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Category Archives: Maori King
1law4all > Maori King
Twenty Two Mendacious Modern (part-)Maori Myths
maori, new zealand, racial privilege, racism, Treaty of Waitangi, Waitangi Tribunal Maori, Maori King, Maori Privilege, New Zealand, New Zealand History, Propaganda, Racism, The Maori Party, Treaty of Waitangi 11
A useful reference when challenged on your stance of 1Law4All:
The Maoris are indigenous to NZ.
Wrong. Unlike the Indians in North America and the Aborigines in Australia, who have been on their land for tens of thousands of years, gaggles of Maoris arrived in New Zealand about 1250 A.D. a mere 400 years before Abel Tasman. At Cape Reinga there is a hillock that, according to Maori lore and the accompanying sign, the spirits of dead Maoris leave from on their journey home to Hawaiki, thus showing that even the modern part-Maoris don’t believe that they are indigenous.
The Maoris enjoyed an idyllic life before the arrival of the white man.
Before the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 New Zealand was divided among numerous warring tribes. Since 1820 about one third of their population (43,500) had been killed as a result of tribal warfare and all lived in constant fear of being attacked by a stronger tribe with better weapons. Cannibalism, ritual human sacrifice, slavery, female infanticide, witch-doctory and a lack of any form of law and order were features of their Stone Age existence.
The Maoris did not cede full sovereignty at Waitangi in 1840.
This lie has recently been put out by the Waitangi Tribunal at the behest of part-Maori radicals. By Article One of the Treaty the chiefs ceded full sovereignty of these violent and anarchic islands to Queen Victoria forever as the speeches of Rewa, Te Kemara, Kawiti and other chiefs of the time show. Twenty years later at the Kohimarama (Auckland) conference, the largest gathering of chiefs in New Zealand history, they declared that full sovereignty had been ceded in 1840. If the chiefs did not cede sovereignty, they would have continued their cannibalism, which meant a lot to some of them.
Those tribes, like Tuhoe and Tainui, whose chiefs did not sign the Treaty, are not bound by it.
The obvious answer to this is that Tuhoe, Tainui, etc. should return to the taxpayer all their substantial Treaty settlements. For how do those tribes take a settlement from a Treaty that their tribal forebears did not sign? However, as is so often the case, the obvious is not the truth. By living peacefully under the law for several generations – paying taxes, receiving welfare benefits, fighting in the armed services, etc. – these and other tribes have, by their actions, accepted the sovereignty of the Crown. Whether or not their forebears signed the Treaty is irrelevant. End of story.
The Treaty of Waitangi was a “partnership” between the Crown and Maori.
No. Full sovereignty was ceded to Britain in 1840 as Britain, at the time the greatest empire in the history of the world, did not go in for “partnership” agreements with Stone Age chiefs who had been unable to bring peace and order to their own lands. Indeed, one of the instructions of Colonial Secretary, Lord Normanby, to Captain Hobson, was to walk away if full sovereignty could not be ceded as, without it, Britain would have no legal basis for bringing order and peace to the islands. No special concessions or “partnership” were mentioned in the Treaty for the simple reason that there was no partnership.
This was clearly understood by all parties until the Maori radical movement got off the ground in the 1980s. Realising that by the words of the Treaty they could not get superior rights over other New Zealanders, they invented the “partnership” concept for that very purpose. For reasons of cowardice, treason or self-interest, others, politicians, judges, bureaucrats – have bought into this lie. It is also being taught in our schools in an effort to soften up the next generation for a whole new tranche of tribal demands.
There are principles of the Treaty.
No, the Treaty was a very simple document of only three Articles, none of which mentions “principles” or “partnership.” Since the Treaty gave equality for the first time to all the people of New Zealand, the grievance industry of the late twentieth century knew that they could not get special race based privileges from the Treaty itself and so, 150 years after the event, they invented for the first time the fictions of “principles” and “partnership” to give them what the Treaty does not.
There are two conflicting versions of the Treaty one in English and the other in Maori.
There is only one Treaty and it’s in Maori – (Te Tiriti). It was signed by around 500 chiefs. It was translated from the English draft, known as the Littlewood document. Hobson’s secretary, James Freeman, later made some English replica versions of the Treaty, adding his own phrases here and there. Those were neither drafts of the Treaty nor translations of it. But one of these replica versions in English was signed by some chiefs at Waikato Heads because the genuine manuscript copy intended for signing had not arrived in time for the meeting. By the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 the government has adopted this illegitimate version, signed by a mere 49 chiefs in the abovementioned circumstances, as the “official” English Treaty, displacing Te Tiriti that was signed by nearly 500 chiefs!!!!
The Treaty of Waitangi is a “living document.”
Wrong. The Treaty was merely the pre-condition for establishing British rule, which Governor Hobson did by proclamation later in 1840. By the end of 1840, the Treaty was regarded as having performed its function, viz. acceptance by the chiefs of British sovereignty in exchange for full British citizenship for all Maoris.
It’s only become a “living document” for those who want to expand its meaning so as to give ever more spurious rights to the tribal elite - including people like former Labour Deputy Prime Minister, Michael Cullen, who, since his retirement from Parliament has become the highly paid chief Treaty negotiator for the Tuwharetoa tribe for which, interestingly, if not worse, he used his ministerial position to grant a generous part of the nation’s forests under the Treelords deal a short time earlier.
Colonisation was bad for Maoris.
In one bold stroke the Treaty of Waitangi freed all the chiefs’ slaves (about 10,000 of them). They were then free to take work on things like road building contracts, thus earning money and being able to spend it how they liked.
The Treaty brought an end to tribal warfare and cannibalism, thus giving individual Maoris a right to life that they had not had before. For a society that had not even invented the wheel or writing, colonisation brought all the advanced inventions, comforts and contemporary medicine of the Western world. In 1840 the average life expectancy of a Maori was less than 30 years. In 2012 it was 72.8 years for men and 76.5 years for women.
Maori had to wait 27 years after 1840 before being granted the vote in 1867.
Not so. Maoris had the same representation as all other New Zealanders from the very beginning. The Treaty had given them the full rights of British subjects. In 1853 all men over twenty-one who owned property (with no distinction for race) could vote. At the time about 100 Maoris (mainly leaders) were enrolled to vote and by 1860 some 17% of the electorate were Maoris. The special Maori seats in Parliament were introduced in 1867 when all Maori men over twenty-one (with no property provision) could vote. By contrast, a property qualification still applied to Europeans so that many remained excluded. Those Maoris with freehold land could vote in general seats until 1893. In 1893 all women, including Maori, were granted the vote.
In the 1850s and 1860s Maoris paid most of the country’s taxes.
In the financial year ended June, 1859, for example, the great majority of government income (£150,471 out of £175,310) was from customs revenue. This is manifestly not from Maori as any separate entity.
Confiscation of lands from rebellious tribes during and after the Maori Wars was a breach of the Treaty.
In the words of Sir Apirana Ngata, the first Maori to graduate from a university and probably the greatest thinker that Maoridom has yet produced, “The chiefs placed in the hands of the Queen of England the sovereignty and authority to make laws. Some sections of the Maori people violated that authority. War arose from this and blood was spilled. The law came into operation and land was taken in payment. This itself is a Maori custom revenge, plunder to avenge a wrong. It was their own chiefs who ceded that right to the Queen. The confiscations can not therefore be objected to in the light of the Treaty.”
In 1863, during the Maori War, Governor Grey “invaded” the Waikato.
This misrepresentation has been bandied about for several years, usually by so-called “professional historians” with an axe to grind. The word “invade” suggests a hostile entry by a foreign power e.g. Hitler invading Poland in 1939 and Argentina invading the Falkland Islands in 1981. Since Grey was the Governor of New Zealand, holding legal jurisdiction over the whole country, it was not possible for him to “invade” any part of it. What he did was to lawfully send troops into the Waikato to suppress a rebellion against the sovereign power – something that every state is entitled to do. That is not an “invasion.”
There’s no harm in “co-governance agreements” between Crown and part-Maori.
Wrong. Co-governance agreements are a violation of both democracy and national sovereignty. Co-governance undermines the power of our democracy to make decisions for the general good since unelected tribes have effective veto powers and see things only from their own narrow interests. By his co-governance agreements with Tuhoe and other favoured tribes, Treaty Minister, Christopher Whinlayson, is driving a racist, separatist sword through the nation’s sovereignty and undermining our hard-won democracy.
The Maori name for New Zealand is Aotearoa.
Pre-1840 the Maoris did not have a name for the whole of New Zealand as they had no sense of a Maori nation – they were just separate warring-with-one-another tribes.
In 1643 the country was named New Zealand by the States-General (Parliament) of Holland and this has been its name for 370 years. Aotearoa as a fanciful name for New Zealand invented only in 1890 when S. Percy Smith used it as a make-up name for the whole country in his fictional story of Kupe. Nu Tirani appears in the Treaty of Waitangi. “Aotearoa” does not.
Tuheitia of the Waikato is the Maori king.
Like all other New Zealanders Tuheitia is a subject of Queen Elizabeth II and no monarch can be the subject of another. It is legally impossible. He might be a chief – even a high chief, but a king he is not.
Maoris (“tangata whenua”) have a greater claim to New Zealand than other New Zealanders.
There is no such thing as an ethnic Maori and there may not even be any half-castes as a result of several generations of Maoris cross-breeding with other races. We now have a race of part-Maoris with more European blood in them than Maori. So “tangata whenua” (people of the land) is therefore meaningless. The Treaty specifies 1840 Maori as tangata Maori.
Furthermore, in a modern democracy that is committed to equal rights for all citizens it is both absurd and offensive that any racial group should have superior rights to other New Zealanders. The mere chance of whose canoes or boats arrived first is irrelevant.
Maoris deserve special grants and privileges because they are at the bottom of the socio-economic heap.
Yes, a number of part-Maoris are not doing well; more than for other ethnic groups. But struggling citizens of all races should be helped on the basis of need, not race.
Far too much of the taxpayer-funded Treaty settlement and other race-based payouts from NZ taxpayers have gone into the pockets of the pale-faced tribal elite people like the multi-millionaire Irish New Zealander, Stephen (alias Tipene) O’Regan.
The high imprisonment rate of part-Maoris is the result of the Crown not honouring the Treaty of Waitangi.
No. People are imprisoned for things they have chosen to do. Those who are brought up in a good moral environment are less likely to commit crimes.
Most New Zealanders see nothing wrong with Maori privileges; it is only a few fuddy-duddies who object.
Wrong. Some poll results:
* 79% No to special Maori seats in parliament (Submitters to the Constitutional Advisory Panel)
* 82% No to compulsory Maori language in schools (yahoo Xtra poll)
* 96% of non-Maori students of Year 9 and above do NOT learn Maori despite it being an available option in many schools (NZ Herald, 23 July, 2014)
* 85% No to special Maori housing (Bay of Plenty Times, 20 April, 2013)
81% No to “Maori are special” (Close Up poll, July, 2011)
* 81% No to Maori names for North Island and South Island (Stuff poll, 2/4/13)
* 82% No to “h” in Wanganui (Referendum conducted by Wanganui District Council, 2006)
* 79% No to a special Maori voice on the committees of Rotorua Council (Rotorua Daily Post, 9/5/14)
* 82% No to special Maori wards on New Plymouth Council (Taranaki Daily News, 15/5/15)
* 79% No to Maori wards, Waikato District Council, April, 2012
* 80% No to Maori wards, Hauraki District Council, May 2013
* 79% No to Maori wards, Nelson District Council, May, 2012
* 52% No to Maori wards, Wairoa District Council, March, 2012
* 68% No to Maori wards, Far North District Council, March, 2015
* 70% want Maori wards in local government abolished (Consumerlink, Colmar Brunton poll, March, 2012)
* 68% want the Waitangi Tribunal abolished
In the 1800s Maoris “lost” most of their lands.
Apart from the relatively small percentage of land confiscated as a punishment for rebellion in the 1860s (See Myth No. 12) Maoris did not “lose” their lands; they sold them for valuable consideration at a mutually agreed price. Whether they spent the proceeds wisely or not was their own choice. There is a world of difference between “losing” something and selling it.
Those who oppose special rights and privileges for part-Maoris are “racists”.
This is a contradiction in terms and is propagated by people who are either mischievous or just plain dumb. Special rights/privileges for one race are a violation of the democratic principle that we should all be treated equally. To demand equality is not being “racist.” The real racists are those of the radical tribal elite who are trying to subvert our democracy with their endless racist demands.
These false claims by the tribal elite, aided and abetted by certain academics, judges and politicians acting for their own dubious motives, are trying to overturn a way of life in which we are all New Zealanders, equal before the law and with equal representation in government.
A purpose of 1Law4All is to reinforce the values that have made New Zealand what it is and for which our servicemen have died on the battlefield, and to expose the lies and racism which – in the twenty-first century – are tearing our nation apart. The continuing transfer of what were once public assets like forests and the foreshore and seabed and even state houses – to small, private tribal groups and the racist institutionalisation of a privileged status for those who happen to have been born part-Maori amount to the most radical change in our recent history and the most disastrous in its long term effects.
Citizens have a responsibility to be informed and, if sufficiently concerned, to cease voting from ancient habit rather than clear thought and an intelligent assessment of what is going on. Both National and Labour have been responsible for creating the mess that we are in and they are hardly the types to get us out of it.
Click the ‘download’ button below to save a copy of these myths for your use and reference. Perhaps print a copy to have on hand, too? (Four A4 pages)
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MFI Profile
For March 31, 2019
Monthly Financial Statements
Myanmar Key Economic Indicators
Chairman's Report
Managing Director & CEO's Report
Environmental and Social Sustainability Report
ACLEDA MFI Songs
Public Holidays in Myanmar
» Financial Information » Chairman's Report
Dr. IN Channy, Chairman
Myanmar's Economy
Myanmar is on track to post high economic growth in Fiscal Year 2017 (ending March 31, 2018). With the return of normal weather during the year, agriculture is recovering from flooding the previous year. Crop production is benefiting as well from higher demand and strong international prices for agricultural commodities. Industrial growth continues to accelerate with higher investment, both public and private, in garments and other light manufacturing, while services are getting a boost from buoyant tourism and expansion in the nascent telecommunications industry.
On the demand side, investment remains strong on higher inflows of external development assistance for infrastructure and buoyant private capital investment. Strong growth and rising incomes support private consumption. Foreign trade continues to grow at a brisk pace. In the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2017, the US dollar value of merchandise exports grew by 17%, and merchandise imports accelerated even faster, by 22%.
Although annual inflation halved to 3.9% in the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2017 from 7.6% in the fourth quarter of Fiscal Year 2016, inflation for the year as a whole is still forecast at a higher rate because the first quarter decline came largely from a onetime drop in food prices. Slightly higher inflation is still forecast for Fiscal Year 2018. Continued demand pressure from strong growth and rising incomes will keep inflation elevated.
In the budget for Fiscal Year 2017, the government pursued a prudent fiscal policy. In response to a declining ratio of revenue to GDP, it recently passed a new tax law with significant changes to commodity and commercial tax rates. In tandem with prudent management of public expenditures, such revenue reform should help the government contain the fiscal deficit for Fiscal Year 2017 within the budget target, equal to 4.4% of GDP. The government plans to pass an investment law to attract more foreign direct investment and a new company law to allow foreign investors to operate in the stock market. While these initiatives could help achieve steady growth in the near term, inclusive and sustainable development require national peace and stability. An international risk to this outlook is possible volatility in financial markets [1].
Key Players in the Financial Sector in Myanmar
There are four State Owned Banks, 29 Private Banks, 13 Foreign Bank Branches, and 48 Representative Bank Offices, as well as 176 Licensed Microfinance Institutions which includes five INGOs, 22 NGOs, 39 Foreign Companies, three Partnership Firms, and 107 Local Companies. ACLEDA MFI Myanmar Co. Ltd. (AMM) with its operational network in three branch offices and five sub-branches is amongst the 176 Licensed MFIs.
ACLEDA MFI Myanmar Co., Ltd.'s Governance
The Board met face-to-face four times in June, September and December of 2017 and in March of 2018. Eleven resolutions were approved by e-mail during the course of 2017/18. Each meeting normally lasts one whole day.
During 2017/18 there were a number of changes to the governance of the Group. Mr. Sebastien Nahon has been appointed as a Director, and I whole-heartedly welcome him to the Board. In addition, the Board of Directors have approved the appointment of Mr. Min Aung as Company Secretary and approved the resignation of Mr. Vincent Gros as the Representative of our shareholder COFIBRED S.A.
ACLEDA MFI Myanmar Co., Ltd.'s Achievement in year 2017/18
From a performance perspective, we are pleased to report that ACLEDA MFI Myanmar Co., Ltd. has achieved a strong performance. Profit before income tax for the year-end 2017/18 was US$3,024,233; Loans outstanding were US$24,735,217 with 68,564 active borrowers and balance on savings amounted to US$2,360,317 with 98,374 savings accounts. In 2017/18 the net profit after tax was US$2,240,037. Our Head Office in Yangon and all our branches are using in-house Information Technology Systems developed by our parent company, ACLEDA.
