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|Housekeeping has evolved from merely cleaning and tidying rooms to ensuring a pathogen-free environment for guests. Priority is given not just to the cleanliness and appearance of rooms, but also to sanitizing surfaces and preventing the spread of contaminants, allergens and harmful bacteria. Given that hotels can service hundreds—and sometimes thousands—of guests daily, it’s vital that hoteliers equip housekeepers with the right tools, practices and procedures for protecting guests.
In anticipation of the 2012 Housekeeping Olympics in Las Vegas, held on Aug. 15, hoteliers can recharge and reinvent their housekeeping teams by providing them with the right training and equipment to ensure a safe, clean, and healthy environment for guests.
In order to maintain a “winning” housekeeping team, below are seven tips for increasing a housekeeper’s performance and productivity:
Offer on-the-job training. Prior to last year’s Housekeeping Olympics event, hotels held auditions for team members and trained teams extensively in the months prior to the games. Similarly, it’s important for hoteliers to proactively develop a housekeeping plan that includes a checklist of tasks, the order of cleaning tasks, which types of cleaning tools and chemicals to use for each task, and the amount of time it should take to complete tasks and deliver high-level, consistent results. Familiarizing housekeepers with the plan and proper methods for cleaning saves time, improves cleanliness, and helps prevent repetitive motion and on-the-job injuries, such as back, shoulder, and upper arm strains.
Equip housekeepers with the right tools for cleaning. According to the ISSA 540 Cleaning Times, equipping housekeepers with the right cleaning tools can enhance productivity by up to 54 percent. For example, microfiber towels and mops can improve cleanliness by not leaving lint behind, and protective equipment like kneepads and gloves improve productivity by reducing housekeeper strain and exposure to germs. In addition, it’s important for hoteliers to provide housekeepers with uniforms that are designed for practicality and comfort. Back vents, underarm shields and fast-drying, breathable lining help keep wearers cool and dry, and uniforms with a lot of pockets provide ample storage.
Equip housekeepers with stocked and locked carts. According to a senior brand manager from Sodexo, Inc., “a housekeeping cart is [an employee’s] workstation, office and assembly line, and it has a huge impact on overall productivity of the housekeeper.” Providing housekeepers with fully locked and stocked carts at the beginning of their shifts eliminates unnecessary trips to storage areas, ensures that housekeepers are using the right tools and chemicals, and promotes consistency of cleaning results from room to room.
Make janitorial closets accessible and easy-to-use. Placing frequently used items, such as chemical stations, in easily accessible locations helps reduce the amount of time and energy housekeepers must spend restocking supplies. Chemical dilution systems also help reduce clutter and limit opportunities for worker injury or error.
Conduct procedural audits. Almost every major hotel chain has an audit system in place, but most are outcome driven, such as examining the surface appearance of a room to determine its cleanliness. To ensure that rooms are truly clean, it’s also important to audit the hotel’s cleaning programs and processes. Procedural audits help identify opportunities to improve both hygiene and productivity.
Offer an “engineering checklist." Hoteliers can promote better internal communication and increase productivity by providing housekeepers with a checklist of potential issues for the engineering department, such as replacing light bulbs or fixing air conditioning units. These lists can be submitted at the end of a housekeeper’s shift and help limit guest complaints by ensuring that requests aren’t overlooked.
Set housekeepers up for success. Hoteliers can help protect their investments and maximize productivity by supplementing housekeepers’ daily cleaning routines with commercial deep cleaning—a complex process involving high levels of heat, pressure, and extraction as well as specialized equipment and trained professionals. Deep cleaning penetrates the surface of assets such as tile, carpeting and air conditioning units to completely remove dirt, bacteria and organic soils. This service helps keep assets clean, functional, and attractive for longer periods of time and makes housekeepers’ daily cleaning routines much more effective.
Housekeepers work a very tiresome and often thankless job. Because of their direct impact on hotel cleanliness and guest satisfaction, more organizations are starting to vest time and energy in recognizing and rewarding these skilled individuals. To honor hotel housekeepers, the International Executive Housekeepers Association (IEHA) began an annual Housekeeping Olympics. This year, housekeepers from Las Vegas hotels will compete for prizes during a series of events that included a bed-making contest, a mop race, a buffer pad toss and a vacuum relay. By following a few simple, practical steps and incorporating a little fun along the way, hoteliers can champion award-winning housekeeping teams and improve guest service.
Todd McKeown is Vice President of Global Hospitality and Gaming for Cintas Corporation, a provider of uniforms and hospitality solutions. Cintas offers a wide range of solutions that enable hotels to build their image and increase profitability and productivity. For more information, please visit www.cintas.com/Hospitality.
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Strange Geographies: Village Life in Vanuatu
I've written a lot about strange places in the U.S. this year -- an airplane graveyard in the desert; a mock Iraqi village in the suburbs of San Diego; a town killed by a modern-day dustbowl two hours north of Los Angeles. But the strangest place I've ever been -- the strangest and most beautiful, I should say -- is a developing nation 1000km northeast of Australia, populated by the friendliest former cannibals you'll ever meet, called Vanuatu. I wrote about it a little bit back in April, right after I returned from two weeks in country, but I'd had such a whirlwind trip, and taken thousands of pictures I'd hardly even begun to cull, that I needed six months or so to process just how profoundly different life in Vanuatu is.
It's an archipelago comprised of 84 volcanic islands, each separated by many miles of shark-filled seas and unpredictable weather. Travel between islands is difficult and expensive, and as a result, to many of Vanuatu's 200,000 citizens "international travel" means going to a nearby island every few years to visit cousins. They've had some exposure to foreigners -- missionaries starting in the 19th century (some of whom were eaten); American soldiers during World War II, who established a base on the largest island to fend off the Japanese, stationed in the nearby Solomons; some British and French, who co-governed Vanuatu in a bizarre arrangement for many years; and tourists that come to a few of the islands nowadays (mostly from Australia, which is where they all assumed I was from). But even on the largest islands, which are mountainous and covered with tough-to-penetrate jungle, there are remote villages where locals have rarely, if ever, encountered outsiders. I didn't make it quite that far afield, but I did find myself in a few off-the-beaten villages that were definitely not on the tourist trail, and luckily, I brought my camera.
There's one main city in Vanutu, Port Vila, which is heavily westernized and caters to tourists who come in on cruise ships, and another large-ish town, Luganville, which is a few dusty streets of Chinese-owned shops, French restaurants and hotels catering mainly to scuba divers. Villages throughout the rest of the country rarely have electricity or running water, and though the people are very poor, they own their own land, and the rich soil and unspoiled seas make farming and fishing easy. Food that tourists consider delicacies, like coconut crab, mangoes, pineapple, and all manner of fish, are everyday dishes for the locals. A fisherman on Oyster Island at dusk:
Families make money by selling what they grow in village gardens at roadside markets like this one:
Cows are everywhere and beef is plentiful. The grass-fed, organic beef raised on Espiritu Santo is considered some of the finest in the world, and is exported to top-tier restaurants in Japan and Australia. What else would you expect from cows that get to hang out on the beach all day? I ran across these ladies while kayaking:
Of course, when a cow is slaughtered, nothing goes to waste. Fresh oxtail, anyone?
Pigs are a big deal on Vanuatu, as well. Pigs are a traditional form of monetary exchange, and the most valuable pigs are the ones with the longest tusks. PIgs whose tusks grow so long that they make a loop that pierces the bottom of the animal's jaw -- gruesome, I know -- are especially valuable. Some pig jaws on proud display in an Espiritu Santo meeting hut:
Homes are made from branches and folded palm leaves, which are sturdy enough to keep out the most torrential rain, but tend to blow away during cyclones (which are frequent). Here's a detail of the underside of a hut roof:
Here are a few views of typical Vanuatu villages, homes and a Catholic church, all woven from grass and leaves:
Christianity came with missionaries in the 19th century, and while churches abound, many villages still practice customary religions and black magic. There are also a number of fascinating cults on Vanuatu -- especially on the volcanically active island of Tanna, where tourists come to ogle a lava-spitting mountain they call Old Man Yasur.
You can climb up to the rim of Yasur, which puts on a humbling show after dark.
I was disappointed that I wasn't able to visit either of Tanna's cult villages, the best known of which is the Jon Frum cargo cult. A white man known as Jon Frum (possibly "Jon from America") supposedly visited Tanna sometime before the second world war, predicting that white men would drop from the sky with food and all sorts of goods -- which is exactly what happened when the war began. When the Americans and their cargo left, the Jon Frum followers began praying to him, using faux American flags, red cross symbols, and military uniforms, hoping that more cargo from the sky would arrive. It hasn't come yet, but the Jon Frum cultists continue to worship. (Jesus died 2,000 years ago, they like to remind us, and Christians are still waiting around for him to come back.)
The American military left its mark on Vanuatu in other ways, too. Rusting quonset huts are everywhere on Espiritu Santo, and all the country's few paved roads were built by the American government. This wide, pothole-filled road, for instance, is the remnant of a WWII airstrip. Calling it "paved," however, is charitable -- It's in such bad shape that you have to drive in a zigzag pattern just to avoid the axle-breaking holes.
The Americans also introduced a species of fast-growing vine to Espiritu Santo, in order to cover their installations and hide them from Japanese air surveillance. Those vines covered much of the island in short order:
The locals I talked to weren't bitter about the American military presence in Vanutu, though. If anything, they seemed grateful: "You are our big strong brother!" one man said to me, flexing a muscle. "You saved us from the Japanese, then gave us our country back!" Which is true, I suppose -- whereas the French and British hung around and tried to run Vanuatu for more than a hundred years, the Americans came, established some bases, and left. Still, it was a novel experience, being thanked by someone abroad for something my country's military did.
Villagers are nothing if not resourceful. Just as they'll use American airstrips as roads, other goods have multiple uses, too. A baby named Florence enjoys an unusual tire swing:
Once you get away from the beach, getting around the island can be a bit difficult -- rivers and tall, volcanic ridges are everywhere. But villagers, lacking concrete or asphalt, make do anyhow. This is a somewhat treacherous bamboo bridge across a river, on the other side of which is a steep ladder up a hill formed by branches.
Later, a villager took me to an amazing, bat-filled cave (too dark to photograph) followed by a great deal of scrambling over boulders in a rushing river -- again aided by a number of seemingly death-defying hand-made bridges. (If you look closely, you'll notice that my guide is wearing a Dora the Explorer floatie around his neck.
Finally, we floated down the river for a half-hour, nipped at by curious fish, walls of rock rising above us. Waterfalls and a riot of vegetation fell down from the cliffs above. It was, in a word, ridiculous, and the cheap waterproof camera I took this picture with does the scene no justice.
Families and kids are everywhere on Vanuatu; the population is very young.
Everywhere you go, kids follow, laughing and having fun.
It was unsettling at first to realize that even the smallest kids carried machetes with them almost everywhere they went. I soon realized that they were invaluable -- the fast-growing jungle constantly needs cutting, and machetes can cut down coconuts and open them, and their blunt handles serve as hammers.
These kids were showing me their pet eel, which they'd grown to an enormous size in a small, waterfall-fed freshwater pond in their village. They used to have two but the other one had been stolen; the remaining eel was guarded 24/7 by boys with slingshots (and machetes, naturally).
Kids in Vanuatu, you won't be surprised to learn, spend a lot of time in the water. Not only is the South Pacific warm year-round, but Vanuatu's islands are dotted with magical "blue holes" -- rain- and river-fed reservoirs of deep, cool, crystal blue water which provide drinking water to nearby villages and swimming holes for its young people.
After a snorkel:
After a scuba dive, I came up to find these boys playing on a rock jetty; they'd been following the divers' air bubbles. My lens was wet, and the result is sort of impressionistic, but totally captures the feeling of the place.
We found this boy smiling at us from a hole in the jungle. A nearby adult explained that he'd just gone through his circumcision ritual, which meant he had to wear a namba (a huge penis-sheath), mud makeup, and hang out in holes for a week or so (this guy's English was about as good as our Bislama, so I'm not totally sure on the details).
In short, Vanuatu is one strange and beautiful place, and it's people couldn't be friendlier. The South Pacific is a mind-bogglingly huge constellation of little island worlds, and though there are so many more to explore, I'm certain I'll be back to Vanuatu one day.
You can order prints or get high-quality downloads of any of these photos here.
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British “Global Warming” Expedition Rescued From Intense Cold Just In The Nick Of Time
A few days ago, your humble correspondent noted the story of a trio of British “explorers” who were on a “global warming” icepack survey in the Arctic – and who had become marooned by (surprise) frigid Arctic weather conditions. The story was too hard to pass up, since it had been given the deadpan-irony headline of:
Global Warming Team Stranded by Cold Weather
In some sense it was good fun to mock them for their foolishness. But on the other hand, they were clearly in very deep trouble – marooned by the cold and bad weather, and nearly out of food.
Fortunately, they were rescued in the nick of time by a (carbon-belching) Twin Otter, and are now safe.
But one really does have to wonder about the bone-headedness (and sanity) of people who do silly things like this and nearly get themselves killed.
More below the fold….
When dealing with the AGW-apocalypse types, one wonders which branch of the “church” is goofier.
On the one hand, there are a lot of them who insist that we’re in runaway warming and the world is burning to a crisp – but they never seen to schedule outdoor events in January to take advantage of this change of circumstances.
On the other hand, there is apparently a collection of them (as has been noted occasionally) who actually do buy into the “epic warming” notion and thus quite happily go wandering off into the Arctic in winter, expecting conditions to be tepid.
Um…. one really does have to wonder about the sanity of these people, particularly in this day and age of the Interweb Tubes – anyone can quickly look at the temperatures in the cold regions – e.g., with just a few mouse clicks, I can see that right now the temperature at Resolute, the Canadian outpost high in the Arctic Archipelago, is -36F.
Thus…. why was any of this a big surprise to them?
With perfect timing, the setting out from Britain of the “Global Warming Three” last month was hampered by “an unusually heavy snowfall”. When they were airlifted to the start of their trek by a twin-engine Otter (one hopes a whole forest has been planted to offset its “carbon footprint”), they were startled to find how cold it was. The BBC dutifully reported how, in temperatures of minus 40 degrees, they were “battered by wind, bitten by frost and bruised by falls on the ice”.
Umm, folks…. YOU…. WERE…. IN…. THE…. ARCTIC…. in the middle of March, when it’s still actually WINTER….
Meanwhile, they found that the cutie polar bears are far from extinct; in fact, they are in very good appetite….
Thanks to the ice constantly shifting, it was “disheartening”, reported Hadow, to find that “when you’ve slogged for a day”, you can wake up next morning to find you have “drifted back to where you started’’. Last week, down to their last scraps of food, they were only saved in the nick of time by the faithful Otter. They were disconcerted to see one of those polar bears, threatened with extinction by global warming, wandering around, doubtless eyeing them for its dinner.
It’s good to hear that they were safely rescued. But honestly – how dense can you be? This is really getting to be too much; these greenie types seem to be candidates for Darwin Awards….
One other thing though – it’s time for this foolishness to stop. In younger days, your humble correspondent actually accumulated a fair amount of big-mountain mountaineering experience. One piece of the code of conduct has always been that you have to be responsible far beyond “doing whatever you want.” If you do something foolish and then call for help, you are putting your would-be rescuers in danger. Mindlessly getting in trouble and then getting on the radio and screaming for help is dragging better people into your trouble with you. (Listening to someone melt down on the radio screaming for help is a numbing experience.)
Dear greenies – please cease these vainglorious tiltings at (frozen) windmills. You’re just putting innocent bystanders (such as that Twin Otter crew) in danger.
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The advice came after researchers from Glamorgan University found business execu- tives' passwords and user names on second-hand disc drives bought on the eBay auction site.
Sensitive information from financial services firm Skandia, food biotechnology company Monsanto and Scottish & Newcastle's pubs division was discovered on PCs acquired by Glamor- gan University, researchers said.
Businesses disposing of computers have a legal obligation under the Data Protection Act to ensure private data held on them is removed.
Kirstie McIntyre, manager of the waste electrical and electronic equipment programme at Hewlett-Packard, which offers IT recycling services to its customers, said, "The onus should still be on the customer to make their data safe, because it is their data."
Arthur Barnes, principal consultant at Diagonal Security, said, "If a company breaches the Data Protection Act, the responsibility rests squarely on the shoulders of the company's IT department, CIO and CEO."
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By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOSHARRINGTON -- To find the new home of The National UFO Reporting Center, you must go several yards underground at a former nuclear missile site in Eastern Washington.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The National UFO Reporting Center, which moved to this sparsely populated farm country from Seattle last year, is basically a telephone, tape recorder and desktop computer run in an underground bunker by one man who collects and publishes UFO reports from across the country.
Director Peter Davenport took over the UFO center's work from founder Robert Gribble in 1994. It had been located for years in Seattle's University District, until Davenport decided he wanted a change and paid $100,000 for the former Atlas missile site about 50 miles west of Spokane.
"There was the allure of owning my own missile site," Davenport said.
Missile Site No. 6 now contains a large row of file cabinets and boxes, neatly organized by date, containing thousands of reports of UFO sightings stretching back decades. A typical file reads:
"Longview, WA. February 25, 1999 1158 hrs. (Pacific) Description: Fourteen forestry workers witness a horseshoe shaped object lift an adult elk out of the forest and fly off with the apparently dead, or unconscious, animal."
The missile site covers 22 acres, and the massive concrete buildings are underground. The old Atlas E missiles rested flat, not upright in silos, in what were called "coffin launchers." In the event of war, a concrete lid would slide open, the missile would be hoisted upright and the engine fired.
The UFO files, along with some office furniture, are stacked in a dark, dank room the size of a basketball court, where the yellow missile hoist remains in place. A few bare bulbs provide lights.
Davenport is still cleaning out the missile site, which is pretty decrepit, and is living in an apartment in nearby Harrington while he works to make it habitable.
Davenport doesn't spend much time scanning the skies, or traveling to UFO locations. Most of his work is transcribing numerous calls or e-mails each day from people who think they have seen UFOs. He places those reports on the Web site for all to see.
Davenport also gives lectures and appears often on radio talk shows tied to UFOs. He considers himself among the most skeptical of ufologists, and estimates that 90 percent of the calls he receives can be quickly disproved, and many of the rest likely have a rational explanation.
But that still leaves a lot of reports for which no terrestrial explanation is available, Davenport said.
Washington has a long history of UFO reports, including the famous Mount Rainier sighting in 1947 that led to the coining of the term "flying saucers." In that incident, pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine silver vehicles flying in formation at high speed and moving "like a saucer if you skip it across water."
Whether UFOs exist has been hotly debated for decades. Believers point to loads of evidence, including photos and eyewitness accounts. They contend there must be other inhabited planets, and some with more advanced civilizations may be visiting us.
Like many ufologists, Davenport also believes the world's governments and press are hushing up the existence of UFOs to avoid panic.
"There is nothing more bizarre in the galaxy than human behavior toward UFOs," he said.
Despite decades of official denials, UFOs abound in movies, television, books and advertising, he said. They even show up in religion, where some reports of visions have all the earmarks of a UFO sighting, Davenport said.
UFO skeptic Jim Oberg said Davenport performs a valuable service by recording all the strange things people see in the sky. The problem is that he and other ufologists are too quick to label them extraterrestrial, Oberg said.
That doesn't necessarily mean that aliens are not visiting Earth, Oberg said.
"But the evidence does not rise to the level of an unavoidable conclusion that there is no other explanation," Oberg said, acknowledging that the debate won't end anytime soon.
Davenport graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in fisheries, and specialized in research on the genetics of steelhead trout. He was friends with Gribble, who founded the center in 1974, and agreed to continue the work when Gribble retired.
He estimated the center's work costs $500 a month.
Davenport does not spend all his time on UFO work. He is an unopposed candidate for Harrington City Council this fall, and is considering a run for the state Legislature.
"Initially this job was fun," Davenport said of running the UFO center. Now it is just "a secretarial job."
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| | Testicle Help--
I am 17 years old. I have never really had any problems with my testicles, and I am VERY VERY paranoid about things. Anyways, my left testicle hangs a little lower then my right one. Where as the left testicle hangs normal and perfectly straight, the right one just does not feel like it is hanging straight at times. I dunno how to really describe this. There is not any pain involved[well, unless I go to feel around the right testicle then there is a little pain. I have heard that it is possible for a testicle to rotate a little bit, which could cause this. How do I know if that is the case? Please help me.
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- Home »
- About Camp Haze
Scott Hazelcorn Children's Foundation
Thank you for your interest in the SCOTT HAZELCORN CHILDREN'S FOUNDATION. The Foundation was formed in response to the tragic events of September 11th 2001, when over 2800 Americans were killed at the World Trade Center. Our son Scott, worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, and unfortunately, was lost to us forever on that terrible day. So we want to say to any of you who have lost a loved one; we share and deeply understand your pain.
Our son Scott always had a special love for children, and talked about ultimately living a life where he could help to both educate and bring joy into their lives! Whether it was his dream of one day owning and operating an ice-cream truck, so he could hear the squeals of children's laughter, or running a summer camp where he could help to bring together children of all socio-economic backgrounds, Scott wanted to devote his life to helping children. He was actually in the process of preparing to enter the field of teaching when he was so suddenly and tragically killed.
Keeping this in mind, both family and friends joined together immediately following September 11th to form the foundation that now bears Scott's name. Its mission is to provide help to all children in need with a special emphasis on children who lost a loved one on 9/11/01.
To this end, the SCOTT HAZELCORN CHILDREN'S FOUNDATION sponsors 'CAMP HAZE', a one week all expense paid summer camp specifically created for children who've lost a loved one due to the World Trade Center attack as well as any child, ages 7-12, who have lost a parent to illness or tragedy. In addition we sponsor other projects that benefit children in need.
If you wish to make a donation to the SCOTT HAZELCORN CHILDREN'S FOUNDATION, you may now do so online. To find out more about the foundation, Camp Haze, or other foundation projects, you may do so by clicking onto the appropriate links.
Once again, thank you for your interest.
Janice & Chuck Hazelcorn
Executive Director & President
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Download: EngineerVsDesigner-E29.mp3 (26.4MB) iTunes: EvD on iTunes
This week we’ll talk with footwear design legend D’Wayne Edwards of Nike Brand Jordan fame. D’Wayne designed his first shoe at age 11 and is still bustin’ out jaguar-inspired basketball kicks for NBA greats. Today he is focused on creating a better design education system through his side-project Pensole Footwear Design Academy.
We’ll be talking with D’Wayne about:
Our very special guest D’Wayne Edwards is hosting his footwear academy this Spring. Interested in giving your footwear portfolio a facelift? How about learning the ins and outs of working under a corporate design house? Find out how you can register and more at www.pensole.com.
If you’ve ever wanted to print your own playsets, well, the time has come. frankly, I’m surprised this is one of the first. Makerbot has made free, downloadable 3d files for dollhouses, dolls and accessories. You can download the MakerBot Fairytale Castle Playset right now. Don’t worry boy, there’s also a rocket playset, but I’m pretty sure a bunch of little girls just got really interested in 3D printing.
The Hong Kong Fashion show kicked off with the 12th annual footwear design competition. There were some absolutely insane designs. Sky-high heels with a deck of card motif, boat shoes shaped… like a boat and some slick wooden platforms with a laser-cut leather overlay that Josh would look simply dazzling in.
Tech has taken another big leap with researchers at IBM demonstrating the first atomic-scale magnetic memory where they have successfully shown that a single bit of information can be stored in as few as 12 magnetic atoms as opposed to currently available hard-disk drives, which use about one million atoms to store a single bit of information.
CAD on the iOS and Android? Next summer it will be possible. Russian software developer Geometros will launch the first native cad engine for the devices.
Tech Soft 3D, the company that creates the HOOPS visualization technology, used in many CAD programs, is making bank with revenue up 40%.
Apple has release iBooks 2 and with it the ability for authors/publishers to get their books out to the iPad masses, granted you price the book under 14.99 and give a 30% cut to Apple.
And, if you love to see things made and sound of work, check out the Alfred Dunhill traditional case-making video.
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Human Resources Masters Degree
Obtaining a human resources masters degree will provide you with a level of skill and knowledge worthy of high level management positions with an HR department. Individuals with a masters degree in HR are prepared to manage a team of HR professionals and assist at high levels of a company to align company initiatives with human strategies. If a company is undergo major changes, the HR management team acts as key players in managing employee reactions and ensuring that motivation and job satisfaction remain in tact.
With a human resources masters degree, you will be prepared to oversee a companies recruitment program, assist with final decisions with high level employee hiring decisions, and manage teams.
Please select a state from the drop-down list to view campus based schools available to you.
Baker College Online
American InterContinental University Online
Colorado Technical University Online
Click here to see more schools.
Human Resource Management Masters Degree - MS Human Resources
What kind of Job Can I get with a Human Resource Management Masters?
A human resource management masters degree will make you a viable candidate for roles such as Vice President of HR or manager of a specific HR department in a large company. In smaller companies, you may head up the entire human resources operation in a variety of industries.
You may be asked by executive management to lead the workforce through major organizational changes or to act as a company representative with union members to establish agreements concerning employee compensation, health and safety rights, or working hours. You may be needed to mediate through grievances from employees involving highly sensitive matters. A human resources masters degree is designed to make you a confident and highly competent member of the management team, directing the efforts of the companies most important asset – it’s employees.
What types of courses will I take in an HR masters degree program?
Human resources masters degree programs tend to focus on issues that companies face as it relates to their employees from a higher, more theoretical perspective. Courses you may take include: Organizational Psychology and Human Management in Environments of Change, or Strategic Staffing. You will study the theory of psychology as it relates to employee retention among other organizational and industrial theories.
HR Masters Degree Types Available
- Human Resources MBA
- Human Resources Management Masters Degree(MHRM)
- Organizational Psychology & Development MBA
- Master of Management w/ concentration in human resources management
- M.S. Human Resources Leadership
- MS Human Capital Management
- MS Industrial and Labor Relations
- MS Legal Studies
- Graduate Level Certificates in Human Resource Management
- MA Organizational Management
* This is not an exhaustive list of masters degrees available; however, it is a sample of the most common masters level degrees for human resources.
Human Resources Management Masters Degree Online
Is an online HR masters degree less prestigious than on campus?
While there was a time when getting a degree online had a reputation for not being as thorough or prestigious, this is no longer the case. In fact, it is now becoming the preferred method of acquiring higher education for working professionals. Those who pursue a masters degree in human resources are often individuals who have been working in an HR role in some capacity and want to expand their opportunities in the profession. An online degree is the best way to continue to gain valuable experience on the job and simultaneously pursue higher education. Many companies now encourage their employees to pursue degrees online and have programs in place to subsidize their education costs. Be sure to find out if your company has such a program and be sure to take advantage of it.
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This was not a very Merry Christmas for one Gilbert woman who a scammer "took" for more than $20,000.
Her plan to buy an expensive gift went terribly wrong because she wasn't familiar with how phishing scams work.
Phishing scams have been around for awhile now, but they're still new to some people - especially seniors who are just learning how to use the internet.
No matter where a phishing scam begins it always ends with the con man wanting you to take two actions.
If you know what they are, you really can't become a victim, but if you don't you're a perfect target.
"I'm just completely devastated," Diane Booth said.
For Booth, this was the worst Christmas ever. She wanted to give her daughter an expensive, but badly-needed gift - a car - and found an ad for one in the Arizona Republic.
"She said she was Emma Dubois, she had recently got divorced and moved to Prince George Canada. She had this Lexus that was in mint condition that she wanted to sell," Booth said.
Booth received plenty of pictures and even service records. The seller accepted Booth's $24,500 offer but had one condition: the transaction had to go through Google.
"I would wire money into a Google Wallet account, and it would be held until I received the car, and up to three days after I received the car," Booth said.
Even though Google Wallet allows credit cards, Booth said the seller insisted on a money wire to a specific California location.
"She just said the money needed to be wired to that bank and that was all she said, there was no other way to do the transaction," Booth said.
Booth didn't go directly to the Google Wallet site. She clicked on a link the seller emailed her. But that link didn't take her to Google Wallet, it took her to a fake site that's hard to tell from the real thing. Booth said she wired the money and got a confirmation that the car would arrive in Arizona on Dec. 9.
"I waited all afternoon. And then I started phoning the numbers and, of course, nobody answered - it was all voicemails," Booth said.
The whole thing was a scam and the seller was a con man. There was no car, but the $24,000 Booth lost was real.
"I guess I was a novice at this whole thing and I was too gullible, believing people, I didn't realize how much fraud is done," said Booth.
Here's what Booth did wrong:
First, she clicked on a link in an email from a stranger. If she would have typed in the address to Google Wallet herself - she would have seen that they had nothing to do with this transaction. You can only be diverted to a fake site if you click on the link.
Second, and much worse, she wired money to a stranger. No legitimate business transaction is ever conducted by money wire. Money wires are only used by people who know each other very well personally and by scam artists. Scammers can't win without money being wired; never do it.
Copyright 2012 CBS 5 (Meredith Corporation). All rights reserved.
Wednesday, May 15 2013 2:57 PM EDT2013-05-15 18:57:11 GMT
The old saying goes, "If you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen." Perhaps, this applies to Kitchen Nightmares, as well. An Arizona bakery was featured on Friday's episode of the Gordon RamseyMore >
The old saying goes, "If you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen." Perhaps, this applies to Kitchen Nightmares, as well.More >
Friday, May 17 2013 7:16 PM EDT2013-05-17 23:16:53 GMT
One person has died in a crash near Harrisonville, MO, Thursday evening. The crash happened on Missouri Highway 7 and Walker Road. It involved a car and a tractor-trailer. Harrisonville is in Cass County.More >
Savannah Nash celebrated her 16th birthday last week. She died Thursday when her car slammed into a semi while she was texting during her first time driving by herself.More >
Thursday, May 16 2013 8:01 PM EDT2013-05-17 00:01:44 GMT
Rozenna Luna (Source: Maricopa County Sheriff's Office)
A mother has been taken into police custody after police say she tried to give away her 6-month-old daughter at a Phoenix gas station. Sgt. Tommy Thompson with the Phoenix Police Department said investigatorsMore >
Police said Rozenna Luna, 36, had been drinking and was on meth when she asked strangers if they wanted a "free child" as she attempted to give the baby girl away at a Phoenix gas station.More >
Tuesday, May 14 2013 8:25 PM EDT2013-05-15 00:25:14 GMT
Amy's Baking Company was featured on Kitchen Nightmares season finale, and let's just say things didn't go well. For the first time in the show's history it's host, Gordon Ramsay walked away. The showMore >
Scottsdale restaurant owners made a big splash on national television for being impossible to work with, and now it appears they've taken their bad attitudes to the internet. Or have they?More >
Friday, May 17 2013 1:49 PM EDT2013-05-17 17:49:10 GMT
Tony Phung (Source: Maricopa County Sheriff's Office)
Two men are in critical condition after they were stabbed during a fight between two other business partners at a Phoenix Vietnamese restaurant, police said. The fight broke out shortly before 11 a.m.More >
The fight broke out shortly before 11 a.m. at Tho 35 Vietnamese Noodle House at 3515 W. Northern Ave.More >
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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – With retail video game sales smacked down by the rough economy and ever-growing competition in the crowded social and mobile game marketplace, it seemed like attendees at this week's annual Game Developers Conference were more frustrated than birds catapulted at pigs.
Game designers, programmers and executives from around the world converged at the Moscone Convention Center in hopes of figuring out how to become the next "Angry Birds," the silly top-selling mobile game that pits birds against pigs. Yet many attendees dismissed the mobile platform as The Next Big Thing, noting that selling 99-cent games isn't a dependable way to generate revenue.
"Downloadable games are the future, which is what I keep telling my team when they ask why we don't make any money," joked "Psychonauts" and "Brutal Legend" developer Tim Schafer while hosting the Game Developers Choice Awards on Wednesday. "Just kidding. I blame marketing."
Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said in the conference's keynote speech Wednesday morning that "game development is drowning" because of the rise of cheaply made and priced mobile and social games. He expressed concern that those platforms have "no motivation to maintain the value of gaming" and that they lower game-makers' ability to make a living.
"We invest a tremendous amount in technology, engineering and in the staff that create these games to maintain that high level of value, so that consumers want this content," said Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime in an interview afterward. "It's not disposable, and it's something that consumers can enjoy over long periods of time."
Iwata and Fils-Aime also used the speech as a chance to reveal that the Nintendo 3DS, the glasses-free handheld 3-D gaming device set for release in the U.S. on March 27, would be able to stream Netflix movies and freely connect to more than 10,000 AT&T Wi-Fi hotspots. Iwata also teased that Nintendo is working on a new "Super Mario" title in 3-D.
Coincidentally, Iwata made his declaration the same day that Apple head honcho Steve Jobs stepped onto a different stage within the massive Moscone Convention Center for the unveiling of the iPad 2, the latest Apple doodad that can – among other things – be used to play games. However, Apple's iPad 2 announcement wasn't related to the conference.
The convergence of the gaming and mobile realms was also on display during the U.S. debut of the Xperia Play, Sony Ericsson's gaming-centric smartphone, which features a 4-inch touchscreen and a slide-out controller reminiscent of Sony's PlayStation Portable controls. Instead of dual analog joysticks, it features a pair of sleek round touch-pads.
The smartphone will be available later this month and have about 50 games at launch designed to use the unique controls from such publishers as Electronic Arts, Glu Mobile and Gameloft. The titles include the fighter "Bruce Lee Dragon Warrior" and role-playing game "Dungeon Defenders," as well as a few editions of original PlayStation games.
"It is a smartphone first," said Xperia Play product manager Aaron Duke. "But we wanted to make sure gamers could get the most out of the device. We wanted them to be able to beat it up and treat it like a true game controller. We really feel like we've built a platform where developers can bring real console-quality games to a mobile device."
"Console games are not going anywhere," noted Game Developers Conference director Meggan Scavio. "There will always be a place for hardcore gamers and blockbuster titles, just like movies. This conference started as the Computer Game Developers Conference, and it has evolved over the years. We dropped the word computer because of the rise of consoles."
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It’s been unseasonably warm around here — check out the flip flops and dress! And the Easter Basket there…well, would you believe it’s for collecting Fall leaves?
