bunch in water and going to bed, I awoke to such an extravagant explosion of blooms that I spontaneously "told" the lilies directly how beautiful they were! (I'd never spoken to a plant before
) The beauty was entrancing, and then the miracle I was beholding gripped me with such an awe:
That bunch of green branches--chopped off from their roots and shipped across the continent--was able to create
(forget "bloom") 6"-wide, vivid pink-and-crimsom-striped flowers that exuded an intoxicating fragrance . . . using nothing more than tap water and a little incandescent light!
Then I realized these lilies were illustrating what EE might be doing for us: enabling us to absorb finer substances from "nothing more than" air so our consciousness can bloom.
(This just reminded me of that scene in the movie version of "The Celestine Prophecy" where the cynical lead character finds himself cornered by mercenaries with the choice of getting shot or jumping off a cliff--and "lets go" of his attachment to this life and "sees" a whole new version of reality: every plant vividly radiates its life energy --and the mercenaries can't even see him when they arrive where he's standing!) | <urn:uuid:667cbe13-5e48-43c7-b240-a0575239ed56> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,27221.0/prev_next,prev.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9675 | 627 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Dear Abby: "What would you do with a man who refuses to use a deodorant, seldom bathes, and doesn't even own a toothbrush?"
"Absolutely nothing," she replied.
The wry answer from Abigail Van Buren — the pen name of Pauline Friedman Phillips — was typical of the advice she dispensed for more than 40 years to newspaper readers around the world through her "Dear Abby" column, which debuted in 1956 in the San Francisco Chronicle.
She got the bug to write it from her identical twin, who was already providing more homespun counsel in a syndicated newspaper column as Ann Landers. Over the decades, Phillips' witty exchanges with readers about snoring or prom dates would give way to more serious subjects as society underwent an upheaval.
Dear Abby spanned the sexual revolution (one reader cheekily asked where it was taking place and how he could get there), the women's movement (she actively campaigned for the Equal Rights Amendment), the legalization of abortion (she favored abortion rights), and the advent of AIDS (she advocated frequent testing and education).
By 1957, Time magazine had declared "Dear Abby" the "fastest-rising star in the field of journalism." The sisters' rival columns caused a years-long estrangement between them — and turned them into two of the most famous and influential women of their generation.
"Dear Abby" is the world's most widely syndicated column, appearing in more than 1,400 newspapers and generating as many as 10,000 letters a week, according to the syndicate.
Dear Abby: "Are birth control pills deductible?"
"Only if they don't work," she answered.
From 1939 until her death, she was married to Morton B. Phillips, scion of the National Pressure Cooker Co. From an office in their Beverly Hills home, she edited the column into her 80s. She started sharing a byline with her daughter, Jeanne Phillips, in 2000 and turned the column over to her two years later.
"My mother leaves very big high heels to fill, with a legacy of compassion, commitment and positive social change," Jeanne said in a statement. "I will honor her memory every day by continuing this legacy."
Phillips' influence could be astonishing. When she urged readers to mark President Reagan's birthday in 1985 by sending $1 to the White House for the March of Dimes, the president wrote her to ask that donations be sent directly to the charity. Within a month, $41,000 had poured in.
The single greatest number of responses — 300,000 — came in reply to a 1992 column that asked: "Where were you when President John F. Kennedy was shot?" She turned these into one of the six books she wrote. She also took great pride in the huge response to "Operation Dear Abby," launched in 1985 to encourage readers to correspond with military personnel overseas.
The youngest of four daughters of Jewish immigrants from Russia, the twins were born in Sioux City, Iowa, on July 4, 1918, and given the confusing names of Pauline Esther Friedman (the future Abby) and Esther Pauline (Ann). They were nicknamed Popo and Eppie.
The improbable saga of "Dear Abby" began in 1955 when Phillips was an affluent homemaker in Hillsborough, Calif., with time on her hands, doing volunteer work and playing mah-jongg. Her twin, who'd just been hired by the Chicago Sun-Times Syndicate to take over the Ann Landers column, began soliciting her help with replies.
Extremely close, the sisters were thrilled to be collaborating, but the arrangement abruptly ended when the syndicate that distributed the Ann Landers column learned of it.
"Having acquired a taste for dispensing advice," as Phillips wrote in her 1981 book, "The Best of Dear Abby," she offered to write a column for the San Mateo Times, but it declined.
When she called the San Francisco Chronicle, she identified herself to feature editor Stanleigh Arnold as a Hillsborough housewife and said she could write a better column than the one the paper published. Intrigued by her brashness, he invited her to stop by sometime.
The next morning, she showed up. He was "visibly underwhelmed" upon hearing her qualifications but handed her a stack of published columns and told her to come back in a week with her answers. | <urn:uuid:7e95f2d4-bb9d-4e05-b422-71aab89050b4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.southbendtribune.com/topic/la-me-pauline-phillips-20130118,0,4065635.story | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979596 | 904 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Tis the season for disasters and emergencies. There always seems to be something going on in the world where people need help. We’ve got a team of people trying to help solve the information drought that comes with localized emergencies.
About a year ago many of you know I played a small role in helping people get information about the 2007 wildfires here in San Diego. The response was positive, to say the least. But while I talked about what happened, one question still plagued me (from a BarCamp I spoke at): “What’s the next step?”
The thing is, even though the role I played was comparatively small – 1000 or so people in the midst of 3 million – we recognized the need. Citizen journalism was playing a roll that traditional media couldn’t. Now, with the popularity of Twitter and other very fast broadcasting/publishing mediums, we have an opportunity to impact the world for good, one person at a time, one post at a time.
I thought about this issue, advocated “the next step” to other organizations who had funding, manpower and drive. So far, few have stepped up to the plate. I even gave a prototype example of what small steps could be taken to prepare for the next emergency with little staff, leveraging the massive amount of information being put out by citizens, traditional media and governments. I’ve seen few takers. Only a handful of potential services being started that will do this kind of thing.