In closing, on behalf of the Board of Directors, I would like to express our sincere appreciation to our Shareholders for their confidence, support and encouragement for our on-going activities; and to our management and staff for their efforts that have contributed to more than four years of growth. The Board remains committed to building ACLEDA MFI Myanmar Co., Ltd. as a leading MFI in the Republic of the Union of Myanmar.
Finally, I would like to express my appreciation to all Myanmar authorities, the general public, and all of our customers for their continued support and confidence in ACLEDA MFI Myanmar Co., Ltd.
Dr. IN Channy
Chairman of the Board of Directors
[1]. Page 199-200 of Asian Development Outlook 2017 (https://www.adb.org/sites/default/fi les/publication/365701/ado2017-update.pdf)
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The Birth and Government
BEFORE THE U.S. CONSTITUTION
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, also known as the Articles of Confederation, was the first official governing document of the newly created Unites States of America. After the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 by the Continental Congress, the brand new nation needed a document that bound the thirteen colonies into a union. On November 15, 1777 the Second Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation that combined the thirteen colonies into a loose confederation. The articles were ratified by the colonies and took effect March 1, 1781. The Second Continental Congress at that time evolved a new a name for itself to go with the new constitution: Congress of the Confederation.
The Articles of Confederation would fail to provide for decisive leadership and did not create the position of a chief executive or president of the country. Instead, the articles created a position for a person to serve as the presiding officer of Congress under the Articles of Confederation. This post was called President of the United States in Congress Assembled. By failing to provide for a strong national chief executive the Articles of Confederation fell out of favor with members of Congress and the people.
Eventually, the Articles of Confederation would be replaced by the United States Constitution on June 21, 1788, when the ninth state, New Hampshire, ratified the Constitution.
United States of America - Official Name
Though brief in its existence, the Articles did leave its mark. The document contained thirteen articles, a conclusion, and signatures. The first article established the name of the confederation as “The United States of America”. The second article explained the rights possessed by any state and the power to which the state is entitled. Other articles dealt with freedom of movement, state representation in the Congress of the Confederation (each state had one vote), and limited the power of states to conduct foreign relations independent of Congress and limited the right of a state to declare war. It also provided that the Congress have a unicameral legislature (one chamber).
The Articles of Confederation also outlined the right of the central government to declare war, set weights and measures including coins, and to be the final arbiter of arguments between states.
Another weakness of the Articles of Confederation was its failure to empower congress to compel states to provide its share of revenue or troops for war for independence from Great Britain, the American Revolution, that was still raging. The inefficiency of weak central government led to Gen. George Washington’s frustration as he often lacked needed funds and troops to fight the war. The Articles endorsed Congressional control of the Continental Army and allowed for the show of colonial unity but lacked the teeth to enforce its own laws.
A decisive blow to the life of the Articles of Confederation lay in its failure to provide for a national means of collecting taxes from the various states. Without a consistent flow of income from all the states the central government was ineffective.
Finally, after several failed attempts to address the issue of the weaknesses of the Articles, leaders from several states first met at the Annapolis Convention of 1786 and then in Philadelphia to debate improvements to the federal government. On February 21, 1787 Congress endorsed the plan by state leaders to revise the Articles of Confederation.
The endorsement for changes by Congress led to the Constitutional Convention. Secretly, and at great risk to their freedom, instead of simply revising the Articles, delegates from the various states created a plan to completely replace the Articles with a new governing document that would come to be the United States Constitution, the same Constitution in effect today. The Constitutional Convention, as the assembly came to be known, endorsed the new Constitution on September 17, 1787.
On September 28, 1787 Congress sends the newly written Constitution to the states for ratification. The document states it will become effective upon ratification by the ninth state. This happened on June 21, 1788 when New Hampshire ratified it. Rhode Island became the thirteenth and last state to ratify it on May 29, 1790.
On July 2, 1788 the ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America was officially announced by Congress. On November 1, 1788 the last Congress under the Articles of Confederation adjournsed.
On March 4, 1789 the new government created by the U.S. Constitution came into existence when the U.S. Congress met for the first time.
NEXT PAGE - Constitutional Convention
Return to - TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Bert's Blog
The Web Presence Scale
I think a lot about how organizations exist on the internet. I’m not thinking so much about web companies, but rather the organizations that exist regardless of the internet or computers. These groups and businesses almost always exist in some form on the internet, and are often concerned with having either “more” presence or a “better” presence on the internet. I think we have an understanding of the quality of a presence, but I’ve been thinking that I don’t really have a good way of expressing quantity of web presence. I think, as a starting point, the quantity scale can be divided into certain layers.
Level 0: Non-Existant
The group may be real, but the internet is unaware. This can be fairly hard to achieve for organizations tied to physical locations, but for those that are more transient, is more easily possible.
Level 1: Existant
The group has been noticed by Google, foursquare, Yelp, etc. It doesn’t really matter how the information got out there, but now it’s out and in use. Users are able to find out information about the organization, though the org doesn’t necessarily control it.
Level 2: Intentional
The group has created their own space on the internet. This can take many forms, like a web page, a facebook page, or anything else that lets them collect information and organize it. It also provides them something to point other people and services to. The key distinction here is that they are now in control of their own data.
Level 3: Integrated
This is probably the vaguest stage, but that’s because it’s different for every organization. At this point, some level of core operation has moved to the web. Whether it’s sales, customer support / interaction, marketing, or something else.
Obviously, this doesn’t apply to internet based organizations, or people, who generally exist in different ways. It’s interesting to note that individuals tend to move through the levels in the order of something like 0, 3, 2, 1. Starting off with interactive accounts, then creating some place to organize their digital existance before it gets picked up by other services.
This also, isn’t a checklist or plan for anyone. One level isn’t necessarily better than another. Many organizations exist well at Level 1, and shouldn’t move to Level 2, as doing that poorly can be quite damaging. Also, my local pizza place doesn’t need a website.
I think it means something to transition between these levels. Forcing yourself into Level 1 from non-existance is a big step, as is declaring your own space on the internet, or integrating your business with it. I think it’s important at each step to figure out what this means for the organization. What statement are they making by progressing?
I also wonder what we can do as an industry to not require organizations to have to push to higher levels. If every organization could get by as Level 1, without having to build a custom website, without having to build custom integration, wouldn’t that be better? Does going to a higher level mean that there’s some service that they are missing at the lower ones? If we can figure that out and provide it, wouldn’t that make their lives easier?
Lessons From the Postal Service
Nov 22nd, 2011
With the Post Office having financial troubles, they’re closing many locations. What this means for Hoboken is that we’re losing 3 out of 4 of ours.
What’s interesting about the closing of these offices is the process. Roughly, the process involves surveying the public, having a public hearing, and then a decision is made, and then there’s a waiting period before the office closes.
Having gotten 3 of these surveys, with identical explanitory letters attached, I’ve had time to ponder the inefficiencies of it. Hoboken has 4 post offices for 1.3 square miles. It’s clearly unnecessary. Several people I’ve talked to didn’t even know there was more than one, and these are people who’ve lived less than a block from one of the closing ones.
Reading the letter and survey, it’s clearly not designed for this sort of situation. It’s asking things like how often I visit, what I buy there, and what I use the office for, all of which could be answered by tracking at the office. It also asks if I’m able to make it to my next nearest post office should they close this one. My next nearest being half a mile away (closer than most of the ones being closed). After all this, it explains the process, how long it would be until the decision, and then that there’d be another 2 months or more until the actual closing.
This is all so wasteful. I realize there are good reasons for it, and that the surveys serve a good purpose especially in more rural areas, but there must be some allowance for flexability and reason.
My apologies to those who are truly inconvienienced by the closings because we in Hoboken are so wasteful as to have 4.
What’s the Point of HTML?
I’m a big fan of code separation and the MVC pattern. As we slowly move towards a world where everything is a web app, I think forcing the model of MVC on most frameworks has been the greatest move towards clean code that we’ll see for a while.
But lets look at the View portion of MVC. What is the View for a web app? Most people would say it’s the html file that gets sent back to the browser. This is close to the truth, but clearly breaks down once you start considering javascript. A View shouldn’t be self modifying, able to handle events, etc.
The truth is that web apps don’t run on servers, they run in the browser. The cases are few and far between of useful web apps that don’t require javascript. Once you consider javascript, our MVC paradigm breaks.
The truth is, in the browser, we have our own MVC. In an ideal world, the Model is HTML, the View is CSS, and the Controller is Javascript. In practice, HTML is so ingrained into browser rendering, that it’s impossible to separate from the View. As a Model, HTML documents are rather lacking. No one wants to store anything that’s not being rendered in the HTML structure, as it’s not easy to work with.
Perhaps it’s time to give up on HTML being a source of clean data, and to accept it’s role as part of the view. How then do we achieve proper code separation in our web pages? How do we enable the semantic web when our fundamental form of document is rendering information and not data? The answer is to pull your data from an API. Look at Twitter; Loading up their webpage gives an HTML page with no data. Javascript on the page consumes an API, and passes it into HTML for rendering. If you’re interested in a clean form of the data itself (the Model from which the page is built), you can grab it from the API(In my case: http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.json?include_entities=1&include_available_features=1&contributor_details=true&pc=false&include_rts=true&user_id=243506131).
Looking at HTML this way allows us to not feel guilty about non-semantic divs, and not knowing the right microformat for calendar events.
What we do need to make sure of is that our new html pages don’t lock up data, that there is an API for everything, and that it is publically accessible. After all, people only are scraping your HTML for information if it’s not available in a better form.
In Defense of the Back Button
Nov 1st, 2011
Christoffer Du Rietz recently took a jab at the Android hardware buttons. Much has been said on the topic, and I won’t try to contribute more on the subject of Android vs. iOS or whether or not hardware buttons are a good idea. Let’s just leave it at that I’m a nexus one user who likes his phone and I’m excited at what I’ve seen of Ice Cream Sandwich so far.
What I do want to address is a comment he made regarding the back button that “The problem is, that Android hasn’t decided what that it wants the back button to do.” . That statement seems ridiculous to me. I’ll try to explain my reasoning, but first we need to go down a little tangent.
Information Architecture is hard. This is not news to anyone who’s been responsible for laying out the content and navigation of a sizable website, or dealt with making sane and simple user workflows, or even struggled with finding the best outline for a paper they were writing.
Life used to be simpler. You struggled with your mass of information for a while, picked your favorite organizational structure and went with it, for better or worse. This is how we got the Dewey Decimal system, the standard layout for clothing stores (divided men’s / women’s / children, again in each of those sections by style of clothing, and so on). Of course, everything can only be in one place though, so your book that’s a mix of Computer Science and Literature? Someone’s going to have make a choice as to which section of the library it will be in.
Computers solved that problem, right? Now ebooks can exist in both classifications, since they’re digital. Being able to link around the web means we don’t have to follow anyone else’s established hierarchy. I mean, books still have to be on a certain shelf and a shirt on a particular rack, but we can search and shop unlike and find what we’re looking for.
Unfortunately, this is only partly true. We still have two forms of going through content as humans, searching and browsing. Linking and searching work for the searching behavior, but for browsing we still need to have a hierarchy and feel like we know where we are (even when “where we are” exists only as bits on the screen). You’ll notice all the clothing store websites haven’t abandoned their hierarchies. People still like to be able to go “up” from what they’re looking at to all Men’s clothing, or “down” to a particular shirt, or “over” to look at pants instead. What has changed though, is that we now have somethings that can function without hierarchy at all.
Twitter has no strict information hierarchy. It’s not unique in this, but it’s who I’m going to pick on right now. If we were to assign Twitter a hierarchy, it would probably be a very flat and wide one where the user would pick one of a million users, and they would have their tweets and their profile. Not great usability. Twitter works because they can break this model, throw it out the window, and have navigation based on aggregation of a hundred different things. This means there is no “up” or “down” in Twitter. There’s only “back” (and then sometimes “forward”), which are new directions based on the user’s flow instead of the information architecture.
This is what your browser does to allow you some affordance of navigation through the web. Each site (usually) has their hierarchy, but once you break that, it’s back to the browser back button.
So now let’s get back to the point.
Android, tasked with building an OS for a smartphone, has to figure out navigation among many other issues. Apps are much worse than websites when it comes to navigation. Between the myriad of chat programs, things like dropbox, tuners, and other utilities, and other programs on my phone, I’d be hard pressed to figure out a sane hierarchical navigation for half of them. To add to this, Android has a wonderful way to call into different parts of applications using intents, which act as the equivalent of linking to different webpages online.
So, we’re in a model where there’s no guaranteed hierarchy within apps, and a user is able and probable to wander through applications anyway. This means we have to throw out the browsing model (at least from an os perspective, inside apps it may still work) and stick with our navigational concession, the back button.
If understood this way, the back button is entirely consistent. Even in cases where hierarchical navigation still makes sense, I think you’ll find that most of them are similar to something like a mail program. Click one email to view, and then people tend to choose “back” over “up”. How often do you hit the inbox link in gmail?
At this point I feel compelled to call out Facebook on their recent app design, which is the only one I know that willfully breaks this model. Android allows you to override the back button behavior, but recommends against it for consistency reasons (and, hey, why write the code when the os gives it for free?). Facebook launches a user into the newsfeed when they open the app, and hitting the back button takes them to some sort of menu. Back again behaves as expected. I’m not sure what the thought process was here towards breaking the expecation. Unfortunately, there’s discussions as to how to treat the back button in ajax applications as there’s no browser reload between actions for them, so I imagine as that we’ll see more abuses of this type as the tools evolve to change browser behavior.
Thanks to @okayrene for helping me refine this.
Making a Useful Business
I saw a post on Hacker News recently about a recent batch of graduates from TechStars. There was a comment there lamenting the lack of businesses attacking new problems. Unfortunately, I can’t find the post or comment now, unfortunately, but it’s a thought I’ve heard and shared before, and it’s not unique to any program or group of people.
A lot is said in the startup world about “scratching your own itch”. That is, find a problem that affects you so you’ll be inspired to solve it. A lot of great ideas and businesses have come out of this, but it’s almost come to a point where people don’t know what to solve because a lot of the problems in the life of a typical startup founder have been solved.
A comparison to our lives 10 years ago shows that. We now have much better internet access, more blogging, email sending, hosting, and social media solutions than you can shake a fist at. We even have smartphones so we never need to be without a computer. I’m not arguing that there aren’t improvements to be made in these fields, but rather that a lot of them have been attacked and are 85% solved. Yes, you may be able to do better and make it 90%, but it’s going to be a hard sell.
When I expand my itch scratching to family and friends, I find problems that are screaming for good teams of people to provide any help at all. If you look at any small (or even large) business, you’ll find tons of processes that are annoyingly manual, time consuming, and generally wasteful.
When we started Mom n Pops, we were scratching our own itch. We found it hard to find things in our neighborhood. What we found was that not only was the consumer side lacking, but that there were no tools on the store side either. Store owners keeping track of things on post-it notes, distributors going store to store taking inventory by hand on paper, and what tools exist are expensive and bad. Theres definitely work to be done here.
My new rule of thumb when I hear ideas is “Who’s life is significantly better because of this?” and, if I’m uninspired with ideas for what I should do, I talk to other people about their jobs. They always know something that can be fixed.
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Event Resume
ABRSC
Asheville Spartan Race puts 77-year-old runner closer to his lofty goal
BLACK MOUNTAIN - Thousands of runners will breathe a sigh of relief when they cross the finish line of the Asheville Super, one of two Spartan Races returning for the fourth year to the quarry at Grove Stone & Sand on Aug. 4 and 5. Paul Lachance will take a few breaths, head to his hotel and get ready to do it all again the next day.
That’s because the 77-year-old cancer survivor will be back on the course the next day to run the Asheville Sprint, putting him one race closer to his goal of completing 15 Spartan Races in 2018.
Just four years ago competing in even a single Spartan Race would’ve seemed impossible for the Grand Junction, Colorado resident, who will travel to Western North Carolina for the first time to participate in the Asheville Super and Sprint Weekend, which takes place in Black Mountain, just outside the city from which it borrows its name.
“It started in 2014, after my heart attack, when I was looking on the internet for exercises and things of that nature,” Lachance said in a phone interview a few days before the race. “I came across a Spartan Race video and said to myself ‘I can do that.’”
He signed up for the shortest of the Spartan Races. The Sprint is over three miles and consists of over 20 obstacles, including flaming logs and towering walls.
“Sometimes they have a bucket-carry,” Lachance said. “What they like to do is find these hills, and you have a five gallon bucket filled with rocks, and you have to carry that bucket up the hill like 100 yards or so. It gets heavy.”
For obstacles that runners can’t complete there’s a penalty of burpees, or squat thrust, that must be performed within a designated area before returning to the course.
Lachance was quickly hooked on the races and began staying in shape to run more. In 2016 he completed what the Spartan website (spartan.com) calls the “ultimate Spartan achievement.” A Trifecta requires runners to complete three Spartan races of different distances within a calendar year, a feat Lachance accomplished three time in 2016 and four last year.
"My goal is to add one Trifecta a year until I reach the age of 80," he said. "That will be eight Trifectas at 80."
But much like a Spartan Race, life placed an obstacle directly in Lachance's path at the end of last year.