N picked up all of her favorites. She was only limited by the amount of space she had in the basket. My plan was to take them home and make some negative space impressions of the leaves with a spray bottle.
When we got home we laid them all out on huge sheets of paper. And then had a snack. Snacks are important. If we hadn’t been so impatient, pressing the leaves for a day would have made our leaf impressions clearer, but I was working with three-year olds, and, well, they like to do things when they think of them. Patience only goes so far.
I filled a spray bottle with a solution of 1/2 water and 1/2 orange liquid watercolors. And oh-my-goodness if this wasn’t the most fun part of the entire project. It could have been the project all by itself. And we could have done it outside. That would have been smart. But fortunately our table was covered with paper and plastic, and the kids sprayed to their heart’s content.
Despite the curling leaves, you can see that the impressions are still pretty clear. It worked best when the kids stood up on a chair and sprayed straight down. Once dry, we hung one above our play kitchen.
And once this was done, we went back outside for bike riding, popsicle eating, and watermelon seed spitting. Really. It’s been that warm.
How are you enjoying these first days of Fall?
<a href=”http://tinkerlab.com/2012/10/subtraction-and-addition/facebook-logo-1/” rel=”attachment wp-att-8134″><img title=”facebook-logo-1″ src=”http://tinkerlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/facebook-logo-1-e1349168474364.jpeg” alt=”" width=”150″ height=”83″ /></a>If you like what you see here, we’d love to have you join our 7000+ member community <strong><a href=”https://www.facebook.com/tinkerlab”>on Facebook</a>.</strong>
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Students at the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale have received reinforcements in their movement to restore a flight control tower on campus that was used in pilot training during World War II.
Pilots from 26 countries trained in Glendale, making their way to Thunderbird Field beginning in 1941. The Thunderbird Tower was a landmark of that period, and it still stands.
Glendale Mayor Elaine Scruggs launched a fund-raising campaign and partnership with M&I Bank June 3, saying the tower is an important part of the city’s and the region’s history.
“I was so proud of them for beginning this effort to restore the tower, and I wanted to help,” she said. “Most of all I wanted to make this a community effort, because the Thunderbird Tower represents such a wonderful part of our history.”
Construction, budgeted at about $2.5 million, began in September last year. Of that total, more than $400,000 is left to be raised. That, Scruggs said, is where the community will need to step in. Stephen Johnson, M&I Bank’s Arizona region president, presented Scruggs with a check for $500 on behalf of M&I’s employees.
When finished, Thunderbird Tower will serve as a campus common area, with a pub and game room, a retail shop, student kitchen and a veterans/alumni gallery.
To donate mail or drop off a check payable to the Historic Thunderbird Tower Restoration to the Glendale Office of the Mayor, 5850 W. Glendale Ave., Glendale, AZ 85301. For information on the project, visit www.thunderbird.edu/tower.
Jeff Dempsey may be reached at 623-876-2531 or firstname.lastname@example.org.
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Joined at the Heart: The Transformation of the American Family
by Al and Tipper Gore
Henry Holt, 417 pp., $26.00
Mary Elizabeth Aitcheson and Albert Arnold Gore Jr. met at a prep school prom in 1964, when she was sixteen and he was a year older. They began dating steadily, and married soon after she finished college. They have been together ever since. By most measures theirs has been a conventional family. She took his name and stayed at home to raise four children, always adapting to the demands of his career. (In the 1980s, she launched a campaign against what she called “porn rock” music, which got her lots of headlines but had no evident effect.) After the 2000 election, the Gores essentially dropped from public view. It now appears that they were devoting much of their time to writing a long and amply documented book on the state of family life in today’s America.
They have chosen a sensitive subject, sensitive not least because it can prompt judgments about how millions of people are conducting their lives. Moreover, ideology almost always intrudes on any discussion of the family. Ideas and issues tend to divide along right-wing vs. liberal lines, largely reflecting the preemption by conservatives of the phrase “family values.” The conservative position has been elaborated in books by Barbara Dafoe Whitehead (The Divorce Culture), Wendy Shalit (A Return to Modesty), Maggie Gallagher (The Abolition of Marriage), and Dana Mack (The Assault on Parenthood), most of which have been reviewed in these pages. Since the general perspective of such writers is well known, its precepts can be briefly summarized. First, all children should be born to parents who are married, and the parents should stay wed until one of them dies. Single persons should abstain from sex, and marriage must be confined to heterosexual partnerships. Today, few conservatives object to contraception, and many allow latitude for women taking jobs. (Indeed, they insist that single mothers work, rather than stay on the welfare rolls.) They are troubled by sex even among older unmarried adults, and even if they are faithfully living together in informal arrangements. One worry is that sex in the movies and television will embolden teenagers to have sex and bear children they can’t look after properly.
The liberal position is less sharply drawn, but on the whole, it is less inclined to censure the kinds of conduct that conservatives find distressing. One reason is that the numbers of people under scrutiny are no longer small. For example, one third of all women now becoming mothers are not married, and a large majority of them are having their babies by choice. While we no longer have precise figures, an informed estimate is that at least a quarter of Americans who have married have already been divorced, and the proportion is likely to be considerably higher among the coming generation. Moreover, given the later age of marriage—and the considerable numbers who forego it altogether—most single people are sexually active, and they are starting earlier. Liberals tend to feel that …
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Moment of truth for EU gas pipeline
25.05.12 @ 18:29
BRUSSELS - The EU-endorsed Nabucco pipeline project is shrinking and might vanish by the end of June.
When executives from five energy firms - Botas, Bulgargaz, Mol, OMV and Transgaz - ate dinner in Vienna in October 2002 after watching the Verdi opera Nabucco, they envisaged a 3,900-km-long pipeline that would bring 31 billion cubic metres (bcm) a year of Azerbaijani, Iraqi and Turkmen gas from the Georgian-Turkish border to Austria.
In strategic terms, the project was designed to end Russia's monopoly on Caspian Sea gas imports and to weaken its political influence in central and eastern Europe.
Ten years later, it has shrunk and it has a new name: Nabucco West. The old concept is being called Nabucco Classic.
Nabucco West is to be a 1,300-km-long pipeline that will bring 10 bcm of Azerbaijani gas from the Bulgarian-Turkish border to Austria from 2017.
It is competing with two other options: the Tap pipeline to ship the gas from Turkey to Italy and the Seep pipeline to ship it from Turkey to Austria.
The companies which operate Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz gas field - which will supply the winning pipeline - are to decide by the end of June whether Nabucco West or Seep go through to a final round of competition against Tap.
The main shareholder in the Shah Deniz consortium, BP, is also the main firm behind Seep.
BP's chief of refining and marketing, Iain Conn, in a speech in Berlin on Thursday (24 May) said the selection will be made on "transparent criteria" and that "there is no pre-determined winner, the competition is fully open."
He added that Seep "offers an efficient routing into and through these strategically important markets" in south-east Europe. He did not say anything nice about Nabucco.
A BP spokesman, Toby Odone, told EUobserver on Friday that in any case Nabucco Classic is dead.
"To all intents and purposes it isn't going to happen. It's just not in the frame ... When Nabucco was first planned it talked about multiple sources [Turkmenistan, Iran] coming together. That just hasn't happened. All those agreements haven't come through," he said.
The Nabucco consortium and the European Commission say it is still alive.
"We are confident that Nabucco West will win the bid, and then I still think, that the original Nabucco concept will be discussed again," Leonhard Birnbaum, a board member of one of the Nabucco consortium companies, Germany's RWE, said on Thursday.
Commission spokeswoman Marlene Holzner told press on Friday: "To our understanding, the Nabucco Classic version is still on the table."
She noted that in strategic terms it does not matter whether Tap, Seep or Nabucco win, so long as the EU gets direct access to Caspian gas and the 10 bcm capacity can be increased in future.
In technical terms, if the wall of a gas pipeline is thick enough then more gas can be pumped through it under a higher pressure. If all the inter-governmental agreements are in place to lay one pipe, then it is easy to lay a second one along the same route.
"For the EU, it does not matter what the name of the pipeline is, but that the 'content is Nabucco'," Holzner said.
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Q: I have a successful business with exciting plans for the future, a part-time job, a family and parents who I take care of. I love my work and my family, but sometimes it feels like a lot of responsibility.
Lately, I just get one thing accomplished, and another appears. I'm worried about burning out - I haven't worked out in six months, I'm exhausted and not sleeping, yet I keep taking more on. Maybe I need to manage my time more effectively?
A: Improving your time management may be helpful, although I wonder if that will help you avoid burn out.
You seem like you have a lot of energy, drive and passion for life. And when you add a strong sense of responsibility to that mix, it can become difficult to know your limits. When you love what you do, you care and you feel personally accountable, saying 'yes' can become a habit and you can lose your perspective.
Here are some tips to help you put things back into perspective and create a better sense of balance:
- Consider your value of responsibility. How does being responsible relate to being successful? How is it impacting your ability to make choices that support a more balanced lifestyle?
- Declare your priorities. What is most important to you?
- Make a fair trade. What are you willing to say 'no' to, to get more of what you need to feel better?
- Get some help. What support or resources do you need to help you make a shift?
- Amp up your attitude of gratitude. Intentionally practise appreciating the positives in your life - it can help promote good perspective and well-being.
Lisa Caswell is a certified executive coach, consultant and facilitator whose work influences change, engages people, and inspires performance. She can be reached through her website, www.beingabetterleader.com
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We created Pandora to put the Music Genome Project directly in your hands
It’s a new kind of radio –
stations that play only music you like
Born in Galveston, TX, Barry White grew up singing gospel songs with his mother and taught himself to play piano. Shortly after moving from Texas to South Central Los Angeles, White made his recording debut at the tender age of 11, playing piano on Jesse Belvin's "Goodnight My Love." He made his first record when he was 16 with a group called the Upfronts. The song was called "Little Girl" on a local L.A. label called Lummtone Records. Later he worked for various independent labels around Los Angeles, landing an A&R position with Bob Keane, the man responsible for the first pop recordings by Sam Cooke. One of his labels, Mustang, was hot at the time with a group called the Bobby Fuller Four in 1966. White was hired for 40 dollars a week to do A&R for Keane's family of labels: Del-Fi, Mustang and Bronco. During this time, White flirted with the idea of being a recording artist, making a record for Bronco called "All in the Run of a Day." But he chose to stick with his A&R duties. One of the first groups he worked with was the Versatiles who later changed their name to the 5th Dimension. White's first big hit came from an artist familiar to dancefloor denizens -- Viola Wills, whose "Lost Without the Love of My Guy" went Top 20 R&B. His salary went up to 60 dollars a week. White started working with the Bobby Fuller Four. Bob Keene and Larry Nunes -- who later became White's spiritual advisor and true friend -- wanted to cut a female act. White had heard about a singer named Felice Taylor. They had three hit records, "It May Be Winter Outside," "I'm Under the Influence of Love," and "I Feel Love Coming On." They were huge hits in England. White started making 400 dollars a week.
When Bronco went out of business, White began doing independent production. Those were some lean times for White. Veteran arranger Gene Page, who would later arrange or co-arrange White's hits, helped him out, giving him work and non-repayable loans. Then three years later, Paul Politti, who also worked at Bronco, contacted him to tell him that Larry Nunes was interested in starting a business with him. Nunes had started cutting tracks for a concept album he was working on. Meanwhile, White had started working with this girl group who hadn't done any singing professionally. They rehearsed for almost a year. White wrote "Walkin' in the Rain (With the One I Love)" with lyrics that were inspired by conversations with one of the singers, Glodean James (who would later become White's second wife). White christened the group Love Unlimited.
Larry Nunes took the record to Russ Regan, who was the head of the Uni label owned by MCA. Love Unlimited's From a Girl's Point of View became a million-seller. Soon after, Regan left Uni for 20th Century Records. Without Regan, White's relationship with Uni soured. With his relationship with Uni in chaos and Love Unlimited contract-bound with the label, White decided he needed to work with another act. He wanted to work with a male artist. He made three song demos of himself singing and playing the piano. Nunes heard them and insisted that he re-record and release them as a recording artist. They argued for days about it. Then he somehow convinced White to do it. White was still hesitating up to the time the label copy was made. He was going to use the name "White Heat," but the record became the first Barry White album. That first album was 1973's I've Got So Much to Give on 20th Century Records. It included the title track and "I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little More Baby."
White got a release from Uni for Love Unlimited and they joined him over at 20th Century Records. Then he had a brainstorm for another concept album. He told Regan he wanted to do an instrumental album. Regan thought he had lost it. White wanted to call it the Love Unlimited Orchestra. The single, "Love's Theme," went to number one pop, was a million-seller, and was a smash all over the world. The song earned him a BMI award for over three million covers.
For the next five years, from 1974 to 1979, there was no stopping the Barry White Hit Train -- his own Stone Gon, Barry White Sings Love Songs for the One You Love ("It's Ecstasy When You Lay Down Next to Me," "Playing Your Game Baby"), Let the Music Play (title track, "You See the Trouble with Me"), Just Another Way to Say I Love You ("I'll Do for You Anything You Want Me To," "Love Serenade"), The Man ("Your Sweetness Is My Weakness," "Sha La La Means I Love You," "September When We Met," a splendid cover of Billy Joel's "Just the Way You Are"), and Love Unlimited's In Heat ("I Belong to You," "Move Me No Mountain," "Share a Little Love in Your Heart," and "Love's Theme," with lyrics). He also scored a soundtrack for the 20th Century Fox film The Together Brothers, enjoying a resurgence on home video.
His studio band included such luminaries as guitarists Ray Parker, Jr. (pre-Raydio, co-writer with White on "You See the Trouble With Me"), bassist Nathan East, Wah Wah Watson, David T. Walker, Dean Parks, Don Peake, bassist Wilton Felder of the Crusaders, Lee Ritenour, drummer Ed Greene, percussionist Gary Coleman, and later keyboardist Rahn Coleman. His hit streak seemed, well, unlimited. Then it all derailed. Russ Regan and another ally, Hosea Wilson, left 20th Century Records and White was left with management that he thought of in less than glowing terms.
White left after fulfilling his contract with two more album releases, Love Unlimited Orchestra's My Musical Bouquet and his own I Love to Sing the Songs I Sing. White signed a custom label deal with CBS Records. At the time it was touted as one of the biggest deals ever. He started a label called Unlimited Gold. The roster included White, Love Unlimited, the Love Unlimited Orchestra, Jack Perry, and a teenaged singer named Danny Pearson who charted with a song called "What's Your Sign Girl." He also did a duet album with Glodean James called Barry & Glodean. Aside from the gold album The Message Is Love, most of the albums weren't huge sellers. After eight Barry White albums, four Love Unlimited albums, four Love Unlimited Orchestra albums, constant touring, and dealing with the rigors of the music industry, White decided to take a break.
Then in 1992, White signed with A&M, releasing the albums The Man Is Back, The Right Night & Barry White, and Put Me in Your Mix (which contains a duet with Issac Hayes, "Dark and Lovely"). The Icon Is Love became his biggest-selling album since the '70s releases, going multi-platinum. It includes the platinum single "Practice What You Preach." The production lineup includes Gerald Levert and Tony Nicholas, his godson Chuckii Booker, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, and White and his longtime friend Jack Perry. While some later efforts buried his vocals in whiz-bang electronic effects, on The Icon Is Love, White's deep steam engine baritone pipes are upfront in the mix. Staying Power followed in 1999, showcased in the best tradition of soul music where the focus is the singer and the song. The album earned White two Grammys. White's career took him from the ghetto to international success with 106 gold and 41 platinum albums, 20 gold and ten platinum singles, with worldwide sales in excess of 100 million.
White, who suffered from hypertension and chronic high blood pressure, was hospitalized for kidney failure in September of 2002. He was undergoing dialysis treatment, but the combination of illnesses proved too much and he died July 4, 2003 at a West Hollywood hospital. By the time of his death, Barry White had achieved a near-universal acclaim and popularity that few artists achieve and even fewer within their own lifetime. ~ Ed Hogan & Wade Kergan, Rovi
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President Obama’s Speech to the Muslim World was Filled with Hopes of Change but Will it Ever Happen? While most in the U.S. were asleep in their beds, President Obama gave a speech to the Muslim world asking them to accept certain ideologies they do not believe in.
Is President Obama a dreamer or a realist? Listening to his speech, I’m going with dreamer. Some of the President’s talking points were on the subjects of embracing democracy, religious tolerance, women’s rights and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. All of these are dreams we would like to see come true in this part of the world.
Sadly, just giving a speech will never make it happen. To begin, its not up to US. The Arab world has to want this to become reality.
However, I’m afraid this will never happen anytime soon. It could but it is really out of our hands at this point in time. During the speech, and at times, it sounded like apologies for our way of life once again.
All in all, President Obama’s speech was a flawed one. In his weak attempt to “connect” to the Islamic sect, Obama quoted from the Koran (Quran) on several occasions but his downfall was the quote “Be conscious of God and speak always the truth.” How can you state that quote and then go into a diatribe about how you are a student of history and how the world owes a debt of gratitude to Islam?
Obama continued to talk about education and all the advances that arrived from Islam but what is great about a history that is against women’s rights? Besides denying women the rights to education, where was any statement about the other abuses women face in the Arab world? Our great orator of a President did not mention anything about a religion that stones its women for being raped by Muslim men.
These abuses were not spoken of. No, our President criticized those in the West (see Americans) who have objected to the Muslim women wearing the hijab. Another apology on our behalf but why didn’t he apologize for the treatment women suffer while under Islam?
Is this being honest? The stonings, rapes, mutilations and slaughters that happened on a daily basis in the name of a peaceful religion. Maybe our President isn’t a student of history and should research the story of Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow. http://www.undispatch.com/archives/2008/11/i_want_to_go_ba.php
Another kumbaya speech by President Obama. Apologies for our way of life once more. The man has been in office for only five short months and has already apologized more than any other President in history. Another first for Obama?
What I took notes on was the number of times Obama mentions the words terrorism or terrorists. The answer is ZERO. How many times did he quote from the “Holy Koran”? THREE. How many times did President Obama quote from the Holy Bible. ZERO. Makes you sit up and think.
Our president basically threw our country’s military and intelligence community under the bus with his comments: “And finally, just as America can never tolerate violence by extremists, we must never alter our principles. 9/11 was an enormous trauma to our country. The fear and anger that it provoked was understandable, but in some cases, it led us to act contrary to our ideals. We are taking concrete actions to change course. I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States, and I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year.”
TRAUMA? How about “9/11 was an enormous TERRORIST ATTACK ON OUR COUNTRY BY THOSE WHO DID IT UNDER THE NAME OF ISLAM” Lets be truthful, Mr. President. Guantanamo Bay never caused 9/11 and no matter how many times you make this claim, you should remember that it was built after 9/11.
Another item to be concerned with is Obama’s stance on Israel. Israel has and always will be our only friend in the Middle East, yet President Obama wanted to get his applause and turned his back on Israel. Sure he touched basics with Israel’s right to exist. But he flubbed up in a big way.
This is the part of Obama’s speech that should have, not only Israel, but every American worried: “I understand those who protest that some countries have weapons that others do not. No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons. That is why I strongly reaffirmed America’s commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons. And any nation – including Iran – should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That commitment is at the core of the Treaty, and it must be kept for all who fully abide by it. And I am hopeful that all countries in the region can share in this goal.”
Mr. President, our student of history, what are you thinking? Iran is hell bent on “wiping Israel off the map” as claimed by its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Wonder how Obama would feel if, lets say, Mexico was our mortal enemy and Israel supported their right to “peaceful nuclear power?” Yeah, that is what I thought.
Another sticking point is Obama’s stance on bringing democracy to the Middle East. Our President stood in front of the Muslim world and basically blamed the Bush administration. So, we should believe that Muslims and those that follow Islam do not believe in democracy because of the war in Iraq? Give me a break.
They have never believe in democracy. Blaming former President Bush for such ills is really getting ridiculous. If the Muslims want democracy, let them do like our forefathers did. LET THEM FIGHT FOR IT. Making them out to be victims is a art form that Obama is good a painting.
Another group being held back by the imaginary “man?” Another apology, which I found to be shocking is how we in the West, are not allowing freedom of religion.
This is the President’s quote from his speech: “Freedom of religion is central to the ability of peoples to live together. We must always examine the ways in which we protect it. For instance, in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation. That is why I am committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat.” “Likewise, it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit – for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear. We cannot disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretense of liberalism.”
So, let me understand. In the U.S. we have laws that Muslims shouldn’t have to obey? I never knew there were any limits on charitable givings. Maybe Obama is talking about political givings because I have never heard of a limit on “charitable givings.”
As far as the hajib issue. If I cannot wear my ball cap when I have my driver licenses picture taken, you should not be able to cover your entire head with cloth. Fair is fair. Nothing against your religion as President Obama wants the Arab world to believe.
Be truthful Mr. President. There are some good points and lofty dreams in President Obama’s speech. Honestly, the Muslim world will have to change all of their ills on their own. We should help out if asked but if not, we should mind our side of the hemisphere. Cue up some John Lennon music. I hear “Imagine” is a good one to listen to.
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(CNN) -- With nearly a million California residents evacuated from their homes, families and friends across the country are wondering if their loved ones are safe. CNN.com asked readers to share their stories.
The following e-mails are organized alphabetically by submitters' last names. Click here to read the M-Z submissions.
I-Reporter Andrew Huse captured this photo Monday of the blaze in San Diego, California.
Courtney Adams of Costa Mesa, California
I'm downwind from the Irvine/Santiago Fire. The air quality is really bad! I'm grateful my home is not in danger. However, for those exposed to the smoke, I'm finding that some Tylenol helps with the headache, a saline nasal spray keeps the nose from drying out and Vicks inhaler is letting me breathe. Just my two cents. I'm trying to stay healthy and available to help out where needed. I'm at a public library about 7 miles from the fire. The A/C and wi-fi are great.
Trudy and Chris Adams of Fallbrook, California
We were evacuated from our residence in Valley Oaks Park with 200 mobile and manufactured homes around 10:30 this morning. We are staying with a church friend in Temecula about 10 miles north of our home. We had to take back roads because the 15 was closed.
Victoria Adelhelm of Rancho Santa Fe, California
We left our home in The Groves in Rancho Santa Fe at 6:30 this morning. Now in La Jolla with pets and all family members safely. Air condition a lot better. Heard of fire in gated communities Cielo, The Crosby Estates and The Bridges (down the street from Groves). If anyone has information on these fires, please post updates. Those fires are blowing westward toward my house.
Matt Aranda of La Jolla, California
I am a student at UCSD (University of California at San Diego). We have been ordered to shelter in place due to unhealthy air conditions. Classes have been canceled through Tuesday, with the possibility of a cancellation of the rest of the week. The campus is closed, and the staff is advising students to stay in their dorms and to not leave the campus. See photos from students and I-Report contributors »
David Barak of Poway, California
We're surrounded by evacuation zones here in our southern corner of Poway, in San Diego County. In fact, we're inside one, literally right at the edge of one zone (our street is listed as one of the borders of the evacuation zone), and we're three driving miles from Pomerado Hospital, evacuated earlier today.
However, the sky directly above us is pretty clear, and the fire has pretty much gone around our area to the north and south as it progresses westward to the coast. The only reason we've stayed is to avoid putting unnecessary stress on our pets, but we're packed and ready to leave quickly if needed.
Shasta Blaustein of Greensboro, North Carolina
The Hoskins family has evacuated and is with Grandma and Grandpa. Everyone is OK.
Michelle Brown of Poway, California
Lenny Roth and I are alive and well. We are in Chula Vista at a friend's house.
Ted Buchan of San Diego, California
Our family -- Crissy, Ashley and MacKenzie Buchan -- and dogs are safe at our parents' house in Solana Beach, California.
Judianne Byrne of Tucson, Arizona
We moved here in 2004 after going through the Cedar Fire and thought it came too close. It burned houses in our neighborhood. I am concerned about the Bernardo Winery where I worked and have many friends. How can I find out if the winery is safe?
Scott Campbell of Lake Arrowhead, California
I'm general counsel for the Lake Arrowhead Community Services District. Local news is available on www.rimoftheworld.net.
Michael Campos of Carmel Valley, California
About 7 this morning, my son, Justin, and his mom packed up and left their 3-year-old home in 4S Ranch. They took Camino Del Sur to avoid freeways and took about three hours to get out of 4S Ranch through Old Carmel Valley Road and met up with me in Del Mar. I was evacuated around 9 a.m., while wind gusts blew down trees all over the neighborhood. We headed north to Oceanside where my parents live and got out of the thick smoke that covered Carmel Valley, Del Mar and Solana Beach. In Oceanside, it's just another day ...
Cecilia Cano of Sun Valley, California
Stetson Ranch in Santa Clarita was evacuated at 11:30. They gave them 3 minutes to get out. Eddie and Chanai and their 4 children are out and trying to find a way to safety. This is only about half a mile from the mobile home park that is burning.
Angela Capannelli Bates of Encinitas, California
Left Encinitas on Monday; air quality bad, staying in OC with Dino and Ardenia. Angela, Gabriella and Alfredo all safe.
Sean Carne of San Diego, California
I had to evacuate from my Rancho Bernardo home off of Camino Del Norte only minutes from Larry Himmel's home in RB. I came to Mira Mesa, having been watching the news all day. The only good thing about this is the immense cooperation between citizens and firefighters to evacuate their homes. Another great thing is how many evacuation centers have been put up and the generous amounts of donations that have been received. Thank you!
Lisa Cook of Carlsbad, California
The haze and ash falling from the sky made it an easy decision to voluntarily evacuate for the time being. It just took our school district to figure it out.
Amanda Cormier of San Diego, California
My family evacuated from the Rancho Penasquitos area of San Diego in the corridor between the 56 freeway and the 15 freeway, south of Del Dios Highway. It took about an hour to traverse the 56 freeway to reach the 5. We are now staying at a relative's home near the San Diego International Airport.
Rosanna Costales of Waipahu, Hawaii
Needing to know that my sister and her entire family are safe. Greg and Roxanne Louie, daughter Ashley and son Benjamin. Reside in Mt. Woodson off 67.
Stuart Cumming of Bonsall, California
Stuart and Jacqueline Cumming have Chancey and birds -- but horses were left at the ranch. Animal control came and picked up the sheep. We are staying with family in Carlsbad.
Alicia Erbland of Fallbrook, California
My family lives off Gird Road in Fallbrook and has been evacuated and are staying with friends in Carlsbad and doing just fine.
John Farris of Rancho Santa Fe, California
We got out early with our horses! Thanks to the local police ...
Phyllis Fetter of Crestline, California
We all went down the mountain. We are all safe at Rita's house.
Carolyn Fox of Lake Arrowhead, California
We are still here despite the evacuations. This happened three years ago with the "Old Fire," and we are watering our two houses down near the lake. I have power and Internet still, don't know how long. It's bad! Call us if you need details. We are at the top of the mountain looking at the fires!!
Michelle Good of San Diego, California
My parents lived in Rancho Bernardo and were forced to evacuate when a tree bordering their property caught fire. They were able to take a few paintings and important documents. As I was talking to my father on the phone, making sure that they were safe, he mentions that the first thing my stepmom took with her was my wedding dress. I am even more thankful that I have been blessed with the best mom a daughter could ask for and that my loved ones are safe and unharmed.
Aliya and Crista Gordon of Castaic, California
We are OK ... staying with Adam and Deanna.
Don Gordon of San Diego, California
We evacuated at 11:30 a.m. from Carmel Valley, and at that time, it was a black cloud. We headed south to Chula Vista. Now watching for evacuation from Chula Vista. We are safe at the moment!
Joanne Goss of Encinitas, California
Currently there are nine fires burning out of control. Del Mar Race Track is now a shelter, as is Qualcomm Stadium. ... North County SD is burning out of control ... evacuated ... all of Del Mar (on the ocean) Rancho Santa Fe, Fairbanks Ranch, Olivenhain, Leucadia (Coastal), parts of La Costa -- these communities are approximately 4 miles or less from the beach. The wind is howling toward the ocean, and with it, it is bringing flames, ash and blinding smoke. Gov. Arnie should be here in 15 minutes to address this countie(s) state of emergency. Places that were shelters last night are now being evacuated. Malibu is nothing compared to this horrific nightmare.
Jim Grant of Poway, California
Jim, Heidi, Garrett, Brittany and Kylie are evacuated and driving to safety.
Crystal Gregory of Encinitas, California
Village Park evacuated. Me, Zach, Tim, JP, Tyson and Bella are OK. Not sure where to go.
Christa Gutzler of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
I just spoke to Adrienne Barker who recently returned from Iraq and only weeks ago moved to Southern California, and she is safe and has relocated north.
Patty Hall of San Diego, California
The Hall-Cohens are all safely evacuated. Barry, Jeanne, David and his girlfriend Ashley Brown have gone to stay with Mike and Gladys in Chula Vista. I am up in the Bay Area with Verl and Fran until tomorrow.
Beth Hammon of Encinitas, California
We are under a lot of smoke, and my 74-year-old mother had to evacuate her home 2 miles east of us. So far, we have not been evacuated nearer to the coast, so we brought her here and are hanging tough. Fires are not that close yet, but the smoke is bad. We are all fine, and we are packed and ready to move out if we are ordered to.
Wendy Hart of Phoenix, Arizona
I have 2 horses that were being boarded off of Mother Grundy Truck Trail in Jamul. I am desperately trying to find out if they are alive, were evacuated, or ??
Barbara Hatfield of Poway, California
I have evacuated to my family's home in Westminster, CA. I am doing fine.
Michele Hemming of San Marcos, California
I am safe at home in San Marcos. Olivia Hemming, my mom, is safer, she's in La Jolla staying with friends at the beach. I stayed home in case of future evacuations here and to help all my friends in Escondido if they need me. San Marcos is surrounded by the fires here, in Fallbrook, Escondido and Poway/Rancho Bernardo. The air is almost unbreathable here.
Eleda Hila of Fallbrook, California
I'm at my daughter Nancy and Brian's in Orange County.
Timothy Hill of Los Angeles, California
I am safe.
Steven Hong of San Diego, California
I'm safe. We (roommates and I) evacuated from our home in Rancho Penasquitos this morning and are currently in La Jolla.
Connie Hurden Munoz of Poway, California
Our family and pets are safe.
Jayne Hurley of Santee, California
To any family members who may check here, everyone is safe as of 2:15. Although the mandatory evacuations are getting closer, we haven't been asked to leave as of now. I will update as the day progresses.
Rachel Ikonomou of Stevenson Ranch, California
We are up in Westridge of Stevenson Ranch right next to Magic Mountain and the Old Road. We were evacuated at 3 p.m. but allowed to go back at 5:30. The firefighters are doing an amazing job considering how dry and windy it is. I can see 2 separate fires from our window. It is horrible knowing we can be evacuated and lose our home at any time. Due to the weather, it looks like the fire is only going to continue to spread. We have the car packed and ready to go. Pray for us.
Kim Jones of Chula Vista, California
I am disappointed to see that you are covering the fires in Malibu, California, when almost all of San Diego County has had mandatory or voluntary evacuations. The smoke is so thick that breathing conditions are horrible. People are trying to leave and are sitting in traffic for over five hours. And you are covering celebrity and rich people's houses that burned. Even the Govenator was here in San Diego and still nothing is covered from you on it.
Suren Khachatryan of Malibu, California
I would like to let my relatives (especially my family in Armenia) know that I am safe and I managed to evacuate from Pepperdine's Malibu campus.
Steve King of Lakewood, California
Kelly and Rebecca Kline of San Diego, California
We were evacuated from our 4S Ranch home early Monday morning. Staying at our old loft in downtown San Diego for the moment. Prayer coverage for all of California needed!
Larry Laramee of Rancho Santa Fe, California
Anna, Tara and Dad are safe. Our insurance policy should cover everything lost.
Lorna Lavine of Carlsbad, California
We are staying in Toronto, Canada, until fires subside.
Michael, Tana and Matthew Lesmeister of Escondido, California
We are in El Segundo in a hotel. Safe. Keep up your hard work, all our heroes out there battling these fires.
George Lin of Los Angeles, California
We are all safe, Suh, Jacqueline and I.
Kevin Lun of San Elijo Hills, California
Evacuated San Elijo Hills at 3:45 a.m., and drove to a hotel in Del Mar. Safe at the hotel now. E-mail to a friend
All About Wildfires
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Poor awareness, misunderstanding hinder palliative care for heart failure
A lack of awareness among heart failure patients prevents them accessing palliative care services during the late stages of their disease, indicate US study findings.
CMS Delayed Final Rule On Payments To Physicians Released
The CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) announced a long-awaited rule which will raise public awareness of the financial relationships between medical device and pharmaceutical companies and doctors and teaching hospitals. Peter Budetti, MD, CMS deputy administrator for program integrity said that patients have the right to know whether their doctor has a financial relationship with the makers of medical devices or medications they may need. "Disclosure of these relationships allows patients to have more informed discussions with their doctors...
Feds launch 'full throttle' effort to expand health coverage
The Department of Health and Human Services redesigns its website as part of its campaign to raise awareness about the health law's requirement that most people carry insurance. Meanwhile, a U.S. appeals judge temporarily blocks the government from forcing a Christian publisher to comply with its mandate to cover all birth control options.
Penn Medicine sponsors Joining Forces in recognition of Veteran's Day
In recognition of Veteran's Day this November Penn Medicine proudly sponsors Joining Forces - a national initiative to heighten awareness about the health needs of our nation's veterans, service members and families, and elevate the role that medical schools, nursing schools and teaching hospitals play in serving their community.
Leading Children's Medic Backs National Vitamin D Drive
One of the country's leading experts in the problems of vitamin D deficiency says more needs to be done to prevent the recent resurgence of childhood rickets, ahead of a major awareness campaign. Dr Benjamin Jacobs, consultant paediatrician and Director of Children's Service at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, is using National Vitamin D Awareness Week to renew calls for parents and pregnant women to consider supplementation, following a rise in serious medical problems affecting children including, rickets, calcium deficiency convulsions and rarely even heart failure...
ACP urges use of performance measures targeting 'low-value services' to reduce overuse, misuse of these approaches
The American College of Physicians released a position paper Monday pressing for "valid, evidence-based measures" as a means of raising physician awareness and changing clinician behavior.