So, I thought… I’ll build it myself. I have one month before HeroCamp in Houston. I’ll build it and show it off there.
Enter Refresh SD.
Refresh San Diego is a group of people who are “working to refresh the creative, technical, and professional culture of Internet in the San Diego area.” Phelan Riessen, a local entrepreneur and the organizer of Refresh SD, wanted to solidify the group around a goal. Something that would be fun and potentially bring in extra money for everyone involved.
I attended the brainstorm meeting to figure out which idea we would work on as a team. I pitched the idea of an aggregated emergency informational system/site and I was surprised to see every person in the meeting raise their hand in agreement that this was the project to work on, even without money being the first objective.
In the next month a team of 15 volunteers will be working together to produce one of the most comprehensive emergency information aggregation, categorization, and broadcasting systems on the planet.
This team is doing so without funding, in everyone’s spare time, and for the good of humanity as a whole.
Now, I’m telling you this story for a few reasons. (1) I believe this team is doing some of the most important work of our lives and I want you to know about it. (2) I believe this team should be credited with thanks and admiration from you, the ones who will profit from it.
There are a few other things you can do to be a part of this adventure, too.
- You can vote up, comment, and give advice about this idea at IdeaBlob. (the team will win $10k, which would be a HUGE “thank you” as well as offset some costs)
- Comment on this blog with ideas and advice.
- Help us get the word out about what we’re doing to local and national media.
Please, feel free to share this story. I’ll be posting more about the project as we go along as well as the link to it when it’s ready for testing. | <urn:uuid:e3c12a0e-4ef7-446d-a1c1-4c8ad454c3ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.perfectspace.com/2008/09/27/emergeny-crisis-info/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970312 | 758 | 1.570313 | 2 |
As Canadians' longevity increases, seniors are having to increasingly factor the costs of health care into their retirement plans and will continue to have to budget more money for this expense over longer periods, experts say.
There's no question that the buzz around New Brunswick's new shared-risk pension plans is growing. We look at what they are and find out why this new kind of plan could be the wave of the future in places facing hugely underfunded pensions. video
Despite the recent talk of Canada's efforts to crack down on tax evasion, the truth is that most Canadians resign themselves to the certainty of death and taxes. But there are those around the world who take exception to giving the taxman his share of their earnings and sometimes end up on the wrong side of the law. Here's a list of 10 high-profile cases.
- CIBC CEO warns retirement savings will come up short video
- Selling options on stock in RRSPs is risky way to boost returns
- Cooling house market could undercut retirement plans
- Seniors not factoring failing health into retirement plans
- Canadians carrying debt into retirement
- Gen Y too busy paying off debts to save for retirement | <urn:uuid:98f93f08-0270-4e8c-a652-e83d554bc9c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/features/taxseason/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965837 | 238 | 1.5 | 2 |
When it comes to buying presents, all of us have one thing in common: It is difficult to buy presents for some people. No matter if it’s a holiday, birthday or special occasion, purchasing a meaningful gift can prove to be a real conundrum. For this reason gift cards take the guess work out of gift giving. Not only that, they provide a huge convenience factor to the time-crunched, stressed-filled life most of us lead.
This holiday season the National Retail Federation estimates that 81% of shoppers will purchase at least one gift card. However, according to Consumer Reports, 25% of people failed to use the card within a year after receiving it. While gift cards are easy on the giver, they can prove challenging to the receiver. Why? We lose them, misplace them, or simply forget about them. In addition, sometimes the gift cards end up being a hassle to use.
Some gift cards have hidden fees and strings attached. Before buying and giving a gift card to that "hard to shop for" friend or family member, the Better Business Bureau (BBB) advises consumers to read the fine print and know the terms. You should also know that there have been recent changes in federal laws to improve a consumer’s chance of getting full value out of the cards they buy and give. These rules generally apply to gift certificates, store gift cards and general use prepaid cards, which are often branded by payment networks such as Visa or MasterCard.
Here are some helpful tips from the BBB regarding gift card purchases:
Buy from sources you know and trust. Avoid buying gift cards from online auction sites because the cards may be counterfeit or may have been obtained fraudulently.
Read the fine print before you buy. Is there a fee to buy the card? If you buy a card by phone or online, are there shipping and handling fees? Is there an expiration or "use by" date? If you don’t like the terms and conditions, buy elsewhere.
See whether any fees will be deducted from the card after you purchase it.
Some cards will deduct a fee from the card, rendering the card less than its face value.
Inspect the card before you buy it. Verify that none of the protective stickers have been removed. Make sure that the codes on the back of the card haven’t been scratched off to reveal a PIN number. Report any damaged cards to the store selling the cards.
Give the recipient your original receipt so they can verify the card’s purchase in case it is lost, stolen or has been compromised.
Consider the financial condition and time in business of the retailer or restaurant. If they are struggling or brand new, a gift card to a company that may be going out of business or has no track record can be a risky gift.
Know your rights. Check the Federal Trade Commission’s web site for the rules regarding gift cards.
Edward Johnson is president & CEO of the Better Business Bureau serving the greater eastern and northeastern Pennsylvania region. | <urn:uuid:6551431d-a88d-4079-ac1d-50c555daa2bc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.neagle.com/article/20121213/NEWS/121219906/0/topstories | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952537 | 624 | 1.820313 | 2 |
- Who We Are
- What We Do
- What We Care About
- What You Can Do
Maria Walker is grateful for the support she was given to turn her life around and now takes time to give back to the community.
Born in 1960 in Puerto Rico to a family with 12 children, Maria didn’t have an easy childhood. At 12 her stepfather tried to sexually abuse her. By 13, he kicked her out of the family. With no place to call home and no family guidance, she soon became pregnant and worked as a dancer to survive.