"I was diagnosed with a lump in my jaw last December," he said. "It came back positive for skin cancer and I had surgery to remove it after Christmas."
Not only did the radiation and chemotherapy treatment, which Lachance started undergoing in January, cause him to lose around 50 pounds, it also kept him from running Spartan Races.
"I kept bugging the oncologist about letting me run," he said. "But he wouldn't let me."
While the treatment took its toll on Lachance physically, he gained strength in other ways,
"I know I'm a little slower this year than in past years," he said. "But mentally I think I'm stronger than I've ever been. I'm more resolved now to get these five Trifectas done this year."
Doing so will be no easy task.
Lachance completed a Super (eight-10 miles with 24-29 obstacles) and Sprint in Jacksonville, Florida in April and followed those up with another Super and Sprint weekend at Fort Carson in Colorado. He picked up another Super in Austin, Texas in May before a thunderstorm forced the cancellation of the subsequent Sprint.
The races at Grove Stone & Sand will get him almost halfway to his goal.
"My body will let me finish strong," he said. "I'm in the best shape of my life right now. I've been training with a Spartan coach the last few weeks and I can feel my body mending itself."
In fact, Lachance has seen a significant reduction in the amount of medication he needs in the wake of his quadruple bypass surgery following his heart attack.
"Doing these races has given me a whole new outlook on life," he said. "In a lot of ways I feel like I'm a better person than I was before."
His experience makes Lachance want to encourage others to try one of the races.
"I had a guy tell me 'I need to do one of those one day,'" Lachance said. "I told him he only needed two feet to get out there and try."
It's not about your time, Lachance added, it's about the sense of accomplishment.
"I'm a very slow runner, but at least I'm out there," he said. "At the end of the race I get the same medal and banana that everyone else gets, but there's no better feeling than crossing that fire line at the end."
Fred McCormick, Black Mountain News
Newer PostBreakdown of the World Equestrian Games events
Older PostBeyond the Scoreboard: Tourists become 'Asheville Hippies' for Thirsty Thursday
Asheville Buncombe Regional Sports Commission, 27 College Place, Asheville, NC, 28801, United States(828)-398-0295
27 College Place, Suite 200
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Faculty of ForestryAdaptation of Asia-Pacific Forests to Climate Change
Climate models
Ecological models
Pilot site experiments
John Innes
Guangyu Wang
Tongli Wang
Haijun Kang
Futao Guo
Lin Cao
Yuhao Lu
Qinglin Li
Craig Nitschke
Xiaoming Chen
Nicholas Coops
Judi Krzyzanowski
Liguo Wang
Ma Xiangqing
Yongyuan Yin
Fuliang Cao
Inception meeting
Training workshop in Kunming
World Forestry Congress
Asia-Pacific Forestry Week
IUFRO Regional Congress for Asia and Oceania
Siti Nurhidayu Abu Bakar "Ayu"
Huan-Yu Lin
Tze-Ying Chen
Thein Saung
Professor and Dean, B.A. (1979), M.A. (1983), Ph.D. (1983) University of Cambridge
Faculty of Forestry, Department of Forest Resources Management,
Office of the Dean, #2045 – 2424 Main Mall
Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6T 1Z4
Phone: 1-604–822–3542
Email: john.innes@ubc.ca
The graduate students that make up the Sustainable Forest Management Laboratory, which I lead, are interested in all aspects of sustainable forest management, but particularly the application of the principles of sustainable forest management to real world situations. We have been looking at how internationally agreed criteria and indicators of sustainable forest management can be improved and what this means for forestry practices on the ground. Our research group has developed some novel web-based approaches to enable these indicators to be continuously improved: see http://www.sfmindicators.org.
The design of suitable monitoring systems is an important part of forest management: a manager must be able to see whether a particular change in management is having the desired effect on the ground. To do this, an appropriate system of indicators and measurements is required. There is also a need to better understand what constitutes a “success”, since different people have different ideas about this. As a result, we are looking at the success of co-management agreements for both forests and national parks.
We are working with a number of indigenous peoples looking at how they are implementing sustainable forest management. Our work in the Yukon involves an examination of how the impacts of climate change are affecting forest-dependent communities and how those communities are adapting to their changing environment. This ties in with our work in northeast British Columbia, where we have been looking at the cumulative impacts of development on aboriginal communities. Elsewhere in British Columbia, we are looking at what influences the capacity of First Nations to implement sustainable forestry and at some of the barriers influencing this.
I am closely involved with a number of international projects in China and elsewhere. Having worked in Britain and Switzerland in the past, I am interested in how management practices are changing in different countries in response to international issues such as the conservation of biodiversity and climate change. As a past member of the Sustainable Forestry Board, I am particularly interested in certification and how it is promoting sustainable forest management.
Current Research:
Application of sustainable forest management to the Min River Watershed, China
Development of a national forest certification standard for China
Factors influencing the capacity of aboriginal groups to practice sustainable forest management
Effectiveness of co-management agreements for national parks and community forests
Adaptation of northern communities in the Yukon Territory to climate change
Impacts of climate change on forest ecosystems in the Yukon Territory, Canada
Socio-economic indicators of sustainable forest management
IUFRO Scientific Achievement Award (1995), BC Premier’s Award – Innovation (2005/2006 finalist), Nobel Peace Prize (as a contributor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) (2007), International Forestry Achievement Award, Canadian Institute of Forestry (2015)
FRST 439 International Forestry
Guo, F., Wang, G., Ma, Z., Innes, J.L., and Ma, X. (2015). Comparison of six generalized linear models for modeling the occurrence of lightning-induced fires in Northern Daxing’an Mountains, China. Journal of Forestry Research, in press.
Guo, F., Innes, J.L., Wang, G., Ma, X., Sun, L., Hu, H. and Su, Z. (2015). Historic distribution and driving factors of human-caused fires in the Chinese boreal forest between 1972 and 2005. Journal of Plant Ecology, in press.
Lim, S.S., Innes, J.L. and Meitner, M. (2015). Public awareness of aesthetic and other forest values associated with sustainable forest management: A cross-cultural comparison among the public in four countries. Journal of Environmental Management 150, 243-249.
Lim, S.S., Innes, J.L. and Meitner, M. (2015). Awareness of aesthetic and forest values: a comparison between the general public and forestry experts. Society and Natural Resources, in press.
Paudel, S., Simard, S., Nitschke, C., and Innes, J.L. (2015). Climate variation and disturbance regime affect stand composition and structure of the boreal forests in Southwest Yukon of Canada. Open Journal of Forestry 5, 337-352.
Liu, J. and Innes, J.L. (2015). Participatory forest management in China: Key challenges and ways forward. International Forestry Review 17(2)
Paudel, S., Nitschke, C. and Innes, J.L. (2015). Assessing natural regeneration of white spruce, trembling aspen and balsam poplar in response to bio-geoclimatic and disturbance factors in Southwest Yukon of Canada. Journal of Forestry
Che, M., Chen, B., Innes, J.L., Wang, G. D, Dou, X., Zhou, T., Zhang, H., Yan, J., Xu, G., Zhao, H. (2014). Spatial and temporal variations in the end dates of the vegetation growing season throughout the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau from 1982 to 2011. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 189, 81-90
Chen, B., Xu, G., Coops, N.C., Ciais, P., Innes, J.L., Wang, G., Myneni, R.B., Wang, T., Krzyzanowski, J., Li, Q., Cao, L (2014). Changes in vegetation photosynthesis activity trends across the Asia-Pacific region over the last three decades Remote Sensing of Environment, 144, 28-41
Cao, L., Coops, N.C., Innes, J.L., Dai, J. and She, G. (2014). Mapping Above- and Below-Ground Biomass Components in Subtropical Forests Using Small-Footprint LiDAR Forests 5, 1356-1373; doi:10.3390/f5061356.
Cao, L., Coops, N.C., Hermosilla, T., Innes, J.L., Dai, J. and She, G. (2014). Using Small-Footprint Discreet and Full-Waveform Airborne LiDAR Metrics to EstimateTotal Biomass and Biomass Components in Subtropical Forests Remote Sensing 6(8), 7110-7135; doi:10.3390/rs6087110
Chandran, A. and Innes, J.L. (2014). The state of the forest: reporting and communicating the state of forests by Montreal Process countries. International Forestry Review, 16(1), 103-111.
Guo, F., Wang, G., Innes, J.L., Ma, K., Sun, L., and Hu, H. (2014). Gamma generalized linear model to investigate the effects of climate variables on the area burned by forest fire in northeast China Journal of Forestry Research, in press
Xu, G., Zhang, H., Chen, B., Zhang, H., Innes, J.L., Wang, G., Yan, J., Zheng, Y., Myneni, R.B. (2014). Changes in Vegetation Growth Dynamics and Relations with Climate over China’s Landmass from 1982 to 2011 Remote Sensing 6(4), 3263-3283, doi:10.3390/rs6043263
Cao, L., Coops, N.C., Hermosilla, T., Innes, J.L., Dai, J., Sha, G. (2014). Using Small-Footprint Discrete and Full-Waveform Airborne LiDAR Metrics to Estimate Total Biomass and Biomass Components in Subtropical Forests Remote Sensing 2014, 6(8), 7110-7135, doi: 10.3390/rs6087110
Liu, S., Innes, J.L., Wei, X. (2013). Shaping forest management to climate change Forest Ecology and Management 300, 1-3.
Chen, J., Chen, B., Black, T.A, Innes, J.L, Wang, G., Kiely, G., Hirano, T., Wohlfahrt, G. (2013). Comparison of terrestrial evapotranspiration estimates using the mass transfer and Penman-Monteith equations in land surface models Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences 118:1-17, doi:10.1002/2013JG002446, 2013
Chen, J., Innes, J.L. (2013). The implications of new forest tenure reforms and forestry property markets for sustainable forest management and forest certification in China Elsevier Journal of Environmental Management 129 (2013): 206-215
Yan, J., Chen, B., Feng, M., Innes, J.L., Wang, G., Fang, S., Xu, G., Zhang, H., Fu., D., Wang, H., Yu, G., Xun, X. (2013). Research on Land Surface Thermal-Hydrologic Exchange in Southern China under Future Climateand Land Cover Scenarios Hindawi Publishing Corporation Advances in Meteorology 2013. 12 pp. http://dx.doi.org/10.155/2013/969145
Nitschke, C.R., Innes, J.L. (2013). Potential effect of climate change on observed fire regimes in the Cordilleran forests of South-Cnetral Interior, British Columbia Climate change, 116, 479-591
Waeber, P.O., Nitschke, C.R., Le Ferrec, A., Harshaw, H., Innes, J.L. (2013). Evaluating alternative forest management strategies for the Champagne and Aishihik Traditional Territory, southwest Yukon Elsevier Journal of Environmental Management 120 (2013): 148-156
Liu, S., Innes, J.L., Wei, X. (2013). Shaping forest mangement to climate change. (Editorial) Elsevier Forest Ecology and Management 300 (2013) 1-3
Innes, JL (2013). What will we use the forests for? Journal of Tropical Forest Science 25 (2), 151-153.
Hajjar, R., Kozak, R.A., El-Lakany, H., Innes, J.L. (2013). Community Forests for Forest Communities: Integrating Community-Defined Goals and Practices in the Design of Forestry Initiatives. Land Use Policy 34(2013):158-167.
Chavardes, R.D., Daniels, L.D., Waeber, P.O., Innes, J.L., Nitschke, C.R. (2013). Unstable climate-growth relations for white spruce in southwest Yukon, Canada Climatic Change 116: 593-611.
Wang, G., Innes, J.L., Zhang, X., Wang, J. (2013). Public awareness and perceptions of watershed management in the Min River area, Fujian, China Society and Natural Resources, DOI:10.1080/089412920.2012.718411
Wang, G., Innes, J.L., Wu, S.W., Krzyzanowski, J., Yin, Y., Dai, S., Zhang, X., Liu, S. (2012). National Park Development in China: Conservation or Commercialization? Ambio 2012, 41:247-261
Wang, G.Y., Innes, J.L., Yang, Y., Chen, S., Krzyzanowski, J., Xie, J., Lin, W. (2012). Extent of soil erosion and surface runoff associated with large-scale infrastructure development in Fujian Province, China Catena, 89(1), 22-30.
Chavardès, R.D., Daniels, L.D., Waeber, P.O., Innes, J.L., Nitschke, C.R. (2012). Did the 1976-77 switch in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation make white spruce in the southwest Yukon more susceptible to spruce bark beetle? The Forestry Chronicle 88: 513-518
Hajjar, R., Kozak, R.A., Innes, J.L. (2012). Is Decentralization Leading to “Real” Decision-Making Power for Forest-Dependent Communities? Case Studies from Mexico and Brazil. Ecology and Society 17(1):12.
Tikina, A., Kozak, R.A., Innes, J.L., Duinker, P., Larson, B. (2012). Forest Certification in Canada: Perceptions of Provincial and Territorial Government Employees. The Forestry Chronicle 88(1):40-48.
Strimbu, B.M., Innes, J.L. (2012). Framework for assessing the impact of human activities on the environment: the impact of forest harvesting and retroleum drilling on habitat of moose (Alces alces) and martin (Martens americana) -Biodiversity and Conservation, (2012)21:933-955 DOI 10.1007/s10531-012-0228-z
Chen, J., Innes, J.L., Kozak, R.A. (2011). An Exploratory Assessment of the Attitudes of Chinese Wood Products Manufacturers towards Forest Certification. Journal of Environmental Management 92(11):2984-2992.
Klenk N., B. Adams, G.Q. Bull, J. Innes, S. Cohen and B. Larson. (2011). Climate change adaptation and sustainable forest management: a proposed reflexive research agenda. Forestry Chronicle. 87(3):351-357.
Strimbu, B. and Innes, J.L. (2011). An analytical platform for cumulative impact assessment in northeastern British Columbia Journal of Environmental Management, in press.
Chen, J., A. Tikina, A, R.A. Kozak, J.L. Innes and B. Larson (2011). The Efficacy of Forest Certification: Perceptions of Canadian Forest Products Retailers. The Forestry Chronicle 87(5):636-643.
Hajjar, R., McGrath, D.G., Kozak, R.A., Innes, J.L. (2011). Framing Community Forestry Challenges with a Broader Lens: Case Studies from the Brazilian Amazon. Journal of Environmental Management 92(2011):2159-2169.
Renaud, V., Innes, J.l., Dobbertin, M. and Rebetez, M. (2010). Comparison between open-site and below-canopy climatic conditions in Switzerland for different types of forests over 10 years (1998-2007) Theoretical and Applied Climatology, DOI 10.1007/s00704-010-0361-0
Innes, J.L. (2010). Madagascar rosewood, illegal logging and the tropical timber trade Madagascar Conservation and Development 5 (1), 6-10.
Timko, J.A., R.A. Kozak and J.L. Innes (2010). HIV/AIDS and Forests in Sub-Saharan Africa: Exploring the Links Between Morbidity, Mortality, and Dependence on Biodiversity. Biodiversity 11(1&2):45-48.
Krzyzanowski, J. and J.L. Innes (2010). Back to the basics – estimating the sensitivity of freshwater to acidification using traditional approaches. Journal of Environmental Management 91, 1227-1236.
Tikina, A.V., J.L. Innes, R.L. Trosper, and B.C. Larson (2010). Aboriginal people and forest certification: a review of the Canadian situation. Ecology and Society, vol 15 (3), article 33
Chen, J., Innes, J.L., Tikina, A. (2010). Private cost-benefits of voluntary forest product certification. International Forestry Review 12 (1), 1-12.
Strimbu, B.M., J.L. Innes, V.F. Strimbu (2010). A deterministic harvest scheduler using perfect bin-packing theorem. European Journal of Forest Research 129, 961-974.
nnes, J.L. (2009). Book Review: Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe 2007. State of Europe’s forests 2007. The MCPFE Report on Sustainable Forest Management in Europe. Forest Policy and Economics 11: 149-150.
Hajjar, R., J.L. Innes (2009). The evolution of the World Bank’s policy towards forestry: Push or pull? International Forestry Review 11, 27-37.
Innes, J.L. (2009). The promotion of ‘innovation’ in forestry: the role of government or others? Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences 6(3): 201-215.
Strimbu, B., Hickey, G.M., Strimbu, V.G. and Innes, J.L. (2009). On the use of statistical tests with non-normally distributed data in landscape change detection Forest Science 55, 72-83.
Timko, J. and Innes, J.L. (2009). Evaluating the effectiveness of national parks: case studies from Canada and South Africa Biological Conservation 142: 676-688.
Ogden, A.E. and Innes, J.L. (2009). Boreal forest renewal under climate change: an assessment of alternative adaptation strategies Ecology and Society, in press
Ogden, A.E. and Innes, J.L. (2009). Adapting to climate change in the boreal forest: locally identified research and monitoring needs to support decision-making on sustainable forest management Arctic 62 (2), 159-174.
Murray, S. and Innes, J.L. (2009). The effects of environment on fish assemblage structure in the MacKenzie River drainage basin in Northeast British Columbia Ecology of Freshwater Fish 18, 183-196.
Greskiw, G. and Innes, J.L. (2009). Respecting the oral and literate in co-management communication Forestry Chronicle 85, 719-724.