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For the Night of 4 July 2011
Japan: For the record. A Japanese exploration team found large deposits of rare earth minerals on the Pacific Ocean floor, according to British journal Nature Geoscience. The discovery is estimated between 80-100 billion metric tons, nearly a thousand times more than current proven reserves of 110 million tons as estimated by the U.S. Geological Survey. The discovery could alter the supply-demand dynamics of the global rare-earth market, according to team leader Yasuhiro Kato, an associate professor of earth sciences at Tokyo University.
Comment: China has manipulated sales of rare earth minerals to Japan for political advantages, including during localized crises. This discovery offers the promise of neutralizing a significant part of China's economic leverage in dealing with modern economies, such as Japan's.
North Korea-South Korea: The Korean Central News Agency reported that in Pyongyang city a large army-people rally took place at Kim Il Sung Square on 4 July to denounce the crimes committed by South Korean President Lee Myung Bak's group of "unparalleled traitors."
According to the report, "The rally was attended by … more than 100 000 in all."
"A statement by a spokesman for the Supreme Command of the Korean People's Army (KPA) was read out at the rally …. Army General Jang Jong Nam said on behalf of the service persons of the KPA: 'Now that South Korean confrontation maniacs without equals in the world dared to perpetrate such extreme provocation as not ruling out even a war against the DPRK, there remains between the north and the south only physical settlement of returning fire for fire.'
Comment: The North is still talking about an exchange of fire. The rally, which was well publicized inside North Korea, is part of the indoctrination program to prepare the populace for a crisis.
North Korea- European Union: The European Commission said the situation in some areas of North Korea has become so dire that an increasing number of North Koreans have resorted to eating grass. The Commission has agreed to send enough food for 650,000 of the neediest North Koreans.
South Korea Monday ruled out any major government food aid for North Korea in response to the European Union program. "We have no plan to provide the North with large-scale government food aid," said Lee Jong-Joo, spokeswoman for the Unification Ministry which handles cross-border ties.
Thailand: On Sunday, 3 July, the proxy party of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra won a sweeping electoral victory over Prime Minister Abhisit's Democatic Party. Phuea Thai which is headed by Thaksin's youngest sister, Yingluck (pronounced Yinglak) won a plurality. On Monday, Yingluck and other political leaders announced they are forming a coalition of five political parties with Yingluck as prime minister.
Yingluck, who will be Thailand's first female prime minister, said she expected the coalition would have a total of 299 MPs -- 265 of Phuea Thai, 19 of Chartthaipattana, 7 of Chart Pattana Puea Pandin, 7 of Palang Chon, and 1 of Mahachon. The 299 MPs should be enough to ensure a solid majority, she said.
Yingluck said the recent election victory was not a victory for her Party, but a chance to serve the Thai people. She said the new government would be required to improve the economy, rebuild morale and good governance in the bureaucracy, get rid of corruption and assure the public that all political parties are subject to scrutiny.
Comment: Thailand's opposition Phuea Thai Party won 255 parliamentary seats, whereas Prime Minister Abhisit's Democratic Party won a total of 163 seats, according to the Royal Thai Police and the Election Commission, according to the Thai news service, The Nation.
Thailand is in an electoral loop. This is at least the third time that the populist message of Thaksin and his proxies have carried an election. The rural poor outside Bangkok outnumber the actual wielders of power, the Bangkok elite. Thus Thaksin's or any populist movement should win every election, if the votes are counted fairly.
On the other hand, winning an election is not the same as exercising power or remaining in office in Thailand. In recognition of the mistakes her brother Thaksin made, Yingluck announced one of her first priorities is to prepare the nation for the King's 84th birthday celebration. She also must restore international confidence in the economy, which her predecessor, Abhisit, failed to do.
Afghanistan: The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) soldier missing in from southern Afghanistan's Helmand Province is from the United Kingdom, British Defense Ministry officials stated 4 July, BBC reported. An air and ground search was launched and the soldier's next of kin was informed, according to the ministry. The Taliban claimed it killed a soldier in the Helmand area. However, no gun battle took place, according to an ISAF spokesman.
Yemen: President Saleh will not cede power until he returns from a Riyadh hospital to oversee the transition, an unnamed cabinet official said 3 July. Saleh supports the Gulf Cooperation Council plan, and he has asked the foreign minister to do everything he can to make sure the plan succeeds, the official said.
However, Saleh stipulated that he must oversee the transition. Any transition would entail a six- to eight-month waiting period for a new election, during which Saleh would remain president, according to the official.
Comment: The opposition will understand Saleh's latest concession as, in fact, a variation of his unwavering insistence that he serve as President until a replacement is elected.
Venezuela: Update. President Chavez returned to Caracas early in the morning on 4 July. The unexpected homecoming occurred one day before Venezuela's 200th independence anniversary. Chavez said his treatment for cancer was just beginning.
End of NightWatch for 4 July.
NightWatch is brought to you by Kforce Government Solutions, Inc. (KGS), a leader in government problem-solving, Data Confidence® and intelligence. Views and opinions expressed in NightWatch are solely those of the author, and do not necessarily represent those of KGS, its management, or affiliates.
A Member of AFCEA International
Back to NightWatch List
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At Gems of La Costa, we know you want the best diamond you can get for your money and that shopping for the best buy can be a frustrating experience. In a world of inflated claims, with many boasting the largest selections, the highest qualities and the lowest prices…we understand that what you might be looking for is trust. No hype or high pressure, just straight talk and common sense.
With more than thirty years of gemological experience, we can assist you in deciding on the right combination of size and quality. We’ll also explain how to get the most value for your diamond investment. If you’re considering a unique size and shape that we don’t normally stock, our computer network can locate and deliver a well-priced selection in as little as 24 hours or less. We will make your experience as pleasant as the price.
We encourage you to review the Four C’s of diamond grading listed below and then contact us for any questions or to schedule an appointment.
CARAT : A diamond’s weight is measured in what is known as a ‘carat’, which is a small unit of measurement equal to 200 milligrams. Carat is not a measure of a diamond’s size, but rather a measure of a diamond’s weight. One carat can also be divided in 100 points. A .75 carat diamond is the same as 75 points or 3/4 carat diamond. Because larger diamonds are found less frequently in nature, they are more valuable. Therefore, a 1 carat diamond will cost more than twice a 1/2 carat diamond, assuming other characteristics are similar. The most important thing to remember when it comes to a diamond’s carat weight is that it is not the only factor that determines a diamond’s value. The diagram to the right shows the size of various carat weights of a diamond in relation to each other.
CLARITY : Refers to the presence of inclusions in a diamond. Inclusions are natural identifying characteristics such as minerals or fractures, that appear while diamonds are being formed. They may look like tiny crystals, clouds or feathers. Inclusions are usually viewed at 10x magnification. The position of inclusions can greatly affect the value of a diamond. Some inclusions can be hidden by a mounting, thus having little effect on the beauty of a diamond. An inclusion in the middle or top of a diamond could impact the dispersion of light, making the diamond less brilliant. Inclusions are ranked on a scale of perfection known as the clarity scale. The scale ranges from F (Flawless) to I (Included) and is based on the visibility of inclusions at 10X magnification.
COLOR : Refers to the degree to which a diamond is colorless. The farther from colorless that a diamond’s grade is, the less rare and therefore less valuable it is. Diamonds are graded on a color scale established by the Gemological Institute of America (GIA), which ranges from D (Colorless) to Z. Icy winter whites (D-I) look stunning in white gold or platinum. Warmer colored diamonds (J-Z) are more desirable when set in yellow gold. Color differences can be very subtle and grading is done under controlled lighting and compared against a ‘master’ for accuracy. This color chart is representative of the color grades of a diamond.
CUT : Refers to the angles and proportions of a diamond. The cut of a diamond refers to the exact proportions, quality of polish and the arrangement of a diamond’s facets. While
nature determines a diamond’s clarity, carat weight and color, the hand of a master craftsman is necessary to release the diamonds’ fire and sparkle. A diamond has facets that allow light to enter it, become refracted, and exit in a rainbow of colors. As illustrated below, when a diamond is cut to ideal proportions, is carefully polished and has exact symmetry, light will then reflect from one facet to another and disperse through the top of the stone, resulting in a display of brilliance and fire. Diamonds that are cut too deep or too shallow, lose or leak light through the side or bottom, resulting in less brilliance, fire, scintillation and value. The cut can affect the value of a diamond by up to 35%!
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1. word used to describe anything bad or unusual
2. drunk out of your wits, screwed up, unfortunate, bent out of shape, irregular, out of the ordinary
4. a description for any situation that has gone awry or amok
3. a description for a situation so horrible that no word could be used other than 'beanshaped'
- VERB (to go beanshaped)
1. to go awry or amok
2. to chicken out of something at the last minute
3. the PG-13 version of saying, "I fucked up"
"Is it just me or is this day starting to feel like it's going to be beanshaped? Something's really off, must be the weather."
"There was an open bar at the party last night and of course, I went home beanshaped!"
"Our date was going so well until things just started going beanshaped on me when I ran into an ex-girlfriend of mine at the same bar!"
"I seriously thought I studied enough, but I really think I beanshaped that exam so badly!"
"Don't go out telling chicks you love them if you're just gonna go beanshaped on them the moment you get any of them pregnant!"
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Reality Begins with Consciousness |
Cry the Beloved Mind |
Déjà Vu Trilogy
For more on the following click here:
AUTHOR'S PREFACE (Dr. Vernon M. Neppe)Reality Begins With Consciousness: A paradigm shift that works
"The more I learn the less I learn I know." Vernon M Neppe, circa 1967
Since my childhood, I had contemplated the contradictions in our current scientific model-- a model that I, nevertheless, realized worked very well in possibly 99.99% of cases. Yet I had wondered why these possibly 0.01% of apparent aberrations occurred. Over two decades, I gradually concluded that a new model could explain some of these problems: If an imaginary observer existed outside the "box" of our current reality, his relative position imagining the situation would be different. He would be able to observe far more of our current reality looking from the outside and then examining inward. This would imply that the number of dimensions could repetitively increase because the observer could look at that new reality from the outside, and this could continue ad infinitum. Effectively, I began to use this outside-in approach to examine ostensibly anomalous information. I applied it to many disciplines, and it seemed workable, too, across the sciences I examined.
I became convinced that this experience was relative to one's location. I penned notes about this, studied the existing data, and gradually by the mid-1980s, after many years of contemplation, had refined this to whether there was some kind of essence. I wondered about the essential core in our existence, whether it was always expressed in space and time in other dimensions, and whether we could be living in an N-dimensional reality, as part of a broader infinite existence. I realized we were only perceiving a tiny fraction in our conventional three spatial dimensions and one moment in time--our present experiential reality.
In addition, I realized there needed to be a content and that the fundamental spatial elements could be expressed not in the rectilinear box noted by the observer, but in increasingly complex curved movements. I was struck by the ubiquity in all of nature of these vortical shapes. I wondered whether these three-dimensional spatial rotating objects--vortices--could be playing a role that was completely fundamental even in this multidimensional world that I was contemplating. I opposed myself: My rational mind argued that even contemplation of vortices was too ridiculous a concept to embrace. Yet the more I looked, the more this idea became feasible: Vortices and curved objects were ubiquitous in nature and they fitted the theoretical need I had conceptualized. Somehow, there had to be a content by which any kind of individual, society, or even humankind in general, or any group or any other level of individuals, or even other sentient beings, could interact. This was a function of social interaction and reflected a consistent combined reality. Vortices could fit this role because they were dynamically changing in state reflecting movements from moment to moment, and yet they also reflected a consistent trait over time where others would be objectifying in a relative sense their realities with others. Vortices could be interacting and interfacing and there could theoretically be "zillions" of such combinations taking place with much of reality being silent as they would not be expressing themselves in consciousness.
Moreover, there was no need for these dynamic forms to be full-blown classical vortices. Any moving curvature element would fulfill that role and provide a content for this interacting process (which many years later in our model we called "indivension"). Certainly, curved movement was easier to conceive of than rectangular ones because they were more natural and would not be as restricted to Euclidean space.
And so, in my initial model, first, there was N-dimensionality, with this outside-in derivation from an essence and an observational consciousness, and there was also an inside-outside approach. Then there was the role of an (infinite) essence and an N- dimensional reality. But, then even to contemplate vortices-- quite ridiculous surely? Yet, the idea persisted.
I gradually put this together into a model I called the concept vortex pluralism. I presented this as an invited lecture to a sub-branch of the American Philosophical Association , and I was surprised at the response. Instead of ridicule--after all I was not a philosopher and what did I know anyway?--it met with a standing ovation. I felt at the time that given N-dimensionality, this was pluralistic, not monistic or dualistic, and so I described my model as "pluralism". It was going to be published in a book, but the editor justifiably objected to the lack of references. And that was true: It was my own idea that had spontaneously taken hold, and at that point, there were, strangely, no formal references yet. I revised this paper and placed it onto the Internet. And I added hundreds of references, discovering in retrospect, that, indeed, there was a theoretical justification for what I was positing. Later and more appropriately, I called the model "vortex N-dimensionalism" because I realized this model was not based on plural realities just N-dimensions, and that this reflected one unified reality.
I realized, too, that despite the fundamental laws of thermodynamics , living beings also exhibited order not disorder, and was puzzled why life came about. So, already at that point, I was puzzling over finity and infinity, N-dimensionality, vortices, multidimensional space-time, observer consciousness outside our usual space-time, life, the role of order and the variable directional approach (outside-in and also inside out--later on we referred to this as the top-down and bottom-up approach). I produced a two-part document of some eighty pages, and circulated it to a few colleagues. I was stimulated to action when an anonymous colleague overseas justifiably critiqued my then life's work: "But how can he test this? And where is the proof?" I understood this criticism, and agreed with it, because I knew he was correct: And it was this extreme prod that provoked my need to work with a mathematician and a physicist and re-look at this paradigm.
Through the International Society for Philosophical Inquiry, I met Dr. Edward Close who had written the book Transcendental Physics. This book had many similar fundamental ideas to vortex N-dimensionalism. We made an interesting team: I as a consciousness researcher, neuroscientist and psychiatrist, who could play the role of ignorant creative thinker in physics and mathematics, and on the other hand, Dr. Close as a physicist and a mathematician, par excellence, who could, similarly, bounce off creative ideas in the biological, consciousness and social sciences.
I spent the next year immersed in complex physics and advanced mathematics because I realized I would need to apply sufficient skills to use logic and think creatively in these disciplines.
We were ready, and both of us recognized this was our song we needed to sing. It was a project that we were driven to complete: It was our gift, however, small and possibly even misguided, to humankind. The result are these books: Reality begins with Consciousness: A Paradigm Shift that Works and the companion book, Space, Time and Consciousness: The Tethered Triad.
Having spent months allowing colleagues around the world to critique over twenty major revisions of this model, we've become increasingly persuaded that our model is fundamentally truer than any other that currently exists: Often models die after six months of scientific, mathematical and creative critiques. Yet, we've been able to answer challenges, and though the fundamental metaparadigm remains, the emphasis on certain areas, such as infinity, order, life, meaning, time, consciousness, tethering, vortices and dimensionality has been amplified--and concepts and definitions have been clarified. Every query has been seriously addressed, appropriately answered, and, we believe, adequately encompassed within our model. We are grateful that the clarifications required made the model stronger and allowed it to grow, both in being more coherent, as well as more detailed, in its essentials. We are encouraged, too, by the support for the underlying hypotheses and the fundamental metaparadigm and the acclaim by responding scientists: This continued growth of a model would be expected for any consistent and feasible paradigmatic shift.
Has our model succeeded? For a paradigm to work, the underlying axioms should feasibly, without contradiction or demonstrable falsification, explain empirical data and be supported through mathematicologic approaches. Our model, now called the Triadic Dimensional-Distinction Vortical Paradigm model (TDVP), does just that, and, of course, is applicable across many scientific disciplines (physics, life, consciousness and psychological sciences) and mathematically is logically justified.
Yet, how dare we postulate a paradigm shift that cuts into the sheer fabric of current reductionistic materialism? And moreover, how dare we involve multidimensionality, consciousness, infinity, life and order? It's like suggesting the flat world is round, surely?
We have to agree, at this point, with expert reviewers who believe that TDVP will endure and will become critically important for a long, long time to come. Yet Dr. Close and I both still anticipate the initial resistance, anger, denial, and even ridicule. This may not be surprising because TDVP literally shatters many prevailing ideas about the very nature of reality, and it furthermore, has both the mathematics and the empiricism to demonstrate its viability, with hypotheses that are not yet tested. Our TDVP model has emphasized the cardinal role of consciousness and the need for a specific kind of higher dimensionality. And it has addressed infinity, order and life, and restructuring of time as necessities. Based on empirical data, potential proofs of our metaparadigm, mathematical justifications, and qualitative tabulations, we have justified it as the most complete Theory of Everything and extensive practical paradigm ever posited.
Our first book, Reality Begins with Consciousness, is written to be more easily read. It is still formidable, but those not reading all of it will obtain the fundamentals, without the data and amplifications, at the start. This book on TDVP begins with a 10-point summary of the basics of the TDVP model, then the key single statement, then jumps to 100 core points. It then deals with fundamentals and gradually builds up, in some detail, to why the key metaparadigm fits. It progresses as if one were doing a university course in the area, with basics, and then with increasing complexity of some areas.
The second companion book, Space, Time and Consciousness: The Tethered Triad, relates to amplifications, specialized models and speculation. Here are the challenges, speculations and proposals for future research. This book incorporates some remarkable ideas, and is more complex than the first book. It's almost like one is then studying a further advanced course. But in both books, our frequent headers and subheaders allow greater readability and the opportunity to skip certain areas, or to come back to them later.
We look at it simply as delivering two ostensibly cutting edge books. This is the first, and I postulate that both will impact the ideas of all of our readers. Those embroiled in reductionistic materialism may be challenged to modify their views because they appear unjustifiable in the light of the empirical data presented, and our ideas demonstrate the contradictions to our standard, current physical paradigm.
We hope that this book will fulfill the initial reviewers' impressions that Reality Begins with Consciousness will have long-lasting major impacts on the physical, biological, consciousness, psychological and mathematical sciences. Certainly, the concept of an enduring model of reality that provides a workable paradigm shift across all the scientific disciplines, and has mathematical theorems and proofs, is very important. Add to this, a paradigm that provides a new philosophical perspective and yet still is consonant with philosophy including mysticism and its potential enduring relevance is enhanced. Whether it fulfills this promise remains to be seen. But, we, the authors, interpret this as far the most important life's contribution of our lives.
Vernon M Neppe MD, PhD, FRSSAf, DFAPA, BN&NP, FFPsych, MMed, DPsM, DSPE.
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A design for Richard III’s tomb has been unveiled by an enthusiasts’ group.
The Richard III Society said the 7ft (2.1m) long limestone monument would blend modern and medieval style decorations to reflect the king’s life.
Leicester Cathedral, where Richard is expected to be reinterred in 2014, said it would consider ideas but no decision had yet been made.
More at BBC news
It looks really cool. I hope they go with it.
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What the hell is SnapChat you ask? It is a mobile application that allows for real time picture/video chatting with friends. It is also the most demonized youth fad since…whatever the last thing was. It is widely accepted that Snapchat serves but one purpose: for millennials to spam pictures of their genitals to each other. Or so major media and blogging outlets would lead you to believe. Why are we even talking about this; is the team Digital Surgeons actually just a bunch of degenerate Snapchat sexting enthusiasts? Yes, but that’s not the only reason we are talking about Snapchat. Snapchat is not actually based around sexting. Snapchat is a force to be reckoned with in the social sphere and it is only a matter of time before brands begin utilizing it to create unique consumer experiences.
Historically as an agency, we have always believed that social media should be handled in-house. We recommend that if an in-house social media team is possible, brands should pursue that option. It now seems that brands are finally catching on as Nike has recently moved all of its social media activity in-house and there are rumblings that other iconic brands are poised to do the same. We don’t believe there is any black and white definitive answer to the social media question such as “All brands should do social media in-house” or “All brands should hire agencies to handle every aspect of their social media strategy” or “social media is the devil”. We will, however, try to shine some light on the facts to making the decision to bring social in-house vs. hiring an agency.
Video will get bigger as a medium
People aren’t getting any less lazy in 2013. Why read a blog post when the same information can be conveyed to you in a 30 second video? With streaming quality increasing and camera prices decreasing, in 2013 it will be easier than ever to produce and then distribute content.
Just in the nick of time. Ancient Maya whiteboard computation exercises uncovered earlier this year show calculations indicating that the world, as we know it, will go on for the foreseeable future.
“The deadline of the world has been extended,” declared triumphant anthropologists. “The universal consensus is that the Mayans knew we would need more time to get the ending right.”
While the new calculations refute the destruction timetable so long attributed to that vanished civilization, they also give us an opportunity to consider what we might be better off without starting in 2013.
Here at DS we’re truly grateful that the world is likely to keep turning. And, we would be even more grateful if the following design, technology, and communications stuffs would actually cease to exist by the end of 2012. Consider a mini-Maya end of days for the following.
New Haven, Conn. (November, 2012) -The 2011 holiday campaign, Gaga’s Workshop, has recently concluded its award show run with some tremendous results. The digital campaign, which was created for Barneys New York by Digital Surgeons, took home a multitude of awards from various marketing and advertising councils and contests. The digital campaign consisted of a microsite with deep social and ecommerce integrations. Digital Surgeons executed the campaign with the goals of increasing holiday sales and driving in-store traffic.
The Business of ExpressionEngine
This question always returns, “how do I increase revenue in my business?” I will break down different models of producing increased revenue utilizing ExpressionEngine. From the moment you meet a client, you can start preparing them to be a residual income provider. I will give details on how to prevent ExpressioneEngine income opportunities from passing you by. Learn how to maximize your income from each client and provide a more holistic approach to your web business.
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Are you interested in the various ways that you can deal with your restless legs? Read this article and you will find a whole lot more than just relief.
Most people are aware that restless legs has no real cure and would be only too happy to get restless legs syndrome relief. The thing is by following a defined lifestyle and employing some proven techniques you can rid yourself of those uncomfortable and sometimes painful sensations that you feel. The idea is to do away with all the things associated with the condition and avoid them altogether.
Some of the things that you might already be indulging in that could be contributing to this condition are caffeine, alcohol and tobacco. If you can reduce their intake or stop taking them altogether you will see an improvement in your condition. Another link that has been established with RLS is iron deficiency or anemia. So by increasing the amount of iron in your diet the symptoms should wear off.
Like I said when dealing with restless legs syndrome relief we try and deal with the underlying cause of the problem. It has been found to be common in people with diabetes and kidney malfunctions. Go and get yourself checked out. Usually treating the primary cause alleviates the signs of the disease. Staying healthy and getting lots of frequent exercise will decrease the sseverity of the symptoms.
As far as diet is concerned lots of vitamins and minerals will do the trick. For some people things like acupuncture have helped. You could try that or visit a chiropractor or make use of some homeopathic techniques and methods.
There are many things that can bring restless legs syndrome relief and some natural remedies that have proven to be very effective. These techniques combine most of the things that I’ve mentioned into a detailed program that you can use. Looking at the practical side of things this sounds better than going through a whole list of possible solutions.
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Bellevue's City Hall embodies the city's commitment to service, innovation and transparency. Since it opened in 2006, the downtown building on the 400 block of 110th Avenue Northeast has won numerous awards. More importantly, it has been a convenient and even uplifting place for residents to do business with the city and participate in government.
Acquired from Qwest, the 350,000-square-foot building was transformed with extensive renovations from a utilitarian fortress built to house telecommunications equipment into a vital and attractive public resource, an innovative civic center noted for its aesthetics and functionality.
City Hall consolidates in one location city services that had been formerly scattered in seven buildings throughout the city. The building was retrofitted to remain operational during a major earthquake or other disaster.
With its sharp angles and distinctive terra cotta and silver color scheme, City Hall is a pleasing change of pace among many modernist high-rises. An outdoor plaza offers vital green space downtown.
The Seattle chapter of the American Institute of Architects issued Bellevue a merit award in 2008, noting that the renovation of City Hall was "an insightful and successful transformation of a drab, former telecommunications building into a state-of-the-art public amenity." Dramatic public art adds beauty while telling a story.
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Today I Weep
The other day, I was quite moved upon reading Senator Byrd’s address delivered on the eve of the invasion of Iraq. It begins with: “I believe in this beautiful country, but today, I weep for my country.” He closed his address by stating that America’s true power lies not in its will to intimidate but in its ability to inspire. The late Henri Nouwen, in Seeds of Hope, wrote that we do not love issues. We can only love people and, in loving people, we come to know how to deal with the issues.
Presently, we are left with the question: Now that the war has begun, what is the task of those thousands of people who have been working for peace? Hopefully, love of people will tell us what to do, and how to pray.
I have come to know that God is very near in times of suffering and that the kind of nearness in suffering is different from that of good times. Suffering brings about a certain kind of union within oneself and with others. Useless defenses fade away, and real human love, drawn from God’s love, comes alive and is active with new strength and creativity.
Here in the monastery, we find ourselves praying for the troops on both sides, and for their families. We pray that the hearts of all leaders concerned will be softened in order to pursue the good and the true. Even though we deplore the war, we pray that more surrendering will take place so that there will be fewer casualties and less destruction. We pray that prisoners of war will be treated with dignity and that food and supplies will be given to those who need them. At this moment, there is a fierce tension between Lenten grief and the promise of Easter joy. In fact, joy seems far away.
The image of America, as being a nation that inspires, has been lost. We have extinguished a light that once shone for the encouragement and upbuilding of others. We ourselves need to rebuild. Furthermore, such a conversion will not be taking place through our own strength or power.
Upon reflection, we know that resurrection takes place more readily in the context of weakness and brokenness. Hence, we are never abandoned. In the face of the difficult reality that confronts us, we are to keep believing that a new Easter will come, (gradually perhaps,) all the while realizing that it may come in a way we never expected.
Sister Mary Jo Loebig, O.C.D.
Hidden in a Small Moment
It was such a strange title for a book. Furthermore, I must admit that I was a bit reluctant to have other people see me reading it. But like so many other things, events, that just seem to happen to us, frequently bring with them a gift and can be a small epiphany. So it was with The Universe is a Green Dragon .* My own thinking is that not everything in a book is meant for us. Sometimes, it seems like we are meant to read only one chapter, or maybe just a sentence or two in the midst of all the gray matter. The same could be said of a web-site reflection. Along this line, this little book, with its colorful cover, contained a chapter on attraction that became an attraction for me.*
A person may ask: “Why am I attracted to this thing and not to something else?” The truth is that we do not really know why we are attracted. We only know that we are, and that something has taken fire within us. Given a chance, gradually, we awaken to our own unique set of attractions. With this, our destiny unfolds. St. John of the Cross writes much on detachment. Following our God-given attractions is the other side of this story.
Thomas Berry feels that by pursuing our attractions, we help bind the universe together. The longed-for unity within ourselves, and in our world, rests on following these attractions. In this following, more of life is evoked, and community comes into being. Something invisible becomes visible. Furthermore, we have the sense that we are bonded to God in a new way with a hidden bonding that has been wanting to show itself all along. And, all of this happens by becoming aware of, and by following, one small, and seemingly insignificant, attraction in the context of “ordinary time.”
Often, we long to see the face of God and to hear God’s voice. In actuality, this may be occurring right in front of us. It seems important, then, to quietly pause several times a day and to ask ourselves: What is my inclination and fascination at this moment?
Finally, it should be noted that the awareness of one’s attraction generally brings with it a certain numinous and unexpected joy. I have often seen this on people’s faces. Maybe life is not so difficult after all.
• Brian Swimme. The Universe is a Green Dragon . Rochester, Vermont: Bear & Company, 2001, pp.43-52.
Sister Mary Jo Loebig, O.C.D.
A Message in the Sky
Every year, around this time, a “star” appears in the southeastern sky near dawn. It can be seen from the deck near our kitchen window. A friend, who lives a few miles down the road, feels that this star has been placed there just for our monastery. Actually, the “star” is Venus. Often, the beauty of the “star” is enhanced by the presence of a crescent moon, which appears to be looking up. Given a chance, it seems like the star would like to say something to the world.
Pearl Buck, in many of her writings, often weaves into them the theme of a star. In one of the stories, a son overhears his father speaking lovingly and quietly about the son to his mother. A star was in prominence that night. This not only surprised the son, but moved him deeply. Upon hearing this, the son realized for the first time that his father really loved him. Up to this time, he figured that his parents were generally too busy raising a family to give much attention to expressing the love they might have for their children.
As a follow-up to this event, the son initiated a good deed that enabled the father to know that he, too, was loved. The story ends years later. The father is now gone and the son is home alone with his wife, who has gone to bed early, a bit sad realizing that their own children now had homes and families of their own. Entranced by a star outside the window, (possibly the same star of years past,) and recalling the event of being loved in childhood, the son wraps up a small but dainty gift for his wife, who will discover it when she awakes. To the gift, he attaches a note that starts with: “My dearest love,” a letter she will be able to read again and again and keep forever.
It occurs to me that every once in awhile it is good to recall a moment when we felt loved and then, in some creative way, to pass this love on to another. Truly, the act of recalling carries new love and energy with it. Perhaps, this is what the star in the southeastern sky is trying to tell us.
When I was a youngster, my own mother was fond of quoting inspirational sayings at just the right time. One such event had to do with telling us that those who lead others on to goodness will shine like the stars for all eternity. Most likely, she was not even aware that this was a biblical quote. Through the years, this little saying has been a source of inspiration to me. The other day, I found myself wondering who told my mother about goodness of life and stars in the sky. Possibly it first began in some little kitchen in Ireland.
Sister Mary Jo Loebig, O.C.D.
Magi of the Ordinary
Abgarus, the oldest and the one who loved Artaban best, lingered after the others had gone. "It is better to follow even the shadow of the best," he said, "than to remain content with where you are. Those who would see wonderful things must often be ready to travel alone." "I am too old for this journey," he continued, "but my heart shall be a companion of your pilgrimage day and night, and I shall know the end of your quest. Go in peace."*
Every once in awhile, but quite often at Christmas, we come across a story that engages the heart and makes a fire burn within the soul. Artaban was the "Other Magi." Having studied the stars, he sold his possessions and bought three jewels (a sapphire, a ruby, and a pearl,) to give to the Child announced by the star. The plan was to meet three other astrologers. On the way, however, prompted by charity, Artaban gave away two of the jewels and missed meeting his friends as a result.
Thirty-three years later, his journey ended in Jerusalem at Passover time. The Child Artaban had been seeking was now dying. Artaban was somewhat consoled by the thought that at least he had the pearl left. It was not too late. But before he had a chance to present his gift, a struggling and helpless girl lay at his feet, pleading for help. "Is not love the light of the soul?" Artaban said to himself. With that, he gave his last jewel to the girl.
Just then, there was an earthquake. A heavy tile loosened from the roof and struck the now aged Artaban in the temple. He lay with his head resting on the girl. Looking down, the girl feared he was dying. Both heard words, faintly but clearly, coming through the twilight from above. The young maid saw the old man's lips move in response. "Three and thirty years have I looked for you," she heard him whisper. "But, I have never seen your face or ministered to you." The faint and gentle words from above came again. Artaban listened. The expression on his face changed. He knew his treasures were accepted. He had done well. His journey was over. All along the way, he had seen the One he was seeking.
In reading this, it occurred to me that many of us are that "Other Magi." We search for a God, to whom we can give a gift that seems so small, a gift we have sold other precious things to purchase. Day after day, we do the task before us, always striving to do the best we can, hoping that what we leave this world will be worthwhile. Without thinking deeply about it, we often give away our treasures along the way, sometimes even the last remnant. Still, upon reflection, it would appear that all we need to do is to keep following the faint glow of a star in the distance that has been put there just for us, together with the seemingly small wisdom the glow imparts. Is any wisdom too small? (That star is also inside of us.) At any rate, giving away the last remnant is often the greatest gift.
Like Artaban, if we were honest in looking back, we would hear ourselves saying that we would do the same thing again, were we to re-make that journey. Also, if our own seemingly ordinary life stories were to be recounted by another, very likely, they would turn out to be very beautiful narratives and a source of inspiration for many people.
*Henry Van Dyke, The Story of the Other Wise Man, http://www.classicreader.com/read.php/sid.6/bookid.593/
Sister Mary Jo Loebig, O.C.D.
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Buffalo, N.Y. (AP) -Two New York universities and a Manhattan hospital are receiving grants from the NFL to study concussions and other sports-related injuries.
The University at Buffalo, Columbia University in New York City and the Hospital for Special Surgery are getting the funding from NFL Charities, a nonprofit organization created by the 32 teams in National Football League.
NFL Charities announced Tuesday that nearly $1 million of the funding will go toward studying concussion prevention and treatment.
Of that amount, $100,000 will go to UB to develop a scientific method of determining when an athlete who has had a concussion can safely return to play.
Over the next 18 years, UB researchers will study dozens of athletes from the Buffalo Bills, the Buffalo Sabres and athletes from western New York colleges who sustain concussions.
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"You've got to figure out a way to minimize your tax liability," said Vera Gibbons, a TurboTax Contributor.
A deduction will reduce the amount of income that will be taxed, while a credit will cut your tax bill down dollar for dollar.
Every year, people miss out on billions of dollars in credits and deductions, Gibbons said.
"Among the deductions that people tend to miss, the out-of-pocket charitable contributions such as mileage to and from your philanthropic endeavors," Gibbons said. "Moving expenses if you had to move for a new job, for example, and job-hunting expenses."
Of course, if after you file your taxes you realize you've missed some of those breaks, you can file an amended return. But Gibbons said that just causes a lot more work.
Instead, get organized now so you won't have the same problem next year.
"Have a system. Have your folders ready to go," Gibbons said. "Your folders for your income, your folders for your deductions. If you got hit with a large bill this year, you've got to start stockpiling."
And if you have to pay a large amount of money this year, pay as much as you can by April 17, then work with the government to set up an installment plan.
"That's the best way to go, versus paying for everything on your credit card, because it's going to be based on your income, not based on how much you actually owe," Gibbons said.
You could also have your employer pull more money out each pay check to help cut down your tax bill.
But try not to overpay because you won't get a refund.
"You're basically giving the government an interest free loan and they'll apply any over payment you've made to the following year, Gibbons said.
But the truth is most Americans will be getting a refund.