At age 21, Maria moved to the United States to live with her aunt, but that ended quickly. Shortly thereafter, Maria entered into an abusive relationship that lasted 11 years. During this time, Maria discovered that she had contracted HIV from intravenous drug use.
After learning that her mother was living in New Haven, Maria decided to move there in the hopes of starting fresh. But with no income to support her, the cycle continued – for the next 10 years she sold drugs and was in and out of jail. After completing a 1.5 year sentence, she pledged to change her life and stay away from drugs and out of jail. But to make that happen, she needed something that had been missing from her life: support.
Support came in the form of transitional housing through McKinney House in Stamford, a two-year program designed for people living with HIV. McKinney House provided Maria with safety, stability and a sense of community, but was a temporary program.
Maria found the permanency she needed through the Pilots program at Family & Children’s Agency of Norwalk. Maria secured a spot in their Next Steps Supportive Housing Program, which includes support services and a permanent residence.
Maria now leads a Danbury support group for people with HIV/AIDS and volunteered for the 2011 Point-in-Time count homeless census. When she’s not doing support work, she advocates on behalf of others living with HIV/AIDS, giving educational presentations about the realities of HIV.
She’s thriving in the first apartment she has ever called her own.
Even though it took me a lot of struggle through addiction and jail, I’m happy to be where I am.
Maria credits the support she received from her case manager and the staff at Family & Children’s Agency for her recovery and success. “I thank God that they’ve stayed with me from start to finish.”
Maria has been clean for 7 years and her HIV is undetectable. Permanent supportive housing has helped Maria to rebuild her life, gain access to employment, stabilize her health and reconnect to her community.
Helping Maria end her homelessness and get back on her feet through supportive housing wasn’t just the right thing to do; it was also the most cost effective solution to ending her homelessness.
The year after Maria exited jail for the last time, she utilized a number of institutional services, including:
Over the course of the year, these institutional services cost over $30,000 – with some of the programs/services billed at close to $100/day.
Supportive housing costs far less – approximately $19,500 over a year – and the outcomes are unparalleled.
Supportive housing combines affordable apartments with on-site or visiting support and employment services. A cost-effective solution for people with disabilities, mental illness, addiction and other issues, supportive housing provides its tenants with the support they need to stay housed and out of shelters, prisons, hospitals and other institutions.
Through supportive housing, Maria has a safe and affordable place to call home and receives the support she needs. She no longer utilizes costly services now that she has this support.
Over the past year she has attended a weekly substance out-patient support group and used the emergency room once – nothing more. | <urn:uuid:3f4320b2-1de8-4838-ab36-530460d263b0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pschousing.org/news/marias-story | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97929 | 795 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Amazon Web Services’ most heavily used data center complex, U.S. East-1 in Northern Virginia, experienced server issues earlier last week due to an outage in one of its availability zones. With Hurricane Sandy barreling toward the East Coast Monday, many websites might fear that similar disruptions might occur.
We think that the reputation and position of Amazon as a leading cloud services provider is suffering from the recent outages, which have been caused by a multitude of reasons from inclement weather to malfunctioning servers.
The recent outage was similar to the one back in June 2012 which claimed Netflix and Instagram among its victims. The June outage was caused by an electrical storm and had its origin in the same data centers. There was another EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) outage in April 2011, which stemmed from EBS-related issues. This time too, the cause was “a latent bug in an operational data collection agent that runs on the EBS storage servers”.
EC2 and EBS, as part of the Amazon Web Services suite, are designed with substantial amounts of redundancy and fail-over capability. In addition to having local redundancy, the services are divided up into partitions called “Availability Zones,” and large customers can spread their EC2 instances out across multiple zones. Last weeks outage only affected EBS volumes in a single Availability Zone, so those customers running with adequate capacity in other Availability Zones in the US East Region were able to tolerate the event with limited impact to their applications.
We believe, that in spite of the lessons learned from last year’s outage, the automated procedures built into EC2 still do not protect against some kinds of failures. This could have a two-fold effect on the growth of the company’s web services business as existing customers could chose to instead have their own data centers or chose to side with another cloud service provider and new customers, deterred by the unreliability of the system may chose a competitor over Amazon.
Currently, the Cloud and Other Web Services contribute just 3% to our $220 estimate for Amazon. However, the company has been looking to diversify its revenue stream and cloud services is a major part of its growth plans. Given that a lot of Amazon’s customers are small businesses who cannot afford or don’t need to use multiple zones to back their services, the company could lose a major chunk of its customers in the event of another outage and with them, a potential revenue stream.
Like our charts? Embed them in your own posts using the Trefis WordPress Plugin. | <urn:uuid:5441bfa3-d36e-4ebb-b37d-b01f2b020dea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2012/10/29/will-amazons-servers-be-ready-for-sandy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967903 | 529 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Touch is a basic form of nonverbal communication. When you hold your wife tenderly, you are necessarily telling her how important she is to you. When your skins touch, you are talking out the feeling, some new and some a repetition of what you might have said before.
If you express this touching in the form of a massage, you are doing several things: you transmit reassurance, you ease sore muscles and you create a feeling of pleasure. You also speed up the elimination of waste toxins and stimulate circulation. In times of stress, you also relieve it.
And you don’t really have to be an expert. With a little skill and motivation, you’re ready to start. You can already give a basic massage without worrying you can do any harm since you are not interfering with any body systems in an intrusive sense.
Traditional or Swedish, massage uses three main strokes: stroking (effleurage), kneading (petrissage), and striking (tapotement). There are other types of massage such as reflexology and Shiatsu but traditional massage is the most useful for a home massage.
Give Each Other a Massage
There’s no hard and fast rule when you can give your spouse a marital massage. You can give it under normal conditions, when your husband/wife returns from a hard day’s work or when he/she is bothered by a certain kind of muscular pain. You can do it in an open area such as the family room or in the privacy of the bedroom.