Innes, J.L., Joyce, L.A., Kellomaki, S., Louman, B., Ogden, A., Parrotta, J. and Thompson, I. (2009). Management for adaptation. IUFRO World Series, Volume 22. International Union of Forest Research Organizations, Vienna. pp. 135-169. In: Seppala, R. (ed.) Adaptation of Forests and People to Climate Change.
Innes, J.L. and 37 others (2009). Vital Forest Graphics – Stopping the Downswing? United Nations Environment Program, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and United Nations Forum on Forests
Nitschke, C.R. and Innes, J.L. (2009). Climate-smart management: A paradigm for integrating climatic change into forest management and planning. -Forest Ecology and Management, in press
Innes, J.L. (2008). Forest sciences in the world of tomorrow iForest – Biogeosciences and Forestry 1, 140.
Ogden, A.E. and J.L. Innes (2008). Climate change adaptation and regional forest planning in southern Yukon, Canada. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 13, 833-861.
Wang, G.Y., Innes, J.L., Wu, S. and Dai, S.Y. (2008). Towards a new paradigm: development and implications of China’s forestry in the 21st century International Forestry Review 10: 619-631
Nitschke, C.R. and J.L. Innes (2008). A tree and climate assessment tool for modelling ecosystem response to climate change Ecological Modelling 210 (3), 263-277.
Wang, G.Y., Innes, J.L., Wu, S.W., Dai, S.Y. and Lei, J.F. (2008). The need to cut China’s illegal timber imports – Response Science 319, 1184-1185
Gough, A.D., J.L. Innes and S.D. Allen (2008). Development of common indicators of sustainable forest management. Ecological Indicators 8: 425-430.
Nitschke, C.R. and J.L. Innes (2008). Climate change and fire potential in south-central British Columbia, Canada Global Change Biology 14(4), 841-855.
Wang, G.-Y., J.L. Innes, S.-Y. Dai, and G.-H. He (2008). Achieving sustainable rural development in Southern China: the contribution of bamboo forestry. The International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology, 15, 484-495.
Greskiw, G., and J.L. Innes (2008). Co-managing communication crises and opportunities between the Northern Secwepemc First Nations and the Province of British Columbia. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 38, 1935-1946.
Tikina, A., and J.L. Innes (2008). A framework for assessing the effectiveness of forest certification. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 38, 1357-1365.
Nitschke, C.R., and J.L. Innes (2008). Integrating climate change into forest management in south-central British Columbia: An assessment of landscape vulnerability and the development of a climate smart framework. Forest Ecology and Management 256(3), 313-327
Innes, J.L. (2008). Book Review: Carol J. Pierce Colfer (editor) 2008. Human health and forests. A global overview of issues, practice and policy. International Forestry Review 10: 700-701.
Innes, J.L. (2008). Book Review: Kangas, A., Kangas, J. and Kurttila, M. 2008. Decision support for forest management. International Forestry Review 10: 701-702.
Innes, J.L. (2008). Book Review: FAO 2007 The world’s mangroves 1980-2005. International Forestry Review 10: 703-704.
Hickey, G.M., J.L. Innes and R.A. Kozak (2007). Monitoring and Information Reporting for Sustainable Forest Management: A Regional Comparison of Stakeholder Perceptions. Journal of Environmental Management 84(4):572-585.
Hickey, G.M. and Innes, J.L. (2007). Indicators for demonstrating sustainable forest management in British Columbia, Canada: An international review. Ecological Indicators 8(2), 131-140.
Mathey, A.-H., E. Krcmar, J.L. Innes, I. Vertinsky (2007). Opportunities and costs of intensification and clustering of forest management activities. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 38(4), 711-720.
Ogden, A.E. and J.L. Innes (2007). Incorporating climate change adaptation considerations into forest management planning in the boreal forest International Forestry Review 9(3), 713-733
Ogden, A.E. and J.L. Innes (2007). Perspectives of forest practitioners on climate change adaptation in the northern forest sector, Canada Forestry Chronicle 83(4), 557-569
Wang, G.Y., Innes, J.L., Lei, J.F., Dai, S.Y., Wu, S.W. (2007). China’s forestry reforms Science 318, 1556-1557
Mathey, A.-H., Krcmar, E., Tait, D., Vertinksy, I., Innes, J.L. (2007). Forest planning using coevolutionary cellular automata Forest Ecology and Management, 239 (2007) 45-56
Innes, J.L. and D.M. Ward (2007). Training at professional and technical levels. Commonwealth Forestry Association in Commonwealth Forestry Association (ed.), Commonwealth Forests. An overview of the Commonwealth’s forest resources. pp. 42-53.
Nitschke, C.R. and Innes, J.L. (2007). Impact of climate change on landscape level fire severity ratings in the North Okanagan, British Columbia, Canada US Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, Portland, OR In: Joyce, L., Haynes, R., and Barbour, J. (tech. coords.) Bringing climate change into natural resources management: proceedings, pp. 144-145.
Nitschke, C.R., G.M. Hickey, J.L. Innes (2007). Effectiveness monitoring of biodiversity in dynamic environments: Is it possible? In: Innes, J.L., Timko, J.A. (eds.) Monitoring the effectiveness of biological conservation: proceedings, pp. 33-45. Available at: http://www.forrex.org/events/mebc/papers.html
Innes, J.L., J.A. Timko (2007). Monitoring the effectiveness of biological conservation: proceedings Available at: http://www.forrex.org/events/mebc/papers.html
Innes, J.L. (2006). Forest management and indigenous peoples in western Canada CABI International, Wallingford. In: Vogt, K.A., Honea, J.M., Vogt, D.J., Edmonds, R.L., Patel-Weynand, T., Sigurdardottir, R. and Andreu, M.G. (eds.) Forests and society: Sustainability and life cycles of forests and human landscapes pp. 109-110.
Innes, J.L. (2006). Acid rain, air pollution and forest decline CABI International, Wallingford. In: Vogt, K.A., Honea, J.M., Vogt, D.J., Edmonds, R.L., Patel-Weynand, T., Sigurdardottir, R. and Andreu, M.G. (eds.) Forests and society: Sustainability and life cycles of forests and human landscapes. pp. 177-179.
Nitschke, C.R. and J.L. Innes (2006). Interactions between fire, climate change and forest biodiversity: a review. Perspectives in Agriculture, Veterinary Science, Nutrition and Natural Resources 1 (60), 1-9.
Innes, J.L., G.M. Hickey (2006). The importance of climate change in considering the role of forests in the alleviation of poverty. International Forestry Review 8 (4), 406-416.
Morford, S., R.A. Kozak, M. Suvedi and J.L. Innes (2006). Factors Affecting Program Evaluation Behaviours of Natural Resource Extension Practitioners – Motivation and Capacity Building. Journal of Extension 44(3), Article No. 3FEA7.
Hickey, G.M., J.L. Innes, R.A. Kozak, G.Q. Bull and I. Vertinsky (2006). Monitoring and Information Reporting for Sustainable Forest Management: An Inter-Jurisdictional Comparison of Soft Law Standards. Forest Policy and Economics 9(4):297-315.
Hickey, G.M. and J.L. Innes (2006). Monitoring and information reporting through regulation: An inter-jurisdictional comparison of forestry-related hard laws Silva Fennica 40(2), 365-387
Krzyzanowski, J., I.G. McKendry, and J.L. Innes (2006). Evidence of elevated ozone concentrations in the Lower Fraser Valley, British Columbia, Canada Water, Air, and Soil Pollution 173, 273-287
Sakals, M.E., J.L. Innes, D.J. Wilford, R.C. Sidle, and G.E. Grant (2006). The role of forests in reducing hydrogeomorphic hazards Forest, Snow and Landscape Research 80(1), 11-22
Wilford, D.J., Innes, J.L., Hogan, D.L. (2006). Protection Forests: Recognizing and maintaining the forest influence with regard to hydrogeomorphic processes Forest, Snow and Landscape Research 80(1), 7-10
Innes, J.L. (2005). Driving changes in the focus of natural resources research FORREX BC Journal of Ecosystems and Management 6(2), 87-90
Angelstam, P., J.L. Innes, P. Niemela and J. Spence (2005). BorNet – a boreal network for sustainable forest management. Ecological Bulletins 51: 25-27
Angelstam, P., S. Boutin, F. Schmiegelow, M.-A. Villard, P. Drapeau, G. Host, J.L. Innes, G. Isachenko, M. Kuuluvainen, M. Moenkkoenen, P. Niemela, G. Niemi, J.-M. Roberge, J. Spence, and D. Stone (2005). Targets for boreal forest biodiversity conservation – a rationale for macroecological research and adaptive management Ecological Bulletins 51: 487-509
Whittaker, C., K. Squires, and J.L. Innes (2005). Biodiversity research in the boreal forests of Canada: protection, management and monitoring Ecological Bulletins 51: 59-76
Wilford, D., M.E. Sakals, and J.L. Innes (2005). Fans with forests: contemporary hydrogeomorphic processes on fans with forests in west central British Columbia, Canada. Geological Society of London, London. In: Harvey, A.M, A. Mather, and M. Stokes (eds.). Alluvial Fans. Geological Society of London Special Publications 251, 25–40.
Hickey, G.M., J.L. Innes, R.A. Kozak, G.Q. Bull and I. Vertinsky (2005). Monitoring and Information Reporting for Sustainable Forest Management: An International Multiple Case Study Analysis. Forest Ecology and Management 209(2005):237-259.
Hickey, G.M. and J.L Innes (2005). Monitoring sustainable forest management in different jurisdictions Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 108, 241-260.
Innes, J.L. (2005). Multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and training in forestry and forest research Forestry Chronicle 81 (3), 324-329.
Wang, G.Y. and J.L. Innes (2005). Watershed sustainability: Strategic and tactical level assessments in the Min River Watershed, China Environmental Informatics Archives 3, 76-83
Innes, J.L., and H.F. Hoen (2005). The changing context of forestry. CABI Publishing, Wallingford. In: Innes, J.L., G.M. Hickey and H.F. Hoen (eds.) Forestry and Environmental Change: Socioeconomic and political dimensions. pp. 1-14.
Innes, J.L. (2005). Long-term forst experiments: the need to convert data into knowledge USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station In: Peterson, C.E. and D.A. Maguire (eds.) Balancing ecosystem values: innovative experiments for sutainable forestry. General Technical Report PNW-GTR-635, pp. 25-31.
Innes, J.L. and H.F. Hoen (2005). The importance for forestry of changes in the socio-economic environment. CABI Publishing, Wallingford In: Innes, J.L., G.M. Hickey and H.F. Hoen (eds) Forestry and Environmental Change: Socioeconomic and Political Dimensions.
Nitschke, C.R. and J.L. Innes (2005). The application of forest zoning as alternative to multiple use forestry. CABI Publishing, Wallingford In: Innes, J.L., G.M. Hickey and H.F. Hoen (eds) Forestry and Environmental Change: Socioeconomic and Political Dimensions. pp. 97-124.
Innes, J.L. and Hickey, G.M. (2005). Certification of forest management and wood products CABI Publishing, Wallingford In: Innes, J.L., G.M. Hickey and H.F. Hoen (eds) Forestry and Environmental Change: Socioeconomic and Political Dimensions. pp. 143-168.
Innes, J.L., G.M. Hickey and H.F. Hoen (2005). Forestry and Environmental Change: socioeconomic and political dimensions CABI Publishing, Wallingford.
Wilford, D.J., M.E. Sakals, and J.L. Innes (2005). Forest management on fans: Hydrogeomorphic hazards and general prescriptions. BC Ministry of Forests, Victoria, BC BC Ministry of Forests, Land Management Handbook
Hickey, G.M., and Innes, J.L. (2005). Scientific Review and Gap Analysis of Sustainable Forest Management Criteria and Indicators Initiatives FORREX, Kamloops FORREX Series No. 17. 54 pp.
Innes, J.L. and A.H. Mathey (2005). Recent developments in silviculture. Canadian Silviculture, Spring 2005, pp. 23-26.
Wilford, D.J., M.E. Sakals, J.L. Innes, and D. Ripmeester (2004). Kitsequecla fan case study: specific risk analysis. In: VanDine, D., M. Wise, and G. Moore (eds.). Landslide hazard and risk case studies in forest planning and operations. Ministry of Forests, Victoria, BC. Land Management Handbook No. 56. pp. 83-89.
Innes, J.L., B. Wilson and G.M. Hickey (2004). Streamlining planning and reporting for sustainable forest management Natural Resources Canada, Victoria In: Innes, J.L., G.M. Hickey and B. Wilson (eds.) International perspectives on streamlining local-level information for sustainable forest management. A selection of papers from a conference held in Vancouver, Canada, August 28 and 29, 2000. pp. 104-109.
Innes, J.L. (2004). Challenges facing forestry educators in North America. Seoul National University, Seoul Proceedings of the International Symposium on Forest Research and Education for the 21st Century, pp. 136-150.
Innes, J.L., G.M. Hickey and B. Wilson (eds.) (2004). International perspectives on streamlining local-level information for sustainable forest management. A selection of papers from a conference held in Vancouver, Canada, August 28 and 29, 2000. Natural Resources Canada, Victoria Natural Resources Canada – Canadian Forest Service – Pacific Forestry Centre. Information Report BC-X-400. 109 pp.
Hickey, G, and J.L. Innes (2004). The Battle of Evermore? Global lessons from hard versus soft laws for monitoring forestry. XXI World Forestry Congress Proceedings 3, 283.
Peterson, D.L. J.L. Innes, and K. O”Brian (2004). Climate change, carbon and forestry in Northwestern North America: Proceedings of a workshop. November 14-15, 2001, Orcas Island, Washington United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Proceedings PNW-GTR-614. Pacific Northwest Research Station, Portland, Oregon (USA).
Innes, J.L., and D.L. Peterson (2004). Proceedings introduction: Managing forests in a greenhouse world – context and challenges In: Climate change, carbon and forestry in Northwestern North America: Proceedings of a workshop. November 14-15, 2001, Orcas Island, Washington. USDA Forest Service Proceedings PNW-GTR-614. Pacific Northwest Research Station, Portland, Oregon (USA). Peterson, D.L., J.L. Innes, and K. O”Brian (editors). pp. 1-9.
Innes, J.L. (2004). Carbon cycle Elsevier Ltd. pp. 139-144. Encyclopedia of Forest Sciences. Edited by J. Evans and J. Burley
Wilford, D.J., M.E. Sakals, J.L. Innes, R.C. Sidle, and W.A. Bergerud (2004). Recognition of debris flow, debris flood and flood hazard through watershed morphometrics Landslides 1:61-66.
Er, K.B.H., J.L. Innes, and A. Kozak (2003). Effects of census duration on estimates of winter bird abundance and species richness along line transects in coastal coniferous forest fragments. Journal of Field Ornithology 74, 119-124
Work, T.T., J.R. Spence, W.J.A. Volney, L.E. Morgantini, and J.L. Innes (2003). Integrating biodiversity and forestry practices in western Canada Forestry Chronicle 79(5):906-916
Fontana, G., P. Cherubini, D. Rigling, M. Dobbertin, P. Brang, and J.L. Innes (2003). Ricostruzione della storia di un popolamento di pino montano (Pinus mugo Turra) nel Parco Nazionale Svizzero: gli anelli annuali testimoni di azioni di disturbo antropiche e naturali. Monti e Boschi 54:34-40
Er, K.B.H., and J.L. Innes (2003). The presence of old-growth characteristics as a criterion for identifying forests of high conservation value. International Forestry Review 5:1-8.
Wilford, D., M.E. Sakals, and J.L. Innes (2003). Forestry on fans: a problem analysis. Forestry Chronicle 79(2):291-296
Ferretti, M., J.L. Innes, R. Jalkanen, M. Saurer, J. Schäffer, H. Spiecker, and K. von Wilpert (2003). Air pollution and environmental chemistry – what role for tree-ring studies? Dendrochonologia 20, 159-174.
Cherubini, P., Gartner, B.L., Tognetti, R., Braeker, O.U., Schoch, W. and Innes, J.L. (2003). Identification, measurement and interpretation of tree rings in woody species from Mediterranean climates. Biological Review 78, 119-148.
Innes, J.L. (2003). The Global Forest Information System. FORREX – Forest Research and Extension Partnership, Kamloops In: Innes, T. (ed.) Proceedings of the Natural Resources Information Management Forum.
Whittaker, C., and J.L. Innes (2002). Workshop Proceedings. BorNet Canadian Regional Workshop, October 13-14, 2001, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. BorNet Canada, Vancouver.
Whittaker, C., and J.L. Innes (2002). Workshop Proceedings. BorNet Canadian Regional Workshop, November 17-18, 2001, Edmonton, Alberta. BorNet Canada, Vancouver.
Whittaker, C., and J.L. Innes (2002). Workshop Proceedings. BorNet Canadian Regional Workshop, November 23-24, 2001, Prince George, British Columbia. BorNet Canada, Vancouver.
Innes, J.L. (2002). Social science and research in forestry: Are we incorporating the human dimension? Forest Research and Extension Partnership, Kamloops pp. 4-8, in: Morford, S. and James, J. (eds.) Incorporating the Human Dimension: The role of social science in natural resource management in British Columbia. FORREX Series 5.