"Three out of four taxpayers are getting a refund," Gibbons said. "The average refund is about $3,000."
So if you haven't filed, you're in luck. There are a couple extra days this year - taxes aren't due until Tuesday, April 17.
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|Just down the road from here is the scene of murders, deceit, corruption, vice, blasphemy, theft and deception. Stabbings and wounds, a hell hole. But, very elegant; built in 1869, the Viennese State Opera House. If you ever get a whiff of a ticket, snatch it and go. Stunning experience.
I am in Vienna for wounds, suffering and it turns out; incompetence and dissembling. The kind of wounds old ladies (and gentlemen) get on their legs and seem beyond the wit of healthcare to clear up. I heard tale of a (soon to come) study for the DH that followed 500 patients for 6 months. The clear-up rate was 9% and the infection rate 60%. Tell me that is great practice.
I listened to an erudite speaker reflect on 25yrs of wound care experience. A teenager kicked by a horse who carried the wound for 67 years. Another who spent 4yrs in bed with and ulcerated leg. How, before the 90's ulcers were given a low priority and their aetiology hardly understood at all. Patients were advised to urinate on their legs as a form of treatment. 1992, Doppler and duplex testing and compression bandages.
Given the misery this condition wreaks it is a pitiful history. A history of neglect, desertion and inattention. We have NICE guidelines, Scottish guidelines, European guidelines and for all the good they do, probably intergalactic guidelines. It is a shambles. Why, in some places these wretched things, at 12 weeks are 20% healed and in others the figure is 95% defies intelligent explanation. Why is it 20% of sufferers can't walk? Why it is the casualties are left to social isolation, pain, depression, sleep deprivation and emotional torment?
And then there is the money. The cost is huge. In fact, beyond huge it is enormous, gigantic, mammoth. In plain every day terms; half the community nursing budget and often over half their time. Not just in the NHS; world-wide. There are billions thrown at this horrible chronic problem. Probably more than £400 million a year in the UK alone. Speaker after speaker from every part of the world told the conference the same sorry tale. In the end I wa annealed to the cost, deaf to the suffering and blind to the pictures of the most awful, ugly, horrendous, harrowing, pitiful wounds.
This is a fat industry. The conference was made possible by a huge exhibition of lavish stands; chrome, graphics, samples, goody-bags and flat-screen tellies. Companies are obese with the profits from products that don't work, scrambling for space in a lookey-likey, me-too market of the ineffective.
The solution, it seems, is simple; compression dressings. The problem; they are horribly uncomfortable for the victim, making compliance poor and the variations in nursing competence make their use and application, with the required gradient of pressure, a lottery.
This is a mess of an industry and an embarrassment to health services world-wide. Millions are spent on poorly arranged trials with tiny sample sizes and handpicked patients. Careers have been built on failing therapies, houses paid for and kids put through school on the proceeds of ineffectiveness. There is a poor understanding about when healing occurs and health economics seems to ignore the cost of the whole care pathway. Support for the patient; rising services, meals on wheels, bathing, chiropody, shopping and cleaning.
There has to be a solution to this disarray. Get this right and in one go you could probably solve the NHS savings conundrum and settle the nation debts of some decent sized countries. It's simple; stop people getting the shameful things in the first place. Regard their appearance as a failure. I am told there is a shed-load of indicators, predictors and heads-up on the patients most likely to be at risk of venous leg ulcers.
Give them all three sets of support stockings; one set on, one set in the wash and one set ready in the drawer. Encourage compliance, send a HCA to help put them on if necessary and save enough money to buy Greece and Chelsea a replacement for Drogba.
If we can put all middle aged blokes on a statin, fluoride in the water and screen for breast cancer - we can do this. Where's public health when you need it?
Feel like having a rant?
Please, use this e-mail address
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The problem with naming SEVEN SAMURAI Akira Kurosawa's greatest film is once you do that, you've relegated so many worthy rivals to also-ran status. RASHOMON, IKIRU, YOJIMBO and RAN are the obvious rivals, but I could throw in THRONE OF BLOOD and DRUNKEN ANGEL as personal favorites too. It's probably best to think of SEVEN SAMURAI in light of what Kurosawa said about it: "Japanese films all tend to be rather bland... I think we ought to have richer foods, and richer films. So I thought I would make this kind of film entertaining enough to eat."
It's an East meets West film, in which Japanese history, values and traditions are crossbred with Kurosawa's love for the westerns of John Ford and Howard Hawks, which is why SEVEN SAMURAI was so easily remade into the American western classic THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN by John Sturges several years later. RASHOMON asked the question "What is Truth?" while IKIRU asked "What is Life?". SEVEN SAMURAI does delve into such issues, the story and characters being enough to keep viewers preoccupied. A farming village, under the threat of attack by bandits, attempt to recruit samurai warriors to guard their village, with nothing to offer them but three meals a day and a place to sleep. The seven they eventually do win over include one that is not even a real samurai, and another who admits that his strategy in battle is to run away.
For the last time, Takashi Shimura plays a lead role for Kurosawa, and is rewarded with the classic heroic character of Kambei, the first recruited samurai who then gathers the group together and acts as their commander. It is hard to believe this is the same actor who played the dying bureaucrat of IKIRU. At 5 foot 7, he somehow projects an image of somebody much larger and stronger, helped by Kurosawa's framing. After displaying his amazing range over the course of many films for Kurosawa, Shimura had reached his peak with Kurosawa and was about to be eclipsed by Toshiro Mifune, whose good looks and boundless energy made him the most popular star in Japan. Shimura would go on to a long career, continuing to work for Kurosawa, but would never again be his leading man.
Mifune plays Kikuchiyo, the last samurai to join the band of seven, with the kind of wild, uninhibited energy he first showed in RASHOMON. Alternately funny, frightening, lovable and irritating, Mifune in these two films is a force to be reckoned with unlike any other actor I can think of, with the possible exception of Harpo Marx at his most manic. With each film after SEVEN SAMURAI, Mifune would learn to control his inner chaos and become an even finer actor capable of great subtlety - two of his best performances would be as reserved businessmen in THE BAD SLEEP WELL and HIGH AND LOW - but at this point in his career, Mifune was a gale-force wind blowing through Japanese cinema, causing nearly as much onscreen havoc as Godzilla, who made his debut the same year as SEVEN SAMURAI. You don't want to blink when Mifune is around - you might miss five different facial expressions. But despite Mifune's humorous, high-spirited performance, Kikuchiyo is hardly just comic relief. He is the heart of the film, as we watch his character work through several personal issues and change from clown to passionate warrior and finally to the group's de facto spiritual leader. Shimura may be the lead samurai, but Mifune is the star of this excellent ensemble cast.
Even at three hours, there is not enough time to get to know every character, but some other actors stand out among the dozens of farmers, bandits and samurai. Yoshio Tsuchiya plays Rikichi, a farmer who eventually becomes the virtual eighth samurai (just as Mifune's character is revealed to not be a samurai but a farmer) while Bokuzen Hidari is hilarious and touching as Yohei, the befuddled farmer whom Mifune's Kikuchiyo torments and teases throughout the film. His is a true comic relief performance, used to alleviate the tension of the film at key moments. Yet, in the end, we think of him as a hero in his own way as any of the seven.
The boyish Ko Kimura (although 31 years old at the time) is the film's Allan Jones, playing in the "coming of age" story of the film. He is the rich young samurai-in-training who wishes to learn from the older ronin. He also falls for a farmer's pretty daughter (lovely Keiko Tsushima) in what is one of the only love stories in the entire Kurosawa canon. Leave it to Kurosawa to bring in the film's romantic story only after an hour and a half has gone by.
After two hours of planning, training and strategy sessions, the film climaxes in a three day battle in which Kurosawa displays what he has learned from Ford and Hawks while treating us to some creative tricks of his own, developed over the course of his career. In this and other films such as HIDDEN FORTRESS and RAN, Kurosawa shows he is the equal to his idols when it comes to filming large-scale action sequences. But throughout the film, even in relatively peaceful scenes, Kurosawa displays a knack for doing amazing things with the camera without calling attention to the shots themselves. You can turn the sound down and study this film for it's extensive use of deep focus, perfect compositions and beautiful cinematography. Most astounding of all is Kurosawa's use of the track and pan, where a camera flows along with the screen action (track) yet will turn its attention left and right when necessary (pan), creating almost a widescreen effect on a standard screen. You'll find these shots throughout the film, especially in the long, final battle. Simply dazzling stuff, made to look easy, as if everybody filmed movies that way.
The film is considered to have brought many things into the action genre, many things we take for granted. There is the innovative use of slow motion to emphasize action, used sparingly here only for a handful of death scenes but now a common, almost irritating cliché of action movies. There is the story device of one man gathering together an eclectic group of others for a dangerous, near-impossible mission, which we would see again and again in various genres. We also find a main hero (Shimura's Kambei) introduced to us in a miniature story of his own, unrelated to the main plot, a technique which would flower into those memorable mini-movies (think THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, Kurosawa's film has had an enormous effect on several genres, including action, thrillers, war movies, sci-fi and caper films.) in the pre-credit sequences of James Bond films. Of course, there is the famous shot of the gathering horses on the hill, perhaps the first of its kind. Kurosawa may or many not have invented these things, but like Orson Welles and CITIZEN KANE, he is the man that pulled all these elements together for the first time in one film. Because so many actors and directors admired SEVEN SAMURAI, and John Sturges' 1960 Western remake
So is SEVEN SAMURAI Kurosawa's greatest film? I still don't know yet. I've seen it four times now in two years, and could watch it again tomorrow. I've finally given it a full five stars. Yet I still personally prefer the simpler YOJIMBO, the deeper IKIRU and the weirder THRONE OF BLOOD. But it certainly ranks right up there with these films, should be recognized as the father of the action genre as we know it today, and will remain a classic for as long as movies are taken seriously. Which, these days, could be only another few weeks or so. - JB
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This year the special screenings focus on three themes:
What does world cinema actually encompass?
Do only films made in Latin America, Asia or Africa fit the bill? How about filmmakers who move around and work in other places than their country of origin? Por aqui tudo bem from an Angolian director, made in Lisbon, and Los pasos dobles from a Spanish director, made in Mali, prove that world cinema goes beyond borders.
Care for the elderly worldwide
How is care for the elderly provided worldwide? The consequenses of being old and disabled in China and Chili are shown in the films A Simple Life and La demora.
Under pressure: filmmaking in Syria
Freedom in Syria under the regime of President Assad is a scarce commodity. Filmmakers have experienced this like no other. In collaboration with the Prince Claus Fund and the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts presents World Cinema Amsterdam present the program Under pressure: filmmaking in Syria, in which two films will prove this point.
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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
Most years, 3.5 million people come to see the Statue of Liberty up close. But the island that's home to Lady Liberty is closed indefinitely because of a powerful blow from Superstorm Sandy. Liberty Island and nearby Ellis Island both suffered extensive flood damage. Today, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar made his first visit since the storm and so did NPR's Joel Rose.
JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: The Statue of Liberty looks perfect, like nothing happened, but Liberty Island is a mess: paving stones are missing, chunks of fence are washed away, docks and buildings are damaged from the floodwaters. The secretary of the interior got a firsthand look at some of that damage today. Lady Liberty and all the renovations withstood the power of Sandy, huh?
SECRETARY KEN SALAZAR: Yep. She's standing there proud and defiant.
ROSE: Gee, that's right.
SALAZAR: She got a little sandblasted.
ROSE: Interior Secretary Ken Salazar got a walking tour of Liberty Island from Dave Luchsinger, the superintendent of the Statue of Liberty National Monument. Luchsinger says the storm left the statue unscathed, including renovations to her crown that had just been finished when Sandy hit. Lady Liberty still lifts her lamp beside the golden door, but Luchsinger says the rest of Liberty Island was severely tempest-tossed.
DAVID LUCHSINGER: You folks would not have been able to walk around here the first couple of weeks. It was quite devastating.
ROSE: Luchsinger says the National Park Service has done a lot of work already to clear out debris from around the statue's pedestal. Still, there is plenty left to do on Liberty Island and its neighbor Ellis Island. Historical artifacts and exhibits in the Ellis Island Immigration Museum survived the storm intact, but Luchsinger says underground flooding destroyed a lot of the island's infrastructure.
LUCHSINGER: Our HVAC system, our electrical systems were totally submerged. They're going to have to be repaired and/or replaced. We have some structural things. Obviously, our walkway is a big part of it. We have to make it safe for people to walk around here. That's got to be repaired. We have to have both docks either repaired or - and/or replaced.
ROSE: The Park Service says these two islands alone will need $59 million worth of repairs. Add in the damage at other nearby national parks - Gateway National Recreation Area and Fire Island National Seashore - and the total rises to more than 200 million. Interior Secretary Salazar says the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island may reopen in phases as repairs are completed.
SALAZAR: The statue itself, the pedestal, the monument is in good shape. It's just a matter of working through as quickly as we can and try to get enough safety measures in place so we're protecting the public so then we can allow visitation here again.
ROSE: Salazar didn't make any promises about when the park would open. Privately, Park Service staff say they're hoping to reopen in some capacity by next summer. But there's one feature of this island that may never be the same that's a handful of low, brick houses on the back side of the island. One of those houses is where park superintendent Dave Luchsinger lived year-round with his family, until the flooding from Sandy.
LUCHSINGER: We lost pretty much everything that was in the house. We were able to save a few pieces of furniture. We won't be living here anymore, and probably, nobody will be living here anymore. So at least, I'll be able to say I was the last one to stay here.
ROSE: Dave Luchsinger says those houses will probably have to be torn down. For now, Luchsinger is staying with his mother-in-law in New Jersey, but he says he still thinks of Liberty Island as home. Joel Rose, NPR News, New York.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.
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Every nation has a right to set its own standards. I have no desire to place my religious views, or lack of them on anyone else. When one decides to live in the West one must abide by the norms of the culture and respect others. If you want to have more than one wife you should have your head examined first and move to another country.
I want to talk about some of the lesser known problems caused by Sahriah.
Most people define marriage as a union between man and wife for better or worse until
death or a divorce lawyer says other wise. It is very rare but some se4cts of Islam have a term marriage. Is this marriage as we in America define it? I could sit with ten of my peers and get ten unique answers. The general consensus at the moment is no.
There are different types of divorce under Sharia as well. There is a type of divorce where the woman and children continue to live with the husband minus conjugal right. The legal validity of this is also murky.
There are no adoptions under Islamic law and there are long term guardianships.
In the United States we have the concept of equal protection under the law. This is incompatable with Sharia that has Jim Crow on steroids features.
Free expression is part of our culture in the USA. I have to endure Bush=Hitler signs from far left loonies. Muslims have every right to peaceably respond to speech they do not like. Threats,sedition and treason are not protected under the Amendment.
Theocracy of any type is just a bad idea.
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When the economy is mediocre, advisors need to be on their A game. It is essential for advisors to be informed about the latest economic changes, so they can help clients invest their money wisely. Within the last quarter, annuity standards have changed. Low interest rates are causing annuity companies to raise the cost of annuities and/or decrease the benefits in order to turn a profit.
Some of the recent changes I’ve noticed annuity companies making are:
- Lowering the 5 percent guaranteed benefit to 3 percent or 4 percent.
- Changing the starting age of guaranteed lifetime income from 59-and-a-half to 65 or older.
- Increasing annuity prices and rider costs.
- Lessening the availability of bonus products.
However, these changes do not mean clients should write off annuities as a potential investment. Presently, annuities might be slightly more expensive or provide fewer benefits, but overall, annuities tend to be a safe monetary decision. This is because annuities still have the guarantee they have always had. For the right clients and client situations, I would recommend annuities as a practical investment.
With annuity companies making alternations, it is your job as an advisor to make clients aware. The simplest annuities are a complicated concept to grasp, so it is imperative to be very clear when explaining annuity changes to clients. Your clients need to be fully informed of new annuity prices and benefits before they can feel confident purchasing them.
Clients might be interested in knowing if these annuity changes are temporary or permanent. Assure your clients the annuity changes are temporary. When the interest rates begin to increase, annuity benefits should start to improve. Annuity companies have no choice but to increase the cost and lessen annuity rewards during times of low interest rates. As soon as interest rates increase, companies will again begin to offer more annuity perks.
Before making any financial decision, it is best to do research. Do the leg work for your clients and eliminate the anxiety brought on by annuity changes. Once you present all of the facts, your clients will realize the changes are not as drastic as they may appear.
For more from Marc Silverman, see:
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Alaska's best halibut fishing is just a phone call away. Call 1-888-462-1521
Premier Halibut Fishing in Alaska is available on a first come basis. If you're really looking for the ultimate in Alaska halibut fishing then it is imparative that you call us as early as possible. The best days go fast so Call Now for our Best Alaska Fishing Packages.
Halibut Fishing in Alaska
Halibut have both eyes on the upper dark side, as for their underside it tends to blend well with the sky when viewed from below. Their color helps them avoid detection from prey & predators. Halibut are the largest of the flat fish. Some halibut can exceed 400 lbs, including the state record which is amazingly 459 lbs and was caught in 1996 in Unalaska Bay. Female Halibut grow faster & are typically larger then males of the same age. Males rarely reach 100 lbs. Halibuts age is estimated by counting growth rings laid down in the fishes “otolith”, a bony structure in the inner ear.
Halibut can be found throughout most of the marine waters of Alaska, as far north as Nome, along the Aleutian chain, and throughout the waters of the southeastern Panhandle. Halibut are usually on or near the bottom over mud, sand, or gravel banks. Most are caught in depths of 90 to 900 feet, but halibut has been recorded at depths of 3,600 feet.
Stout tackle if preferred for these large, strong fish. Most fisherman use a heavy-action 5-6 foot rod equipped with a reel capable of holding up to 300 yards of 60-100 pound test line. Weights go up to 36 oz. on a slider. You can use head, fins, and/or viscera of sport-caught salmon as bait. Halibut will eat almost anything they can catch.
Success rates vary widely from vessel to vessel and day to day, but good catches are made from mid-May through mid-September throughout Alaska. Many believe the best fishing is just before, during, and after high slack tide.
Halibut fishing in Alaska is very popular. It is an experience you will never forget. Imagine having a 250lb. angry Halibut on the other end of the line with massive swimming powers. You might feel like your arms are gonna fall off when you pull this “Dinosaur” out of the sea, but this will be the story of a lifetime.
For more information call us today: 1-888-462-1521.
Please contact us by
Boat Load of Halibut
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I realize that I promised a post long, long ago (4 days, to be precise) and never delivered. There are good reasons for that. But not interesting reasons. Short story: life is busier than usual at the moment.
But anyway… Monday was ARLD Day here (that’s the Academic and Research Libraries Division of the Minnesota Library Association as well as the local chapter of ACRL). And ARLD Day did something very, very right. They got John Riedl (who has a blog at GroupLens) to talk to use about creating the social web. Specifically, he looked at the top ten web sites in the United States (as ranked by Alexa)* and delved into their social aspects, and used this framework as a way to talk about research that’s happening among the developers of the social web.
For example, when he talked about the number one site, Yahoo (because it owns so many sites), he used Flickr as an example and talked about tagging. Did you know that initial research suggests that items get tagged with a few tags that almost everybody uses, and then a lot of tags almost nobody uses? Doesn’t sound so radical until you think that there’s no real curve if you graph this phenomenon. Statisticians would expect one of the tapering-off curves that we’ve come to associate with the long tail, but that’s not what happens here. Here there are simply a few tags that get used all the time for any given item, and a lot of tags that only get used a couple of times. Nobody knows what this means, but researchers are looking for ways to predict what those popular tags will be, or ways to help computers learn from early user tagging to predict which tags will become most useful as tagging continues. This. Is. Huge. Imagine pre-populating any catalog record with 5 to 7 useful tags! Imagine using this understanding of user tagging to revise and augment LSCH. The possibilities seem endless.
He also asked the question: Is tagging fundamentally a selfish behavior? This is important because you want tags in quantity and from multiple users. But how do you motivate users to add tags? Do you want the user to get something out of it or to feel the he/she is giving something to the community? If it’s a combination of the two (which everyone suspects is true), what’s the perfect mixture that will encourage as much useful tagging as possible? Well, so far the research shows a mixture, but that users are much more likely to add tags if they think this will help other people as well as themselves.
Not only that, but they had the best success getting users to add content (tags, ratings, and reviews) if they told the users a specific population their content would benefit, and if the system recommended items to which it thought you could add good content. (i.e. The system picks a movie that you will likely enjoy based on past behavior and tells you, “your review of this movie will particularly help fans of comedies and historical dramas.”) This combination of having targeted recommendations for community involvement and being told exactly who in that community you’ll benefit, was vastly more successful than more passive approaches.
Not only THAT, but they found the best content was submitted by users who knew their work was going to be looked at by another user. BUT, it didn’t matter if the peer reviewer was going to be an expert or not. Anyone will do. You just need peer review.
So far they’re testing this idea of teaching computers which tags are useful using their system MovieLens. Their users tag movies and then rate each other’s tags with a thumbs up or a thumbs down. And so far, initial results indicate that tags receiving thumbs down ratings are, in fact, poor, rarely used, and generally perceived to be poor. However, there’s not much pattern yet to the tags that get thumbs up ratings. They’re continuing to explore this.
One other aspect of this amazing keynote (probably the best keynote I’ve ever attended… no kidding!) that I think is particularly applicable to libraries is that as users rate and comment, they teach the company (or the library) what is important to them. I can envision combining failed search data, commonly used search terms, click-throughs, and direct participation (such as ratings) to figure out what research is being done, what kinds of sources are hot right now, and other such information that could inform collection development practices.
But as with any other social site, library applications would need an active community. Riedl pointed out that when Google bought YouTube, they paid for the community. They already had what he considers to be a better product, but they didn’t have the user-base, and that was worth more money than I can comprehend.
The community is also important because computers are bad at making judgments. They’re bad at looking at content and understanding what it is and what it’s about and how it’s related to other content. Humans, though, do this exceptionally well. So what the computer can do is find patterns in human behavior and crunch the statistical numbers for you. Computers calculate; humans judge. And figuring out how to maximize on these two skills is the subject of much research and development. And then figuring out how to trigger people to participate in these online collective efforts… that’s another who avenue of current research (see Karau and Williams in the bibliographical note below).
He talked about a lot of other things (such as how they’re working on the problem of keeping these user communities from gelling as only like-minded people can and instead encouraging people to see connections between their interests and either people or information that they might not agree with but that they will be interested in), but this is too long already. He also provided citations to a couple of articles,** but there are lots more listed in the research section of GroupLens or on his CV (PDF).
*In descending order: Yahoo, Google, MySpace, MSN, eBay, YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, Craig’s List, and Windows Live. He actually didn’t talk about because Windows Live because it’s “just another Google rip off,” so he included number 11: Amazon (for which he helped write the original recommender system!).
** Some references he mentioned:
Karau, S. J., and Williams, K. D. “Understanding individual motivation in groups: The collective effort model.” Groups at Work: Theory and Research M. E. Turner Ed. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 2001. 113-41.
Khopkar, Tapan , Xin Li and Paul Resnick. “Self-selection, Slipping, Salvaging, Slacking, and Stoning.” Proceedings of the ACM EC 05 Conference on Electronic Commerce in Vancouver. 2005. 223-231. (Preprint PDF here) [on the methods of decreasing user reputation on eBay, and how people go about avoiding this]
Resnick, Paul, Richard Zeckhauser, John Swanson, and Kate Lockwood. “The Value of Reputation on eBay.” Experimental Economics 9.2 (2006): 79-101. (Preprint PDF here) [on why reputation is important on eBay]
p.s. And since I’m a librarian, I also found this article on …. well, read the title.
Ling, Kimberly, et al. “Using Social Psychology to Motivate Contributions to Online Communities.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 10.4 (2005). Online only.
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Hello to all,
I woul like to take a moment to express some thoughts on entering a room. I have observed many a people walk into a room and the first thing they see is nothing at all. I can't tell you all how dangerous that could be. You see I am a police officer, and the first thing that obviously comes to my mind is safety. This one rule that most seem to let fall by the waistside often renders someone a victim, when it could have been avoided just by making eye contact. A quick note of advice, always make eye contact with the first person you see as you walk though a doorway. Yes, of course be courteous enough to smile and or greed with humility but respectfully. This is just that simple, always make eye contact with everyone you see, smile and say hello. This accomplishes many things, but if nothing else it sends a message to the would-be attacker/fighter/criminal, "hey I am someone who is confident enough to stare you in the eye and show no fear. After all what do we have to fear but fear it self. In other words we have nothing to fear but our own mind. Control your mind and you can control the universe. Any thoughts on this matter are welcomed, Thank You.
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If your community is going quiet, try stimulating it with conversations that members find difficult to resist.
Every community I’ve been involved with has been different, but all have responded to these very similar discussions.
- What is your average day like? People love to talk about themselves. Everyone has a unique average day. Try this conversation, the response will be huge.
- What was your best/worst experience ….? Everyone wants to share their best/worst moments with everyone. Make it related to your topic.
- What/who is your favorite/worst ….? Similar to the above, but more focused on an issue/equipment rather than an experience. Try it, everyone will participate.
- What ‘…’ do you use? Nearly every community is based upon a topic, a topic that needs specialist gear. Community of musicians, ski-iers, parents, bloggers, all require special gear to enjoy the topic.
- What is your life ambition/goal? Members are surprisingly keen to tell each other about their life goals/ambitions. Give them the opportunity to do.
- Rank these 5 things in order of like/hate. Name 5 celebrities in your community’s field, ask people to rank them in order of liking.
- Nominate a member for ‘member of the month’. Call for nominations for member of the month. You have to give a reason.
The big art of a community is getting members to express themselves. The more expression, the more activity.
The theme here, you’ve rightly guessed, is open expression. Every question is designed to get members to express themselves honestly. This expression drives people to revisit the conversation and become better acquainted with other members.
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Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/22/ofcom_cgc/
Ofcom graciously gives satellites go-ahead
That's just half a mil' per MHz, alright?
UK regulator Ofcom has decided not to restrict what satellite operators can do with their Complementary Ground Component, but still intends to make serious money out of them.
Back in May the EU awarded 60MHz of paired spectrum to two prospective satellite service operators, Inmarsat and Solaris Mobile, and advised local regulators to make the same spectrum available to those companies for ground-based extensions. That decision is still the subject of legal challenges, but Ofcom has looked at the figures and decided that the winner should pay the regulator £554,000 a year for every pair of 1MHz frequencies it uses (pdf ).
The spectrum under debate comes in two blocks, 1980–2010MHz and 2170–2200MHz, which can be paired for duplex communication. Ofcom has no authority to charge for the satellite's use of the spectrum, but the operators will want to extend their coverage into buildings and shady spots, so will have to set up transmitters in the same range on our green and pleasant land.
Of course no one else can use the spectrum without interfering with the satellite broadcasts, so it's arguable that the frequencies are worthless and should be given away for free. But that's not an argument to which Ofcom subscribes, preferring instead to compare the spectrum to the 1800MHz blocks owned by T-Mobile and Orange, putting the value at the above-mentioned half million, per year, per pair of 1MHz channels.
The good news is that the operators won’t be required to stump up 16 million quid (the cost of the whole band) annually from the word go; they'll only pay for spectrum actually used by transmitters on the ground. They'll also be allowed to use that spectrum for anything they like, not just extending their satellite coverage.
Which is probably a good thing - we're not convinced that satellite broadcasting, or telephony, is going to be a big money spinner. Broadcasting TV to a mobile phone, which is supposed to be the killer application, is already looking like a dead duck in Europe; and while ubiquitous coverage might be useful in some parts of Europe in the UK, it's unlikely to prove a compelling reason to tolerate the half-second lag required to reach geostationary and back.
Complementary Ground Components can remove that latency, by cutting the satellite out of the equation, but it's not easy to see how such a service is going to compete in the UK even before Ofcom's proposed fee is accounted for. The regulator does concede that it might re-evaluate the situation in five years, if it can be convinced that the cost is preventing deployment, which shouldn't be hard when the operators decide their services will be better offered elsewhere. ®
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Rajasthan tours are great attraction for tourists who come to India to enjoy its tranquil beauty. The variety of tourist attractions that Rajasthan has helps to serve the varied needs of the tourists. There are a number of places which form the prime tourist places in Rajasthan. The various cities embedded with a number of tourist attraction attracts a lot of tourists. Among the various cities, Jodhpur is one of the most visited one. It has a number of tourist attractions spread across the various parts of the city. However, there are a number of tourist attractions in the adjoining areas of the Jodhpur which have also caught the frenzy of the tourists. As a result, excursions from Jodhpur have turned into an integral part of Jodhpur tourism. These excursions offer a number of tours to the tourist attractions in the adjoining areas. Tours to Nimaj is a thoroughly enjoyable experience for the tourists. Offering a mediaval rustic charm, the particular tour will provide you an ever lasting memory.
The prime attraction of tours to Nimaj is the temple dedicated to the Goddess Durga. The particular temple is built in the 9th century and boasts an ancient architecture. The particular tour will let you experience the aura of the bygone days of the region. The gallery of the temple is also a great attraction for the tourists as it has a wide collection of masterpieces of sculptural art. It is a great piece of architecture in the midst of beautiful sand dunes and takes you back to the era of utopian kingdom. Though the tours to Nimaj have a universal appeal yet it will be most enjoyable for tourists who have a predominantly creative soul.
Hence, while touring the various attractions of Jodhpur, if you ever feel monotonous the best way to avoid the monotony is to go for an excursion from Jodhpur. Presence of wide variety of attractions in the adjoining areas of Jodhpur makes sure that it is an enriching experience for the tourists. Tours to Nimaj which is an integral part of excursions from Jodhpur is a particular that will be a great addition to your Jodhpur tourism..
Easy connectivity to Nimaj further makes it a great tour for the tourists. Availability of a number of package tours to Nimaj makes the tour easily accessible for the tourists. Hence, it further increases the number of tourists opting for the particular tour. If you have not yet experienced the tour, go as son as possible as the tour will surely be a great experience for you.
Enjoy your Tour to Nimaj against the brilliant backdrop of the vast Thar Desert. Log on to indianholiday.com to know more about your Tour to Nimaj.
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I suggest that those who oppose Mayoral Control and the Privatization of Public Schools establish an online news journal that will unify the hundreds of parent and teacher blogs that have been created in the last ten years.
This Web Journal would be an alternative news source to the ones controlled by Bloomberg et al.
Instead of depending on mainstream news stations such as CBS and NBC to give a fair and unbiased version of the story, let's make sure that our story gets into the public domain through video news casts created by us.
Instead of depending on the New York Times, the Daily News, and the New York Post, to exercise journalistic integrity, lets give up on them, and go into competition against them.
How to Fund the Web Journal
Reach out to the parents and teachers of the 1,000,000 children in the New York City Public School System. Reach out to the parents and teachers of the 100,000,000 school-aged children in the United States.
I would pay $100.00 toward the creation of a website that would contain professional journalistic photography, video, and writing that tells my side of the story. I don't think I'm alone. Solicit donations to be paid through PayPal or Amazon.com
I personally would pay $10.00 a month to link my blog to the website. I don't think I'm alone. Keep the site free for those who want to inform themselves, but solicit subscriptions for those who want extra benefits.
Sell advertising space. Sell stuff (T-shirts, mugs, etc.).
How to Staff the Web Journal
This cannot be a website run by volunteers and amateurs. We need real journalists with lots of experience in traditional journalism. They have inside knowledge of how mainstream newspapers and TV news stations are run and will give us credibility.
We can use young journalists with good computer skills, good writing skills, and lots of bright ideas and enthusiasm.
We need professional producers, cameramen and editors--preferably with experience in TV broadcasting.
We can use volunteers (students, retirees, and others) who would like to learn journalism and broadcasting from professionals.
How to Promote the Web Journal
The bloggers themselves can promote the Journal. Also, hand out flyers at demonstrations; hand out flyers near schools as parents drop off and pick up their children; at parent-teacher conferences and meetings. Post flyers in delis and small businesses where they will be seen. Advertise. Twitter.
Who Sets This All in Motion and Keeps it Virtuous?
I suggest an Executive Board consisting of a fair representation of the opposition groups. It should not be about one political party, one culture, one religion, etc. In reality, it will be whomever shows up to do the work of getting this started, and then sticks around to provide oversight. Lots of work. Little pay. High Profile.
Beat Bloomberg At His Own Game
Bloomberg is winning not only because he is rich, but because he is a master of P. R. and owns the traditional media. People just aren't being given an opportunity to hear the other side. It's nice to have lots of demonstrations, but who is going to hear about it if it is not reported? Who is going to care if you are portrayed in a negative way?
I believe that we have reached critical mass. It is time to take the next step forward, which could be in reality a quantum leap.
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Should I Take DHEA for Menopause?
DHEA is a hormone, which means it can have diverse effects throughout the body. This supplement is controversial because very little is known about its long-term health effects. There are only a few studies of DHEA, and they are small, short-term, and inconsistent. We don't know how DHEA affects cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and cognitive function, for example.
There's some evidence that DHEA may have adverse effects on lipids, and that in some women it can cause increased hair growth, but we need more studies. Weight gain and weight loss are not clearly linked to DHEA, and it hasn't been well studied as a treatment for menopause.
Unless you're participating in a clinical trial, I don't recommend that you take this supplement, since at this point it's unknown whether the benefits outweigh the risks. If you do take DHEA, do so with caution.
Learn more in the Everyday Health Menopause Center.
Last Updated: 01/21/2008
Menopause expert Dr. JoAnn Manson answers your frequently asked questions on menopause symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, medications, management, and resources. Dr. Manson is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and chief of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
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Reza has covered much of the globe for National Geographic Magazine. Several films about Reza's work have been produced by National Geographic Television, most notably Frontline Diaries, which won an Emmy Award in 2002. In 2003, Reza served as Creative Director for National Geographic's most viewed documentary, Inside Mecca. As part of its Exceptional Journeys series, National Geographic released a DVD in May 2008 looking at Reza's career as a photojournalist, with special features highlighting his extensive humanitarian work.