You and your spouse do not really need a long time to be able to give each other a marital massage. But you need to concentrate to maximize the benefits. Relax a few minutes before starting the massage. The tension from the person giving the massage can easily be transmitted to the one receiving it.
Proceed this way:
- Begin the massage by warming your hands and resting them on the person for a short time to establish contact. Then rub pleasant-smelling oil onto your hands. Add essential oil to the oil for the additional aromatherapeutic benefit.
- Apply firm and even strokes. Always maintain contact with the skin. This will give the feeling that the movements are continuous and flowing.
- Keep additional oil in a warm dish nearby so you can dip one hand into it without disrupting your rhythm.
- Enjoy the massage. You can do this by changing the pressure on different areas of the body and communicating your thoughts on what’s being done to you. Tell your partner what feels good. He/ She may decide to prolong the massage on the area which, of course, will give you more pleasure.
- As the massage comes to an end, slow down the rhythm. Finish by resting your hands in n one position for about a minute. Doing it this way allows the area you are massaging to return to normal condition.
- The areas around the upper torso are most prone to tension: shoulders, arms, neck and forehead. You may decide to focus on them since stress is bottle dup in these areas by constricting free circulation.
- Pay special attention to any areas of knotted muscles you feel. Knead them with your thumbs and the heels of your palms, and smooth the areas around them to encourage the removal of waste products.
- Massage for about 20 minutes. Rest for a while to maximize the feeling. Then you can switch places.
Words of Caution
- You cannot just give a massage without observing certain precautions. These precautions are necessary.
- Do not take a bath or clean the body part that has been subjected to massage two or more hours after it. Your body had been warmed up. Any sudden change in temperature such as what using cold water brings can cause muscle pains.
- The best time to give marital massage is after a shower. Since it also relaxes the body and the mind, it is a great introduction to a great massage.
- Avoid applying heavy pressure directly over the spine.
- Do not overmassage any particular area. You can massage it for only a particular length of time. Remember that while massage gives an immediate effect, it has a delayed effect, too. This comes when the massaged areas relax and when the collective effects of the various massaged areas come together.
- Some essential oils should not be used by a pregnant woman. | <urn:uuid:afc2e115-8d77-412a-a6c2-839dae79ddfa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hotchili.info/romantic-massage-tips-for-husbandwife.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933239 | 897 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Ryan Chittum of Columbia Journalism Review takes a look at newspaper advertising in 2009 which is expected to collapse to $31.6 billion, or just below 1993 levels. When he adjusts for inflation the situation gets far worse:
You have to go back to 1965 to find a year with revenue lower in 2009 dollars than what this year is projected to be. That year, the industry took in $4.42 billion, which works out to $30.22 billion in current dollars. The industry can only hope this year hits 1966 levels, which work out to $32.4 billion in real dollars.
I wondered how the revenue picture aligned with newsroom staffing. I wasn’t able to find a comparable time series but I did scan a recent Congressional Research Service report on the state of the newspaper industry which said:
Daily papers cut their newsrooms by 11% in 2008, the biggest one-year drop since 1978. Daily newsroom staffing is off 17% from the recent, 2001 peak of 56,400.28 According to Erica Smith, a reporter with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, nearly 10,000 journalists were laid-off or took buyouts in the first five months of 2009 alone.29 | <urn:uuid:934e6f17-3005-4989-b9cf-815b4101d3b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://minimediaguy.org/2009/08/21/newspaper-ad-revenues-slide-to-60s-levels/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966316 | 248 | 1.507813 | 2 |
LRB Members Present Multiple Plans
The Legislative Redistricting Board (LRB) had its fourth meeting today, July 10, 2001. The board is responsible for redrawing the Senate and House of Representatives districts. If the 60 days deadline is not met, legislative redistricting will be taken up by the courts.
As they do every ten years, both chambers made efforts during the 77th Legislative Session to redraw their own districts, as well as those of Congress and the State Board of Education (SBOE), based on the 2000 U.S. Census figures. No plan passed in both chambers. Redistricting is one of the most partisan issues in the Legislature and the most challenged in the courts.
Attorney General John Cornyn is the chairman of the board. The other members include Lt. Governor Bill Ratliff, House Speaker James E. "Pete" Laney, Comptroller of Public Accounts Carole Keeton Rylander and General Land Commissioner David Dewhurst.
In today's meeting, members of the board presented their own redisticting plans, three for the Senate and two for the House. Amendments can be added to each of these plans. The public will have the opportunity to voice ideas and opinions about the maps in the next meeting. There could be an additional meeting after that, to give an opportunity to everyone that wants to offer their input.
Ratliff presented Plan 01150 for the Senate, a modification of the plan adopted by the Senate Redistricting Committee. This is also called the Wentworth Plan, named for the chairman of the committee. Ratliff says his plan reflects the state's partisan breakdown, with 58% of the Senate seats being Republican, and only splits 14 counties due to population.
Dewhurst presented Plan 01151 for the Senate, a plan he says reflects the changing face of Texas -more diverse, more urban and a definitive two-party state.
Rylander offered a partial plan for the Senate, saying she has not solved to her satisfaction the redistricting of West Texas.
Laney submitted Plan 1232 for the House, a modification of HB 150 approved by that chamber during session.
Finally, Cornyn presented Plan 01233 for the House of Representatives.
All the members said their plans comply with the Voting Rights Act requirements; draw districts that are compact and contiguous, preserve communities of interests, protect the majority/minority ratio, do not pack minorities and minimize the split of counties.
The Legislative Redistricting Board adjourned until 9 a.m. on July 16, when it will meet in a public hearing to hear testimony on the plans presented, with another meeting scheduled for July 24 for the formal adoption of its plan.