Innes, J.L., and J.M. Skelly (2002). Forest decline and air pollution: an assessment of ‘forest health’ in the forests of Europe, the Northeastern United States, and Southeastern Canada. John Wiley, London pp. 273-294, In: Air pollution and plant life. 2nd edition. Ed. Bell, J.N.B. and Treshow, M.
Cherubini, P., Fontana, G., Rigling, D., Dobbertin, M., Brnag, P., Innes, J.L. (2002). Tree-life history prior to death: two fungal root pathogens affect tree-growth differently. Journal of Ecology 90, 839-850.
Cherubini, P., Innes, J.L., Skelly, J.M., Hug, C., Schaub, M., and Kräuchi, N. (2002). La divulgazione dei risultati di dieci anni di ricerca sui danni da ozono troposferico nei boschi in Svizzera. Informatore Fitopatologico 52, March 2002, 48-51.
Innes, J.L., and B.H. Er (2002). Global forest regulation in the ten years after Rio. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 17(9): 445.
Innes, J.L. and K.B.H. Er (2002). Questionable utility of the frontier forest concept. BioScience 52, 1095-1109
Wilford, D., M.E. Sakals, and J.L. Innes (2001). Forest management and restoration on fans. Watershed Restoration Technical Bulletin – Streamline 6(3):1-8.
Innes, J.L., J.M. Skelly, and M. Schaub (2001). Ozone and broad-leaved species. A guide to the identification of ozone-induced foliar injury. Haupt, Bern
Larsson, T.-B., P. Angelstam, G. Balent, A. Barbati, R,-J. Bijlsma, A. Boncina, R. Bradshaw, W. Bücking, O. Ciancio, P. Corona, J. Diaci, S. Dias, H. Ellenberg, F.M. Fernandes, F. Fernández-Gonzalez, R. Ferris, G. Frank, P. Friis Møller, P.S. Giller, L. Gustafsson, K. Halbritter, S. Hall, L. Hansson, J.L. Innes, H. Jactel, M. Kaennel et al. (2001). Biodiversity evaluation tools for European forests. Ecological Bulletins 50, 1-237.
Innes, J.L., and D.F. Karnosky (2001). Impacts of environmental stress on forest health: The need for more accurate indicators. CABI Publishing, Wallingford. Pp. 215-230 in R.J. Raison, A.G. Brown, and D.W. Flinn (eds.) Criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management.
Innes, J.L., G. Schneiter, P. Waldner, and O.-U. Bräker (2000). Latitudinal variations in tree growth in southern Chile. Red Latinoamericana de Botánica, Mendoza, Argentina. Pp. 177-192 in F. Roig, (ed.), South American Dendrochronology Handbook.
Innes, J.L., and G.Q. Bull (2000). Forestry management and production Nature Publishing Group Nature Encyclopedia of Life Sciences
Innes J.L., G.Q. Bull, and J. Williams (2000). A Review of Forest Tenure Policy, Legislation and Regulation in Selected International Jurisdictions. BC Ministry of Forest, Forest Practises Branch. Victoria. BC. 191pp.
Bull G. Q. and J.L. Innes (2000). A Review of Forest Practices Legislation, Regulation and Guidelines in Selected International Jurisdictions. BC Ministry of Forest, Forest Practices Branch. Victoria. BC. 178pp.
Cherubini, P., and J.L. Innes (2000). Switzerland: The Swiss long-term forest ecosystem research programme. Pp. 56-59 in J.R. Gosz, C. French, P. Sprott, and M. White (eds.), The International Long-Term Ecological Research Network 2000. US LTER Network Office, University of New Mexico.
Cozzi, A., M. Ferretti and J.L. Innes. (2000). Sintomi fogliari attribuibili ad ozono sulla vegetazione spontanea in Valtellina. Monti e Boschi 51(3/4):42-49.
Haron, A.H. and J.L. Innes. (2000). Conclusions. CABI Publishing, Wallingford, U.K. Pp. 241-244 in J.L. Innes and A.H. Haron (eds.), Air Pollution and the Forests of Developing and Rapidly Industrializing Regions. Report No. 4 of the IUFRO Task Force on Environmental Change. 262 pp.
Innes, J.L. (2000). It’s time to look at forestry developments beyond Canada. Logging and Sawmilling Journal, p. 105.
Innes, J.L. (2000). Forest condition and damage to forests and other wooded land. United Nations, New York. Pp. 297-336 in Temperate and Boreal Forest Resource Assessment.
Innes, J.L. (2000). Forest decline, air pollution and other anthropogenic and natural factors. CABI Publishing, Wallingford, U.K. Pp. 76-81 in M. Price (ed.), Forests in Sustainable Mountain Development: A State-of-Knowledge Report for 2000.
Innes, J.L. (2000). Task force on environmental change. Status Report. IUFRO News 29(4):9.
Innes, J.L. (2000). The importance of woodfuels as a source of pollution in developing and rapidly industrializing countries. CABI Publishing, Wallingford, U.K. Pp. 189-198 in J.L. Innes and A.H. Haron (eds.), Air Pollution and the Forests of Developming and Rapidly Industrializing Regions. Report No. 4 of the IUFRO Task Force on Environmental Change. 262 pp.
Innes, J.L., M. Beniston and M. Verstraete (2000). Effects of Biomass Burning on Climate. Kluwer Academic Press, Dordrecht. 358 pp.
Innes, J.L. and A.H. Haron (2000). Air Pollution and the Forests of Developing and Rapidly Industrializing Regions. CABI Publishing, Wallingford, U.K. 262 pp. Report No. 4 of the IUFRO Task Force on Environmental Change.
Innes, J.L. and A.H. Haron. (2000). Air pollution and forestry in rapidly industrializing countries: An introduction. CABI Publishing, Wallingford, U.K. Pp. 1-14 in J.L. Innes and A.H. Haron (eds.), Air Pollution and the Forests of Developming and Rapidly Industrializing Regions. Report No. 4 of the IUFRO Task Force on Environmental Change. 262 pp.
Innes, J.L. and J. Oleksyn (2000). Forest Dynamics in Heavily Polluted Regions. CABI Publishing, Oxford. 248 pp.
Innes, J.L., and M.N. Salleh. (2000). Forests and Society. Alfred Toepfer Akademie fuer Naturschutz, Germany. NIA Reports, Vol. 12, Special Issue 5, (Proceedings of the Welt Foum Wald ‘Forests and Society’, 26-28 November 1999), pp. 3-7.
Tognetti, R., P. Cherubini and J.L. Innes. (2000). Comparative stem-growth rates of Mediterranean trees under background and naturally enhanced ambient CO2 concentrations. New Phytologist 146:59-74.
Mattysek, R. and J.L. Innes. (1999). Ozone – a risk factor for trees and forests in Europe? Water, Air and Soil Pollution 116:199-226.
Skelly, J.M., J.L. Innes and M.J. Sanz. (1999). Observation and confirmation of ozone symptoms of native plant species of Switzerland and southern Spain. Water, Air and Soil Pollution 116:227-234.
Adaptation of Asia-Pacific Forests to Climate Change
2424 Main Mall
Email guangyu.wang@ubc.ca
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Nom d'utilisateur S’inscrire My Account Log Out Region
IRONMAN Lanzarote
Canarias, Spain mai 23, 2020
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Lanzarote offers a variety of cultural and artistic tourist attractions, many of which were created and promoted by local artist César Manrique. The artist had a passion to maintain the natural beauty and habitat of the island, while also creating tourism centres where guests to the island could discover more about it's origins and appreciate its natural aesthetics. Many of his works of art have become representative emblems of the island.
Timanfaya National Park, also known as Fire Mountains.
Athletes will pass through the park as part of the Ironman bike course.
The Fire Mountains were created between 1730 and 1736 when more than 100 volcanoes rose up and devastated this part of the island, covering over 50 km². Although the last eruptions were in 1824, due to the low rainfall and therefore lack of erosion, this area looks much the same as it did just after the eruptions.
No visit to Lanzarote is complete without a trip to this unique Lunar landscape. Even today the heat just below the surface reaches between 400°C and 600°C. Demonstrations are held every fifteen minutes or so with dry brush being thrown into a hole in the ground to catch on fire immediately, while water poured into a bore hole erupts seconds later in the form of steam, like a mini-geyser.
To preserve the park, it is not possible to wander freely around the Volcanoes, but a coach trip around the park is included in the entry fee. It is also possible to take a camel ride across the volcanic landscape (not included in the entry fee).
The word 'Jameo' translates to a volcanic cave with a collapsed roof, of which there are many in this part of the island. The Lanzarote born artist César Manrique worked in these natural caves to create an auditorium, swimming pool, gardens and restaurants, while still maintaining the volcanic landscape. A species of blind albino crab, found nowhere else in the world, lives in the underground salt water lagoon here.
The recently re-opened natural Auditorium has seating for 600 and is renowned for its excellent acoustics. The premier of the Pedro Almodóvar film, Los Abrazos rotos, starring Penelope Cruz was held there in March 2009.
The caves, named after a family with the surname of 'Green' rather than the colour, are one of Lanzarote's most popular tourist sites. If the molten wax-like rock isn't enough to impress you, the secret of 'Cueva de los Verdes' will be!
The Green Caves were formed over 3000 years ago during the eruptions of the Corona Volcano in the north of Lanzarote. The tunnel is over 6 km long with an additional 1.6 km under the sea and is one of the longest Volcanic Tunnels in the World (the underwater section has not been fully explored), although only about 2 km are open to the public. The cave measures more than 15 meters wide and 15 m high. The lowest part of the cave is used occasionally as a concert hall and is an impressive sight in itself.
Mirador del Río
The viewpoint, constructed by César Manrique, provides a breath taking view of the island of La Graciosa, allowing you to look vertically down the dramatic cliffs as well as out to sea and the surrounding landscape.
The early inhabitants of the island used this site as a lookout point as Lanzarote was often attacked by pirates. In 1898 the 'Bateria del Rio' was built as an Artillery base where the Canons now resting at the Castillo de San Gabriel once resided.
Jardín de Cactus
Designed by the late Lanzarote artist Cesar Manrique, the garden features over 1000 species of Cactus, which were selected by the Botanist Estanislao Gonzales Ferrer.
The restored windmill and strange metal sculptures make for an impressive contrast against the dry volcanic landscape.
Monumento al Campesino
In previous years we have held the Awards Ceremony and Gala for Ironman Lanzarote Spain at the Monument, built as a tribute to the local farmers and their way of life.
Over the centuries the farmers of Lanzarote have developed a unique method of cultivation in an arid environment.
The Restaurant serves traditional Canarian food and the gift shop sells local crafts including local pottery still made using traditional techniques, no potter's wheel and fired in an open fire.
La Fundación de César Manrique – the former home of the artist Manrique found the site for his unique house when out walking across the lava fields that surround Tahiche with friends back in the 1960´s.
He caught a glimpse of a fig tree poking out of the top of a volcanic chamber and then discovered there were a number of bubbles in the same vicinity. The home is built to incorporate these bubbles and houses an impressive collection of art from both the Lanzarote artist himself and other well renowned European artists.
Other popular family activities include the following:
· Aqua park (water slides and pools)
· Boat and fishing trips
· Fuerteventura island visits
· Go-karting
· Golf: The island currently has two courses to offer.
· Guinate Tropical Park (45000 square meters of nature with more than 1300 exotic birds)
· Horse back riding
· La Graciosa Island visits
· Surfing
Voir tous les partenaires ▻
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BEING INDEPENDENT IN TODAY'S WORLD
The U.S adventure in Afghanistan after twelve years has resulted in some very tawdry statistics -- results if you will -- and counted among these will be the thousands that have died and the billions that the war has cost the American people. The U.S is now in negotiations with the Taliban which is something previous U.S administrations could have done twelve years ago, but didn't.
So, Afghanistan has turned out to be Obama's Vietnam, but then that doesn't mean that there is an end to the drone attacks and the continued folly on the part of the U.S troops that now are poised they say to stay on in the country till 2014.
Elsewhere in the world the Arab Springs that have been ushered in with much fanfare in global television channels run by the U.S and her proxies, have turned out to be Arab nightmares. In Egypt, it is government by musical chairs.
Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim brotherhood was deposed barely before he could end his honeymoon. In Turkey, the people have been wise enough to stave off a Twitter tsunami of a 'Turkish Spring', and they are the better for that.
Despite all this madness, in Europe they are still in thrall to U.S hegemony and U.S adventurism, which is why they disallowed the aircraft of Bolivian President Eva Morales over the airspace of four European countries including Spain. The allegation was that he may be spiriting away with him the US whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The U.S is the world's most rabid warmongering nation, of course perennially sloganeering for peace. In this context, it is interesting to note that Bolivian President Morales held a press conference the other day and said that Bolivia was willing to grant asylum to Edward Snowden.
It appears that the U.S and her allies are determined to drive home the message to all world leaders that it doesn't pay to ally with either Russia or China because the U.S government enjoys the monopoly on violence around the globe -- or at least thinks it does.
However, it's been long since the U.S government lost the moral high ground, and interestingly, there was a slogan that was painted on a wall in a Southern coastal town of this country which said it all - 'Obama in the nude.'!
In Bolivia, there is collective national outrage over what Bolivians say was the insult offered up to the country's President, Eva Morales when his aircraft was denied European airspace access. Russia may not war-monger -- certainly not in the way the U.S does -- and neither does China but Vladimir Putin is able to offer the kind of platform for bolder leaders such as Morales to thumb their noses at the latest brand of American foreign policy, which is of course different only in the packaging from what was U.S foreign policy during past administrations.
Sri Lanka has for long been a non-aligned nation but that doesn't mean that in everyday terms it translates as a policy of appeasing the U.S and having courteous relations with Russia and China.
In fact for the first time in decades, if not a century, our foreign policy has a spine now. Sri Lanka has been able to ally with a strong Russian President and a strong leader of China who in the way that they gave Morales the strength to defy the U.S, will give Sri Lanka the strength to defy the diktat of nations that want us to conform to their idea of reconciliation for instance.
Reconciliation is a much bandied about word. For instance, they are already talking about 'reconciliation' in Egypt amid the turmoil of the recent events that led to the removal of Morsi and the installation of an interim President! Seems like reconciliation is the vogue word -- it is another new 'benchmark' that certain nations have created virtually from thin air so that they can try to make nations measure upto some yardstick of their own making. If there is one thing the people are reconciled to in Sri Lanka, it's that we have to be wary of all the foreign adventurism coming our way in the guise of good portends for reconciliation, and regime change!
That edge, in diplomacy
Effective trade diplomacy is perhaps quite a need of the hour to meet the present government plans to address economic needs of the people and to serve as a mechanism to help the government reach its development objectives in partnership with friendly States,
Marxists are like Indians:both have failed
I am happy to bounce back from the hospital bed and browse the multitudinous vistas of the world that filter through the sheen of the polar-white glow of the cyber screen without which I will be lost in an infinite Sahara. Through the instant magic which provides most of my necessities for mental sustenance
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canon zachARY Ullery, director of Music
Zachary Ullery, Canon for Music, joined the music staff of the American Cathedral in September 2008. Canon Ullery manages the Cathedral’s extensive music program, which includes conducting the Cathedral Choir, the Choirs for Youth and Children, and the music education programs. He also serves as the Artistic Director of Les Arts George V, the American Cathedral’s arts organization which hosts over one hundred concerts a year and nurtures the creative impulse of the cathedral community. In addition to his duties at the Cathedral, he is also the Musical Director of the Paris Choral Society. Prior to his appointment at the Cathedral, he served as Assistant Organist and Choirmaster at the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Lexington, Kentucky and the Director of Choral Activities at George Rogers Clark High School.
Zachary graduated summa cum laude from the University of Kentucky in 2004 and in 2008, he received dual Masters Degrees from the University of Kentucky in Choral Conducting and Music Education. In addition, he has completed advanced studies in Orff-Schulwerk, a developmental approach to music education for children. During his graduate studies at the University of Kentucky, he studied choral conducting with Dr. Jefferson Johnson and Dr. Lori Hetzel and organ with Dr. Schuyler Robinson. He served as Conductor of the University of Kentucky Choristers, the Assistant Conductor of the University Chorale and as the Assistant Conductor and Accompanist for the renowned Men's Chorus.
During his conducting career he has conducted many major works from the choral/orchestral repertoire including the Bach St. John Passion and Mass in B Minor, Beethoven Missa Solemnis, Mozart Requiem, Duruflé Requiem, Fauré Requiem, Brahms Requiem, Haydn Creation, Handel Messiah, Lauridsen Lux aeterna, Orff Carmina Burana, Rachmaninov Vespers, the masses of Haydn, Schubert, Vierne, and Langlais, and in 2012, conducted the world premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Yehudi Wyner’s The Lord is close to the heartbroken. In 2017, he conducted several world premieres of compositions by Richard Burchard and the European premiere of Burchard’s Seven Last Words of Christ. In addition to his conducting career, Zachary is an accomplished organist and has accompanied choirs and played solo recitals in numerous cathedrals throughout the United States, the Bahamas, and Europe.