In 2001, he founded Aina (Persian for The Mirror), an international non-profit organization dedicated to educating and empowering Afghan women and children through the media. By providing educational opportunities in the field of communications and multimedia, Aina aims to equip Afghans with the skills required to build a self-sufficient, democratic, and unified country. In 1991, Reza served as a consultant to the United Nations in Afghanistan, helping to distribute food to populations in war-torn parts of the country. For his work on such humanitarian causes and because of his work with Aina in Afghanistan, National Geographic awarded him the title of National Geographic Fellow in 2006.
He spends much of his time as lecturer, trainer, and visiting professor, giving presentations and running workshops on global issues. His humanitarian work and photojournalism have been recognized by international institutions and universities, including George Washington University, Stanford University, Beijing University and the Sorbonne in Paris. He also participated in documentary projects for the French photography website 24h.com.
Reza's photographs have been exhibited in major cities throughout the world. War+Peace (2009), an exhibit featuring thirty years worth of Reza's photojournalistic adventures, was held at the Caen Memorial (Peace Museum) in Normandy, France. One World, One Tribe (2006), was the National Geographic Museum's first outdoor exhibition in Washington D.C, and, Reza's landmark exhibition in Paris, drew a million visitors.
Over the last three decades, many of Reza’s photographs have been on the covers of National Geographic Magazine, with many more featured in major international publications. He is also the author of seventeen books, including War+Peace, the first in a series entitled Masters of Photography by National Geographic, and most recently, Sindhbad, Reza's adaptation of the seven journeys of this mystical character from the classic tale, A Thousand and One Nights. Childhood Promise is the story of discovery, narrated by three people, about a promise made by Reza to his son, Delazad.
In 1996, Reza won the Hope Prize for his contribution to a joint project with UNICEF in Rwanda entitled Lost Children's Portraits. In 2005, he was awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite, France’s highest civilian honour, for his philanthropic work in the areas of children’s education and the empowerment of women in the media. In 2006, Spain’s Crown Prince Felipe presented him with the Prince of Asturias Humanitarian Medal on behalf of National Geographic. The same year, Reza received the Honor Medal from the University of Missouri - Columbia School of Journalism “in recognition of his lifelong contributions, through photojournalism, to justice and dignity for the world’s citizens." He also received an award recognizing his humanitarian work from the University of Chicago.
In 2008, Reza became a senior fellow of the Ashoka Foundation, and in May 2009, received the Honorary Degree of Doctor Honoris Causa from the American University of Paris (AUP) for his achievements in journalism and humanitarianism. In October 2009, he received the Lucie Award for Achievement in Documentary from the New York-based Lucie Foundation and in May 2010, in New York, the Infinity Award of ICP (International Center of Photography) honoured Reza for his latest report on Afghanistan; “Once upon a time, the Russian Empire”, in Photojournalism category. Reza is currently planning a new photography project with residents of the Sicilian suburb of Librino, as well as another major project in Burkina Faso.
||This section needs additional citations for verification. (November 2011)|
||This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. (May 2013)|
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Reza Deghati|
Here you can share your comments or contribute with more information, content, resources or links about this topic.
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How did developer Realtime Worlds go from creating violent free-roaming shooters like APB and Crackdown to working on the massive social gaming undertaking Project: MyWorld? They don't. It was the other way around.
Realtime Worlds' debut of the ambitious Project: MyWorld on Wednesday took a lot of people by surprise. Known for violent shooting games like APB and the original Crackdown, the concept of a project that seeks to recreate the entire planet as a virtual playground for social networking and social gaming seems slightly odd.
Project: MyWorld design director Sean Dugan explains how Project: MyWorld came about.
Realtime Worlds was founded with the dream of someday delivering on the promise that Project: MyWorld represents. Along the way, separate teams were created to make Crackdown and APB with technologies developed on Project: MyWorld. But while the Crackdown and APB teams worked in the broad light of day, the Project: MyWorld team of developers churned away as a top-secret skunkworks project for years.
So while on the surface APB and Crackdown are very different animals than Project: MyWorld, deep down inside they're all the same.
What Crackdown, APB and Project: MyWorld all do is they create a vast open world and put power into the hands of the player. They allow players to be creative within the boundaries of the game and discover interesting interactions.
Is Realtime Worlds totally schizophrenic? [Project: MyWorld]
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|Played by:||Simon Pegg|
Montgomery "Scotty" Scott was a Human Starfleet officer serving in the 23rd century. He was recruited by James T. Kirk to replace Olson as chief engineer of the USS Enterprise before the Battle of Earth in 2258.
Scotty had been engaged in a debate with his instructor on the issue of relativistic physics and how it pertains to subspace travel. The professor was of the opinion that the range of a transporter was limited to a few hundred kilometers; Scotty felt that he could beam a lifeform from one planet to the next within a solar system. His theory, however, had never been tested. As he was experimenting with his theory of transwarp beaming he used Archer's prized beagle as a test subject but was unable to locate the dog afterwards.
Scott was sent to the Federation outpost on Delta Vega with his assistant, Keenser, in late 2257, six months before the destruction of Vulcan. He believed his blunder with Archer's dog was the real reason for him ending up there. In 2258 Keenser brought him two visitors, James T. Kirk and one Spock whom Scotty believed were sent by Starfleet to supply him.
Spock helped Scott fix this transport problem by giving him the finished version of the governing equation "his" Scotty – a longtime friend from his own future timeline – had completed in the future. The final detail Scott needed was to construct the equations from the perspective that outer space itself, not the ships, was moving. Using the new calculations, Kirk and Scott were able to beam aboard the Enterprise while it was moving at warp.
Despite his technical knowledge and engineering specialty, Scotty suffered an initial run of bad luck when it came to transporter targets. When beaming himself and Kirk to the Enterprise he ended up in a water conduit labeled Inert Reactant in Engineering, nearly drowning before Kirk was able to evacuate him through an emergency hatch. The first time he used the Enterprise transporter he aimed for the cargo bay of the Narada where he believed Kirk and Spock would be able to materialize unobserved; the area turned out to be crawling with Romulans. His second use of the Enterprise transporter, however, was a tremendous technical success: beaming three people from two different locations onto one pad, something he had never done before.
After Spock's ship, the Jellyfish, was destroyed, the Enterprise began to be sucked into the black hole created by the simultaneous detonation of its entire store of red matter. However, Scotty was able to eject and detonate the ship's warp core, creating a large enough shock wave that the Enterprise could ride to safety. With Olson, the ship's original chief engineer, having been killed in action, and his benefactor Kirk in command, Scott eventually took this position (bringing Keenser along with him) aboard the Enterprise. (Star Trek)
"You are Montgomery Scott!"
"You know him?"
"Aye, that's me. You're in the right place, unless there's another hard-working equally starved Starfleet officer around."
"Get tae–shut up! You don't eat anything. You can eat, like, a bean, and you're done! I'm talking about food. Real food."
- - Spock Prime, James Kirk, Montgomery Scott and Keenser
"Are you from the future?"
"Yeah, he is - I'm not."
"Well, that's brilliant. Do they still have sandwiches there?!"
- - Montgomery Scott and James Kirk
"So, the Enterprise has had its maiden voyage, has it? She is one well-endowed lady! I'd like to get my hands on her ample nacelles if you'll pardon the engineering parlance."
- - Montgomery Scott
"The notion of transwarp beaming is like trying to hit a bullet with a smaller bullet, whilst wearing a blindfold, riding a horse."
- - Montgomery Scott
"I like this ship! You know, it's exciting!"
- - Montgomery Scott, after Spock leaves the bridge following a fistfight between Spock and James Kirk
"Are you a member of Starfleet?"
"Uh... yes. Can I get a towel, please?"
- - Spock and Scotty
"I've never beamed three people from two targets onto one pad before!"
- - Montgomery Scott
"Kirk to Engineering. Get us outta here Scotty."
"You bet your arse Captain!"
- - James Kirk and Montgomery Scott
"I'm giving her all she's got, captain!"
- - Montgomery Scott, when escaping the black hole
"Get off there, its not a climbing frame."
- - Montgomery Scott, before beaming onto the Enterprise
|Chief engineers of the starships Enterprise|
|Enterprise NX-01:||Tucker • Kelby|
|USS Enterprise-D:||MacDougal • Argyle • Logan • Lynch • La Forge|
|USS Enterprise-E:||La Forge|
|ISS Enterprise NX-01:||Tucker|
|ISS Enterprise NCC-1701:||Scott|
|USS Enterprise (alternate reality):||Olson • Scott • Chekov|
Montgomery Scott (alternate reality) appears in:
Simon Pegg modeled his Scottish accent on the Glaswegian one of his wife and her family. Pegg concocted a backstory for Scotty on his MySpace page to reconcile his performance's accent with the traditional belief Scotty was born from Aberdeen or Linlithgow.
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Nurturing the Nurturers
How a $10,000 prize is rewarding and recharging nonprofit leaders.
someone gave you $10,000, and said you couldn't save it or give it to charity,
but had to spend it on yourself, would that be a problem? For most of us, probably
not. But after years of working through weekends for minimal pay and stretching
thin budgets to keep organizations afloat, some of Hawai'i's most dedicated nonprofit
leaders found themselves shocked and momentarily paralyzed by just such a gift.
The $10,000 Ho'okele Awards are given annually since they were created in 2002
by the Hawai'i Community Foundation (HCF) and the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation.
HCF president and CEO, Kelvin Taketa, set two requirements for the Ho'okele Awards:
Recipients must spend the money on their own professional development and personal
renewal-putting it back into their organization is forbidden-and they must detail
how they used the cash 12 months later at the next Ho'okele celebration.|
"It was permission to be self-indulgent, and nonprofit people just don't do that very often," says Marsha Erickson, a 31-year veteran of nonprofit work, who won in 2003 for her leadership as executive director of Hui o Laka, which operates the Koke'e Natural History Museum on Kaua'i, along with several other projects. "Nonprofit people are not personally ambitious, but they are extraordinarily ambitious for their missions." All of the giving and begging wears you out, she says. "It's one endless campaign."
Erickson is still spending her grant on Neighbor Island trips to visit family, dinners for friends, Hawaiian reference books for all of her grandchildren, an upcoming Buddhist retreat in Florida and a large, red leather chair and sofa set in which the bibliophile plans to devour books. She says the award gave her such a boost that she feels ready to pursue another 10 years in the often thankless and anonymous world of nonprofit advocacy.
Walt Dulaney and George Kon split the $10,000 award last year for their work with the Alliance for Drama Education and the T-Shirt Theatre of Kalihi. At the time, the secretary at Kalihi High School-and Kon's close friend-was diagnosed with breast cancer and given four months to live. All she wanted was another trip with her family. Kon paid for that last vacation to Alaska, just before she entered a hospice.
Simultaneously, Kon's wife was suffering from breast cancer and the low energy and pain associated with chemotherapy. An errand to the supermarket required two days of rest. He worried about traveling to a Neighbor Island. But a trip to Kona seemed like an ideal way to spend some of the money, and a transformation ensued. The new environment inspired her to enjoy the water again-something she hadn't done since falling ill. Her residual pain disappeared, her outlook changed. Instead of resting, "she was on the go with me," says Kon.
When they returned to Honolulu, she maintained her daily water routine, and Kon bought her a surfboard. "It's a whole avenue of companionship, this swimming," he marvels. Then he purchased a computer, so she could create a Web site that has attracted 10,000 visitors. Stretching the money to seemingly impossible lengths, Kon also managed to subsidize a capped tooth for one of his Kalihi theater students heading off to boot camp. He hopes that a perfect smile will lure the youngster back to the stage and away from war.
When asked why he didn't spend the money on himself, Kon claims he did, explaining the acts as "soulful." Most of us don't remember how we spend the money we earn, he laughs, "but I'll remember this five thousand bucks."
Kon's theater partner, Walt Dulaney, hadn't enjoyed a vacation off island for nine years, so he indulged in a trip to Moloka'i, where he drove into an open field, stretched out on the hood of the car and gazed at the stars. Long upset with Hawai'i's poor voter turnout, Delaney enrolled in a voter registration training course and has pledged to register 100 new or lapsed voters this fall. A music and film aficionado, Dulaney also hired somebody to organize his 20-year collection of sheet music, and later purchased 52 classic DVDs, sharing the list and asking for suggestions at the Ho'okele Awards (after singing much of his speech).
Papakölea Community Development Corp.'s executive director B. Puni Kekauoha also put the money toward a trip. But first the single mom used the gift to officially hanai two teenage girls she had taken into her home in early 2003. The girls, who had known Kekauoha's daughter for years, had lived on the Hawaiian Homestead of Papakölea in a multigenerational home with about 16 people. Then, Kekauoha took the three Roosevelt High Schools students to Southern California, where they enjoyed a week of Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm and other attractions. It was the first time one of the girls had ever journeyed out of Hawai'i. Watching her children enjoy themselves "validated the work that I do," she says, adding that "most of us by nature would put [the money] all back into the organization." Such an honor, for people who work tirelessly and seldom get recognized for it, refreshes and restores the spirit, says Kekauoha.
Just how much, the newest group of awardees will soon discover. Carol Ignacio, executive director of the Office for Social Ministry, Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu, was one of the 2004 winners selected via nominations from the community. Others included Lynn Maunakea, executive director of the Institute for Human Services, Patricia McManaman, chief executive officer of Na Loio-Immigrant Rights & Public Interest Legal Center and Robert Witt, executive director of the Hawai'i Association of Independent Schools. To be recognized for this prestigious award, individuals must inspire others, share knowledge, bring together divergent groups, think strategically (and get results) and make a tangible difference in Hawai'i's communities.
The proof exists in the stories. The Hawai'i Community Foundation eagerly awaits the accounts from this year's winners next August, when the cycle of giving and renewal begins again.
Do you like what you read? Subscribe to HONOLULU Magazine »
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This is what I want to express:
I want to get to know more algorithms that have been created.
I have thought about changing the sentence into
I want to gain a better insight into algorithms that have been created.
But it seems inappropriate.
Any better phrase (or single word) to replace get to know?
(Or better way to construct the sentence?)
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Does your laptop clash with your Empire-style interior? No problem.
A French entrepreneur has signed up a team of traditional craftsmen to turn out PCs fit for a royal home.
Out with dull office-grey plastic -- even the slick lines of an iPad: Georges Chirita's workshop outside Paris turns out one-of-a-kind computers in polished brass and gold leaf, mounted on marble with leather-clad keyboards and mice.
"When people first fitted Louis XV chandeliers with electric bulbs, everyone was taken aback. Now it doesn't raise an eyebrow," said the Romanian-born entrepreneur, an electronic engineer who settled in France 22 years ago.
"Computers used to be seen as mere work tools. But now the product has reached a kind of maturity, and it's easier to start seeing it as a luxury object," said the 58-year-old, whose own bookshelves heave with a mix of IT manuals and interior design books.
Luxury? Framed by marble columns adorned with twisted gold or soaring eagles, Chirita's hand-made desktop computers -- in one of three styles, Louis XV, Louis XVI or Empire -- positively drip with the stuff.
They also feature in-built hidden processors and a wireless mouse.
Solid gold, jewels, initials or a coat of arms embossed on the rear of the screen: the sky is the limit for the made-to-measure creations whose equally luxurious price tag starts at 17,000 euros ($21,000).
Special attention is paid to the back of the screen, Chirita explains, since these are computers for "important people who receive other important people -- so the back must be as attractive as the front."
-- 'He sent a USB key to Queen Elizabeth II' --
While undeniably kitsch, Chirita's desktop PCs have won a fan base from the Gulf to China and the United States.
For the traveller, he offers gold-plated USB keys adorned with fleur-de-lys patterns -- with a 100-year guarantee -- or portable hard drives stamped with 17th-century motifs, also in gold-plate.
Chirita sent one of his USB keys to Queen Elizabeth II for her Diamond Jubilee this year, and proudly displays the thank you note he received in return from a lady-in-waiting.
When he first launched his project in the late 1990s, Chirita built a series of models and prototypes, assembling the computer parts himself, but he soon realised he lacked key skills on the visual design side.
So he went knocking at the door of the highly-specialised craftsmen known in France as "artisans d'art", whose rare skills are often handed down from generation to generation.
More used to restoring period homes or antique furniture, the artisans Chirita approached were often wary of the grubby high-tech sector.
"But once they understood the idea and realised it wouldn't demean their work," they came around, he said.
Chirita assembles 80 percent of the computer himself, including all the electronics, handing over to craftsmen for the decorative elements in marble, lapis lazuli, wrought metal or gold leaf.
Once completed the different pieces are assembled like an intricate puzzle in his workshop in Melun southeast of the capital, with tiny gold-plated screws.
Chirita's client base is 90 percent international, and he adapts his wares to the tastes of Chinese clients who tend to go for shinier finishes, or Gulf buyers who prefer mat gold.
He works mostly with interior designers: "The very wealthy don't have time to take care of this kind of thing," he said. "Sometimes we don't even know who the final customer is."
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The BigBrotherAwards Germany were launched to encourage public debate about privacy and data protection. It is their purpose to highlight abusive uses of technology and information.
Welcome to the German BigBrotherAwards
The German BigBrotherAwards were bestowed on Friday, 12 April 2013 at 18:00 CEST (UTC+0200) in Bielefeld, Germany. For this year's awards, around 200 nominations had reached us and were checked and further researched.
This year’s winners are here: BigBrotherAwards 2013.
All previous winners can be found under their respective years or in our Archive (listings in German).
Starting in 1998, these "negative" or "anti" awards are now presented annually in several countries. The German Big Brother Awards were first presented in 2000. Award "winners" can be companies, institutions and persons who act in a prominent and sustained way to invade people's privacy or leak (personal) data to third parties.
The name was taken from George Orwells negative utopia "1984", which as early as in the late 1940s put forward the author's vision of a future society under total surveillance.
The sculpture for the Big Brother Awards Germany was designed for the first ceremony by Oerlinghausen artist Peter Sommer. It shows a figure tied by a lead band and bisected by a glass pane which is inscribed with a hexadecimal encoding of a passage from Huxley's "Brave New World".
The Big Brother Awards Germany are organised by digitalcourage in Bielefeld, which was formed in 1987 under its original name FoeBuD or association for the Promotion of Mobile and
Immobile Public Data Traffic, as one possible translation of the
old name goes. FoeBuD became known for being an active member in early citizens'
networks such as Zerberus, running its own BIONIC
mailbox, the ZaMir
peace network, the German manual for the Pretty
Good Privacy (PGP) encryption software and its monthly talks/events
DOMAIN covering topics between future and technology, science
and politics, arts and culture. The name digitalcourage was adopted on the group’s 25th anniversary in November 2012. You can read more details on the digitalcourage story on Wikipedia.
We are always grateful for questions, suggestions and remarks, critical or otherwise: firstname.lastname@example.org
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“Citizens would like to think that every home is like their own. Unfortunately, that is not reality,” reports Ripley County Sheriff Tom Grills.
“In Ripley County, there are approximately 50 registered sex offenders currently, and there is a high probability an encounter with a registered sex offender is inevitable. “We do the best we can in making sure sex offenders live where they tell us, so it is crucial that our citizens visit our Web site at www.ripleycounty.com/sheriff and clicking on ‘sex offender registry’ to see who and where an offender might be living within their neighborhood,” he says.
Citizens are encouraged to look up important addresses and review the list of registered sex offenders living within a 0.25-2 mile radius of that specific address. Grills adds, “The mapping and address feature found on the Web site pinpoints exactly where an offender lives, therefore, educating citizens on which houses to avoid while trick-or-treating.
“Perhaps the most beneficial aspect of the address-monitoring feature is that once your important addresses and e-mail address have been registered, the system will automatically alert you via e-mail when an offender moves within 0.25-2 mile radius of the registered address. You can register any and all of the addresses where your children spend a lot of time.
For more information, persons can contact the sheriff’s office at 812-689-5558.
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Happy Birthday, Louise Bogan
Happy Birthday to poet Louise Bogan, born on August 11, 1897, in Livermore Falls, Maine. Bogan attended Boston Latin School and spent a year at Boston University before marrying and having a child. The marriage was an unhappy one and in 1920, after her husband died, she turned to poetry, making her way in the literary community of New York. Her second husband was the poet Raymond Holden, from whom she divorced in 1937. During her life time, Bogan was better known as a critic than as a poet, and she worked for many years as the poetry critic of the New Yorker. She was Consultant in Poetry at the Library of Congress in 1945 and 1946 (the position now known as "Poet Laureate of the United States") and in 1955, she shared the Bollingen Prize for Poetry with Leonie Adams.
Bogan's first collection of poetry was Body of this Death (1923). Others include Dark Summer (1929) and The Sleeping Fury (1937). Her final and most complete collection, The Blue Estuaries: Poems 1923-1968 (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1995), originally published in 1968, is still widely available, due, perhaps, to renewed interest in Bogan's work among feminists and a growing assessment of her importance as a poet and critic in Twentieth Century American literature. In an essay available on the web for Modern American Poetry, Wendy Hirsch wrote: "[Bogan's] work is particularly important in light of her place in the company of other modernists. In a time of experimentation, of a general loosening of structures and subjects, she held the line for formal poetry and for the precise blend of emotion and intellect to enliven that poetry."
Bogan struggled with depression throughout her adult life. She died in New York on February 4, 1970.
Here is her poem Evening in a Sanitarium, which was originally published with the subtitle, "Imitated from Auden," although later versions of the poem dropped the reference.
EVENING IN THE SANITARIUM
The free evening fades, outside the windows fastened
with decorative iron grilles.
The lamps are lighted; the shades drawn; the nurses
are watching a little.
It is the hour of the complicated knitting on the safe
bone needles; of the games of anagrams and bridge;
The deadly game of chess; the book held up like a mask.
The period of the wildest weeping, the fiercest delusion, is over.
The women rest their tired half-healed hearts; they are
Some of them will stay almost well always: the blunt-faced
woman whose thinking dissolved
Under academic discipline; the manic-depressive girl
Now leveling off; one paranoiac afflicted with jealousy,
Another with persecution. Some alleviation has been
O fortunate bride, who never again will become elated
O lucky older wife, who has been cured of feeling
To the suburban railway station you will return, return,
To meet forever Jim home on the 5:35.
You will be again as normal and selfish and heartless
as anybody else.
There is life left: the piano says it with its octave smile.
The soft carpets pad the thump and splinter of the suicide
Everything will be splendid: the grandmother will not
The fruit salad will bloom on the plate like a bouquet
And the garden produce the blue-ribbon aquilegia.
The cats will be glad; the fathers feel justified; the
The sons and husbands will no longer need to pay the bills.
Childhoods will be put away, the obscene nightmare abated.
At the ends of the corridors the baths are running.
Mrs. C. again feels the shadow of the obsessive idea.
Miss R. looks at the mantel-piece, which must mean something.
NOTE: In my copy of the original poem, the short "carry over" lines are indented several spaces. Unfortunately, I cannot duplicate this effect in Blogger. My apologies.
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The Power of Sunshine
- City of Quartz: Excavating the Future of Los Angeles by Mike Davis
Verso, 462 pp, £18.95, November 1990, ISBN 0 86091 303 1
‘City of Quartz’? Los Angeles is indeed bright, hard, opaque. Even the astonishing sunsets one can see from Interstate 15, looking west towards Pomona, have a sepulchral flush to them as the red light filters through the foul air rolling towards Riverside and the desert seventy miles east of the Pacific. And when the Santa Ana winds blow the other way and clean out the whole basin there’s nothing warm in the colour tones even then, just an eerie depth of field so clear throughout its focal range that it’s hard to keep an accurate sense of perspective.
Most writers find their way to Los Angeles from somewhere else and the city has been refracted through the lens of their disenchantment, remorse, bad faith; diminished in such costive satires as those of West or Waugh. The European Marxists of the Frankfurt School, fleeing thither from the Nazis, were as uncomprehending, though at a higher level of sophistication. Years later, when he’d returned to Frankfurt, Adorno remarked rather portentously that ‘it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that any contemporary consciousness that has not appropriated the American experience, even if in opposition, has something reactionary about it.’
He was talking about Los Angeles, where he and Horkheimer allowed (as Mike Davis puts it) ‘their image of first sight to become its own myth: Los Angeles as the crystal ball of capitalism’s future’. They exhibited as little interest as their fellow exile Brecht in the wartime turmoil in the local aircraft plants or the vibrant night-life and music in the Central Avenue ghetto, and turned their gaze instead onto the little single family homes that represented to them the world-historical mission of the proletariat perverted into the highest stage of false consciousness. As they put it in the Dialectic of Enlightenment, ‘even now, the older houses outside the concrete city centre look like slums, and the new bungalows on the outskirts are at one with the flimsy structures of world fairs in their praise of technical progress and their built-in demand to be discarded after a short while like empty food cans. Yet the city housing projects designed to perpetuate the individual as a supposedly independent unit in a small hygienic dwelling make him all the more subservient to his adversary – the absolute power of capitalism.’
This was in essence a heavy-breathing version of the noir fix on Los Angeles which began in 1934 with James M. Cain’s The postman always rings twice, surging through Chandler, Faulkner, film noir, the extraordinary novels of Chester Himes and on towards Rechy, Didion and Bret Easton Ellis. Davis acutely points out that noir – dystopian revulsion at the boosterism that manured the city’s growth – took hold as a style in the Depression because it was anchored in the despair of the middle class, their savings sunk in real estate and oil speculations, as they volatilised in a downward spiral of crisis and bankruptcy. Chandler’s Marlowe, in his stale office in Downtown, snarling alternately at the punk scum and the powers-that-be, was a political time-bomb waiting to explode. In their agony and panic no less than 100,000 bedrock Republicans crossed the lines in 1934 to vote for the socialist Upton Sinclair in his gubernatorial campaign conducted under the slogan ‘End poverty in California’. Four years later, the tide turned and the Midwestern retirees were bellowing ‘Ham and eggs’ – the rallying-cry of a bizarre pension-reform movement with Brownshirt undertones. In this mulch Marlowe himself would probably have ended up as a Brownshirt if Chandler had followed the true logic of his character.
For every noir scrivener staring out across the Hollywood Hills under eyelids heavy with disillusion there’s been a booster, starting with Charles Fletcher Lummis, who in 1884 took 143 days to walk from Ohio to Los Angeles and was hired on arrival by the patron of the Los Angeles Times, Colonel (later General) Harrison Gray Otis. Lummis helped to forge the booster image described by Kevin Starr in his book Inventing the dream: ‘a mélange of mission myth (originating in Helen Hunt Jackson’s Ramona), obsession with climate, political conservatism (symbolised in the open shop), and thinly-veiled racism, all put to the service of boosterism and oligarchy’.
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From The Associated Press
Republicans and Democrats are joining together to demand changes to the nation’s farm worker program as Congress looks to rework U.S. immigration laws.
Lawmakers and witnesses at a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing Tuesday said the visa program that allows farmers to hire foreign workers is so unwieldy it accounts for only a very small percentage of the hundreds of thousands of farm workers hired in the U.S. And half or more of agriculture workers are here illegally, experts agree.
These workers play a critical role to the U.S. economy and food supply. But farmers and growers say their productivity and ability to keep operations in the U.S. is threatened by difficulties ensuring a stable labor supply, and that must change. Meanwhile workers said they should get more protections.
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The government has failed to measure the benefits of its online sites and services, making it impossible to judge whether they offer value for money, according to a report by the UK national spending watchdog.
Government spent £90.3m on its two main web domains, Directgov and Business.gov, and the online identity assurance service, Government Gateway, over the past three years without sufficient information about the returns on its investment, the report by the National Audit Office (NAO) said on Friday.
"It is a good thing that people visited the two main government websites some 200 million times last year. However, it's still unclear what benefits have been achieved and at what cost. We cannot conclude, therefore, that the taxpayer is securing value for money," Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, said in a statement.
For more on this ZDNet UK-selected story, see Has £90m been wasted on government websites? Nobody knows... on silicon.com.
Get the latest technology news and analysis, blogs and reviews delivered directly to your inbox with ZDNet UK's newsletters.
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Google has invested it a UK firm developing technology for boosting cellular coverage in homes and businesses.
The search giant participated in a $25m round of funding for Ubiquisys, a femtocells vendor based in Swindon. Technology venture funds Accel Partners, Atlas Venture and Advent Venture Partners also invested, Ubiquisys announced on Friday.
Femtocells, named for an order of size in physics that is smaller than 'pico ' or ' nano', are cellular base stations for individual homes or offices. Mobile operators hope to sell them to customers who will install them and immediately enjoy better coverage for data and entertainment services. Weak cellular signals indoors, where most high-speed data services are used, have stunted the growth of those lucrative offerings, according to industry analysts.
Google invested in Ubiquisys as part of efforts to help people use the internet wherever they are, with the richest possible experience, spokesman David-John Collins said.
"It's about promoting different ways and platforms for people to access the internet itself," Collins said.
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There have been many characters who have travelled through time but who was the first? Off the top of my head, I can only think of Ebenezer Scrooge and his 3 ghostly visitors. I'm not even sure that they qualify.
According to this Wikipedia list of time travel in science fiction writing, film & tv, the 1949 adaption of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is the first example of time travel in a film or tv sci-fi work. I can't speak to the completeness of the list.
Interestingly, that list categorizes Charles Dicken's 1843 A Christmas Carol as sci-fi and includes the 2009 film adaptation in the film list. Based on the Wikipedia entry for the first film adaption, Scrooge, or, Marley's Ghost (1901), I don't believe the characters traveled through time in that particular adaptation:
It's unclear if the spirits showed Scrooge visions in the present or if Scrooge actually travelled through time with the ghosts.
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Energy prices continued falling with crude oil down 2.6% Sept. 19 to its lowest level in nearly a month on the New York market due to a stronger dollar and continued market fears that Greece soon will default on its sovereign debt, becoming perhaps the first in an economic line of falling dominoes.
James Zhang at Standard New York Securities Inc., the Standard Bank Group, said, “The Euro-zone debt crisis continues to rattle the market. For now, the market appears to have come to a consensus that Greece will default at some point. Concerns have shifted towards Italy, with the yield for Italian 10-year government bonds exceeding that of the Spanish 10-year bond.”
Overnight, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services downgraded Italy's long-term and short-term sovereign credit ratings to A/A-1 from A+/A-1+, citing political and debt issues. Italian authorities are under pressure to enact austerity measures to reduce government spending. But weaker economic growth likely will reduce effectiveness of Italy's fiscal program, said S&P.
“Natural gas did its usual oscillation routine [in the Sept. 19 trading session], ending the day flattish. Putting it all together, you can probably guess the outcome: another low volume, chalk-grinding day for energy names” in the equities market, said analysts in the Houston office of Raymond James & Associates Inc. However, S&P’s 500 index along with crude and gas prices were up in early trading Sept. 20 “on hopes that the Federal Reserve Bank will announce another round of economic stimulus,” they reported.
Today the Fed opened the 2-day meeting of its policy-making Federal Open Market Committee. “Yields for longer-dated treasury have been falling faster than shorter-dated yields in recent weeks in anticipation of ‘operation twist,’ which is designed to substitute some short-term debt for longer-term paper in order to flatten the curve,” said Zhang (OGJ Online, Sept. 19, 2011). “While the Fed’s track record suggests that it will deliver at least what the market expects, the market is likely to remain unconvinced by the actual effect of the policy move from the Fed.”
Energy, economic outlooks
In other news, US President Barack Obama submitted his deficit-reduction plan to the joint committee assigned with the job of reducing the US deficit. “Although the proposal contains some corporate tax reform elements, there is no language that specifically pertained to taxation of pass-through entities, which is a win for MLPs [master limited partners]. The tax proposal includes those already proposed in the American Jobs Act as well as some corporate tax reform proposals that target the coal industry and the oil and gas industry: 1) Repeal of last in, first out [accounting procedure]; 2) Elimination of four tax provisions used by the coal industry and E&P sector (expensing of exploration and development costs, percentage depletion, and capital gains treatment for royalties),” said Raymond James analysts.
It “is a carbon-copy of what Obama proposed in 2009 when he had a filibuster proof majority and even then it failed to pass, so the likelihood of this passing extremely unlikely if not impossible,” they said.
Zhang said, “In both the US and Europe, political struggles make it difficult to resolve the sovereign debt crisis and to revive the economy. Consequently, we see more downside risks in the near term in the financial market, which will drag down the oil market with it. One of the brighter spots in the oil market is the middle distillates market, which has been the main contributor to refining margins. The term structure of ICE gas oil has shifted into backwardation from the middle of August, and European distillate inventories have been falling. This is in sharp contrast to the seasonal pattern of inventory build during August and September.”
He warned, however, “As global manufacturing activities slow down as the [Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) manufacturing] survey suggests, the strength in middle distillate could fade, and it could prove to be the last straw for crude prices.”
For now, Zhang said, “Middle distillate and fuel oil cracks strengthened, while gasoline cracks weakened further. European refining margins edged higher by around 50¢/bbl but remained weak. The term structure for North Sea Brent crude weakened following the October contract expiry [on Sept. 15], which indicates an improved supply situation, while West Texas Intermediate structure strengthened as Cushing, Okla., inventories are expected to draw further.”
He noted, “It has been reported that three out of five Libyan oil refineries have returned to operations. However, the two refineries running at full throughput are very small ones at 10,000 b/d and 20,000 b/d respectively. The country’s biggest refinery, Ras Lanuf, with a capacity of 220,000 b/d remained shut. As far as Libya’s crude production is concerned, Libya’s officials have said that production has reached 150,000 b/d from the Sarir and Messla fields. However, any crude cargo exports from Libya have yet to be confirmed.”
Raymond James analysts cited a report on the Fuelfix.com blog that the US Department of Energy figures members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries “stand to [generate] $1 trillion in revenue this year” with the average price of the group’s basket of benchmark crudes “above $100/bbl for the longest period ever.” DOE officials expect OPEC governments to use that cash to “maintain domestic support” in the face of prodemocracy uprisings during the Arab Spring. According to the report, Raymond James analysts said, “Nine member countries have increased 2011 budgets, with the gulf nations pledging $150 billion in social investment. These reinvestment plans are a stark contrast to some choices leaders made after prior oil booms, such as Abu Dhabi's purchase of English soccer club Manchester City and Qatar buying a stake in Porsche SE.”
The October contract for benchmark US sweet, light crudes continued to tumble Sept. 19, losing $2.26 to $85.70/bbl on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The November contract fell $2.37 to $85.81/bbl. On the US spot market, WTI at Cushing was down $2.26 to $85.70/bbl.