The public can access the maps/plans using Internet Explorer, at the web site http://www.capitol.state.tx.us
, then by clicking on Redistricting Information and then RedViewer.
-- 30 -- | <urn:uuid:f17a1d78-9a87-4a7e-a426-2334339f93e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.senate.state.tx.us/75r/Senate/Archives/Arch01/p071001a.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954663 | 602 | 1.804688 | 2 |
WESTON, WI (WSAU) - Some of the coal fired power plants owned by Wisconsin Public Service are affected by a settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency. WPS reached a settlement with the EPA, which alleged the utility didn’t have proper air permits for improvements to plants going back as far as 1994.
Vice President Terry Jensky says the company admits no wrongdoing, and, “acted then using what we believed to be the proper process for making the improvements.”In the EPA settlement, WPS agreed to retire, refuel or repower its coal-fired Weston Plant units 1 & 2 , as well as Pulliam Plant units 5 & 6 in Green Bay. The deadline for completing the activities is June 1, 2015. They have not decided what to do with those plants. WPS had already decided to install environmental controls at the Weston 3 facility.
The settlement includes a civil penalty of $1.2 million dollars, and a commitment to spend $6 million for beneficial environmental projects.
The WPS press release including the proposed environmental projects is attached below:
Green Bay, WI - Wisconsin Public Service Corporation (WPS), a subsidiary of Integrys Energy Group (NYSE: TEG) has reached a settlement agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA filed a Notice of Violation against WPS in November 2009 alleging that the utility had not obtained the proper air permits for improvements it made to electric generating units to ensure electric reliability as far back as 1994. WPS does not admit any wrongdoing."We acted then using what we believed to be the proper process for making the improvements," said Terry Jensky, WPS Vice President of Generation Assets. "Many utilities across the country followed the same procedures and they have or are now facing similar action from the EPA."In the settlement, WPS agreed to retire, refuel or repower its coal-fired Weston Plant units 1 & 2 (near Wausau, WI), as well as Pulliam Plant units 5 & 6 in Green Bay. The deadline for completing the activities is June 1, 2015. All of these actions are consistent with our evolving generation strategy as we align our portfolio to the best interests of our customers and other stakeholders.The settlement included a provision for WPS to install its previously announced innovative ReACT™ environmental controls at its Weston 3 generator (321 megawatts). The system will reduce emissions of several pollutants and will position the unit to be in compliance with future EPA regulations. The ReACT™ installation will be the first commercial application of this technology in the United States. After detailed review and analysis, WPS opted to move forward with ReACT™ in advance of the settlement.
Following Public Service Commission of Wisconsin approval, the ReACT™ project will take more than 3.5 years to complete and bring more than 200 temporary, high-paying construction jobs to the Wausau, WI area. In addition, WPS agreed to more restrictive limits on emissions than current air permits require for Pulliam units 7 & 8, as well as at its other coal-fired generators system wide. It may result in some coal-fired generators operating less. Any power lost will be replaced by some combination of natural gas-fired generation or purchases from the market.
WPS has previously installed emissions control technologies at both Weston and Pulliam to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury and particulate matter.Weston units 1 & 2 have a combined nameplate generating capacity of 135 megawatts, while the capacity of Pulliam 5 & 6 is 112.5 megawatts. The Pulliam units were built around 1950, while Weston 1 became operational in 1954, with Weston 2 following in 1960.
WPS said that it expects the settlement along with current economic conditions will likely lead to employee staff reductions within its energy supply operations area. The ultimate number of employees affected won't be determined until decisions are finalized.
Also in the settlement, WPS agreed to pay a civil penalty of $1.2 million, as well as commit to spending $6 million for beneficial environmental projects.
Potential projects identified include:
- A payment to the National Park Service to be used for the restoration of land, watersheds, vegetation and forests using techniques to improve ecosystem health and mitigate the harmful effects from air pollution.
- A payment to the U.S. Forest Service for the improvement, protection or rehabilitation of lands under its administration.
- New technologies to improve the performance of WPS wind and hydropower facilities.
- Creation of Brown and Marathon County programs to replace existing older wood-burning appliances with high efficiency wood burning units.
Also as a provision of the settlement, WPS will provide $300,000 in seed money to fund a study to evaluate the feasibility of a "community digester" project within its service area that would accept manure from nearby farms to be used to generate electricity.
Other potential projects include the conversion of a select number of fleet vehicles from gasoline or diesel fuel to compressed natural gas, and the installation of solar panels on selected community or buildings owned by not-for-profit organizations within its service area.
The contributions to the Forest Service and Park Service must be made within 45 days. The rest of the projects must be completed within 5 years of plan approval.
The settlement was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, and is subject to a 30-day public comment period and final court approval.
About Wisconsin Public Service Corporation (Information provided by WPS)
Wisconsin Public Service Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Integrys Energy Group, Inc. (NYSE: TEG), is an investor-owned electric and natural gas utility headquartered in Green Bay, Wisconsin. It serves approximately 441,000 electric customers and 319,000 natural gas customers in residential, agricultural, industrial, and commercial markets. It also provides electric power to wholesale customers. The company’s service area includes northeastern Wisconsin and an adjacent portion of Upper Michigan.
Additional information is available online at www.wisconsinpublicservice.com | <urn:uuid:b091471d-8118-4139-87c6-051b08dbc808> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wifc.com/news/articles/2013/jan/05/wps-to-pay-12-million-in-epa-settlement-plus-invest-6-million-more/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945487 | 1,238 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Daily Topic for July 27, 2009
There are a lot of good reasons to be anxious in Mongolia. Crime is rampant, women and children are abused and the economy is stagnant. But the believer has something that their neighbors lack: the power of prayer to a loving God.
Pray that believers in Mongolia and China will cast their cares on Him. Pray that the prayers of Mongolian believers will result in many others who will cast their cares on Him.