Canon Ullery is a member of the American Choral Director’s Association, the American Guild of Organists, and serves on the board of the Royal School of Church Music (France).
Andrew dewar, organist
The musical career of Andrew Dewar (PCS accompanist and piano/organ) started at an early age: he began playing the Organ at his local church in Yeovil (Somerset) at the age of nine. With a scholarship to Wells Cathedral School in 1996, he studied the organ with Rupert Gough, David Sanger, and David Briggs (improvisation), and harpsichord with Dr. David Ponsford. From 1999-2000 he was Organ Scholar at Wells Cathedral before moving to Germany, where he studied at the Musikhochschule, Stuttgart, with Prof. Dr. Ludger Lohmann.
He won the First Prize and the Audience Prize at St. Alban’s International Organ Festival, one of the most prestigious of all organ competitions, in 2005, but has also won a host of other international Organ Competitions, including those of Dublin, Wiesbaden, Berlin, Landau an der Isar, as well as prizes in Montreal and Schramberg and the Julius Reubke Prize at Erfurt.
Andrew’s extensive concert diary has taken him on tours to Russia and Northern America, and he has frequent engagements throughout Europe. In addition to his solo recital work, he both takes masterclasses and sits on adjudication panels, most recently as jury member at the International BACH/LISZT Competition in Weimar/Erfurt. Over 160 live recordings from recent concerts can be found under the following link: http://www.youtube.com/user/ardinsel33.
Andrew has been Organist at the American Cathedral, Paris since 2010. In addition to his position in Paris, Andrew is Assistant Professor of Organ at the Royal College of Music in London.
First Prizes –
Pipeworks International Organ Competion, Dublin 2014
St Albans International Organ Competition 2005 (Including Audience Prize)
Bach prize, Wiesbaden 2005
Mendelssohn Competition, Berlin 2003
International Organ Competition, Landau an der Isar 2002 (Plus the Arthur Piechler Interpretation Prize)
Plymouth National Young Organists’ Competition 2001
Second Prizes –
Canadian International Organ Competition, Montreal 2014 (Plus the Bach Prize)
Canadian International Organ Competition, Montreal 2008 (Plus the Olivier Messiaen Prize)
International Bach/Liszt Competion, Erfurt 2008 (Plus the Julius Reubke Interpretation Prize)
International E. F. Walcker Competition, Schramberg 2004
Organ ART Museum, Rhein-Nahe 2003
St Albans International Organ Competition 2003
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Related Bios Sarah Bernson Ahen Kim
Barry Goldberg
Previous College: Pittsburgh '84
Position: Head Coach
Barry Goldberg, the coach who has built a Patriot League dynasty by winning the league championship 15 of the last 17 years, didn’t begin his volleyball career with a bang. He was cut from his team as a freshman both in high school and as a player at the University of Pittsburgh, and before his senior season the program was dropped entirely by the Panthers. Luckily for American, Goldberg has always thrived on challenges.
The seven-time Patriot League (2001, 2006, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2016), three-time Colonial Athletic Association (1990, 1997, 2000) and 2013 AVCA East Region Coach of the Year’s record speaks for itself:
• 234-14 (.944) Patriot League record over 17 years
• 730 career wins, 14th active D1 coach to earn 700 wins with a single program
• .740 career winning percentage (730-257 to begin 2018)
• 17 NCAA Tournament appearances in the last 21 years
• Conference championships in 18 of the last 20 years
• Two NCAA Tournament victories in 2013, first in program and Patriot League history, en route to the Sweet Sixteen
Indeed, in the past 17 years of league play, the Eagles have lost only 14 matches. Yet the man who has come to epitomize American volleyball was not recruited as a player out of Peabody High School in Pittsburgh, Pa. In college, he joined the team at Pitt as a walk-on, and after getting cut as a freshman, he thought his playing days were over. But a call from the coach, inviting him to join the team as its 10th man, brought him back to the court. Goldberg worked hard in practice but rode the bench until the season was nearly over. Then he got his chance. Faced with player absences because of final exams, Goldberg’s coach had no choice. He was forced to use the 10th man.
Goldberg outplayed the other starters and earned a spot on the team. From then on he started at middle blocker for the Panthers. His junior year, the team he captained was ranked No. 13 in the nation. As it turned out, though, 13 was an unlucky number: At the end of the season, Pitt cut the varsity men’s volleyball program.
Undeterred, as a senior Goldberg worked as a player/coach for the club team. After graduating from Pitt with a bachelor’s degree in communication and rhetoric, and while pursuing his master’s in counseling education, he became assistant coach for the Pitt women’s varsity team.
Goldberg begins the 2018 season among the top Division I coaches nationally, both on active and all-time lists.
• All-Divisions (Active Coaches) - 16th with 730 victories.
• Division I (All-Time) - 19th with .740 winning pct., 23rd with 730 victories
• Division I (Active) - 12th with .740 winning pct., 9th with 730 victories
The same determination that drove him to persevere at Pitt continues today. The 2017 Eagles went 15-1 in the Patriot League and finished 26-8 overall. The Eagles, led by Patriot League Player of the Year Aleksandra Kazala, went to the NCAA Tournament, where they lost in the first round at 7th-ranked Brigham Young. A home sweep of the PL Tournament gave Goldberg a 32-2 record in the PL postseason.
In the 2016 season, Goldberg guided the team to a 27-8 overall record, with a 15-1 record in conference play. The team went on to clinch their 14th Patriot League Tournament title and 16th appearance in the NCAA Tournament, led by Patriot League Player of the Year, Aleksandra Kazala.
Goldberg’s 2014 squad posted a 26-7 overall record and won the Patriot League regular-season title with a 15-1 mark. The Eagles went on to claim their 12th PL Tournament title, led by Patriot League Player of the Year Monika Smidova, who also repeated as the PL Setter of the Year and Scholar-Athlete of the Year.
Smidova, who went on to earn AVCA All-Region honors, was joined on the All-Patriot League first team by Allison Cappellino and Kelly McCaddin. Also earning all-league recognition was Kristyna Lindovska, who was selected to the second team.
In 2013, Goldberg led the Eagles to a historic run which saw the team match program records for wins (34) and losses (3), dropping just 22 sets all year. American opened the campaign with its best start in program history, registering 10 straight wins, and carried the momentum into the Patriot League season, winning the regular season with a 15-1 mark. The Eagles swept through the conference tournament to win its 11th Patriot League title and advance to the NCAA Tournament for the 13th time in 17 years. American headed to Durham, N.C., to take on Georgia and No. 14 Duke, winning both matches 3-0 for its first NCAA Tournament wins in program history. The Eagles advanced to the round of 16 in Lincoln, Neb., and faced top-seeded Texas. American won the first set, 26-24, but was unable to take down the Longhorns as it fell, 3-1. The year was capped off with the team's first ranking in program history as the Eagles finished out the season at No. 19 in the AVCA Coaches Poll.
Lindovska was honored as an AVCA All-Region Team selection as Smidova was named the Patriot League Setter and Scholar-Athlete of the Year. Lindovska and senior Julie Crum joined Smidova on the All-Patriot League First Team and senior Morgan Hendrix and McCaddin earned second-team accolades.
The 2011 season saw Goldberg take a team with just three returning players to its 10th conference championship and 12th NCAA Tournament appearance. He led the team to a 13-1 record in the Patriot League and a 23-11 overall record, earning him his second straight Coach of the Year award. Sara Rishell was just the second player in Patriot League history to be named the Player and Rookie of the Year in the same season, also being recognized as an AVCA All-Region Honorable Mention.
In 2010 he led the team to a perfect 14-0 record in the Patriot League, and a 29-3 overall record, earning him his third Coach of the Year honor. The Eagles held a 2-1 lead over No. 9 UCLA during their 11th NCAA tournament match, but couldn’t hold on to the lead and fell 3-2 to the Bruins. All of Goldberg’s seniors earned awards during the season, with Angelina Waterman being named to the AVCA All-Region Team and Magdalena Tekiel earning Patriot League Player of the Year honors.
During the 2008 season, Goldberg led the Eagles to their eighth-consecutive Patriot League Championship and finished the year with a 24-9 overall record, 13-1 in conference play, and a 12-1 mark at home. American’s performance was so impressive throughout the year that the team was honored with four PL major awards. Senior Rubena Sukaj was named the Player of the Year for the third straight season while classmate Christina Nash earned her second Setter of the Year honor, junior Ivana Cebakova was named Defensive Player of the Year for the second time and freshman Rebecca Heath garnered Rookie of the Year plaudits.
In 2006, Goldberg coached his way to a second Patriot League Coach of the Year award and his team won its sixth-consecutive league regular season and tournament titles. Despite being a young squad, with just one senior and three juniors, the Eagles were heavy on talent and determination. Led by Sukaj, American recorded a 14-1 record at home in Bender Arena and a 14-0 record against conference opponents. The Eagles played so masterfully during the second half of the season that none of their opponents could manage to win more than one game in any match, a record that stood until they fell to top-ranked Nebraska, 3-1, in the NCAA Tournament.
Because his teams have achieved so much since his arrival, it’s hard to remember what American volleyball was like before Goldberg. Since the day he came on as head coach in 1989, the Eagles have accumulated a 336-64 (.840) record in Bender Arena. He has produced 67 All-Patriot League selections in 17 years and 13 Player of the Year awards among 29 major award winners. The Eagles' dominance in the PL Tournament is witnessed by 15 student-athletes who have been voted the Most Valuable Player in the tournament.
Throughout the years his players have excelled both on and off the court. Since 1995, Goldberg’s teams have averaged above a 3.30 combined grade point average per semester. American volleyball has had six Academic All-America selections, including Smidova, a third-team pick in 2014, and Karla Kucerkova, the CoSIDA Volleyball Academic All-American of the Year in 2002 and 2003. In 2003, American graduate Natalie Hand was awarded a prestigious Marshall Scholarship, which pays for American students to study in Great Britain. Additionally, the Eagles have earned a total of 134 selections to the Patriot League Academic Honor Roll, achieving an in-season GPA above 3.2.
In 12 seasons in the Colonial Athletic Association, before American joined the Patriot League, Goldberg coached 36 players to All-CAA teams, including 20 All-CAA First Team selections, two CAA Championships MVP accolades, and a CAA Rookie of the Year winner. Goldberg has also coached three GTE/Academic All-Americans and three American University Student-Athletes of the Year. Five of his student-athletes were also earned Google Cloud Academic All-District recognition from the College Sports Information Directors of America.
A Tradition of Winning
A look back at the Goldberg era of American volleyball shows the same pattern of consistent success:
• In 2004, the Goldberg-led Eagles compiled a 24-7 overall record while staying undefeated in league competition. The Eagles made their fourth straight NCAA Tournament appearance, and junior Cutrina Biddulph was named the Patriot League Co-Player of the Year and Honorable Mention All-America. Freshman Chelsa Brooks was named the league’s Rookie of the Year. In addition, American was the best-represented school on the All-Patriot League Team with six athletes selected.
• From 2001 to 2003, Karla Kucerkova earned three straight Patriot League Player of the Year and Scholar-Athlete of the Year awards. Nationally, she was named Academic All-America Player of the Year twice. The team’s success was almost as brilliant, with victories in 48 straight league matches and trips to three straight NCAA Tournaments.
• In 2000, American competed in its final season in the Colonial Athletic Association before moving to the Patriot League in 2001. Although the switch made the team ineligible for the NCAA Tournament, the Eagles finished 26-4 and had an 11-1 conference record. In its final season in the CAA, the team received many honors, including Goldberg’s third CAA Coach of the Year award. Ajola Berisha, the CAA Player of the Year, was selected as an AVCA Regional All-American, and Judit Szekelyhidi joined her on the CAA First Team.
• In 1999 the Eagles faced six NCAA Championship participants en route to a then American record .288 hitting percentage, placing the Eagles among the top-10 hitting teams in the country. American garnered five postseason awards on its way to a third consecutive CAA Championship match appearance and finished the season ranked regionally for the fourth time in the previous five seasons. The Eagles finished the regular season with a 14-match win streak and posted a school-record 14-1 CAA mark.
• In 1997 the Eagles went 30-4, earning the school’s first NCAA Tournament berth.
• The 1994 season, when the Eagles compiled a 34-8 record that included an unprecedented 23-match winning streak, saw the team’s first postseason competition, at the National Invitational Volleyball Championship. While in Kansas City, American commanded national attention by winning two of its four matches.
The Road to the Top
Such accomplishments would have seemed unlikely, to say the least, when Goldberg graduated from Pitt. He traveled next to Washington, where he coached the Capital Junior Volleyball Club in the District of Columbia and led the Under-18 team to a top-20 finish at the Junior National Championships. All 10 of the players he coached that year went on to receive NCAA Division I scholarships. Seeing his success at that level, Georgetown University hired him as an assistant, where he coached until joining American University to take its program to the next level.
Along the way to the top, Goldberg has worked with several prestigious volleyball camps and committees. In 1997, he was the United States representative, along with the Tampa Bay Juniors Volleyball Club, at a four-nation international camp in Europe. Elite junior national teams from Switzerland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic hosted the camp. During his summers, Goldberg conducts individual and team volleyball camps at American and other locations in the Mid-Atlantic region. He has also held seminars in the National Mizuno Coaching Clinic Series. Goldberg now serves as a voting member of the national AVCA Top 25 Coaches Poll and is also a voting member of the All-America committee.
Goldberg lives in Maryland with his wife, Bonnie. The two have three children, Arielle, who played volleyball at the University of the Pacific, Jared, who played volleyball at Grand Canyon University, and Mitchell, who plays lacrosse at Richmond.
Updated: August, 2018
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First Women Appointed to CICLSAL
In a significant announcement, Pope Francis has named six leaders of women’s religious orders, a consecrated laywoman and the superior of the De La Salle Christian Brothers as full members of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL). This is the Vatican department that oversees religious life.
Previously, the members of CICLSAL were all men, ie cardinals, bishops and several priests who were superiors of large religious orders of men.
A result of these appointments means that now, for the first time, women will have a say over directions of this Vatican department which has influence in the life of women and men religious around the world.
Given that more than half of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics are women and the membership of female religious orders is about three times larger than that of male orders this announcement is far from too soon and offers women some glimmer of hope.
To read more about this news, including the names of the women appointed, go to:
https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/11848/first-women-members-of-vatican-department-that-oversees-religious-orders-appointed
Pope Francis meeting women religious – members of RENATE at the Vatican.
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Send A Message ...
No, literally: Send a message.
At AlGore.com, you can create a postcard that he will deliver to your representative in Washington in March.
Go here to create your card.
Stumped for what to say? Just speak from your heart. Or, hell, cut and paste what I wrote: "I know that in Washington, change is typically made slowly. On this issue, we do not have the luxury of time. No one is asking that we shun electricity and cars and return to candles and horse-drawn carriages. There are many small things each of us can do that will have an enormous, positive impact. The United States is the biggest producer of CO2 on the planet. Therefore, it is, very simply, our responsibility to lead the charge for change. Mr. Gore has shown us the way. It's time to act."
But lend your voice. Please. There is no bigger issue facing mankind.
Lip Balm Junkie ...
This stuff is like crack. (I tried linking to the Mode de Vie web site, but none of the links would work, so fine, buy it from Amazon! It's cheaper anyway!)
I'm actually not a compulsive lip-balmer, but I do put it on every night before bed and in the winter, it's quite the necessity.
Yes, it's crazy expensive compared to cherry Chapstick, though I'm sure it was cheaper when I bought it at Whole Foods - and how often do you get to say *that*?
Words To Live By ...
Oprah is always good for a message. Not a light-tap-on-the-shoulder message, but a core-shaking-stop-you-dead-in-your-tracks-make-you-see-your-life-in-a-new-way message.
Last night, curled up on the couch, unsure if I was truly getting sick or if I was just feeling slightly blah, I watched "Building a Dream," Oprah's special about the creation of her Academy in South Africa.
Her producers are the best in the business, so it's no surprise that it's insanely well put together. And Oprah (I just typed "Orpah" by mistake, which isn't really a mistake, as that's her actual name) simply emanates greatness and goodness. But the girls are the real story, of course.
All of their stories tugged - hard - at my heartstrings. I've lived a very middle-class life. I never wanted for anything. Which isn't to say that my parents spoiled me outrageously, though looking back, I did get pretty much everything I ever wanted. I just didn't want extravagant things.
But the basics were always there: Not only did I have enough to eat, I ate well. When mom was stumped for what to make for dinner, we had steak. Not only did I have a place to sleep, I had my own room. In sixth grade, my birthday gift was a new bedroom set. And I still use most of the pieces today.
These girls, though. These gorgeous, sweet, smart, funny girls, walking home from school, hoping they don't become the next rape victim in their crime-ridden neighborhoods, carrying on after witnessing the murder-suicide of their father and mother, studying by candlelight in a tin shack and cherishing a sparkly pink pen.
All of their stories are inspiring. But one girl in particular said something that I heard deep inside of me. Lesego, whose mother left her when she was four to be raised by her father, who does the best he can, said to her classmates, "You are an individual. Act like an individual. Don't try to blend in. Blend out."