Heating oil for October delivery declined 6.42¢ to $2.94/gal on NYMEX. Reformulated blend stock for oxygenate blending for the same month decreased 8.76¢ to $2.70/gal.
The October contract for natural gas gained 2¢ to $3.83/MMbtu on NYMEX. On the US spot market, however, gas at Henry Hub, La., retreated 3.08¢ to $109.14/bbl.
In London, the November IPE contract for North Sea Brent lost $3.08 to $109.14/bbl. Gas oil for October fell $19 to $931.50/tonne.
The average price for OPEC’s basket of 12 benchmark crudes dropped $2.01 to $108.68/bbl, wiping out the Sept. 16 gain.
Contact Sam Fletcher at firstname.lastname@example.org.
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David Foster Wallace delivered this commencement speech at Kenyon College in 2005. It is amongst the most remarkable videos conjured from a speech-turned-into-a-book I’ve...
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Many people lack a basic understanding of applied sport psychology, yet the world’s best athletes are likely to use one. Why? Have you ever thought about how a strong foundation of mental conditioning skills might benefit you or your team? Those that have explored this question long enough to study the principles and apply the techniques in honing an athlete’s “inner game” need no convincing. Don’t you think its time to quit looking for inspiration out there and begin the process of developing your own internal resources? If you would like to know more about how this training can give you a boost from the inside-out, craft your ‘MOJO’ into a formidable part of your competitive edge, and make you a better athlete or coach – consider the gains of those who have worked with Stephen Walker, PhD in the past several years? Dr. Walker is the Editor-in-Chief of Podium Sports Journal, an on-line magazine in applied sport psychology in addition to serving in his capacity as Director of Health Sport and Performance Associates. He has designed a program that focuses on the top ten mental skills most likely to enhance athletic performance and add to your joy in sport. Your collaboration with him will endeavor to help you in the following ways:
When skills such as these are learned and practiced in reps and sets just like circuit training, athletes begin to naturally develop mental toughness. Dr. Walker’s program for teaching these skills is called BrainToughTM and it can help you compete better and enjoy your sport more. So if you want to acquire a stronger sense of team cohesion, practice with a purpose and a focus that helps you prepare better and perform your best – Stay Tuned! Read Podium Sports Journal regularly and enjoy the process of training even more. The benefits will always be gratifying and your results may just astound your competition.
People in the field of sport psychology who provide these services are not all the same. They should be affiliated with Division 47 Exercise & Sport Psychology – American Psychological Association – and – certified by the only legitimate credentialing agency in this field – the Association for Applied Sport Psychology – AASP. Some providers of these services have achieved the special distinction of being a part of the United States Olympic Committee’s Registry of Sport Psychologists. Even though these designations are not a guarantee of results, they provide the most rigorous credentialing assessing the practitioner’s understanding of both sports sciences and psychology. Many are licensed health care professionals in addition to being certified by AASP.
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THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release August 18, 2009
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT OBAMA
AND PRESIDENT MUBARAK OF EGYPT
DURING PRESS AVAILABILITY
12:28 P.M. EDT
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, let me, on behalf of the American people and my administration, welcome President Mubarak for his first visit since I've taken office. I want to publicly thank him for the extraordinary hospitality that he showed us when I traveled to Egypt and delivered my speech at Cairo University. It was an extraordinary visit, not only because of the great welcome that I received from the President and the college students who were in attendance, but also having an opportunity to visit the pyramids was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me.
The United States and Egypt have worked together closely for many years, and for many of those years President Mubarak has been a leader and a counselor and a friend to the United States. We obviously have a lot of great challenges that have to be dealt with and we are continuing to work together to find those areas where we can find common ground and to work in concert to bring peace and security to the region.
The Arab-Israeli situation is something that has been of ongoing interest and we had an extensive conversation about how we could help to jumpstart an effective process on all sides to move away from a status quo that is not working for the Israeli people, the Palestinian people, or, I think, the region as a whole.
We discussed our common concerns about the potential proliferation of nuclear weapons in the region, including the development of nuclear weapons by Iran, and how we could work together on those fronts. We discussed Iraq -- and I want to thank the government of Egypt for being an Arab country that has moved forward to try to strengthen Iraq as it emerges from a wartime footing and a transition to a more stable democracy.
And we continued to talk about how we can work together on economic development issues, education issues, health issues, that can promote the interests of both the American people as well as the Egyptian people. Just to take one example, we have agreed to work together with the Organization of Islamic States to eradicate polio, something that we've been able to successfully deal with here in the United States but still has impact on populations throughout the Muslim communities around the world.
And so these are the kinds of partnerships that we want to continue to build. There are some areas where we still have disagreements, and where we do have disagreements we have a frank and honest exchange.
So I just want to say once again that I am grateful to President Mubarak for his visit, for his willingness to work with us on these critical issues, and to help advance the interest of peace and prosperity around the world.
Thank you very much. Welcome.
PRESIDENT MUBARAK: (As translated.) First of all, this is the third time that I meet with President Obama. The first time was in Cairo, when he came to give his address. It was a very strong address and it removed all doubts about the United States and the Muslim world. The importance of the Cairo visit was very appreciated by the Muslim and Islamic world because the Islamic world had thought that the U.S. was against Islam, but his great, fantastic address there has removed all those doubts.
That was the first time. Now, the second time where we met was in Italy during the G15 summit. We didn't have much time to go in depth into discussions, but we did have some quick discussion.
The third time I meet with President Obama is here today at the White House. We have discussed an array of issues from our bilateral relations to the issues of the Middle East, the region, to the Palestinian issue, to the issue of Iran, Somalia, and the Africa Horn. Also, several other issues -- even we discussed the issue of reform inside Egypt. And I told to President Obama very frankly and very friendly that I have entered into the elections based on a platform that included reforms, and therefore we have started to implement some of it and we still have two more years to implement it.
Our relations between us and the United States are very good relations and strategic relations. And despite some of the hoops that we had with previous administrations, this did not change the nature of our bilateral relations.
We have perhaps focused greatly on the Palestinian issue because it's the pivotal issue. And the Palestinian issue has impact on the world, on the region, whether for the West or also for the United States.
We have also discussed the issue of Iran and the issue of nuclear Iran, and we talked about these issues very frankly.
And in conclusion of my remarks, I would like to thank President Obama for his welcome to me here at the White House and I also salute him as I did -- and this is since five years -- I also salute President Obama for all his efforts with regard to the Palestinian issue. Since his first day at the White House he started working on it. And I assured him that we will cooperate with him and we will be very strong in these efforts, whether with regard to the Palestinian issue or the other regional issues.
And I thank him again.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Okay, we've got one question each.
Q Both Presidents, if I may. Reports from Jerusalem today that the Israeli government has not given permission for any new settlements to be built, although ones that were in process are still in process -- and I'm wondering if you have talked about that issue and if that's the sort of thing that goes at least partway to meeting what you're asking the Israelis to do. And also what's in the West Bank and in Jerusalem.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: There has been movement in the right direction and I came in from the start saying that all parties concerned had to take some concrete steps to restart serious negotiations to resolve what has been a longstanding conflict that is not good for the Israeli people and is not good for its neighbors. And I think that the Israeli government has taken discussions with us very seriously. George Mitchell has been back and forth repeatedly; he will be heading back out there next week. And my hope is that we are going to see not just movement from the Israelis, but also from the Palestinians around issues of incitement and security, from Arab states that show their willingness to engage Israel.
If all sides are willing to move off of the rut that we're in currently, then I think there is a extraordinary opportunity to make real progress. But we're not there yet. I'm encouraged by some of the things I'm seeing on the ground. We've been seeing reports in the West Bank in particular that checkpoints have been removed in some situations. The security forces of the Palestinian Authority have greatly improved and have been able to deal with the security situation on the West Bank in a way that has inspired not just confidence among the Israeli people, but also among the Palestinian people.
There's been some increased economic activity on the West Bank. All of this is creating a climate in which it's possible for us to see some positive steps and hopefully negotiate towards a final resolution of these longstanding issues. But everybody is going to have to take steps; everybody is going to have to take some risks. It's going to require a lot of hard work, and the United States is committed to being a partner in this process.
And Egypt will be as important as any other party in helping to move the process forward because Egypt is uniquely positioned in some ways having very strong relationships with Israel, with the Palestinians, and with other Arab states, and President Mubarak has as much experience in the region as anybody.
PRESIDENT MUBARAK: I would like to add on what President Obama has just said, and I say that we are trying and working on this goal to bring the two parties to sit together and to get something from the Israeli party and to get something from the Palestinian party. If we perhaps can get them to sit together, we will help.
And also, I have contacts with the Israeli party. I have received calls and contacts with the Prime Minister of Israel, with the head of the state, and also with the Minister of Defense. We are speaking in a good manner and we are moving into the right direction. But the two parties need to sit together, and this then will give hope that there is a possibility of finding a solution to the Palestinian issue, because it has been ongoing since 60 years. And with this issue ongoing, we lose a lot, and also this will increase violence. So we support the efforts of the United States to move towards finding a solution.
If this is the issue of Jerusalem that you are asking about, I tell you this is a complicated issue. Then -- back then, a time ago, when we -- at former President Clinton's era, we almost neared finding an equation to find a solution for this issue. But afterwards, eight years afterwards, there was nothing and this issue moved very slowly. However, if we can find some solution to this, this would be helpful.
Q President Mubarak, you just mentioned about the 60 years conflict. You have been in that conflict as a warrior and as a peacemaker together for a long time. What's different this time? It has been ups and downs, disappointments and achievements. What's different this time? And are we going into another peace process, or are we going again heading for a final status kind of negotiations that finish that business?
And for President Obama, if you care to comment -- President Mubarak said we cannot afford failure this time. What stands between us now and success?
PRESIDENT MUBARAK: As I said before, this is a complicated issue. I have worked a long time ago when I was in the army, and afterwards during my access of presidency. This issue has been ongoing 60 years. And we cannot afford wasting more time, because violence will increase, and violence has increased. The level of violence is now much more than it was 10 years ago. Therefore, we need to find -- to move to the final status solution and level.
And I have contacted the Israelis, and they said perhaps you can talk about a temporary solution or perhaps the final status. But I told them, no, forget about the temporary solution and forget about temporary borders. That's why I came today to talk to President Obama and to see that if we move forward on this issue, it will give more hope and more confidence to the people about this issue.
The negotiations of the final status will not be easy and it will be fraught of complications. This issue contains the issue of Jerusalem, the issue of refugees, the issue of the borders. But I believe that, in cooperation with the United States and through our relations with Israel, I believe that we can reach a solution, because the Arab people want peace and want a better life, and the Israeli people also want peace and stability in their lives.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, I think President Mubarak said it well: It's going to be difficult. I do believe that what may have changed -- and this is what we have to test -- is a growing realization on the part of the Palestinians that Israel is not going anywhere and is a fact, a reality that has to be dealt with; and a recognition on the part of the Israelis that their long-term security interests require finding an accommodation with the Palestinians and ultimately with their Arab neighbors. So the interests on both sides are towards peace.
Now, one of the things that you discover in studying history and being a part of politics is just because something makes sense doesn't mean it happens. And we are going to have to work very hard. And ultimately there is going to have to be some courageous leadership not only from the Palestinians and the Israelis but also from the other Arab states to support this effort. And the United States is going to devote time and energy and resources to try to make this happen.
And what I can say as different from the United States' perspective is that even in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, we started dealing with this issue on day one. We didn't wait until year six or year seven, after I had been reelected before we started taking this on. We started dealing with this issue immediately, precisely because it's a difficult issue that requires a lot of groundwork to be laid and sometimes proceeds in fits and starts. But with the partnership of countries like Egypt, we think we can make progress.
Okay, thank you, everybody.
Go ahead, please.
PRESIDENT MUBARAK: I believe that President Obama is talking about support from the Arab states to this issue. I would say here that if negotiations start, this will lead to the Arab state to support the peace process and to move it forward, because I can tell you that the Arab people are fed up with the length that this issue has taken, and the issue of the displaced people. So I believe if the two parties sit down, this will lead to have Arab state support moving the peace process forward.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Thank you, everybody.
END 12:53 P.M. EDT
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Browse the Site
Green-job grant: Howard College to use money on wind energy training
The growing presence of renewable energy in West Texas is fueling new educational opportunities in San Angelo through Howard College.
The Concho Valley Workforce Development Board presented a grant of up to $80,000 to Howard College at its monthly economic development meeting Wednesday.
The grant, through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 stimulus package, will go toward the purchase of hydraulic and electrical training stations for the college’s San Angelo campus.
“Whenever we ask businesses (that build wind turbines or transmission lines) what kind of training they need, it’s usually in general electrical, general hydraulics. (This equipment) can go toward that,” said Leanne Byrd, provost of Howard College.
Howard has a partnership with Texas State Technical College, which enrolls students in a variety of technical certification or degree programs offered by a technical college.
The funding will allow residents interested in programs such as wind energy and turbine technology to start at Howard College instead of going the full term at Sweetwater or elsewhere, where the equipment includes wind towers.
The contract between Howard and the work force development board allows the college to spend up to $80,000 on the equipment. A guideline in the contract requires at least 20 people to be enrolled in each class, with the work force development board having priority for 10 of the slots.
“What has kept us (from providing classes at Howard) is these pieces of equipment are expensive, and we didn’t have the students. We have to have the students in order to generate the dollars,” Byrd said. “With the equipment we can now build the courses. What’s nice about these courses is they can be pulled apart and be specific to just one area — hydraulic or just electrical. Both of these build to what the transmission lines are asking for.”
Johnny Griffin, executive director of the work force development board, said residents interested in taking the courses might be eligible for an education grant through the board. He said people who have been laid off or who meet state guidelines in other areas are eligible to get funding to go through the wind energy program.
“We have a lot of people that come through and say, ‘I want one of those green jobs.’ If there is such a thing as a green job, then working on wind turbines truly is one,” Griffin said. “A lot of the folks that were laid off as a result of the turnaround in the oil industry can take their skills with them, outdoor work and working at great heights. We think those type of folks have the skills transferable to do this. Hopefully there will be a lot more people interested.”
Prospective students asked about training specific to wind turbines but were discouraged because there were no courses offered in San Angelo, Byrd said.
The training in San Angelo will be from six to eight weeks, and then the students will go to another city for hands-on training on wind turbines to complete the degree or certification plan, she said.
Howard is trying to get the program in place within 60 days, Byrd said. She said the classes will be in the course catalog by January at the latest.
“When you talk about capacity building, that’s exactly what this is,” said Phil Neighbors, president of the San Angelo Chamber of Commerce. “We just don’t get these kinds of OKs to run forward, so I’m just real excited that it’s coming together this quickly and that it’s going to have such a great payoff.”
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Bait cars designed to reduce rising auto theft and insurance rates,
insurance and law enforcement officials say
The Department of Insurance now has a powerful new tool to use in its long standing
battle against auto theft and high insurance rates. The tool, known as a bait car,
is a motor vehicle fitted with state-of-the-art alarm and tracking equipment and
placed by local law enforcement in a high crime area. The vehicle is then monitored
at police headquarters 24-hours a day. When it is entered illegally, law enforcement
officers respond immediately and can easily track the thief, make an arrest and
retrieve the stolen vehicle.
"Baton Rouge and Shreveport were chosen to receive Louisiana's first bait vehicles,"
Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon said, "because FBI crime reports statistics
show that they are two of the highest auto theft areas in the state." Shreveport's
bait car was put in place last month.
Donelon's remarks came at a joint press conference of governmental, law enforcement,
NICB and insurance industry officials who are involved in initiating this latest
measure in Louisiana's fight against fraud. Additional vehicles are planned for
other cities as funding from the private sector becomes available.
The program is under the direct control by the Louisiana Auto Theft and Insurance
Fraud Prevention Authority (LATIFPA). Created by the Louisiana Legislature in 2004,
LATIFPA is a part of the Department of Insurance, and has the necessary legislative
authority to accept funding and other relevant contributions, such as motor vehicles,
to fulfill its mandate of reducing auto theft and insurance fraud throughout the
state. LATIFPA has joined similar programs in a number of other states in partnering
with the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) in this effort.
"The positive impact of a successful bait car program is more far reaching
than you might expect," Commissioner Donelon said. "Its obvious intent
is to reduce the high incidents of auto theft and the high cost of auto insurance
due to payment of theft claims."
In addition, publicity about such a program can actually deter a young person from
embarking on a life of crime. Research has shown that car theft is often a gateway
crime. Many young people who go on to other criminal activity take that first step
by going joy riding. If they are successful, they may be approached by car theft
rings who offer them a lot of money to go into a life of being a car thief.
Leaders of car theft rings are often on the lookout for cars to be quickly shipped
out of the nearest Louisiana port for sale in other countries or chopped up at local
"chop shop" and sold for parts. Stolen cars are also in great demand for
use in residential and commercial burglaries, robberies, check and credit-card fraud
schemes, identity theft activities, illegal drug trafficking and even drive-by shootings.
Participants joining Commissioner Donelon at today's press conference included:
Baton Rouge Police Chief Jeff LeDuff; Lt. Allen Carpenter, Director of the Louisiana
State Police Auto Theft Unit and Chairman of the LATIFPA Bait Vehicle Program Steering
Committee; Lt. Anthony Groger, Commander of the Baton Rouge Police Department Auto
Theft Division; Lt. Roger Tully and Sgt. Tim Wilkinson, BRPD Auto Theft Division;
Cleve Franklin of GEICO and O'Neal Weber of Farm Bureau, representing insurance
companies making significant contributions to the LATIFPA Bait Vehicle Program;
and Charlie Peters, Supervisory Special Agent of the National Insurance Crime Bureau.
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Lately the kids have been having plenty of fun just gluing together stuff from our collection of recycling. We've always done a fair bit of hot glue with junk from our recycling bin, but for some reason recently that has been a top priority for them both. I put down a plastic table cloth by our storage rack of recyclables so that they didn't have to sit up at the kitchen table to use the glue guns.
They have been making a lot of little robots this week...
One of the robots that my five year old came to show me looked remarkably like a Dalek in shape. She'd glued a cup on top of an ocean spray juice bottle. I said "Oooh, lovely, that looks like a Dalek", knowing that her next question was going to be "what's a Dalek?"
We haven't let the kids watch Dr Who yet. I think they could handle a few of the ancient Sylvester McCoy ones (how badly did I want to be Ace when I was a kid!), but the recent series are a lot more scary. I love Dr Who and remember hiding nervously behind furniture to watch the scary bits as a kid, but the last three Doctors have had some episodes that have freaked me out even as a grown up. Ones like Ecclestons's "Empty Child" and Tennant's "Blink" had me almost hiding behind the sofa nearly 20 years later! I do want to find some of the older series that the kids can watch though.
If you grew up in the UK during the 70s or 80s then Dr Who is just part of your cultural heritage. Your mum will have called you for dinner at some point, only to find you holding a sink plunger in one hand, an egg whisk in the other, with a collinder on your head, yelling "Exterminate!" at the top of your lungs.
That's healthy right? Anyway, I showed her a few clips of Daleks and talked about Dr Who and she wanted to make her dalek move around like the ones she saw in the clips. I figured the easiest way to do this was to just cut the bottom off the juice bottle and use some electrical tape to stick it on top of the only RC toy we have, which is a My Little Pony scooter.
We found a bunch of stuff in the recycling stash that looked suitable to decorate the dalek with and went outside to spray it with some black and gold plastic spray paint that we had left over from other projects.
The hemispheres on the dalek base were made from the bottoms of little plastic quarter machine toy containers we have saved. We didn't have quite enough to do the rows of four all around, but enough to get the idea.
The blaster gun was an ode to the standard kid dalek dress up attire. We used a toy egg whisk from the kid's kitchen play set. The eye stick was a sports drink cap stuck on a stick of hot glue. The "manipulator arm" was a drinking straw with the spray top and tube from a hair detangling spray and then the round cup end from a plastic easter egg glued on.
The kids had fun spraying the paint on. I think it's quite cute that my five year old had to use her thumb to get the required pressure for the paint to spray out, and my four year old had to use both thumbs. Awww.
After all the bits were dry, I taped the body onto the RC scooter for them and then they glued on and coloured the other bits and pieces.
Paul even wired up a couple of LEDs while we were doing this, so that Mr Dalek could have his own lit up "energy dispensers". I have no idea if all this is the proper terminology for Dalek parts, but I found this link to reference, so that I wasn't always saying things like "sticky outy bit with a rubber plunger on the end" ;) Because we'd made the eyestalk with a stick of hot glue, we couldn't feed a third LED down it to make the light on the eyestalk, so I just hot glued a keyring light into the end of it instead.
I love the fact that he's got the handle at the back of the juice bottle to pick him up by!
We used some drywall shims to make the base. I don't know if anyone remembers that way back I got a packet of them and we made streamer dresses and roman centurion costumes with them, well, we still have quite a few left and they do come in handy! The gold vertical stripes are snapped up bits of wooden coffee stirrers. There are so many different types of Dalek that you can kind of wing it with the embelishments ;) This one has ended up looking a bit like the Dalek Supreme from the 1970s Planet of the Daleks, but that wasn't intentional, just what we happened to have in the recycling bin and the only two colours of spray paint we had.
The kids decided his name was Julie, but then later changed their minds and said he was called Rovie.
Here's a little video of him in action. He spins around and goes forwards but not backwards due to the limitations of the RC scooter that he's taped onto. Admittedly he sounds nothing like a dalek. You can just about hear him saying "Vroom vroom! Whoohoo! Vroom vroom! Beep!" if you listen closely. Hee hee!
We actually watched Star Wars "A New Hope" and "The Empire Strikes Back" for the first time over the weekend with the kids, and both were a HUGE hit with them. That might come as a surprise to those of you that saw us make balloon torch light sabers back in January, but actually only the boys I was looking after at the time had seen the movies and my girls were just happy to play along. I'm looking forward to next weekend when we can watch "Return of the Jedi" and see what they make of Ewoks :) Carys has already told me that we need to make R2D2 to go with Rovie the Dalek, so I'm not recycling our Electrosol dishwasher tablet container just yet! After Wall-e and now Rovie, I wonder what other classic robotic recyclables we can come up with. Johnny 5? Marvin?
Don't worry though, I'm not going to try and make John Pertwee out of recycling and hot glue ;)
If your family isn't into Dr Who, that doesn't matter. You could make anything to go on top of an RC vehicle! Anything! Like a barbie pyramid formation?
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Welspun Energy, India’s biggest developer of solar projects today said it has tied up funds for its 130 megawatt (MW) solar project in Madhya Pradesh.
The company said it has arranged Rs 885 crore from a banking consortium led by the Central Bank of India. The project located in Mindshare district of Madhya Pradesh will start generating power by May 2014.
The 130 MW project is the largest solar project in the country.
Welspun Energy Ltd (WEL), which outbid 12 others to get the project, had agreed to sell power at Rs 8.05 per unit.
“WEL’s project performance has been better than compared to any other IPP (independent power producer),” the company said in a statement.
Vineet Mittal, co-founder & Managing Director, WEL, said, “The closure of the financial agreements indicates the confidence that financial partners’ have in our execution capabilities and expertise to complete the project in time.”
The project will meet the state’s annual power deficit of 17.9 per cent and will enable powering of 660,000 homes and mitigating 229,550 tonnes of carbon annually.
WEL has more than 300 MW of clean energy project in construction, of which 111 MW are operating and the rest are under construction. It aims to commission 1.75 GW of solar and wind projects over the next few years.
We spun Energy is part of the $3.5 billion Welspun Group, which has interests in power generation, infrastructure, exploration and production of oil and natural gas, steel pipes and textiles.
The company, based in New Delhi, is setting up 750 megawatt of solar power and 1 gigawatt of wind power plants across India.
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IMPACT ON WORKERS
Retirement Savings Lose $2 Trillion in 15 Months
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
The stock market's prolonged tumble has wiped out about $2 trillion in Americans' retirement savings in the past 15 months, a blow that could force workers to stay on the job longer than planned, rein in spending and possibly further stall an economy reliant on consumer dollars, Congress's top budget analyst said yesterday.
For many Americans, pensions and 401(k) plans are their only form of savings. The dwindling of these assets -- about a 20 percent decline overall -- is another setback just as many people are grappling with higher gas and food prices, more credit card debt, declining home values and less access to loans.
"Unlike Wall Street executives, American families don't have a golden parachute to fall back on," said Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor. "It's clear that Americans' retirement security may be one of the greatest casualties of this financial crisis."
Even traditional pension plans, which are formally known as defined-benefit plans and are widely considered more stable, have been hit hard by the stock market's volatility, losing 15 percent of their assets over the past year, Peter R. Orszag, director of the Congressional Budget Office, told the House panel.
Despite the losses, companies will still be obligated to pay out the same pensions promised to employees but will have to recoup the extra costs in other ways, Orszag said. "When pension assets decline in 401(k) plans, the burden is on the workers," he said. "When pension plan assets decline in defined-benefit plans, the burden is on the firm to make up the difference. The firm will have to pass those costs on to their workers, to their shareholders or to consumers."
Defined-benefit plans are company-sponsored programs that provide retirement payouts based on an employee's salary and tenure. The company shoulders the bulk of the investment decisions and risk. Defined-contribution plans, such as 401(k)s, turn those tasks over to the worker and are subject to the whims of the stock market.
Increasingly, employers have switched workers into defined-contribution plans. The federal government has also pushed 401(k) plans heavily, approving a law late last year that makes it easier for employers to automatically enroll their employees in them and other similar retirement plans.
Defined-contribution plans tend to be more heavily weighted in stocks, either through individual holdings or mutual funds. As a result, said Orszag, "the value of assets in defined-contribution plans may have declined by slightly more than that of assets in defined-benefit plans."
Through September, the percentage loss for the year in average account balances among 401(k) participants was between 7.2 and 11.2 percent, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute's analysis of more than 2 million plans.
Employees between the ages of 56 and 65 who had the fewest years on the job were the least affected, while those 36 to 45 years old with the longest tenures suffered the steepest declines, said Jack L. VanDerhei, research director for the D.C.-based institute. Younger workers tend to have more stocks in their portfolios while older employees move toward safer investments such as bonds, VanDerhei said.
The findings exacerbate a complaint among many workers and academics about 401(k) and similar plans that are heavily tied to the stock market. Are they really the best retirement vehicles for workers?
"The loss of retirement security is a reversal of fortune and the result of very specific flawed governmental policies that have been biased toward 401(k) plans, rather than the result of technological change or the logical consequences of global economic trends," Teresa Ghilarducci, a professor of Economic Policy Analysis at the New School for Social Research, testified before the committee.
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The pulse of Automation Alley’s technology industry continues to beat strongly, despite a wounded economy. Yes, high fuel costs, strong competition, and legacy costs have inflicted pain on the advanced automotive sector of Automation Alley. However, the region’s technology industry has proven it can stand on its own, and advance despite the automotive industry’s struggles, statewide economic malaise, and nationwide economic uncertainty.
This report, the fourth annual assessment of Automation Alley’s technology industry, illustrates the impressive size and breadth of the industry, and offers evidence of future growth and advancements. The analysis also shows that the region’s technology industry reaches beyond advanced automotive technologies. While employment in the advanced automotive sector has declined, jobs have been added in sectors like advanced manufacturing and the life sciences. The analysis further shows that even without the advanced automotive sector, Automation Alley’s technology industry is a much larger part of the economy than it is at the state and national levels. Indeed, with advanced automotive. the Automation Alley technology industry is 63 percent larger than the national industry in terms of share of total employment. It is still 13 percent larger if advanced automotive is excluded from the comparison.
Also included in this report are results from the first-ever survey of Automation Alley technology companies. With assistance from Mitchell Interactive, we collected information from 200 technology businesses throughout Automation Alley. The findings help us pick up where employment and payroll data from past years leave off, providing an even clearer picture of the industry today. As would be expected, most respondents viewed the overall economy as weak. However, most also expected improvements in the coming months, and had positive views of the region as an environment in which to operate a technology business.
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CC-MAIN-2013-20
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http://www.andersoneconomicgroup.com/Publications/Detail/tabid/125/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/7767/Automation-Alleys-Fourth-Annual-Technology-Industry-Report.aspx
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Barbara Walters was born September 25, 1929, in Boston, Massachusetts. Walters is a broadcast journalist, news anchor and talk-show host who has won seven Emmys for her work, including two Lifetime Achievement Awards in 2000 and 2009. She started her career as a writer for NBC's The Today Show in 1961, and eventually became the anchor. She anchored there until 1976, when she moved to ABC Evening News. In 1979, she joined 20/20, ultimately hosting the show from 1984 to 2004. During that time, she also co-created and co-executive produced the popular daytime talk show The View, which she currently co-hosts. In the course of her career, Walters has interviewed world leaders and celebrities including Katharine Hepburn, Anna Wintour, Michael Jackson, John Wayne, Margaret Thatcher, Fidel Castro, Muammar Gaddafi and all of the U.S. Presidents since Richard Nixon. Walters has been married and divorced three times. She has one child with second husband Lee Guber.
others are Reading Currently
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Investors’ apparent shock in reaction to today’s report of plunging consumer confidence has all the authenticity of Captain Renault’s classic comment in ‘Casablanca’ that he was “shocked” to find that gambling is going on in the casino.
That’s because consumer confidence is a lagging indicator; it tends to fall in the wake of stock market declines. The cutoff date for the survey on which the Conference Board based its latest calculations was Aug. 18, at which point the Dow Jones Industrial Average over the preceding month had declined by nearly 1,400 points, and was just coming off a period of extraordinary volatility. No wonder consumers weren’t very confident.
Perhaps the best factoid to illustrate that consumer confidence data should be viewed in a contrarian way: The highest level to which the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index has risen in the last 20 years came in January 2000, just weeks prior to the popping of the Internet bubble.
This contrarian perspective is confirmed by a 2002 study by Kenneth Fisher of Fisher Investments and Meir Statman, a finance professor at Santa Clara University. They found that “consumer confidence declines when stock prices decline but investors need not fear that declines in consumer confidence would be followed by low stocks returns… Low consumer confidence is followed by high stock returns more often than it is followed by low stock returns.”
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http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2011/08/30/consumer-confidence-a-lagging-indicator/
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Iraq's former prime minister says the United States is ignoring an "emerging dictatorship" in his country, telling The Washington Times that Iran is "swallowing" Iraq and dictating its strategic policies.
A wave of 16 bombings ripped across Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 69 people in the worst violence in Iraq for months.
Iraqi Kurds are committed to preserving their country's borders despite their longtime yearning for an independent state, a leader of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region told The Washington Times.
The Iraqi parliament on Tuesday unanimously approved a new government headed by Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who apparently has appeased the Sunni-backed bloc that bested his own party in the country's March elections.
Parliament swore in a new Iraqi government Tuesday after nine months of bitter political haggling, solidifying the grip that Shi'ites have held on political power since Saddam Hussein's ouster while leaving open the question of whether the country's disgruntled Sunni minority will play a meaningful role.
Iran continues to dominate WikiLeaks disclosures, with new releases from Baghdad and Beirut showing concerns about Iranian meddling in Iraqi politics as well as the establishment of a nationwide fiber-optic network by its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani formally renominated Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to his post Thursday, giving him 30 days to assemble a government.
Iraq's president gave Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki the nod to form the next government Thursday after an eight-month deadlock, but a dramatic walkout from Parliament by his Sunni rivals cast doubt on a power-sharing deal reached by the two sides less than a day earlier.
Four deadly explosions rocked Iraq Monday as political leaders hustled to seal a power-sharing agreement in time for the convening of the country's Parliament.
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/ayad-allawi/49829/t/stories/
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In January of this year, I was flipping through the French issue of Vogue when I remember coming across a collection of very disturbing photographs of little girl models. Featured in a theme about age, the little girls were depicted in a Vogue-esque reinterpretation of girls playing dress up with make-up and heels — only without the playfulness. The girls were photographed in makeup, heels, clothes, and jewelry befitted for an adult model, with only their little bodies to remind viewers that these were in fact children.
One of the featured children in the spread was Thylane Lena-Rose Blondeau, a 10 year old French girl, who now has quite a few sexy-themed photographs to her portfolio.
What makes these images problematic is not so much the makeup and dresses, as many children like to dress in the clothes of adults in an innocent exercise of imagination and play. These photographs of Thylane are inappropriate because they not only suggest the presence of an adult viewer, inciting “come hither” stares and pouty lips, but they also invite said viewer to regard her as having an adult’s sexuality.
Lipstick and jewelry are not the culprit here, as even in photographs where Thylane is depicted in a mere jeans and t-shirt, a sexual intent and focus is present. Her low gaze and hands to her hips mirror an adult sexuality, and don’t convey anything genuine or authentic about girlhood. Thylane’s mimicking of adult poses and facial expressions is obviously something that she has mastered, but her tiny child’s frame bring these gazes and gestures into dangerously questionable context.
Parents often worry that their daughter’s premature interest in fashion or makeup will garner unwanted attention, and so they seek to steer them away from suggestive clothing and beauty products. While those parenting tactics are valid, Thylane’s photographs show us that hair spray and flat irons alone don’t make a particular depiction of a child inappropriate. Ultimately, the sexualization of children is defined by viewership, perception, intention, and more specifically, the person who is choosing to characterize her that way.
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http://www.mommyish.com/2011/08/01/thylane-lena-rose-blondeau-making-sexy-for-little-girls-acceptable/
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en
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By CHRISTINA PASSARIELLO And PAUL SONNE
British fashion designer Alexander McQueen was a master of the gothic and theatrical who often bemoaned constraints on his creativity, as he struggled to adapt to an industry that found itself increasingly under pressure to make products that sell.
The provocative designer died at his apartment in London's posh Mayfair district Thursday, his company said, shocking the fashion world which was gathering in New York for the beginning of the season's international fashion shows. His casual line, McQ, was due to be shown in New York on Thursday; the event was canceled. He was planning to present his collection in Paris in less than a month. Mr. McQueen was 40.
"We are devastated and are sharing a sense of shock and grief with Lee's family," the brand's parent company, Gucci Group, said in a statement, referring to the designer by his first name. He began using Alexander, his middle name, when he got into fashion in the 1990s.