As the grip of Communism fell, the first Southern Baptist workers moved to the capital city, Ulaanbaatar. The Sharpes, the first Southern Baptist missionary family to arrive, recalled the request made 700 years earlier by Kublai Khan. He asked for 100 men to teach Christianity in his court. Twenty-eight years later, one man, not 100, reached the courts. The Khan replied, “It is too late. I have grown too old in my idolatry.”
Southern Baptists are attempting to answer the Khan’s call. Missionaries are working in the city, in the medical world, and in the most remote areas with the nomads, going as English teachers, physicians, community developers, and school volunteers. They find opportunities to share their faith in their every day activities and by developing caring relationships with Mongolians.
Daniel White, a Southern Baptist missionary, works among nomads. He says, “Our strategy for working with these people is a needs-based strategy. Helping them could only show them that God cares.” Dr. Buck Rusher and his wife Pam have dedicated a season of their lives to Mongolia’s medical community. As a thoracic surgeon, Dr. Rusher trains and works beside local doctors, and says, “My people group has become the doctors, especially the surgeons, of Mongolia.”Learn more at joshuaproject.net
Pray for Southern Baptist missionaries to find effective avenues of sharing the gospel with the Mongolian peoples.-JS | <urn:uuid:53444de2-aacd-41da-ad0c-23546135fdd0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.globalprayerdigest.org/index.php/issue/day/2009/07/27 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970833 | 413 | 1.546875 | 2 |
QUEZON CITY—FILIPINO workers, mostly women, in Lebanon are still being traded for new employees after getting sidetracked from work when fighting broke out in September, advocates said.
Echoing the report of Catholic congregation Daughters of Charity Sister Amelia Asiedu-Torres, nonprofit Kanlungan Centre Foundation Inc. said migrant workers unable to flee during the shooting war between Israeli and Hizbollah fighters are being sold to other employers.
“The agencies …still make business on them by selling them to another employer at a higher price,” Kanlungan staff Ma. Helen T. Dabu said in a forum here, quoting Sr. Asiedu-Torres of the Beirut, Lebanon-based nonprofit Afro-Asian Migrant Center.
Dabu revealed the results of Kanlungan’s policy research on Filipino women migrants in Lebanon after workers were caught in the middle of fierce fighting there last October, leading to frenzied evacuation of a tenth of an estimated 30,000 Filipinos in that territory.
The research results packaged in an 11-paged Powerpoint presentation was timed as the first topic in a lecture series honoring Kanlungan founder Ma. Virginia Alunan-Melgar. Alunan-Melgar founded the nonprofit group in 1989 when trends bare an increasing number of women going out of the country and the abuses employers heaped on them than male Filipinos’ mostly labor-related cases.
Dabu said they talked by overseas call to Sr. Asiedu-Torres November 28 on the eve of the presentation of the research in Quezon City.
She added the Roman Catholic nun said that the center receive telephone calls from a minimum of seven migrant women a day, expressing a gamut of problems at the hands of their Lebanese employers.
“They have finished their contracts but the employers would not let them go home,” Dabu said of what Sr. Asiedu-Torres told her.
She added that the salaries of Filipino women migrants there –at US$100 (P5,000 in US$1=P50 exchange rates) monthly– are withheld from a period of three months.
“Some employers bluntly tell them that they cannot go home because no one will replace them,” Dabu said.
“Most of these girls [sic] are very timid to discuss matteres with their employers so at one shout of the employers they just withdraw and cry,” Dabu quoted Sr. Asiedu-Torres as saying.
KANLUNGAN’S research bares that overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Lebanon comprise seven percent of about half-a-million migrant workers in that country at the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea that has an official work force count of 1.4 million of the total three million population.
“In the last eight years, Lebanon has become a major employment destination of OFWs,” Dabu said citing that last year, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) cited it processed some 14,936 Filipinos going into that country.
Dabu said that despite falling into the 10th rung in the list from the seventh destination of OFWs two years ago, deployment to Lebanon increased by 27 percent last year.
She said the number could go as high as 50,000 OFWs in that country, citing the problem raised by Lebanese Consul to the Philippines Joseph Assad as saying “almost all OFWs bound to Lebanon also bypass the consular office in the Philippines.”
Citing a report by the United Nations Development Programme, Dabu said Lebanese nationals prefer to hire foreign domestic workers because these people work for lower wages.
She added that the Lebanese authorities look the other way in terms of reports of abuse “because cheap foreign labor is one venue to contain inflation”.
Because they have domestic help, Lebanese can then participate in the economy and become more productive, putting downward pressure on commodity prices, Dabu explained in Tagalog.
However, Dabu said that the cost of getting foreign labour is also expensive for Lebanese because of the “kafala” or sponsorship system.
Under this system, the employer is required to pay a one-time US$1,000-bond (1.8 million Lebanese pounds) as “registration of sponsorhip” and an annual US$331 (half a million Lebanese pounds) to the Ministry of Labour for work permit.
According to Dabu, the employer also pays US$331 to General Security every year for the foreign worker’s residency permit.
To note, Dabu said, the sponsorship fee paid to the Central Housing Loan Bank could be refunded after termination of the employment contract that binds the foreign worker to his/her employer for two years.
KANLUNGAN said its research revealed the abuses committed against OFWs by Lebanese employers are not only due to monetary reasons or “cultural differences” as Philippine foreign affairs officials told them.
“The condition and processes of migrant employment in Lebanon originated from a long history of non-regulation by the State,” Dabu said adding that “discrimination against women and migrants” as extenuating factors.
“This abeted [sic] the non-accountability of private proponents in the trade of migrant domestic work service,” Dabu added.
She said policy changes to stop abuses were not instituted and “the practice of withholding the passports of FDWs and restricting their movements, which have been considered ‘natural,’ was not banned as violative of human rights.”