Blend out.
Blend. Out.
I was flattened by that.
I've printed them out, Lesego's wise words, and put them on my wall of quotes. The quotes go on my wall as they come to me, so the order is random, but today Lesego, who can be no more than 11 years old, joined the ranks of Einstein, Sophocles, Dostoevesky, Dickens, Goethe, Tolstoy, and Twain.
Moody Movies That Start With 'The' ...
You can order your Netflix queue however you want, but it's really up to the Netflix gods what movies you get when. Last week, "The Illusionist" arrived followed by "The Prestige."
I watched "The Illusionist" first. I totally dig Edward Norton. Whether by choice or by circumstance, he doesn't make enough movies for my taste. And Paul Giamatti should be in more movies, too.
Being a heterosexual female, I don't quite get all the fawning over Jessica Biel. Men drool over her because she's got a hot body, right?, not because she's a great actress? OK, I guess I get that. There are women I find attractive, but she's not one of them. Then again, I wasn't watching the movie to see her.
It's a beautiful film. If I wore a hat, it'd be off to great cinematographers and set designers.
But it doesn't matter how pretty a film is if the story doesn't hold up, and the story of "The Illusionist" holds up well.
Ditto "The Prestige." In fact, I think the story is even better than its eerie cousin. Or maybe I dozed off during a crucial moment, but I found it necesssary to watch the last part of the movie again to figure out the story.
And "The Prestige" boats a bevy of star power: Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, everyone's favorite Gollum, Andy Serkis, and David Bowie as Nikola Tesla, to whom, I've mentioned before, I'm related.
The cool thing about the Tesla role in this movie is that his electrical creations aren't fictions for the film. The work he was doing in Colorado Springs is documented, and it was woven into the movie. You gotta love a guy who could create lightning in a lab, bolts up to 135 feet in length, though one wonders how you measure the length of a bolt of lightning. They're not straight lines. Do you measure from Point A to Point B, or do you try to factor in the jagged aspects of the bolts and determine the length as if the bolt was stretched taut? Then again, what's the relevance of the lengths? Or do men just feel the need to measure everything?
I don't know much about electricity, but I'd figure it's not the size of the lightning bolt, it's what you do with it.
'Man of the Year' ...
Holy mismarketed movie, Batman!
Robin Williams could truly just read the phone book and I'd pay money to see it, but this was a terrific movie, quite the social commentary on the election process in this country.
What's that? You say you had no idea? Neither did I.
Whomever was in charge of marketing this movie totally missed the boat. From trailers, you thought this was just a goofy political send-up, didn't you? Yup, me too. But there's much more to this film than Williams in a powdered wig, cracking wise about making Bruce Springsteen his secretary of State.
Do yourself a favor and add it to your Netflix queue. Not a Netflix user? Go here. You can try it for free. (Psst! This has worked for friends in the past: When your free trial ends, tell Netflix you don't want to become a member. They'll give you a deal, either an extension to your free trial or a break on the subscription price.)
My Favorite Chef ...
Kristen writes gezellig-girl.com, one of my daily must-read blogs. (She writes regularly, as - ahem! - all good bloggers should.) Today's post, "5 facts about me," ended with a reference to Jacques Pepin. Ah, Kristen and I are Jacques Pepin soulmates. (I headed over to his site to grab a picture and am charmed by the selection of press photos. His site also features video demonstrations for lots of kitchen basics. Learn from a master.)
I've always had a thing for Jacques: maybe it's his accent or the way he finishes most of his sentences with "you know" or his insane level of skill in the kitchen. Women, after all, really dig men who cook. For that matter, women really dig men who try to cook. You don't have to be a professional chef, you just have to try. It's endearing. But I digress.
He can be a perfectionist in the kitchen, but that's one of the things I like about him. Sometimes, "good enough" just isn't good enough, and when it comes to preparing food for people I love, they deserve my best effort.
Poking around the cookbook section of Borders one day, I ran across Jacques' memoir. I usually read the first page of a book to decide whether I'd like to read it. Standing there in the store, I must have read 10 pages. It's captivating. He's a terrific writer. I didn't buy the book then, but it's on my list for "someday." Why is it that someone who can do one thing really well can usually do a lot of things really well?
McDonald's Latest ...
I was hungry.
But I'm trying to eat better, which pretty much rules out many of the offerings at fast-food joints. And I don't cotton to paying upwards of $6 for a grilled chicken sandwich, a side salad, and a drink at Wendy's, especially since its swapped out the slightly spicy sauce it was using for something that tastes like watered-down honey mustard.
So as I was tooling along in my car, steering in the direction of food options, I remembered the new McDonald's Grilled Honey Mustard Snack Wrap. Yeah, that's it, I thought. That and a side salad. Fast food but not.
I ordered, I payed, I received, I drove home. I took my Snack Wrap out of the bag. It felt pretty light. Not that it was supposed to feel like a shotput, but shouldn't it, oh, feel like there was something in it? I unwrapped my Snack Wrap and then unfolded it to inspect the contents. And gee, there was a piece of chicken in it, I kid you not, about the size of my index finger. A few shreds of lettuce. A few shreds of cheese. Seriously? This cost $1.29. A McChicken sandwich is $1. A less-healthy option, yet it has something resembling a very small chicken breast on its bun.
And so, I've dubbed the McDonald's Snack Wrap the Snack Crap and cut out yet another fast-food option for myself. Which, really, is a good thing, as I shouldn't be eating that stuff anyway.
L.A. Dave suggested the TenderRoast sandwich at KFC. Ooh, yeah, that sounded like a good idea. Until I checked the nutrition information online.
McDonald's McChicken: 360 calories
KFC TenderRoast: 430 calories
McDonald's Double Cheeseburger: 440 calories
As Jack Bauer would say, "Dammit!"
On a somewhat-related topic, Ethan and I have become treadmill buddies. We report on our progress (speed, duration, etc.) on a semi-regular basis, if by semi-regular you mean "whenever we think to ask each other." During an IM convo the other day, he mentioned that he found an online calculator to figure out his daily caloric intake, figuring he should be eating the body he wants, not the body he has. Smart guy, that Ethan.
So I found this tool and plugged in my stats, both what I think might be my current weight (I don't own a scale) and what I think I might like to weigh, and was really startled by the numbers. Even to maintain my goal weight, I'd need to consume nearly 2,700 calories a day? That's madness. Isn't it?
That's 10.4 Snack Craps.
The Price Of Fame ...
All this Britney tabloid-and-beyond feeding frenzy has set me to thinking about the nature of fame.
Ten years ago, give or take, when Brit donned her sweetly sexy schoolgirl get-up and pranced through her first video, the world was a different place.
Sure, there were the weekly gossip rags, but you could count them on one hand. And Entertainment Tonight was the only nightly entertainment "news" show. There weren't a hundred cable outlets. And the "Internets" were still, technologically speaking, toddlers.
Today, the paparazzi are out of control. With a bazillion outlets for their photos, they'll shoot anything. I saw a picture today of Kirsten Dunst in her car trying to shield herself from photographers by holding a hat in front of her face. Turns out, she ran her car into a curb, you know, because she couldn't see where the hell she was going. But the bigger question is, why is Kirsten Dunst driving her car a photo anyone should care about seeing? Kirsten Dunst DRIVES?! What's the world coming to?
So I feel for Britney. It's insane that celebrities shouldn't be able to walk down the street without a throng of photograhers blocking their every move. Or walk out of their house, for that matter. Or drive down the street.
That said, in Britney's case, my sympathy for her is tempered by the fact that she's actively courted the media attention throughout her career. Anyone who produces her own reality show about life with her new husband, splashing her newlywedness all over television week after week, can't really bitch when people demand more and more minutiae about her life.
The pursuit of fame comes at a price these days, and those who chase the dream know what they're in for if they manage to grab the brass ring.
But I don't see an end to the madness. Every print and video outlet feels the need to glom onto all of these stories because we - sadly - have an insatiable appetite for this voyuerism and we'll find it wherever it airs. At the risk of losing viewership or market share, everyone carries everything and the circus never ends.
I hope Britney slays her demons. For the sake of her children. She has a responsibility to those two lil' guys.
Whither Stars? ...
So the new crop of "Dancing with the Stars" contestants have been announced, but the announcement begs the question: Do these people count as "stars"?
Shouldn't it be titled "Dancing with People You've Heard Of"?
What defines a "star"?
If this show featured George Clooney and Justin Timberlake, hell, even Britney if she had her act together, I'd call them stars, but some of these people? If the news reports didn't tell me who they were, I wouldn't have known, which seems like a pretty good litmus test for stardom: If you're not a household name, you're not a star.
Heather Mills: She's famous for being married to Sir Paul. Sure, she's done good charity work, but if she hadn't married Paul, you wouldn't know about her.
Laila Ali: She kicks ass in the boxing ring, but her name recognition comes from her dad.
Billy Ray Cyrus: He had a big country hit and a stint as a TV doctor and his daughter is on the Disney Channel.
Clyde Drexler: Great basketball player, but he's not Michael Jordan. MJ counts as a star.
Joey Fatone: 'NSync is 'nover.
Shandi Finnessey: Former beauty queen. I'd never heard of her until today, but then, I don't follow the beauty queen circuit much.
Leeza Gibbons: Talk-show and infomercial host.
Apolo Ono: Olympian.
Vincent Pastore: Actor on The Sopranos.
Paulina Porizkova: '80s supermodel and, so L.A. Dave tells me, actress in idependent films.
Ian Ziering: Beverly Hills 90210 dude.
Vice ...
I don't smoke. I tried smoking when I was younger, but - at the risk of sounding like Bill Clinton - I didn't inhale. I tried to, but I could never fill my lungs without smoke without hacking up said lungs.
I drink, but not often. When I worked at the Tribune, I was much more impressive in a bar. These days, a couple of drinks has me teetering on the brink of tipsy.
I've never done a drug. Nothing. Never. Not a hit of pot, not a line of coke, no mushrooms, no Ecstasy, nothing.
But I have a vice, a vice I very rarely indulge, but a vice just the same.
I love cheap disgusting cookies.
You know the kind, the kind you buy for next to nothing. I call them cheap disgusting cookies as an inside joke between me and my mom. They're cheap, to be sure, but they're not disgusting. If they were disgusting, I wouldn't eat them. And I don't eat them often. I picked up a package tonight and it was the first time in I don't even know how many years. And I came home, and I ate 9 of them (they're smaller than Oreos) with a glass of milk, and then I took the rest of them outside and threw them in the snow. For squirrels. For dogs. For passersby. They're there for the snacking, sprinkled on the snow.
I've had my fill. I won't want them again for a long, long time. But damn, they were good.
Seriously. I Mean, It's Toilet Paper ...
Yesterday, I went to Target. I am firmly a Target girl. I won't set foot in a Wal-Mart. KMart just feels sad, like a slightly older uncle trying hard to be hip. Meijer is just too flippin' big. Does anybody really need one store at which to buy propane grills and picture frames and windshield washer solvent and plants and yarn and boots and jeans and shampoo and potholders and greeting cards and soup, and get shoes repaired and do banking? Maybe if I was a working mom, I'd appreciate the one-stop-shoppedness of it all, but the mere thought of walking into Meijer exhausts me because God help me if I go in on the "wrong side." If I go in the non-food side and then think, "Well, as long as I'm here, I might as well pick up some Triscuits," I have a quarter-mile trek in front of me. Screw the Triscuits. (That is the first time I've ever had occasion to write that sentence. And I suspect it will be the last. But it was fun while I wrote it.)
So I went to Target. Ah, Target. Home of affordability and good design. Even the television commercials are cool. The parking lot was crowded, being a Saturday afternoon, but I was unprepared for what awaited me - or didn't await me - on the shelves. Everywhere I looked, gaps. A lone item here, a couple of items there. Had I, somewhere between the two automatic doors, entered a wormhole that spat me out in Soviet-era Russia? There was no line outside the store. No babushka-d women hunkering down against the cold waiting for their turn at ill-sized men's shoes. No suspiciously parked black Mercedes sedans. What the hell?
I wheeled my cart to the paper-products aisle. When did Puffs decide that all tissue boxes should be designed to coordinate with prison cells? Dear God, they're depressing. Not that it matters much to me. I have a tissue cozy (as cozy as stainless steel can be), but I carry the tissue torch for my non-cozy brothers and sisters of the world. What are they supposed to do? Endure the hideousness? Isn't there enough strife in the world? Must we gaze upon an ugly tissue box as we evacuate our sinuses?
I needed toilet paper. I'm a Charmin girl. The six-pack bundle of four-roll packs. Or so I thought. I stood before the Charmin like a tourist trying to decipher a map in a foreign subway. When did it become this difficult to buy toilet paper? Why are there so many classifications? In other parts of the world, toilet paper is a luxury. Here, we have an embarrassment of choices, but why? I'm not talking about one-ply versus two-ply. Everyone knows one-ply is for suckers. I'm not talking about quilting. If your ass is that chafed, you might wanna have that looked at.
No, I'm just talking about how many sheets can be crammed onto a roll before said roll no longer fits in your bathroom. I stood before the Charmin, searching in vain for my usual pack o' 24 rolls, and tried to crack the code. Big, Giant, or Mega. Regular was out of the question. There were no Regular rolls to be had. No, I had to choose between Big, Giant, and Mega, all in various roll combinations, all designed to last longer so I needn't spend precious milliseconds of my life changing rolls.
OK. Raise your hands if you've ever found yourself cursing at your toilet paper for eating up too much of your life. Do you keep your toilet paper in a safety-deposit box? Do you have to drive to the bank and find an officer with a matching key to help you access your stash?
Thankfully, Charmin supplies a chart on its web site to take the guesswork out of it all. You might want to print it out and tuck it into your wallet for the next time you're faced with this newly monumental decision.
I ended up buying the 12-pack of Big rolls, which, as the chart below demonstrates, does in fact equal the 24 Regular rolls I'd been buying in the past.
But the package doesn't fit neatly on my closet shelf.
Where's an old Sears Roebuck catalog when you need it?
'How Not To Talk To Your Kids' ...
Po Bronson has a fascinating article in New York magazine.
I Know Why I'm Here ...
The question is, why are you?
I blog because it forces me to write every day, more or less.
I marvel that people stop by to read what I have to say, but it's nice that they do. I don't write for an audience. I write for myself. Thinking on paper, so to speak, virtual paper. And a daily writing exercise.
Would I still write if my site counter never moved? Sure. This is kind of like my online journal. Of course, in a real journal, I'd write more-private things. But then, if I was only journaling, you'd have to wait until I died to read anything. Blog posts may be less juicy, but you get them every day.
So today, I received a comment to my Snowy post that read (let's give this self-proclaimed new Anon his 15 minutes, shall we?):
Begin quote:
Sorry but "clever" is not the word that comes to mind.
Try "woefully self-absorbed" or "trying a little too hard for some external validation."
I just landed on this blog by mistake,read a few entries and i have to say there's a lot of blogs that are boondoggles but this one is the mother of all boondoggles.
Too much time on your hands??
End quote.
I suspect that because Anon "landed on this blog by mistake" and was so displeased with what he found that he won't be back.
But as I replied to him in the comments, "Uh, it's my blog. Who should it be about?"
And then Ethan fed me this line from Mark Pilgrim: "I must have missed the part where I was put under any sort of obligation towards you whatsoever."
The funny thing is, today's earlier blog entry mused about the fact that I don't write about my own experiences so much as I comment on things: politics, movies, music, events of the day. People seem to respond the most (favorably) when I write personal stories, like my reminiscences of Charles.
Anon would find those "woefully self-absorbed," I suppose.
So why do you read this blog?
Why do I read the blogs I do? Some of the blogs are written by people I know and blogs are our way of keeping current on each other's lives. Other blogs are written by people I don't know and may never meet, but I've gotten to know them through their sites. Some of the stories are happy. Others are sad. My comments cheer the writers in their happy moments and commiserate with them when times are tough. It's a connection to other people. In "Shadowlands," C.S. Lewis says, "We read to know we are not alone." I've referenced that quote before.
The same goes for blogs. Writers allow a window into their lives, a door, even, and invite others inside. But we're not standing on the sidewalk, pulling passersby into our kitchens and forcing them to sit at the table and listen to our tales.
If you don't like what you read at one blog, you can walk on by to the next. Maybe there, you'll find someone you can relate to.
I'm pleased for all of my regular readers. I presume you return on a regular basis because what I write or the way I write it seems worthwhile to you.
As for the Anons of the world, there are millions of blogs out there. I'm sure you'll find something else to read.
Boring. Boring Like '60 Minutes' To A 7-Year-Old ...
College Boyfriend David called last week to check in. Phone calls from David are more shocking than good behavior in Washington. But he truly has the craziest schedule of any of my friends. So he was calling from his car. What was new in my life, he wanted to know.
I thought for a moment, cradling the phone in my shoulder, washing dishes. “Nothing, really,” I said. “I'm boring. Oh, I’m going to New York in April!”
“Well, I guess I’ll call back in April,” he said, with a smile in his voice that I could see. David has the best smile ever.
Lately I've been reading my Bloglines blogs and thinking to myself, "Huh. I don't write much about stuff that happens to me. Maybe nothing happens to me. Maybe I don't do anything."