Though they did not release Mr. McQueen's name, the police confirmed the death of a 40-year-old man on Green Street in the Mayfair area of London, where Mr. McQueen lived, on Thursday. An ambulance service had been called to the address in the morning. The police are carrying out a postmortem examination, a spokesman for Scotland Yard said, but are treating the death as nonsuspicious, a category that the spokesman said includes suicides. Mr. McQueen's death was a suicide, according to a person familiar with the situation.
Alexander McQueen's Fashions
A sampling of the iconoclastic designer's looks.
Mr. McQueen's death also leaves Gucci Group with a decision over how to manage a fashion house that was so interlinked with its founder's name. Since Gucci bought 51% of the brand in 2000, Alexander McQueen has struggled to make money, becoming profitable only as of 2007. The brand is very small compared to the group's flagship Gucci label. Still, thanks to Mr. McQueen's acclaim in the fashion world, the company was a small jewel of the Gucci Group, which is a unit of French retail-to-luxury group PPR SA. Among Gucci's other holdings are fashion houses Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga and Stella McCartney in addition to jeweler Boucheron. Gucci had no comment on the future of the fashion house.
Mr. McQueen was best-known lately for his dramatic designs, such as reptilian dresses and hoof-like shoes that were met with critical acclaim among the runways of the fashion world. He was a darling of celebrities; Courtney Love and Sarah Jessica Parker would stop by his London store to see him. And he invited controversy: In 2005, when his friend Kate Moss was embroiled in a media scandal over alleged drug use, Mr. McQueen appeared on stage at his Paris show wearing a t-shirt that read "We love you Kate."
The designer's roots were far from the milieu where he eventually became a star. Born in east London in 1969, Mr. McQueen was the youngest of six children whose father was a taxi driver; later in life he often joked about his cockney accent. He quit school at age 16 to take up an apprenticeship across town on the tony Savile Row, where he learned classic English tailoring at Gieves & Hawkes and Anderson & Sheppard.
Mr. McQueen's bold creativity became evident when he enrolled in London's prestigious fashion school Central St. Martins. Jane Rapley, who was a dean of Central St. Martins at the time, remembers Mr. McQueen struggling with his fees and sometimes with coursework, since he had not had previous formal training. McQueen was down-to-earth and tough, she recalls. "There was an aggression in him," she says. "I think it grew out of his background, his ambition and his drive. He hadn't been used to moving in a whole range of social circumstances, he had things to prove."
A Fashion Rebel
A look back at the fashion designer's life.
More on McQueen
- A Brand's Uncertain Future
- British Designer McQueen Dies
- McQueen Talks About Fascination With Death
- Project Runway's Christian Siriano on Interning for McQueen
- Lady Gaga was McQueen's 'Unofficial Muse'
- WSJ. Magazine Editor Remembers McQueen
- Fashion Industry Reacts to McQueen's Death
- McQueen's Last Tweets
- Twitter Reactions to Designer's Death
- McQueen's Primordial Reveries (10/06/09)
- McQueen's Theatrics Revs Up Audience (03/10/09)
- McQueen Holds (Goth) Court (03/01/08)
- McQueen Pays Tribute to Isabella Blow (10/06/07)
In 1994, the entire Jack-the-Ripper-themed collection Mr. McQueen produced for his master's thesis was bought by English style icon Isabella Blow—a remarkable feat for a young graduate. She wore the clothes to functions and spread his name. Later, when Ms. Blow dropped by McQueen's store, the designer would pick out something for her to wear and she would take it without trying it on, says Yuliya Zakharenko, who worked at the store for three years. (Ms. Blow committed suicide in 2007, after which Mr. McQueen dedicated his Spring 2008 show to her and included bottles of Fracas, her favorite fragrance, in the gift bags.)
Mixing his tailoring skills with outrageous sensibilities, Mr. McQueen, dubbed the "hooligan" of British fashion, quickly became a sensation. When his low-riding jeans and ripped lace dresses burst onto the scene, the young designer seemed to capture the new Cool Britannia movement. His 1995 show "Highland Rape," a collection of ripped lace dresses and tartans, doubled as a comment on the ravaging of the Scottish Highlands by the English.
Saks Fifth Avenue was one of the first retailers to carry his line. In the early 1990s, Saks invited Mr. McQueen to one of its London dinners for British designers. Nicole Fischelis, the current fashion director for Macy's Inc., remembers designer Geoffrey Beene complimenting the young British talent. "'You are an individualist and you must stay like that,'" Ms. Fischelis says Mr. Beene told Mr. McQueen. "And McQueen said, 'Mr. Beene, this is the biggest compliment I ever had.' He had emotion in his eyes," Ms. Fischelis adds.
At 27, Mr. McQueen was appointed as the designer of French fashion house Givenchy, whose muse Audrey Hepburn had brought the house fame in the 1950s. The same year, in 1996, Mr. McQueen won the British Designer of the Year award—an accolade he received three more times.
His Last Days
Mr. McQueen signed up on Twitter in September 2009, just as he was preparing his Spring 2010 collection. He quickly garnered more than 25,000 followers with his brutal, often profanity-laced honesty.
Recently, Mr. McQueen's missives seemed to embrace the darker elements of his personality. Below, some of his last tweets, edited in some cases for clarity.
Jan. 17, 10:13 a.m.
In Milan—fittings, models, fittings, hair, make-up...fittings.....knackered!
Jan. 18, 12:54 p.m.
SHOWS over....time for Dinner.
Jan. 28, 10:01 a.m.
Hells Angels + Prolific Demons......
Feb. 3, 11:46 a.m.
i'm letting my followers know the my mother passed away yesterday if it she had not me nor would you RIP mumxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Feb. 3, 11:47 a.m.
but life must go on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Feb. 7, 12:38 p.m.
sunday evening been a f--king awful week but my friends have been great but now i have to some how pull myself together
"His ability to cut was parallel to someone like Christian Dior," said Mark Henderson, Chief Executive of Gieves & Hawkes. "He had the most amazing natural ability." A stint at theatrical costumiers Angels and Bermans planted the seed for dramatic fashion shows later in his career.
While at Givenchy, ready-to-wear and couture collections for the French house gave Mr. McQueen a wide palate to express his boldest ideas. In one show, he sent a double-amputee model down the runway on elaborately carved wooden legs.
Yet Mr. McQueen's raw, dark aesthetic didn't sit well with Givenchy's owner, luxury-goods conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton. In an interview with Vogue, Mr. McQueen called his first collection "crap." An LVMH spokesman did not return calls for comment.
The designer wanted his freedom back. He found a way out when he sold a majority stake of his eponymous label to LVMH's archrival, the Gucci Group, in 2000. He ended his contract with Givenchy the following year and dedicated himself once again to his own line.
Gucci Group bankrolled his most daring visions. He took inspiration from an ancestor who was hung during the Salem witch trials: models in stiff bodysuits strutted laps on a red pentagram as images of locusts were projected on an inverted pyramid screen.
For his last women's fashion show, titled "Plato's Atlantis," in Paris last October, Mr. McQueen orchestrated an elaborate digital screening of a fashion show. Two giant robots with cameras gyrated around the models who were wearing swirling silk dresses with ballooning flaps, showing the clothes from all angles live on the Internet.
Much of what Mr. McQueen crafted for the runway was difficult to sell. The 12-inch hoof shoes in his "Plato's Atlantis" show were never made to sell in his stores. Instead, singer Lady Gaga wore them in her "Bad Romance" video.
Designer Richard Chai learned the news as he was preparing for his show at Bryant Park. "He was a genius. I really have no words," he said.—Rachel Dodes, Ray A. Smith and Jeanne Whalen contributed to this article.
Write to Christina Passariello at firstname.lastname@example.org
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A few months ago, LinkedIn celebrated 1 billion endorsements by releasing an infographic (see below). Considering the passage of time and the increasing velocity of endorsement giving, this number may be over 3 billion by now.
On the face of it, LinkedIn Endorsements seemed to be a good idea. Users can endorse specific skills of others, thereby helping potential employers to more easily shortlist candidates (the ‘placement’ market is after all, the main revenue stream for LinkedIn). Users will also benefit from ‘social recognition‘ of their skills and capabilities.
However, all is not well in wonderland. The manner in which the Endorsement system has been implemented is resulting in several, hopefully unforeseen, problems. Three main issues are:
1. Personal Brand Dilution:
A user does not necessarily have control over what skills are being endorsed by others. Thus a skill which one does not wish to emphasize might get ‘suggested’ by LinkedIn for endorsement by others, while the skills a user has selected as part of his/her ‘online brand’ are not always visible. While a one can opt not to display a particular endorsement, the overall result is either a wasted endorsement or dilution of the personal brand.
2. Endorsement Value Dilution:
As per the current implementation, anyone can endorse any skill for any connections on LinkedIn. As a result, one may get endorsed for a particular skill by someone who is not is a position to make a genuine evaluation of the skill. For example, a Scientist’s mathematical skills can be endorsed by his/her basketball teammate – not exactly someone who maybe in a position to make such a judgement. Alternatively, one might get endorsed for a skill that one does not possess [In jest, I've received an endorsement for Quidditch! Unfortunately, I cannot tell a Quaffle from a Bludger]. When combined with the fact that there is no way to verify endorsements, this results in the value of a LinkedIn endorsement being zilch.
3. Unusable LinkedIn Stream:
There was a time when one could view the LinkedIn activity stream and garner the major happenings in one’s professional network. Who changed jobs, who got promoted, who started something new. Now, the stream is largely unreadable, with the majority of updates simply stating that X got endorsed by Y for a skill Z. Which has made the LinkedIn Activity Stream unusable.
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GEORGES GOBET/AFP/Getty Images
This is what a European "technocrat" looks like. Lucas Papademos will take over from Georges Papandreou as prime minister of Greece, as the Eurozone continues to sink.
Europe is full of flamboyant politicians, but when it comes to rescuing the continent from financial ruin, the money right now seems to be on the most technocratic of technocrats: economists who have served time in the trenches of the very common currency they helped to create in the 1990s. As the euro has melted down, the Greek prime minister, George Papandreou, has stepped aside, replaced by Lucas Papademos, an economist. In Italy, the embattled billionaire PM, Silvio Berlusconi, is being moved aside to make room for Mario Monti, another economist.
The message to Europeans is pretty clear: politicians created this mess, and now the people who actually know what they're doing with the economy will get us out. Try to imagine what this would be like in America. We'd kick Obama out of the White House and replace him with...an executive from a consulting firm. Oh, wait...didn't Mitt Romney work for Bain & Co. back in the day?
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Keep Holding On
By Susane Colasanti
Release Date: May 31, 2012
Summary: A romantic and empowering book about bullying
Noelle's life is all about survival. Even her best friend doesn't know how much she gets bullied, or the ways her mom neglects her. Noelle's kept so much about her life a secret for so long that when her longtime crush Julian Porter starts paying attention to her, she's terrified. Surely it's safer to stay hidden than to risk the pain of a broken heart. But when the antagonism of her classmates takes a dramatic turn, Noelle realizes it's time to stand up for herself--and for the love that keeps her holding on.
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Keith N. Hylton
|Abstract of: Keith N. Hylton, Slavery and
Tort Law, 84 Boston University Law Review 1209- 1255, 1209-1213
(December, 2004) (186 Footnotes Omitted)
On March 26, 2002, a class action complaint seeking reparations for
slavery was filed in the federal district court for the Eastern District
of New York under the name Farmer-Paellman v. FleetBoston. The complaint
named as defendants FleetBoston Financial Corporation (a bank), Aetna
(an insurance company), CSX (a railroad) and a large number of unnamed
corporations described as "Corporate Does Numbers 1- 1000."
The complaint asked for restitution, compensatory damages, punitive
damages, and an accounting of the profits earned by the predecessors of
these firms from slavery.
The FleetBoston complaint transformed a long-discussed theoretical
matter into a living animal with the potential to bite someone. For up
until the date of the complaint, the reparations debate had been
conducted largely among friends and receptive audiences. Anyone who
objected to the notion of paying reparations for slavery could ignore
the issue, and most people did just that. One member of Congress, John
Conyers, introduced a bill seeking slavery reparations twelve years in a
row, each time meeting a lopsided defeat and a collective yawn from his
colleagues. The class action suit, though a long shot from the start for
the plaintiffs, represented a significant change in the terms of the
This paper evaluates the claim for slavery reparations from a torts
perspective. I start with an examination of the injuries inflicted on
slaves, and the extent to which tort law provides a vehicle for
redressing these injuries. Next, I address the question of
"derivative claims," claims brought by someone other than the
direct victim. This category of claims covers the reparations complaint.
As I will explain, tort law, for the most part, has not been receptive
to derivative claims. Lastly, I discuss the accounting demand by the
Tort doctrine appears to be inadequate as a means of converting the
injuries to slaves into claims for damages. Slavery involves some
obvious torts, such as assault and battery, conversion, and wrongful
confinement. A person held as a slave today could surely collect
damages. Slavery also involves a category of "social torts,"
however, that are equally if not more harmful, for which tort law
appears to be an inadequate means of seeking compensation. Among these
social torts are the slave marriage, the deprivation of status, and the
denial of religious freedom. Traditional tort doctrine does not have any
readily available "forms of action" for these injuries. And
yet it is the social torts that are potentially most damaging to slave
descendants because, like a constantly mutating virus, they have the
capacity to injure successive generations.
Of course, reparations claims are derivative in the sense that they are
not brought by direct victims, and thus the fact that a person held as a
slave today could collect damages does not tell us whether descendants
of slaves should be able to seek compensation through the tort system.
The derivative status of reparations claims presents special obstacles
for plaintiffs. However, the fact that slavery was entirely within the
law when it was practiced should not be viewed as a substantial
obstacle. The slaveholder sought a regime in which the law would not
constrain him in his dealings with slaves. Applying today's law to that
relationship should be viewed as bringing law to a regime from which it
had been entirely displaced, not as a retroactive application of a
different set of rules.
The more troubling problem for plaintiffs is the passage of time. After
enough time has passed, tort doctrine shuts the door on compensation
claims based on old and distant injuries. The FleetBoston complaint and
its progeny are clearly vulnerable to this argument.
The only component of the new reparations claims that has the potential
for social gain is the demand for an accounting. Information on
slavery's victims and how they were hurt has been readily available for
a long time. Information on slavery's beneficiaries and precisely how
they profited should also be in the public's hands, for it has the
potential to clarify perceptions on the social costs of slavery, bring
about a more honest exchange on racial issues, and reduce incentives to
discriminate in the present. I would prefer to see the scope of the
demand expanded to include information not only on profits from slavery,
but also profits from the oppressive and discriminatory regimes that
appeared in its wake.
. Professor of Law and Paul J. Liacos Scholar, Boston
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Monday, 24 August 2009
Friday, 21 August 2009
Last Sunday, a Russian woman walked – stamped - through the galleries of the Louvre in Paris carrying a small ceramic tea cup (empty), which, on arriving in one of largest galleries and steadily elbowing her way through the crowd, she threw, firmly and decisively, at Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, whereupon the cup splintered into pieces on the inch-thick security glass and five guards slammed the Russian woman to the floor as the encircling cameras strobe-lit the scene. For the four and a half minutes it took for the Russian woman to be manhandled upright and marched towards the Louvre’s security offices at the rear of the building, the Mona Lisa was entirely unwatched. For four minutes, it was just a painting. Then, crunching over the broken crockery, the crowds returned, like a sigh.
The Mona Lisa is not a well-looked-after painting. Its presentation – hung over average eye-level, in a rectangular recess in a huge floating wall, behind a screen of bullet-proof glass, in front of a projecting wooden shelf, behind a semicircular railing, guarded by two museum attendants – and its trumpeting in the museum itself – announced in black-and-white reproduction on a series of signs with a big black arrow which lead straight past the Nike of Samothrace and paintings by Uccello, Mantegna, Titian and Veronese – suggests that the Louvre has been commandeered by its own PR department. At the audioguide desk, you can pick up a special guided tour narrated by the actor Jean Reno, as his character from The Da Vinci Code. “In theees room,” he hisses, sexily, “is zee greatest meeestery of all”. Can we feel just a tiny bit of sympathy for the Russian woman?
The Russian woman’s protest (she had recently been denied French citizenship) is another addition to the long list of damaged or destroyed works of art. When suffragette Mary Richardson took a knife to the back of Velazquez’s Rokeby Venus in 1914, or when the young Tony Shafrazi spraypainted “Kill Lies All” on Picasso’s Guernica in 1974, or when the Taliban dynamited the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in 2001, they were reacting to an image’s power to enthral. In effect, attacks like these restore an image’s potency: they shock them back to life. That’s not to endorse vandalism of works of art - although I’ll distract the guards if anyone fancies slashing a pre-Raphaelite - but such events give the lie to Walter Benjamin’s notion that reproduction diminishes the ‘aura’ of a work of art; we still hanker after an original source, the relic in the jar.
The questions that these acts of vandalism raise are the core of what Dave Hickey (in ‘The Invisible Dragon’) calls the ‘therapeutic institution’ – what he describes as the ‘loose confederation of museums, universities, bureaus, foundations, publications and endowments’. The notion explicitly (in wall-texts, education programmes, outreach projects, young members’ programmes, corporate sponsorship and online facilities) and implicitly upheld by such institutions is that art is good for us, ‘regardless’ (Hickey again) ‘and in spite of the crazy shit that individual works might egregiously recommend’.
We might be quick to condemn acts of vandalism on works of art, and we should. At the same time, though, we ought to consider why and how works of art are able to disturb, rather than affirm, our most deeply-held notions about public virtue, about the benevolence of beauty.
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Editor’s Note: Ohhh I am so excited to share Erika’s project, DIY Deodorant, on FSC! Gah! I can’t wait to try it, I’ve been meaning to for ages as I’ve had Erika’s Professor Funkenstein: Solving a Funky Problem bookmarked for-eva! It was first published on January 14, 2010. She has a few notes just above the first photo, make sure you read them as she’s learned a few tips since first starting to make this stuff just shy of 2 years ago. Time flies when you’re smelling good. -Christina
Erika’s Personal Note: In a few weeks I will have been making and using my own deodorant for a year! This is the one DIY thing that people are almost always shocked about when I tell them. As you will see it’s incredibly easy, and very inexpensive. Plus if you have the items on hand you’ll never have to worry about running to the store when you run out; just whip up another batch!
A few tips:
-You can put the mushy mixture into an old roll-up deodorant tube as I describe here.
-If you have super sensitive skin, you can absolutely skip adding in the essential oils. I now use tea tree oil and lavender essential oil in my batches.
-If you get irritated from shaving, you can also add oil like vitamin E, jojoba, or wheat germ oil for extra moisturizing.
I have FINALLY conquered the funk. Parliament Funkadelic? Heck no! My B.O.!
Seriously, though, I sweat year round, even when it isn’t hot, and I’m sitting on my couch. I don’t sweat an ungodly amount, but enough that by the end of each day, I stink. Or, at least I USED to stink.
In a nutshell, I think I’ve tried every regular antiperspirant and deodorant out there. I’ve even used stuff made for dudes. I still sweat. I even used Active Dry (I think that’s what it’s called) but it’s basically rat poison that you put under your pits at night to prevent you from sweating. I probably have tumors right now from using it 10 years ago. The worst part…I still sweat profusely AND it made my pits itch and burn. Now, I understand, sweating is natural and healthy, and it’s not even the sweat that makes me angry, it’s smelling like a dirty mess that I hate.
So after no luck with crap that could potentially be very bad for my health, I decided to just stick with plain old deodorants. Over many years I believe I’ve tried every single natural one that is on the market. I’m not even kidding either. Some worked slightly better than others, but I was still gross.
So I went to Ye Olde Interweb and was on the hunt for how I could make my own. Here’s my rationale:
-I’m stubborn and like to make my own stuff.
-I could probably spend less for stuff that will halfway work.
-What’s the worst that could happen??
So I found Amy Karol’s (Angry Chicken) concoction but I didn’t have all of that stuff on hand. I figured that I could use what I had on hand, and make a decent substitute. So basically I grabbed an old jam jar and put in 3 Tbs of corn starch, 3 Tbs of baking soda, a few spoonfulls of coconut oil, and two drops of Lavender Essential Ooil. I did the lavender EO at the very end. To get everything to mix, I put it in the microwave for a few seconds at a time so the coconut oil could melt down and then I could stir stuff better. After I added the EO, I put some on my pits, sealed up the jar and went on with my day.
I’ve been using it for several days now. I’ve even been to work with it on, done housework, and all sorts of other stuff that would normally cause me to sweat really bad. I have actually sweat less and haven’t stunk at all! This absolutely blows my mind. I feel like the simplest solution was here all along and I just had no idea. I can never go back to regular deodorant again.
Word of warning. The coconut oil will harden up so when you go to use it, get some on your fingers and mush it around for a few seconds. The heat from your fingers will melt it down, and you’ll be ready to apply it!
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Utilities And Energy
KDC has a strong presence in the energy and utilities sector.
Power generation companies are engaged in extensive plant improvement projects driven by the need for a significant reduction in CO2 emissions and greenhouse gases and we are assisting customers in reducing their carbon footprint.
The Large Combustion Plant Directive is impacting all UK fossil fuel plants and KDC’s focus is to help our customers decommission and remediate fossil fuel based facilities preparing them for development into biofuel or CHP plants.
Equally, utility companies face similar challenges as the phase out old assets and technologies such as town gas production facilities and gas holder infrastructure.
Our specialist skills and experience in decommissioning, demolition and remediation services have proved invaluable to a variety of energy and utility companies including National Grid, Wales and West Utilities, RWEnpower, EDF, Scottish Power and SSE.
Our proven team has the technical and managerial capabilities to align with the varying scopes of work that we may encounter through the course of a plant decommissioning programme.
From initial surveys, hazard abatement, de-planting and demolition to waste characterisation, separation and disposal, we have an impeccable safety record in this most demanding and challenging of environments.
Customers chose KDC because of our track record, price competitiveness, the calibre of our workforce and financial stability.
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The Big Day is always the first Sunday in November, so every Sunday at Run Run DMC is Marathon Sunday! The NYC marathon, Boston, San Diego, Ultras...all here. Today is a little more about the NYC Marathon history.
The NYC marathon wasn't always the huge to-do it is today. Marathoning itself has only become popular in the last 30 or so years. When Fred Lebow organized the first NYC marathon in 1970, the sport was seen as a fringe activity for a small group of weirdos and loners; most of whom had to improvise their own training programs, as long distance coaching was not widely available. The first NYC marathon in 1970 was run by 127 runners who paid a $1 entry fee to circle Central Park a little over 4 times. 55 runners finished. Six years later, 2,090 runners ran the first 5 borough NYC marathon, and the response within the city was so positive, it became a community event that drew thousands of spectators.
The marathon was originally considered to be an event for men only. Women were told their bodies were too weak to handle the distance, and the stress would affect their ability to bear children. Women of the 60's and 70's knew that this was frankly bullshit, and began to run the Boston and NYC marathons clandestinely. They'd sneak in without numbers and would often run shielded by male runners who recognized their mad distance running skills. Sometimes they finished, sometimes they were forcibly pulled out, but they consistently ran solid times, and in 1971, convinced marathon officials to make the NYC marathon the first to officially allow women to run.
In 1994, Germán Silva of Mexico pulled off an amazing victory after taking a wrong turn in Central Park in the final mile. Germán ran a 5:15 mile to recover his lead and beat his teammate Benjamen Paredes by two seconds.
The ING marathon site has again created a great clip with a regrettable Victory at Sea style soundtrack. Watch the video anyway, its a goodie.
In the late 90's, Kenyan runners began to dominate the sport. Second to the US in number of NYC Marathon winners (total of 14 to the US total of 20), they have had the most consistent 1st place finishes of the last 20 years, but so far only the Kenyan women have been able to set any course records. Watch the closest finish in NYC marathon history between Kenyan Paul Tergat and South African Hendrick Ramaala! (As an added bonus, we have been spared the Saving Private Ryan soundtrack)
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the NYC Marathon. A record number of 40,000 runners were accepted and a week of festivities have been planned around the race. A great reason to travel to see the event and cheer me on!
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Opponents of Proposition 8, California's anti-gay marriage bill, celebrate outside of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on February 7, 2012 in San Francisco.
One of the proponent of Proposition 8's expert witnesses has come out in an op-ed in The New York Times that his opinion on gay marriage has evolved.
David Blankenhorn, the founder and president of the Institute for American Values, testified in Perry v. Schwarzenegger in favor of passing Proposition 8, which would have made a constitutional amendment in California outlawing gay marriage.
But in an opinion piece published Friday in The New York Times, Blankenhorn says his position has evolved and he hopes both straight parents and gay parents can work together to strengthen the institution of marriage.
No same-sex couple, married or not, can ever under any circumstances combine biological, social and legal parenthood into one bond," he wrote. "For this and other reasons, gay marriage has become a significant contributor to marriage’s continuing deinstitutionalization, by which I mean marriage’s steady transformation in both law and custom from a structured institution with clear public purposes to the state’s licensing of private relationships that are privately defined.
I have written these things in my book and said them in my testimony, and I believe them today. I am not recanting any of it.
But there are more good things under heaven than these beliefs. For me, the most important is the equal dignity of homosexual love. I don’t believe that opposite-sex and same-sex relationships are the same, but I do believe, with growing numbers of Americans, that the time for denigrating or stigmatizing same-sex relationships is over. Whatever one’s definition of marriage, legally recognizing gay and lesbian couples and their children is a victory for basic fairness.
He continued by saying it is vital that there be respect for an emerging consensus and that "debating gay marriage might help to lead heterosexual America to a broader and more positive recommitment to marriage as an institution."
The entire op-ed can be read at
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In honor of Dr. Kell’s educational career, Ann Kell established this unrestricted scholarship in her mother’s memory.
Combining her love of teaching and travel gave Vanetta Bynum Kell a unique summertime hobby: she served as a visiting faculty member at universities in Utah, Washington, Wisconsin and Oklahoma.
Kell earned a degree in commerce at OCW in 1940. At the University of Oklahoma, she added a master’s and a doctorate. After 15 years teaching business in Oklahoma high schools, Dr. Kell eventually chaired the business department at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.
She wrote numerous articles for educational and professional journals and yearbooks. A liberally educated young woman, Kell also was interested in the arts. She was active in community and educational groups, as well as theatre and symphony guilds. She served as a consultant to various educational groups and corporations. Dr. Kell was listed in Who’s Who of American Women, Who’s Who in the West and Oustanding Educators and Leaders in Education. She was named to the USAO Alumni Hall of Fame in 1975. Back to Scholarship Page
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Well, it's certainly no part of quis
, because the feminine singular of that pronoun is quae
, not qua
"NOTES.—1. Aliquis is used after sī, etc., when there is stress..."
I see no contradiction here. You say "do not" when there is emphasis on "not", but that doesn't mean that "don't" isn't a shortened form of the same.
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Normally I would agree with someone who observes that criticizing without offering an alternative is just cynicism and not very helpful. Such an observation was implied to my recent post on the absurdity of the unemployment figures: "What alternate means of determining the actual employment figure would someone suggest?" In fact, there are cases in which that which the mistake being criticized should simply be stopped - the fact that there is no alternative to suggest does not mean you should continue making that mistake. Let me explain:
Suppose I am planning a surprise party for my brother who lives in Michigan. I am having the party at my house west of Chicago. It would be very, very helpful for me to know exactly what time he will arrive. I really, really want to know that number. The math is simple enough: Departure time + (miles driven / average miles per hour) = arrival time. It will be easy enough to know exactly when he leaves home and the number of miles is readily available with a great deal of precision. The problem is the average miles per hour. The fact that Chicago is squarely in the path makes that number unknowable. Depending on traffic, construction, accidents, weather and the presence of Chicago's finest it can take anywhere from 30-40 minutes to 2-3 hours. For that matter, there are all sorts of things that can impact his rate of travel before he even gets to Chicago as he travels through Michigan and Indiana.
Now I can look at that reality and make one of two choices. I can accept the reality that there is no way of knowing the precise number and plan the event in a robust enough manner that it will succeed no matter when he arrives within a very wide range. Or I can simply decide that, because it would be very convenient to know the precise number and because I really would like to know an exact number, I can simply make one up and bet the success of the party on that number. Oh, it wouldn't be purely made up. I would base it on my experience having made the drive a number of times, do a lot of research and create a complicated model based on reams of data, and I would rationalize the number based on the time of day and day of the year and how I think those things might affect traffic, weather and construction. It would still be a guess, of course, but I could fool myself into believing that, because I thought it out and have a rationalization for it that it is accurate.
By the way, it will also be a vehicle for me to blame the inevitable failure of the surprise party on something (or someone) else. How could I have known it would snow? That the tri-state expressway would be down to one lane? That an accident would take place?
The problem is that, as a boss told me in very clear terms several years ago, having an explanation for failure - even a very good explanation - is not the same thing as success.
Whether it is self-deception because decision making is easier if we have a precise number, or the allure of having a vehicle to put the blame elsewhere for bad decisions and subsequent failure, the latter course - pulling a rationalized number out of thin air and concocting a mathematical basis for it - is far too often the norm.
It would be very, very convenient to know the precise, total cost to make or do something. It would make decision making easy to know the exact financially optimum quantity of something to make at a given time. Neither can be known. They are all wrapped up in costs that are, at best, indirectly related and costs that vary with time, rather than volume. How much of those costs has to do with any specific product depends on capacity being used, where the constraints are in the process and what else the business is doing. Those numbers are only derived when fictitious numbers are plugged in where reality is unknown. The fact that the ERP systems and pricing models would be really, really cool if the numbers were accurate doesn't make them so.
Same is true for the politicians and economists. Employment figures and national manufacturing productivity are unknown and unknowable. The fact that it would really, really, really be helpful to know the employment and productivity rates doesn't make the wild-ass-guesses and rationalizations accurate. The 90% confidence level in the numbers should have the Six Sigma aficionados out there apoplectic.
So if the numbers are no good how are we to make decisions? You do so using the numbers as, at best, directional indicators or as the boundaries within reality lies, but the decisions themselves come down to intelligence, wisdom, experience and values. You try to make decisions in a robust enough manner that the course you chart can tolerate some variation. The problem, of course, is that it means the decision maker is responsible for his or her decision.
The alternative is to accept the inevitable failure resulting from making decisions based on well rationalized but known bad numbers, and relying on the numbers to provide that 'very good explanation' needed to shift the blame for the failure elsewhere.
So to the question, "What alternate means of determining the actual employment figure would someone suggest?", or what better means of calculating standard costs or batch sizes can we suggest, I believe that is the wrong question to be asking. The correct question is how can decisions be better made without relying on inaccurate economic data, or inaccurate standard costs and batch size math?Original: http://www.idatix.com/manufacturing-leadership/mathematical-fiction/
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September 6th, 2012
11:30 AM ET
Editor's note: Michael Sean Winters writes the blog "Distinctly Catholic" for the National Catholic Reporter and is the author of "God's Right Hand: How Jerry Falwell Made God a Republican and Baptized the American Right."
By Michael Sean Winters, Special to CNN
Four years ago, anti-abortion Sen. Robert Casey addressed the Democratic National Convention.
“Barack Obama and I have an honest disagreement on the issue of abortion,” he said. “But the fact that I am speaking here tonight is testament to Barack’s ability to show respect to the views of people who may disagree with him… he’ll pursue the common good by seeking common ground rather than trying to divide us.”
The next day, speaking to fellow anti-abortion Democrats, we all admitted we had been moved to tears by Casey’s speech.
As candidate and as president, Obama promised he would try and heal the culture wars.
”Let's honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion and draft a sensible conscience clause,” he said in 2009 at the University of Notre Dame, a Catholic university, “and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded not only in sound science, but also in clear ethics, as well as respect for the equality of women.”
He retained the White House faith-based office President George W. Bush had created and even increased funding for religiously affiliated charities.
This week in Charlotte, Nancy Keenan, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, addressed the convention. Nearly all the politicians who spoke celebrated the party’s commitment to legalized abortion, offering some of the biggest applause lines of the convention.
Anti-abortion Democrats were crying again, but they were not tears of pride.
It has been clear for some time that President Obama’s campaign has concluded that they were never going to win the same levels of support among moderate, white, working class voters that propelled him to victory in 2008. Whereas in 2008, he was seen as a remedy for the bad economy, Obama is now seen as the cause, or at least not as the cure.
So the president is re-litigating the culture wars he promised to salve in 2008. It’s one way to keep the Democrats from having to talk about the 8.3% unemployment rate.
And, so while one expected the Republican Party to be engaged in the culture wars, instead it is the Democrats, feeding off President Obama’s decision to bait-and- switch, that are stoking those wars.
Last November, President Obama met with Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. bishops’ conference. Obama said that he understood the Catholic Church’s concerns about a new White House contraception mandate that requires employers to provide no-cost contraception coverage to virtually all their employees. That includes those who work at church-run organizations like schools and hospitals.
Fixing this problem wouldn’t have been difficult. Obama could have expanded the exemption and allowed women who work at Catholic institutions to get contraception coverage through the exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act.
Instead, the president announced there would be no change in the conscience exemption.
What happened? Women’s groups besieged the White House with complaints and the Obama campaign needed the fundraising support of pro-choice groups like Emily’s List. And so, Obama picked a thoroughly unnecessary fight with the Catholic Church.
The HHS mandate was the straw that broke the Church camel’s back.
But Obama’s Justice Department had earlier entered a Supreme Court brief arguing that churches had no special protection in the hiring and firing of their pastors, only to have the Supreme Court unanimously reject their view.
Then Obama’s Health and Human Services Department denied a grant to the bishops’ conference program to help the victims of human trafficking because church agencies would not provide or promote contraception, even though the program got high marks from HHS staff.
This week’s convention speeches are more evidence that Obama is still pursuing a strategy of exciting the base and suburban women and forgetting about culturally conservative Democrats.
“[The president] believes that women are more than capable of making our own choices about our bodies and our health care,” first lady Michelle Obama said to thunderous applause.
It is possible the strategy will work.
For every culturally conservative Catholic voter Obama loses in western Pennsylvania, he may pick up the vote of an affluent, politically unaffiliated, nonchurch-going and decidedly pro-abortion rights woman in the Philadelphia suburbs. She might be in a position to write a check to his campaign as well.
And it’s true that some Republican actions have made it easier for the Democrats to rally the pro-abortion rights faithful.