Dabu cited her interview with Sr. Asiedu-Torres who purportedly said that “[u]p to the present time, there are no laws to protect the foreign migrant workers so they are always on the losing side even if their cause is reasonable.”
Yet, Dabu cited several Lebanese initiatives to protect migrant workers, including amendments to the Code of Obligations and the kafala. Likewise, Dabu said Lebanese officials built a computerized databank recording “entries of all migrant workers with the names of their employers”.
But Dabu said these policy changes, as well as international conventions to protect foreign workers signed by Lebanon, are not applied.
“The more fundamental problem appears to be the lack of political will to deal fairly and equally with migrants and women,” Dabu said.
She cited the irony that the Lebanese economy, like the Philippines, also relies on its 15 million migrants living in Brazil (seven million) and the United States (three million).
Kanlungan forwarded ten recommendations to the Lebanese government, five to the Philippine government, and three to migrants’ rights advocates to address the issues concerning Filipino migrant workers in Lebanon.
The group is urging Lebanes and Philippine officials to enact a bilateral labor agreement, among other action points, that would ensure protection of OFWs in the receiving country.
Kanlungan said it is eyeing a network of advocates to push these officials to the bargaining table. | <urn:uuid:7ea9f07b-3563-41bb-8c7f-a838352d597c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ofwjournalism.net/stranded-pinoys-in-lebanon-still-traded-ngo-says/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957723 | 1,500 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Following on from Ozymandias...
(Poem #24) On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness
The tusks which clashed in mighty brawls Of mastodons, are billiard balls. The sword of Charlemagne the Just Is Ferric Oxide, known as rust. The grizzly bear, whose potent hug, Was feared by all, is now a rug. Great Caesar's bust is on the shelf, And I don't feel so well myself.
A refreshingly humorous spin on the subject - the punchline drops into place neatly. Guiterman has written a number of vaguely Nashish poems, of which this is probably the most famous - personally, the only other things I'd heard of his were the following fragment: Of all cold words of tongue or pen The worst are these: "I knew him when--" -Arthur Guiterman, 'Prophets in Their Own Country' and, From Richard Lederer's 'Adventures of a Verbivore' (good book, btw): "It's not true that no words rhyme with orange . . . However, there was a man -- I'm not kidding -- named Henry Honeychurch Gorringe. He was a naval commander who in the midnineteenth century oversaw the transport of Cleopatra's Needle to New York's Central Park. Pouncing on this event, the poet Arthur Guiterman wrote: In Sparkhill buried lies a man of a mark Who brought the Obelisk to Central Park, Redoubtable Commander H. H. Gorringe, Whose name supplies the long-sought rhyme for orange. So orange is rhymable." He does not appear to have led the world's most interesting life either - some dedicated websearching turned up the following, which for lack of a better name I'll call a Biographical Note: Guiterman, Arthur, American poet, 1871-1943. Martin | <urn:uuid:69a4e7ef-f086-44ce-9f76-38dab8b742f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wonderingminstrels.blogspot.com/1999/03/on-vanity-of-earthly-greatness-arthur.html?showComment=1047137036000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94688 | 399 | 1.695313 | 2 |
CLAYTON, MO–(KMOX)–St. Louis County Police are seeking to arrest 3,700 people on outstanding felony warrants — this coming to light after a wanted felon allegedly shot another man and then himself last week at a downtown St. Louis college.
“Every police department wishes it had the staffing just to have a dedicated group of individuals and that’s all they do is go out and serve warrants,” said county Police Chief Tim Fitch.
Last week, 34-year old Sean Johnson was accused of shooting a financial aid adviser at the Stevens Institute of Business and Arts on Washington Avenue, then shooting himself. Both men survived . In May 2012, St. Louis County issued an arrest warrant for Johnson after he reportedly violated his 2011 probation for second-degree assault and unlawful use of a weapon.
Fitch says having 3,700 wanted felons on the street presents a constant possibility of them committing more crimes before they’re caught.
“If you have a felony arrest warrant that’s been issued for you, it’s probably not your first offense you ever committed. Very, very, very rarely.” Fitch said, “As far as percentage of those that would go out and re-offend, it’s probably a pretty high number, because that’s what they do.”
Fitch says about a hundred wanted felons are arrested each day in the county — many through traffic stops. To go after the “worst of the worst,” Fitch says city and county police have teamed up with the Fugitive Task Force to seek violent offenders and get them off the streets. | <urn:uuid:98842d88-ffc0-4ad1-83ba-742913f0b20f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2013/01/22/county-police-seeking-thousands-of-wanted-felons/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969834 | 347 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Penn State Intercom......March
Shaver's Creek Environmental
Center turns 25 this year
Shaver's Creek Environmental Center is throwing a birthday party and holding a staff reunion to mark 25 years of outdoor learning.
The staff members at the University's outdoor learning field lab provided outreach services to more than 150,000 people in the last year. Recent expansion of raptor research has extended the Shaver's Creek repertoire of wildlife conservation education, research and service efforts into wild saw-whet owl banding and a golden eagle count. Memberships, one annual fund-raiser called The Birding Cup and charitable contributions are the main sources of funding for all of these activities.
Here are a few of the coming highlights.
* March 18 and 19: The Maple Harvest Festival features the traditional method of gathering and boiling down sap. Pancakes will be served.
* March 24: "Meet the Birds of Prey" shows begin this weekend and continue from 2 to 4 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday until Dec. 2.
* April 19-22: Special Earth Day events include a media day on from 2 to 4 p.m. Thursday, April 19. Shaver's Creek will have an exhibit at Earth Day on the HUB lawn on Sunday, April 22.
* Wednesday, July 11, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.: A 25-Year Birthday Party is the theme for activities at Shaver's Creek's exhibit and shows on Old Main lawn during Children's Day at the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts.
* Aug. 31-Sept. 3: Several generations of Shaver's Creekers will gather to celebrate their outreach efforts and a legacy of learning during the 25-year staff reunion.
For more information,
call the center at (814) 863-2000 or visit the Web site at http://www.outreach.psu.edu/ShaversCreek/. | <urn:uuid:f898fd23-033d-40ac-afef-0885913d9413> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.psu.edu/ur/archives/intercom_2001/March15/shaver.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937762 | 396 | 1.632813 | 2 |
$32.00 donated in past month
Obama’s deadly silence
Friday, January 2, 2009 :"I would like to ask President-elect Obama to say something please about the humanitarian crisis that is being experienced right now by the people of Gaza." Former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney made her plea after disembarking from the badly damaged SS Dignity that had limped to the Lebanese port of Tyre while taking on water.
The small boat, carrying McKinney, the Green Party's recent presidential candidate, other volunteers, and several tons of donated medical supplies, had been trying to reach the coast of Gaza when it was rammed by an Israeli gunboat in international waters.
But as more than 2,400 Palestinians have been killed or injured -- the majority civilians -- since Israel began its savage bombardment of Gaza on 27 December, Obama has maintained his silence. "There is only one president at a time," his spokesmen tell the media. This convenient excuse has not applied, say, to Obama's detailed interventions on the economy, or his condemnation of the "coordinated attacks on innocent civilians" in Mumbai in November.
The Mumbai attacks were a clear-cut case of innocent people being slaughtered. The situation in the Middle East however is seen as more "complicated" and so polite opinion accepts Obama's silence not as the approval for Israel's actions that it certainly is, but as responsible statesmanship.
It ought not to be difficult to condemn Israel's murder of civilians and bombing of civilian infrastructure including hundreds of private homes, universities, schools, mosques, civil police stations and ministries, and the building housing the only freely-elected Arab parliament.
The tiny Gaza Strip, with its 1.5 million people crowded into 139 square miles, has been a tinderbox since Israel’s unilateral pullout in 2005.
Israel has maintained a punitive military and economic grip on Gaza, keeping the population in what is internationally condemned as a deepening humanitarian crisis. Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) seized power there in 2007, and began its “resistance” policy of firing rockets into southern Israel. A tenuous six-month ceasefire ended in early December despite reported behind-the-scenes initiatives to extend it, and now we have the horrible spectacle of a massive aerial bombardment of this densely populated strip by Israel, with the civilian toll mounting daily (currently nearly 500 Gazans dead and approaching 2,000 wounded, including children). Hamas has continued rocket attacks on Israel, killing 4 Israelis as of this week, and is threatening suicide bombings and other attacks in Israel.
Israel says its assault is a defensive operation, yet also says it intends to physically wipe out the Hamas leadership. Other objectives appear to be to intimidate the Palestinian people, further weaken Palestinian civil society and promote disunity, and reassert Israeli power.
There is growing international condemnation of Israel’s disproportionate use of force and collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population, both violations of the Geneva Conventions.
It’s possible a temporary truce may emerge in the next few days, but, more than ever, the underlying issues will at long last have to be resolved. And the incoming Obama administration will have the challenge, and the opportunity, to lead the way to peace.
Who benefits from the crisis that has erupted in Gaza?
The election of Barack Obama brought with it the real possibility for a just solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict based on two states, as long ago envisioned by the United Nations.
During his campaign Obama told Jewish leaders on a number of occasions that his support for Israel did not mean he would support the policies of Israel’s Likud Party. This was a courageous stand by Obama, but it also reflected the growing awareness in influential U.S. circles that a peaceful two-state solution is in U.S. interests, including the long-term global interests of U.S. capitalism, not to mention the interests of the Israeli and Palestinian people.
When he announced his naming of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state and other top national security appointments, Obama singled out a lasting solution for Israel and the Palestinians as one of his four top foreign policy priorities. | <urn:uuid:c6336e07-be89-4e9c-b535-ea726c4ee371> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/01/02/18557817.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967371 | 851 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Learn from everyone
if you want to be a millionaire, you can find a successful famous millionaire as a mentor OR you can also make friends with all silent millionaire. Its up whether you are compatible or not. Its depend on which type of millionaire you wanted to be, the famous one or the silent one.
That does not mean that if you choose to learn from one type, you cannot learn from the other type. You should learn from everyone relevant. In fact, many great person can be made as you aspiration. They are all very successful person. But ask yourself again, can you relate yourself to them? If yes, congratulation. If NO, its still okay since you can still learn something valuable from them.
The late Steve Jobs as example, a design perfectionist. If you are a perfectionist , the "perfectionist" part of Steve Jobs are related to you. But for me that part is a NO. The part on how he view life is a YES for me
Knowledge is everywhere
There are a time in my life a have a debt problem, not my debt but others which use my name. Yes. Backstabbing is a painful experience, but i learnt a lot from what happened. Bank keep calling me every month. It make me stressed.
I asked for help, not asking to give me money but knowledge.
I asked a few friends in middle income category that look quite successful in managing money. They tried to help, showing a few solutions, but I am not able to 'feel' it. I met a few friends who can be categorized in Lower Salary category. Amazingly, I learn a lot more from them. The way they solve problem is different from the first set.
The middle income friends teach me on how to make loan, reinvest the loan and pay the debt too, which is relevant now, but not relevant to my state of mind that time. But the low income friends provide another solution to do small part time business based on current trends. The result? Starting with only RM180 , my financial situation back to normal and I even save (invest) some money, and bought a laptop.
It was a good lesson for me.
Knowledge is everywhere. | <urn:uuid:af95f86a-b0ae-4519-8c73-aa401fc2d1f3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zulseffort.net/2011/10/knowledge-is-everywhere.html?showComment=1319945808532 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965801 | 455 | 1.75 | 2 |
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