In the key swing state of Virginia, the Republican legislature and governor passed a law requiring women to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound before getting an abortion, leading many centrist voters to conclude that it is the Republicans, not the Democrats, who are extreme on abortion. In Congress, Republicans tried to cut funding for Planned Parenthood.
What may work for Obama, however, will prove disastrous for his party.
It is difficult to see how Democrats will ever reclaim the House unless they win back the seats once held by anti-abortion Democrats like Kathy Dahlkemper of Pennsylvania , Bart Stupak of Michigan and Steve Dreihaus of Ohio. All three of those seats went Republican after anti-abortion groups targeted them because of their vote in favor of health care reform.
Branding the party as rigidly pro-choice, and even refusing to include “big tent” language on abortion in the party platform, will not help Democrats reclaim the House, so we can all look forward to more culture wars in the future.
Abortion rights groups and the Obama campaign may have cut off their nose to spite their face by reigniting the culture wars. No one looks forward to four more years of squabbles between a GOP-led House and President Obama.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Michael Sean Winters.
From around the web
About this blog
The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke and Eric Marrapodi with daily contributions from CNN's worldwide newsgathering team and frequent posts from religion scholar and author Stephen Prothero.
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As I started reading this book, I realized that I had no idea where it was set. The hero appeared to be Scottish, the heroine French; there were some British military types, and lots of mention of French place-names with which I was unfamiliar.
The penny dropped when the narrative begin to be about Indians, and I realized that we were in North America/Canada a few hundred years ago.
The Scottish aspect of the book did continue to confuse me at times. I discovered as I read that this was the second in a series, and no doubt the groundwork
had been laid much more clearly in the first book.
However a bunch of Scottish Rangers doing battle in Canada wasn't something I'd ever really considered before, and it took me quite a while to work out which side was which and who was doing what.
As the story unfolded, though, I began to enjoy it. Amelie Chauvenet is a young woman who has been raised in a convent after the death of her mother. She finds herself in a
fort under attack by the British, and her father is killed in the battle. She is asked to tend the wounds of a captured soldier, Morgan MacKinnon, whom she holds at least partly responsible for her father's death. Morgan is a worthy prize, one of the skilled Rangers and someone whom the Indian allies of the fighting French wish to dispatch with their own form of punishment.
For Amalie, working to heal a man so that he can be killed goes against the grain, especially as he doesn't conform to her initial ideas of him. He is patient, honorable and kind, and the patient/nurse effect duly takes place. MacKinnon is offered a way out of death
by joining the French side. His loyalty to his brother Rangers doesn't allow him
to take this option, but he pretends to go along with it so that he can survive. As MacKinnon is accepted into the French army, he
watches for his opportunity to escape while trying to keep Amalie away from danger.
Things might not work out quite as he hopes - there are people out to get him, and Amalie may not be willing to let him leave her.
The historical setting in this book is very good (once I'd worked out what was going on), and the detail the author provides
Both hero and heroine are strong, deep characters whose romance feels believable. Despite the plot of the book not being particularly deep, it never drags
- overall, this is a good read.
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When I went looking for sheet music notes for an Irish folk song on line and couldn't
find any, there was plenty of pieces of music for the Irish tunes but not for the songs. I thought, why were these big music
sites not displaying the folk and ballads along with the traditional Irish music tunes.
Where were The Dubliners, The Wolfe Tones, The Furey Brothers and the hundreds of traditional
Irish song notes ?
When you first take up and learn a musical instrument, be it banjo, fiddle, mandolin or whatever,
you will want to learn something that's familiar to you. since most would already know more songs that tunes then the logical
thing would be to learn something easy, for example a song that already in your head and have known it for years.
look around for an easy song to play, right ?
Well, if you ever took music lessons that's the way things work, you would
be started on some simple song to you had it off by heart before moving on.
So when I looked for sheet music notes for Irish songs on the Internet and couldn't find any,
I thought, this isn't right ! So I started to collect as many songs as were already here on the site and tried to get sheet
music to go with them, a hard thing to do,So I made up my own.
I was successful in selecting most of the older traditional songs but not the more recent
ones, and as for tin whistle notes, well they are even harder to get.
Not everybody can play by ear, so most will look
for the sheet music or tin whistle notes image of the song for guidance. I'm surprised the big sites like ceoltas who pride
themselves on promoting Irish music don't have an online tin whistle song collection.
Anyway I will continue with this section of the site and try build on what's already here.
Don't forget, If you have sheet music or tin whistle notes for any Irish folk or ballads including
Dubliners, Pogues, Furey Brothers, The Clancys, The Wolfe Tones will you please send them to me.I have now started collecting
abc music notes which are used mainly for beginners of tin whistle. Although I've heard well established Irish musicians
use the abc system also. Some of the abc music notation is by Cathal Lynch [see above photo] who has done a
great deal of working in providing these song notes in a simple to understand method.
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|Great Dixter chimneys as seen from the top of a high compost heap.|
The British have long been a nation of growers and preservers, and the Dig for Victory instinct continues. Brits have not always been a nation of good eaters, of course. It might be that until recently the need to shore up was the driving force in domestic food production. Potatoes and apples stored, jams and jellies made: food shortages kept at bay. The eating experience was at its best about good plain British cooking, without ideas from Abroad.
|The kitchen garden at Great Dixter.|
Now, people who cook also like to grow things and people who grow things are learning to cook. At Great Dixter there was a cook until the 1970s but when he died Christopher Lloyd decided to learn to cook himself. "Christo was very greedy. He LOVED food," says my guide. Dinner might start with whiskey and walnuts, and after pudding there would be chocolate and coffee. It's very easy to imagine when you are at Great Dixter, with its comfortable kitchen and open fires. And yet home-grown and home-cooked is still quite a new idea: Christopher Lloyd's book Gardener Cook was published within fairly recent memory.
|Well-tempered leeks and bulbs for sale at the Great Dixter Fair last week.|
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WASHINGTON - A clearly divided Supreme Court on Tuesday debated indecent language for an hour without anyone using the words in question.
Circumlocutions like "the F-word" and "the S-word" sufficed as the court considered the year's highest-profile free-speech controversy. All signs now point to a tight decision over whether broadcasters can be fined for allowing use of so-called "fleeting expletives," which are swear words used in passing.
The court's conservative justices showed sympathy for the Federal Communications Commission members who want to punish broadcasters. Associate Justice Antonin Scalia denounced the "coarsening" effect of swearing, while Chief Justice John Roberts warned about "impressionable children" being harmed by inherently dirty words.
"Why do you think the F-word has shocking value?" Robert asked rhetorically. "It's because it's associated with sexual or excretory activity; that's what gives it its force."
Added Scalia, "that's what gives it its' zing."
But other justices sounded more willing to tolerate the occasional swear word, with Associate Justice John Paul Stevens, a Navy veteran, noting that sometimes "you can't help but laugh" at how a swear word is deployed. More pointedly, some justices suggested the FCC's stern new swear words policy came about arbitrarily.
"There seems to be no rhyme or reason with some of the changes the commission has made," Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said.
The dispute in the case called FCC v. Fox Television Stations centers on two questions. The broader one is whether regulators violate First Amendment free speech rights by fining broadcasters for an occasional swear word. The other question is narrower, and it might be the only one the court actually decides: whether the FCC acted "arbitrarily and capriciously" in changing its policy about indecent language in 2004.
"It was, at a minimum, a rational policy choice," Solicitor General Gregory Garre insisted.
Loosening indecency standards, Garre warned ominously, could lead to "Big Bird dropping the F-bomb on Sesame Street."
Attorney Carter Phillips, representing Fox Television Stations, retorted that "there was no explanation" for the FCC's policy change.
The policy change in question arose following a live 2003 broadcast of the "Golden Globe Awards," when the lead singer Bono from the Irish rock ban U-2 declared his award was "really, really, (blank)ing brilliant." During the 2003 Billboard Music Award, quasi-celebrity Nicole Richie declared "it's not so (blank)ing simple" to remove "cow (blank) out of a Prada purse."
And during the 2002 Billboard Music Awards, Cher celebrated by denouncing her myriad doubters.
"I've also had critics for the last 40 years saying that I was on my way out every year. Right." the Fresno High School dropout originally known as Cherilyn Sarkisian said. "So (blank) 'em. I still have a job and they don't."
FCC career staffers initially considered such language the kind of passing expletive, drained of sexual content, that's been grudgingly accepted for the past three decades. This reasoning dates back to a mid-1970s Supreme Court decision, involving comedian George Carlin, in which the court determined that "isolated use of a potentially offensive word" differs from the "verbal shock treatment" of profane repetition
The politically appointed FCC, then reversed the staff decision and declared that even a fleeting reference to what the commission called "the F-word" could be deemed unacceptable. The fines for broadcasters could potentially reach as high as $325,000.
"It's one of the most vulgar, graphic and explicit words for sexual activity," Garre told the Court.
Countered Stevens, "that's a word that is often used with no reference to sexual connotations."
A court decision is expected by next June.
ON THE WEB
MORE FROM MCCLATCHY
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| 0.958957
| 830
| 1.609375
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SENATE PASSES BILL TO PROTECT TEENS FROM SEXUAL PREDATORS AT SCHOOLS
The New York State Senate today passed legislation that would make it a crime for school employees to engage in sexual activity with students, including those who are older than New York’s legal age of consent. The bill (S.6714), sponsored by Senator Betty Little (R-C-I, Queensbury), addresses inappropriate student-school employee relationships by criminalizing sexual conduct between school employees and full-time students of elementary and secondary schools.
“For the mental and physical well-being of our children, teachers and others in positions of power at our schools should not be allowed to abuse the trust placed in them by having sexual relationships with students,” Senate Majority Leader Dean G. Skelos said. “This bill is especially helpful in protecting teens, regardless of their age, by making it illegal for those working in our schools to use their position as a way to manipulate students into engaging in sexual activities.”
New York’s legal age of consent is 17. By taking a child’s school status into consideration, this bill would remove an elementary or secondary school student’s ability to consent and prohibit sexual conduct between a school employee and a student. Violations would be a class E felony and carry a sentence of up to 4 years in prison.
This bill also addresses any possible adult that is in a position of trust in a school by defining school employees as anyone receiving compensation from a school district where services performed involved district student contact, as well as any person, other than an employee, who provides services to a school or school district which involve direct student contact.
Twenty other states have recognized the seriousness of the issue and criminalize this conduct under their current statutes.
The bill will be sent to the Assembly, where it is being sponsored by Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther.
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After years of bailouts, stimulus spending and government takeovers, taxpayers are stuck with the check for billions of dollars and a national unemployment rate that still hovers over nine percent. In some of the counties in the 6th District, unemployment is well into the double digits, and people everywhere are struggling to make ends meet.
It is clear that the old policies have not worked. It is time to usher in a new plan where free markets, free enterprise, innovation and entrepreneurship are the foundation for economic growth and job creation. I came to Congress with a two-pronged approach to the economy: One, get our fiscal house in order, reducing government spending that is crowding out private investment and racking up debt. Two, roll back anti-job policies and regulations that make it harder for employers to grow and hire.
Already my colleagues and I repealed the onerous 1099 reporting requirement in the health care law that would have buried small businesses in paperwork. The House has already voted on multiple bills to expand access to American energy, which would lower gas prices for small businesses and families and create thousands of jobs.
Now with our detailed jobs agenda, we are addressing our economic challenges, getting government out of the way and helping job creators grow our economy. We will do this without raising taxes on working families and small business owners. With the economy in such dire straits, now is not the time to increase tax burdens on families or job creators.
In fact, the U.S. currently has the second-highest corporate tax rate among the developed nations of the world. Our tax rate is nearly 10 percentage points higher than the average of our international competitors. A small business owner I visited in Portland told me he constantly feels pressure to move overseas because of the lower tax rates and the better business environment in places like China.
That is why I support setting the top tax rates at no more than 25% for job-creating businesses. This would level the playing field with our competitors and help businesses like the one in Portland generate investments and create jobs here at home. Another way to help business owners is to get rid of costly government regulations that hold businesses back.
At a roundtable I held in Smithville, attendees from manufacturers to family-owned businesses all told me the same story: they are worried about costly government regulations that could sink their companies-I saw this first hand when I toured a local textile company in February. And it is not just Tennessee job-creators who are facing this -- government regulations are estimated to cost our economy over $1.75 trillion a year.
To solve this issue, I am cosponsoring legislation that would require a congressional review and approval of any proposed federal government regulation that will have a significant impact on the economy. Called the REINS Act, our bill would make the federal system much more like Tennessee, where the legislature writes a bill, agencies implement it, then the language comes back to the elected representatives to be approved. This would put an end to federal agencies and bureaucrats running amok with regulations that hurt American business owners.
From my visits with job-creators throughout the 6th District, these are the kinds of common sense, pro-growth solutions that businesses want out of the federal government. I have heard time and again how if Washington can get out of the way, businesses in Tennessee will grow on their own and create much-needed jobs. Too many Americans have been out of work and hurting for too long; I am committed to getting our economy back on track so Tennesseans can prosper again.
Diane Black represents Marshall County in the U.S. Congress.
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10 Mind-Blowing Discoveries This Week
Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email.
The Altamaha River in Georgia is said to be home to a fabled sea monster known as the Altamaha-ha. Altie, whom you can read all about in this excellent illustrated story by Creative Loafing’s Curt Holman via Cryptomundo), is said to resemble a plesiosaur.
A few years back, my friend Jim and I drove up to Georgia to see if we could spot it. The trip was a charmed one, a poor-girl’s substitute for Loch Ness, where I’ve always wanted to go. Did we see anything? I thought I remembered seeing something in the water, something pinkish silvery and a bit serpentine, but frankly I can’t remember if it was in that body of water or another one. (“If you go looking for monsters, eventually you’re going to see one,” says a lighthearted skeptic in Holman’s story.)
1. I want to believe….but c’mon.
So, l’d love for the recent headline-making photo of the Loch Ness monster, seen here in the Daily Record UK to be real, but…I dunno. The photo was snapped by George Edwards, a 60-year veteran of the Nessie hunting-and-touring trade. It looks like a living thing, but that doesn’t make it a sea monster and Edwards says it didn’t register on his deep scanning sonar. It’s kind of an unconvincing hump in the water and frankly, we’ve all had too many of those to get overly eager about another.
It’s intriguing that the same week Curiosity made a great and true stride for scientific exploration, a single blurry photo of the Loch Ness monster is still able to make headlines, albeit briefly. I mean, we’re exploring Mars. You’d think Loch Ness would be taken care of by now.
Benjamin Radford wrote on LiveScience about (among other things) the BBC’s big investigation into the Loch Ness in 2003 using sonar and satellites, which, for all its due diligence, found nothing unusual. The world is irritatingly knowable these days and that may be why Nessie and Altie endure. There’s a little fun in not knowing, and frankly, the power of that fun is what Edwards' picture proved. There are truly fantastic underwater creatures like this, and this, and this that show up for photos regularly and never get Nessie-level attention. Nessie leaves us wanting more, the saucy minx. I’d look for her any day.
2. Is that a snake-like tetrapod in your pocket, or…
Speaking of mysterious, serpentine creatures, more than one person sent me a link to the tale of the newly discovered African blind snake-like creature that everyone thinks looks embarrassingly phallic.
“If this isn’t up your alley,” my friend Dave said, “I need a new GPS.”
Geekosystem’s Sui Ying Teoh writes that when the Madeira River in Brazil was drained to build a dam, workers found about six of these tetrapods at the bottom of it, making the riverbed look like a Good Vibrations sale rack. They’re a rare species of caecilian, amphibians that look like worms or snakes, known as Atretochoana eiselti. They’re about 30 inches long and have no lungs so they breathe through their skin. You can almost hear it…can’t you? Pleasant dreams.
These actually have a leg-up on Nessie because we clearly see them but they are still mysterious, currently classified as “data deficient” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature “in view of continuing uncertainties as to its extent of occurrence, status and ecological requirements.” There are no other known populations and of the six found one died, two were kept for study and three were released.
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About The Sex Education Show
About the Show
Britain is in a state of sexual meltdown and the most at risk are teenagers. Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are increasing at an epidemic rate; 21 teenagers get pregnant every day but most alarmingly up to two thirds of teens are receiving potentially harmful information about sex via the quantity, accessibility and graphic nature of internet pornography.
Presented by Anna Richardson ( Supersize v Superskinny) The Sex Education Show turns its attention to how easy access to pornography is affecting young people in Britain today.
The series examines how the internet has led to an explosion of accessible sexual content on young people's computers and mobile phones as well as the gradual 'pornification' of the offline world. How is this unlimited access to porn affecting children and adults?
In a world where many young people use porn to learn about sex, picking-up potentially dangerous behaviours and attitudes along the way, it's time to fight back with some fundamental sex and relationship education. Accompanied with a team of sexual health experts, presenter Anna travels to secondary schools across the country to give young people the crucial sex education they are missing.
As part of the series, Anna also goes on an investigative journey looking into the pornification of today's society and the effect it has on the nation.
Anna will also meet people whose lives have been affected by porn and talks to adults and young people alike about their attitudes and experiences. Along with startling new statistics, the show will paint a revealing portrait of sexual behaviour in Britain today.
The series has a dedicated website which generated a huge viewer response and joins the war on porn debate.
*Teletext Captions Page 801*
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The president of Scambook.com reveals why honest self-assessment is the key to launching a Web-based business, and other great advice he's received.
Most college students are worried about what party to attend next, but I was busy thinking of innovative ways to make my first million. I built Tatto Media from my dorm room, sold it a few years later for $60 million, and continued forward with big plans for my future. It's a daunting task for a start-up business to try and get off the ground amidst the social media boom. Here are the three best pieces of advice I ever received that helped make me a successful entrepreneur:
- Self-assess honestly and find supplemental teammates. Be honest with yourself when evaluating your strengths and weaknesses, and look for team members who will balance you out. While studying at Babson College, I had a lot of major ideas, but not necessarily all of the architectural knowledge behind it to turn these ideas into a lucrative plan. I took the advice of Professor Leonard Green, CEO of Green Group, in asking for help where I needed it. I was realistic that I had holes to fill in my business plan and needed other people to help me work through these areas. I teamed up with fellow classmate Lin Miao, who balanced out my weaknesses and helped me with the company finances.
- Don't underestimate information flow; value every relationship. Being kind and respecting everyone is a must. I was at a board meeting when Baupost Group's David Drubner told me to look around the table and point to the most important person there. He then pointed to his secretary, who had worked for him for 30 years, and said that she while may not hold the highest status in the room, she knows the right people and everything that is going on. Understanding how the information flow works when building yourself is crucial; you never know which relationships you will need in order to make it, so being respectful to everyone you come into contact with is crucial.
- 100% of nothing is still nothing. Don't let greed stand in the way of your ultimate dream. I've seen countless numbers of people who have great ideas, but too much aggression too early on. You don't need to be a one-man show to be successful. An entrepreneur's career may include 30 or 40 ventures; each one should be a stepping stone and learning experience, so there's no need to get greedy over one deal. Too many people walk away from great things because they expected too much.
While most think of an entrepreneur as a self-made one-man operation, I credit the help of others for being as important as any one person's idea creation. With these tips in mind, you can make your vision a reality.
Andrew Bachman is the president of Scambook.com, a leading consumer-complaint platform based in Los Angeles. He blogs about philanthropy, health, business, and life www.andrewbachman.tv. @andrewbachman
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The Tree of Life
Dir: Terrence Malick (USA)
beauty of the land – where Bonnie and Clyde is straightforwardly dramatic and Altman’s film places its emphasis on social satire. Malick followed up Badlands with Days of Heaven (1978), another startlingly beautiful film set in rural America in the early part of the century. Both these films set Malick apart from Hollywood – as a visionary and artist rather than a storyteller with America being the constant presence invoked by his palette. Although both these films were critical triumphs, Malick made no films for twenty years when he made the exquisite The Thin Red Line (1998) a war film set in the Pacific in 1943. Unlike Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, which came out in the same year, had a large star cast and garnered every conceivable Oscar, Malick’s film is deeply melancholy and not the same exercise in American patriotism. After another film The New World (2005) which received mixed reviews, Malick has made another ethereal film which was under development for several years – The Tree of Life (2011) which received near-unanimous praise as the best international film of 2011.
Terrence Malick, one of America’s most respected filmmakers, first attracted attention through Badlands (1973) a film very much in the same mold as Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Robert Altman’s Thieves like Us (1974) in that it is about a young couple going on a robbery spree in the depression era and eventually coming to a tragic or bad end. What distinguishes Malick’s film from the other two is the director’s lyricism, his deep sense of the
At the centre of The Tree of Life is an American family, the O’Briens, in Waco, Texas. The O’Briens have three sons and the oldest is Jack who grows up to be an architect (Sean Penn). Somewhere in the 1960s Mrs O’Brien (Jessica Chastain) receives news of the death of her son RL at the age of 19 and this is communicated to her husband (Brad Pitt) when he is at an airport somewhere. A section of this part of the film is taken up by the parents’ grief, how they are comforted by the community and how they try to get over it. The film travels back and forth between Jack in the present and his memories of his childhood and adolescence. Mr O’Brien is an authoritarian father who tries to ‘do his best’ but this means that he rules his family with an iron hand with his children – especially Jack – frequently receiving harsh punishment. Mr O’Brien wanted to be a musician but is now an engineer with various minor patents to his credit. He is not as successful as he might have liked to be and he is resentful of others who have been, attributing their success to declining moral standards. These segments of the film are wonderfully acted with Brad Pitt and Hunter McCracken (as the young Jack) excelling. The tension between father and son especially at the breakfast table is palpable. Although the family life shown in the film apparently owes to Terrence Malick’s own early life (about which he has been reticent), there are indications that the O’Briens are really an abstraction – the archetypal American family with its dreams, hopes, tensions and disappointments. There is perhaps a clue in the casting of Brad Pitt and Sean Penn in the key male roles because one cannot imagine a Jack Nicholson or a Robert Downey Jr. in either of them.
Although both Pitt and Penn began their careers with character roles – Brad Pitt perhaps in Thelma and Louise (1991) and Sean Penn in films like The Falcon and the Snowman (1985) – they have gradually moved into another kind terrain which they share with Tom Hanks, playing the quintessential American male. In contrast to other contemporary Hollywood stars like Tom Cruise and George Clooney who specialize in genre roles, DiCaprio whose roles suggest an individuality of sorts, Pitt, Penn and Hanks allow people to inhabit them, as though they were stand-ins for the national identity. It is this quintessential ‘American’ characteristic of Brad Pitt that Alejandro González Iñárritu shrewdly harnesses in Babel (2006) when he makes a political film about globalization. In Babel Brad Pitt becomes the American dealing with Moroccans, Mexicans and Japanese. To differentiate between Brad Pitt and James Stewart who also played an idealized American (It’s a Wonderful Life, 1946), Jimmy Stewart’s characters were slighter in stature, perhaps corresponding to ‘local America’ and not the global colossus that America has been for the past few decades.
In The Tree of Life Brad Pitt plays the head of the archetypal American family and this means something very important because Hollywood valorizes the nuclear family as no other cinema does. It is clearly beyond the scope of this review to examine this issue deeply but in America the simplest kind of social organization existed independently before leading to more complex forms, and this also accounts for the moral significance of the family (and heterosexual monogamy) in Hollywood. As Alexis de Tocqueville notes in his monumental treatise on America, for the majority of the nations of Europe, political existence commenced in the superior ranks and was gradually communicated to the different members of the social body. In America, on the other hand, social organization began at the smallest level. The township was organized before the county, the county before the State, the State before the Union. The simplest kind of social organization led to more complex forms.
The family plays a more significant role in the simpler kinds of social organization and there is perhaps an association between this and the mythical dimensions assumed by the nuclear family in American popular culture. As evidence, the western created a durable mythology out of the origins of the American nation and John Ford’s films look to the white nuclear family (wife and children) as the civilizing influence in the frontier – even while the man is fighting Indians – and making the land safe for civilization. The American nuclear family is made important because it embodies the ‘American way of life’, becomes an emblem for the nation and therefore commands the same loyalty. So central is the family to The Tree of Life that there are few exchanges between members of the family and others from the community. Even in the present, the adult Jack spends his days reflecting upon his own past and one cannot recall a sequence in which he is not ruminating alone even when in company. At the conclusion of the film when Jack meets the people in his life, those he is united with are also from his own family. If this conclusion is reminiscent of the one from Fellini’s 8 ½ (1963) in which Guido encounters all the people from his past in a circus ring, those dancing around him are mainly from outside his family.
The film begins with a quotation from the Book of Job. Job was a prophet punished by God for no reason and this part of the Old Testament has to do with deep suffering for which there is no ostensible rationale. Malick is evidently making a connection between this kind of suffering and what the O’Briens undergo at the death of their 19-year-old son. This is clearly problematic because death – even of the young – is a routine occurrence which cannot be compared to what Job underwent. This inordinate importance given to the boy’s death, the reader must be reminded, finds correspondence in America being overly preoccupied with ‘zero casualty wars’ – its concern with protecting the lives of its own citizens when it is casual about taking the lives of other people across the globe.
Once all these characteristics of The Tree of Life are taken note of, the film emerges as a dubious political undertaking. It is in this context that the most visually striking parts of the film also become suspect. Often framing segments of the family story about the O’Briens are magnificent bits dealing with creation and the origin of life on the planet – from galaxies and nebulae to gushing rivers and erupting volcanoes to protozoa and dinosaurs. One is initially rapturous about these until one wonders about their place in the film’s telelogy, about their purpose.
All fiction, it is apparent, relies on the action in it being geared towards a purpose/ teleology of some sort. In fact, it is only teleology which makes a complete story out of a narrative because all recounting is narration but all narratives are not stories. At every instant of a film or a novel, therefore, we are asking the question ‘Where is all this leading?’ and our satisfaction with a story (novel or film) depends on how the conclusion follows from initial exposition because the two are intimately connected. Once this connection is granted, it begins to seem that the American family in The Tree of Life is the culmination of a process which begins with Creation and includes the dinosaurs. If this reading appears implausible, the reader may consider how it would look if the ‘process’ beginning with Creation culminated in a Chinese or Eskimo family.
The Tree of Life makes it seem that America is not the product of history but almost elemental, that culture has not even mediated in the construction of Americans. It is an entrancing, exquisite film but it will perhaps only be valuable for clues as to how America regards itself in the global age, its preoccupation with itself leading it to conclude that the sentiments favored by it have the characteristics of something owing to natural law. This covert significance is rendered more valuable because the author is not the average filmmaker trying to make a blockbuster but a genuine visionary. Terrence Malick is an extraordinary talent but The Tree of Life may eventually only serve anthropology and a visionary who produces a work useful only to anthropologists has evidently acted in folly. And judging from the extraordinary assertions inherent in it, the flip side is perhaps that Americans believe that they are now exempt from the anthropological gaze even as they mercilessly subject every other culture to their own scrutiny.
MK Raghavendra is the Founder-Editor of Phalanx
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Bruce Emond, WEEKENDER | Wed, 04/25/2012 2:21 PM |
I recently attended a one-day open house held in Jakarta by the University of Melbourne. A long line of students waited to join a workshop conducted by the university, while others took the opportunity to discuss their study options with counselors.
Mingling among them were Indonesian alumni of the university. One of them told me about his experiences being a legislative intern, having an off-campus job and learning about Australian football. He had fully immersed himself in life Down Under, even developing an Australian accent.
In this month’s edition on education, we look at why more and more Indonesians are taking the opportunity to study abroad, and the benefits they reap by stepping out of their regular environment. It’s interesting to me that many returning students say that going abroad helped them better understand themselves as Indonesians.
Common to all is an awareness of the importance of education for future success – both for individuals and for the nation as a whole. Education is a sector where many Indonesians are seeking to make a difference. Here we learn about some of these inspiring initiatives, including setting up libraries in remote areas and creating forums to empower the country’s youth. With Australia providing not only high-quality education but also excellent travel destinations, we also have a special focus on our southern neighbor.
Here’s hoping you will find much to interest you in this issue – and let’s hope that in moving forward for a greater Indonesia, all the nation’s citizens will be provided suitable educational opportunities.
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At UGA, students who graduate do so at Commencement, not at graduation. UGA does not have a graduation ceremony.
Note that the verb “graduate” applies only to bachelor’s (undergraduate) degrees. A successful graduate student earns or receives a degree, but does not graduate.
An institution graduates scholars, but a student graduates from an institution. Do not write “He graduated UGA” but instead “He graduated from UGA.”
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At a Syrian refugee camp in Amman, Jordan, temperatures plunged early Wednesday to 4 degrees Celsius (39 degrees Fahrenheit) with fierce winds.
Torrential rain and increasing snowfall paralyzed much of the country, and most government and public offices in Jordan closed Wednesday and were to remain closed Thursday, the state-run Petra news agency said.
In the next three days, temperatures in Amman will drop below freezing, Petra said, citing the Jordan Meteorological Department.
Amman has received 101 millimeters (4 inches) of rain over the past three days, whereas the January average for the entire month is only 63 millimeters (about 2 1/2 inches), Miller said. The city gets snow about once a year, on average.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, the kingdom saw 757 traffic collisions, Petra reported, citing the directorate of general security.
Heavy snow paralyzed Istanbul, the semi-official Turkish news Anadolu Agency reported. Turkish Airlines canceled 39 flights into and out of Istanbul.
The state-run National News Agency reported Wednesday that the Civil Defense was retrieving 25 Bedouin families whose tents were flooded.
Heavy flooding on Wednesday cut the coastal highway of Nahr el Kaleb.
But the Civil Aviation Directorate predicted the storm would subside by Thursday morning.
Elsewhere in the country, the army evacuated residents trapped by torrential snowfall, according to news agency.
'Miserable' conditions for Syrian refugee children
The weather is not easing life for those who have fled Syria, the United Nations children's agency said.
"The cold is making life increasingly miserable" at the Zaatari camp in Jordan, UNICEF said last week. It cited health problems such as diarrhea and dehydration, a lack of hot water for bathing and a need for winter clothes, blankets and better food.
More than 540,000 Syrians have fled to Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey and Egypt, the United Nations said. About half the refugees are children.
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Five artists share their response to the media barrage of the 21st century in David Schwarz Project 6: Infobabble, on view in the Richard and Dolly Maass Gallery at Purchase College January 22 to March 9. Featuring creators from the worlds of fine art, graffiti, photography, film and advertising, this exhibition explores how contemporary artists find a voice in the melee; be it through subversion, parody, political action or direct intervention.
The Maass Gallery is open Monday to Friday, 9 AM-5 PM, and is located in the Art+Design Building on the Purchase College campus. Admission is free. An opening reception will be held on January 30 from 5-7 PM.
Purchase College, State University of New York, is located at 735 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase, NY.
The David Schwarz Projects bring cutting-edge visual art to the Westchester/Fairfield area and provide role models for the students in the School of Art+Design. Infobabble continues this mission.
The modern world is structured in such a way that our senses are almost constantly subjected to a barrage of stimulation from a variety of sources. Television, films, radio, newspapers, billboards, magazines and the internet come at us from all sides and hit us in all corners—each and every one trying desperately to sell us their “message.” What this situation creates is a general numbness within the culture. As this numbness takes hold, the “message-makers” try frantically to break through this anesthetized state, finding consistently more clever and subversive ways to get into our collective psyches.
If an artist’s primary job is to make sense of our culture and the times in which we live, then considering the current situation, how do they find a voice? How does an artist break through this wall of mass media noise and image? Once they do, what do they say? They most definitely have their hands full. This is the subject of Infobabble. The artists featured in this exhibition all work hard, against what are sometimes tremendous odds, to speak their truths.
Aaron Rose, co-curator of the international museum exhibition and book, Beautiful Losers, serves as the guest curator for David Schwarz Project 6. Infobabble includes a selection of artists from the Beautiful Losers exhibition: Cynthia Connolly, Brian Donnelly (KAWS), Shepard Fairey, Mike Mills and Stephen Powers (ESPO).
Mike Mills is a filmmaker, graphic designer and artist whose wide-ranging projects mix art and commerce, highlighting the cultural confusion of our times. Mills has made commercials for Levi’s, the Gap and Nike, as well as music videos and graphics for bands such as Moby, Yoko Ono and the Beastie Boys. He has exhibited work at the Venice Biennale and Andrea Rosen Gallery and his feature film debut, Thumbsucker, opened at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005.
Stephen Powers (ESPO) has been making advertising-inspired art since the early nineties. His work has been shown at Deitch Projects, the Venice Biennale and Creative Time. Most recently, Powers collaborated on a project called The Dreamland Artist Club, a series of work based on the colorful hand-painted signage that was once ubiquitous at Coney Island.
Cynthia Connelly documented her involvement in the D.C. punk scene by publishing a book entitled Banned in D.C.: Photos and Anecdotes from the D.C. Punk Underground, 1979-1986. Her photographs and postcards are in the collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History as well as the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
Brian Donnelly (KAWS) is a Brooklyn-based artist who “enjoys tampering with the all-American icons of comic strips such as Mickey Mouse and the Simpsons.” He is well-known for his “alterations” of urban bus-shelter ads. KAWS has had numerous exhibitions in Tokyo, London and New York, and has recently opened OriginalFake, a collaborative store with Medicom Toy in the Aoyama district of Tokyo.
Shepard Fairey, a graphic designer/illustrator, created the “Obey” campaign which is now seen all over the world. In Fairey’s words, “The Obey campaign can be explained as an experiment in Phenomenology … [it] attempts to stimulate curiosity and bring people to question both the campaign and their relationship with their surroundings.”
For ten years (1992-2002) Aaron Rose was the director of the highly influential Alleged Gallery in New York. The gallery was responsible for breaking the careers of many visual artists who are now considered the leading edge of contemporary art, including Mark Gonzales, Ed Templeton, Chris Johanson, Barry McGee, Margaret Kilgallen, Thomas Campbell and Phil Frost. Rose also worked as a producer for MTV on-air promotions for two years and produced short films for artists and filmmakers such as Mark Gonzales, Rita Ackermann, Harmony Korine, Mike Mills and Spike Jonze. Now based on the West coast, he is the co-founder of Iconoclast Productions, a multi-media production company specializing in collaborations with visual artists that relate to both the art world and popular culture.
The David Schwarz Projects are made possible by the generous support of Jeanne and David Schwarz.
For more information, call 914-251-6750.
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