It's my blog, sure. But I tend to comment on things rather than write about personal experiences. So when I find myself without anything to write about, maybe that means that I'm not living enough.
Maybe it's seasonal-affective disorder. Or maybe it's the cold weather. Or maybe it's me being lazy. Or maybe it's the dearth of cash in my wallet.
Maybe it's all of the above. I'm pretty sure I'd be doing more stuff if I was a millionaire living in California.
I can't remember the last time I've been to a movie in a theater. Granted, the theatrical-to-DVD cycle has been shortened to about 30 minutes, but I like movies on the big screen, especially in them there new-fangled stadium theaters. And there's been plenty out that I've been meaning to see, so what's my damage?
There's a lot of decent TV on these days. That might have something to do with it. But Friday and Saturdays still kinda suck when it comes to TV, which is intentional because the networks know that most people are at the movies on those nights. The movies. Where I should be.
Maybe I don't like crowds. Yes, that might be part of it. I'm too passive-aggressive. If people behind me in a theater make noise, I don't turn around and ask them to be quiet. I turn my head as if to acknowledge their noise and expect them to shut up. As if they're noticing my subtlety. Of course they're not. They're too busy yammering.
But when I do go out, I like it. It's not as though I'm itching to flee to my home and pull the curtains.
Clearly, I need to make my own fun. Not that I've been expecting others to do all the planning. I'm very much a plannner. Maybe I plan too much. But I've gotta come up with different things to do, new experiences, new perspectives. I'm going to more theater. That's good. And concerts. But that can get pricey. Tickets, parking, dinner before. Suddenly I've dropped a couple hundred bucks.
Yes, I need free fun. Or nearly free fun. Fun on a budget. Ooh, I need to go to the ATM and extract a single $20 (Yuppie Food Coupon, as my friend Drew calls 'em) and see what I can do with it. It'll be like Rachel Ray's $40 a Day, except less annoying. And it won't be all about food. And I won't have to pretend that everything I put in my mouth is bringing me to the brink of orgasm.
But first, I will take a nap. Or lie on the couch and watch "Network."
I'm bored as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!
: o )
'Beauty and the Geek' ...
I don't watch reality television. I've never seen an entire episode of Survivor. I've seen one episode of American Idol, and that's because I was with friends who watch the show. The Bachelor? The Bachelorette? Fear Factor? The Amazing Race? No, no, no, no.
Oh, wait, I did get kind of sucked into America's Next Top Model this fall. And right now, on the telly, is the season finale of "Beauty and the Geek." So let me amend my first sentence to "I don't watch much reality television." As reality shows go, I think the premise of this is brilliant. I wonder if Ashton Kutcher was a bit of a geek in high school and one day he thought, "Damn, who ever thought a geek like me would be married to Demi Moore?" and the idea of the show was born.
SPOILER ALERT (for all my readers who TiVoed the show - I have no idea if that applies to any of you):
I happened to see an early episode of the show, so I'm familiar with the contestants. Megan (Playboy model) and Scooter (graduate of Harvard in social anthropology) and Cecille (bikini model) and Nate (studying anthropology at Harvard) were the final couples. And all the eliminated couples decided the winning team based on who had made the biggest transformation during the course of the show.
Reality shows are popularity contests to a large degree, but there's strategy involved, too. Pitting members against each other, forming alliances, may seem sound at the time, but oooh, when those you plotted against return to decide your fate, suddenly your scheming returns to bite you in the ass.
Such was the case tonight. (The show is over now; I've moved on to a repeat of last week's "Lost.")
Cece (or is it Ceci?), her head as full of herself as her bikini was full of her breasts, made a lot of enemies over the course of the show. In the last 24 hours, she had the opportunity to make nice with her former competitors to try and salvage the competition for herself and Nate.
But Cece wasn't about to start kissing ass. She remained as self-centered and defiant as she'd been throughout the course of the show. Contestants who didn't like her then didn't like her in the end.
Which just goes to show you that it pays to always treat people with respect, because you never know when those people will re-enter your life in impactful ways.
One of the geek contestants asked the well-liked Nate why he should vote for Nate's team. And Nate, displaying a staggering amount of maturity, replied, "I'm not so sure you should." And then proceeded to campaign against his own win.
In the end, he decided it was more important for Cece to learn a lesson - that it's not OK to treat people the way she does, that such behavior does indeed have consequences - than for him to walk away with half of the $250,000 prize.
And contestant after contestant lined up behind Megan and Scooter, but not before telling Nate that he's a great guy but that Cece didn't deserve their vote. And Cece pursed her lips and copped yet another attitude and was ungracious to the, literally, bitter end.
Next week is the "reunion" show. It was Nate's hope that Cece would someday realize the reason why she didn't win. It'll be interesting to see if it's sunk in or whether she's the kind of person who never learns.
Snowy ...
And this, kids, is a picture of a snowdrift on my deck, taken through my French doors.
(The bars you see are the result of taping out a design and spraying a frosted medium onto the glass. Not that you can tell, but the pattern is the reverse of the design of my deck railings. Damn, I'm clever.)
'The Last Kiss' ...
On a snowy, blowy day, I curled up on the couch and watched "The Last Kiss," a remake of an Italian film.
The well of ideas in Hollywood may be running dry, but remaking films from other countries seems to me a much better solution than a sequel to "The Dukes of Hazzard." Honestly, if the first television show-cum-movie sucks, do we really need a sequel? Or a prequel?
I saw a trailer for "The Last Kiss" on another recent rental and added it to my queue.
Have you heard of it? I hadn't until a month ago. Kelley mentioned that she rented it, and then I saw the trailer, and decided to give it a whirl.
Two words: Uh oh.
It's a good movie.
It's well cast.
It's well written.
It's well acted.
It is, in many ways, very much like the movie I'm writing.
That's not the reason for the "uh oh." They're not exactly the same movie, no one beat me to the punch.
I'm not writing my film with the sole goal of making my life's fortune, but it gives me pause that a smart, character-driven movie flew under the radar while the world focused on "Employee of the Month" or, God help us, "Jackass: Number Two." Heh, heh, look, Beavis, the title is like an inside joke about poo.
Wait. What's that I hear? Why it's the collective lowering of the country's IQ.
Roger Ebert gave the Italian version of the film two stars.
Rottentomatoes.com gave the Italian version a 73 percent rating, while the American remake only garnered a 46 percent. Ooh, Ty Burr from the Boston Globe called it "... an iPod playlist in search of a movie."
Ouch. Though, the soundtrack is pretty great.
It's a plateful of food for thought. Is any relationship really secure? Are we humans simply too flawed? Can we count on others not to stray, or is straying the only thing we can count on?
College Boyfriend David once said, "Why can't we just accept that we're not meant to be with one person forever?"
He said that, incidentally, long after we'd broken up. It wasn't a justification.
I was much younger at the time and I balked at the sentiment. I still clung to the notion that there's one perfect person out there for me and that it was my job to find him and his to find me.
I've grown up. I no longer think there's one perfect person. I'd like to share my life with someone, but I don't believe marriage has to be part of the arrangement. Marriage isn't any kind of guarantee. And a divorce is just a protracted, expensive break-up.
Of course, marriage is what you make it, but the only person you can control is yourself. No matter how much you love the other person, it's up to them to love you back.
Some relationships last forever. Some don't.
You might have a last kiss, but that doesn't mean you'll never have another first.
Dissonant Notes II ...
♪ A couple weeks ago, I read "Running with Scissors," Augusten Burrough's memoir of his dysfunctional childhood, and I was happy that the DVD of the movie adaptation was due out February 6. In a rare moment of Netflix benevolence, I received the movie right away. My cousin Patty stayed with me for the weekend and we popped it in. The movie is not like the book, but then, it turns out that the book is not like Augusten's life. Not entirely. It's greatly embellished, exaggerated, erroneous. Pick a word that starts with "e." Patty is the one who informed me that the family portrayed in the book filed a lawsuit against Burroughs. Turns out, it's not enough to simply change someone's name. It's a good thing Oprah didn't select this book for her Club. Then again, James Frey would probably have appreciated some company in his exclusive club. I was irked by the dramatic license. The parts of the book that were changed for the screen weren't necessary tweaks. I love forming pictures in my head, but film adaptations rarely match the movie I see when I read.
♪ Ethan, pal that he is, was nice enough to burn a DVD of a special he watched about "The Electric Company," one of the shows of my youth. It was a total trip to see Morgan Freeman so early in his career. And it was another total trip to realize the star power behind some of the skits. One fond memory was "The Adventures of Letterman." I totally remembered it, but didn't realize when I was a kid that the characters were voiced by Gene Wilder, Zero Mostel, and Joan Rivers. Check it out! (I tried embedding the YouTube clip here, but YouTube isn't cooperating with me tonight.)
♪ The Police have pulled the trigger on a 2007 World Tour! (Yeah, I know, I'll stop with the police puns.) Chicago dates will be announced in the coming weeks, but there's a rumor swirling that the dates will be at Wrigley Field. And according to stories I've read today, the top ticket will only be $225. I expected top tix to go for more. But $225 to see The Police is a steal. (Ooh, there I go again.)
♪ I was telling Patty about buying seasons 4 and 5 score for "24" for Dave for his birthday. Patty's reply: "There's music on '24'?" And I realized that composers and editors have a lot in common: if we do our jobs well, people don't really notice our work. Of course, composing is way cooler and gets you listed in IMDb.
♪ Out shopping yesterday, Patty spied a restaurant in a strip mall and asked, "What's Old Country Buffet?" We nearly wet ourselves considering the duplicity, if "Old" modified "Country Buffet" or if "Old Country" modified "Buffet." One way, you get homey, feel-good fried chicken and biscuits. The other way, you get sturdy women with chin hair in knee-high stockings and babushkas serving borscht.
♪ Watching the terrorist dudes on "24," both the bad guy and the bad-guy-who's-trying-to-reach-a-compromise guy, I realize all over again how much of a thing I have for swarthy men. Come to think of it, Hamri Al-Assad is like the Middle Eastern version of House. And we all know how much I dig Dr. Gregory House.
Vapors ...
First of all: THE POLICE ARE BACK!
Second of all: STING'S ARMS.
Holy mother of God, that man. He's 55 years old and he looks better than ever.
David Bauder from the AP wrote, "Wearing a punk-short haircut and displaying biceps that most 55-year-olds would kill for, Sting sang the rock trio's first hit, 'Roxanne.' " I ain't the only one takin' note of those guns. Biceps and triceps and delts, oh my.
There's talk that The Police will hold two concerts at Wrigley Field this summer. I will pay any amount of money to see that show.
The funny thing about watching their performace tonight - and how the hell can "Roxanne" be 30 years old?! - is that the band is still all about Sting. The bass player is rarely the lead singer. Right this minute, I can't think of any other bands with a bass-playing frontman. And I'm sure Stewart and Andy are still well aware of the fact that it's still Sting's show. Sting has been playing Police tunes on tour all through is solo career, but hey, he wrote 'em.
Still, I'm elated that they're back together. I stood in my TV room screaming at the screen, like I was at a concert. I can hit a pretty high-pitched, loud "Wooooooooooo!"
The Police are back!
I'm a bit of a junkie. The Police are a vice. (Vice. Police. Clever, Beth.) I just did a quick count of my Sting and Police CDs: 38. If you include discs/soundtracks on which Sting appears with one song, I have more than 40. (I'm counting actual CDs, not albums, so for these purposes, Message in a Box counts as 4, Bring on the Night counts as 2, etc.)
My all-time favorite Police tune is "Don't Stand So Close to Me" with "Every Breath You Take" a very close second.
And yours?
Due Process ...
I'm pretty smart. My math skills aren't the greatest, but most of us don't need calculus in our daily lives. I can balance my checkbook and make change in my head. Not that I ever need to make change for anyone. I'm pretty good at presenting an argument and making people see my side of a story. My grades weren't always the greatest, but that's because I'm lazy. My friend Qusai used to harp on me in college (and I mean "harp" in a nice way), "Do you realize that if you just applied yourself a little, you'd be a straight-A student?"
"Yeah," I'd reply. "But I can not apply myself and be and A and B student." Who looks at college transcripts anyway?
And Mensa keeps bugging me to pay my dues and join in all its cerebral fun.
So this computer in my head is running on a pretty spiffy processor, though my RAM isn't what it used to be. Why can I remember the names of most of my kindergarten classmates, but I can't remember if I opened the garage door before I walk outside?
All that said, the one thing my brain really struggles with is death. And maybe that's true for everyone. It's not something you use to strike up a conversation: "So, do you have a hard time contemplating death? Not just your own, but everyone's?" Maybe it's the finality of it. But finality is an easy-enough concept to grasp. Things begin and end all the time. My brain really hurts if I try to contemplate infinity - What do you mean the universe has no end? - but death is well defined.
Or is there simply an assimiliation process that takes time? Or are there two layers of understanding? When the twin towers fell, part of me understood that the buildings were coming down, but part of me couldn't grasp that what I was seeing was real.
Mind you, I don't dwell on the idea of death. I'm not Harry Burns in "When Harry Met Sally ...": I don't read the last page of a book first so I'll know how it ends in case I die before I finish it. I don't spend hours, days contemplating death.
But when people pass away unexpectedly, it's jarring. And obituaries for younger people are always more surprising than obituaries for older people.
So while the coverage of Anna Nicole Smith's death seems excessive to some, I figure, she lived her life in the media, so it's only natural that her death would be of great interest to those same outlets. Couple that with the recent tragic death of her son, the pending paternity suit, the newly announed lawsuit, her general kooky persona, and top it all off with the comparisons between her and Marilyn Monroe, and you've got a towering story sundae.
But it's not Smith's death that startled me the most yesterday. The woman who does my taxes wrote to me about a number of things, including the fact that she lost her son in December. He was 44. And she saw him just hours before he died. She said he had a strange, serene smile on his face when he kissed her goodbye.
Did he know he was dying? Could he already see the light? Was he still fully here?
I suspect most people don't know on any given day that they're waking up to their last day on the planet. And yet, we might be. Odds teach us differently, I suppose. For every day that we wake up and go to bed, we have one more reason to think that the same will be true tomorrow. But eventually, we all wake up for the last time.
And so someone's death sets us to pondering about how we should live each day more fully, and maybe we do, for a time or two, but we lapse back into our complacency, confident in another day.
It seems morose to wake up every day and think about dying, but maybe that's a good way to inform our lives, a little daily reminder not to dawdle. But is it realistic to strive to make every day extraordinary? Or do we need to adjust our defintion of extraordinary? Maybe it's just enough to wake up and be grateful and kind and make the right choices.
Hmm. My processor's feeling a bit bogged down. Maybe I just need to play Tetris.
'A Clockwork Orange' ...
(Before I talk about the movie, allow me to revel in the fact that the temperature in these parts is forecasted to climb into double digits today, though it is presently -4.)
OK, so I struggled to get through the rest of Stanley Kubrick's early-'70s psychotic episode last night. I've seen bits and pieces of "A Clockwork Orange" over the years, but I've never put them in order in my head.
Now I have.
And you know what I think? I think Kurbrick must have failed a philosophy class somewhere along the line.
When I was in college, I took an intro philosophy class. I remember syllogisms. That's about it.
But then there was Senior Honors, a year of study with three professors, a program for which you had to apply and be accepted. I applied for my junior year with what I thought was a very clever one-page essay. It did the trick.
And so I took a class with an English professor with roots in philosophy, a man who clearly was used to dealing with grad students. One day, as class took a break, I mentioned to him that I was going to get something to drink and asked if I could get him anything. He seemed somewhat stymied by the question. Perhaps he was unaccustomed to basic kindness. I seem to remember him agreeing to a Sprite. Maybe it was a Coke.
What I do remember, though, was when it came time to write that quarter's paper, I had no idea what I was talking about. But based on past philosophy experiences, my own and those of my friend Brian who was double-majoring in philosophy and architecture, I proceeded to write the most convoluted paper I could craft.
(I just flipped through my college-paper folder, the few that I culled from all the files from all the classes. Not surprisingly, I didn't save the paper I wrote for Ned. It was likely relegated to a landfill long ago. Too bad. It would be entertaining to read it today.)
Anyway, watching "A Clockwork Orange" felt like writing that paper. Many have raved about its social commentary. Roger Ebert wasn't buying it. His review begins, "Stanley Kubrick's 'A Clockwork Orange' is an ideological mess, a paranoid right-wing fantasy masquerading as an Orwellian warning. It pretends to oppose the police state and forced mind control, but all it really does is celebrate the nastiness of its hero, Alex." Ebert's entire review is here.
Yup. Alex, with his false eyelashes, phallic prosthetic nose, and exaggerated codpiece, is quite the son of a bitch. In Alex's world, beating up drunks and raping women are ways to pass time between visits to his gang's milk-bar hangout. Of course, it's not just regular milk. And it's not dispensed in a regular way.
Eventually, all his nasty behavior catches up with him, which brings on the second half of the movie, which I didn't like any more than the first.
It felt contrived and indulgent, a way for Kubrick to flail about a lot of penises and undress a lot of women. Maybe he was trying to make some kind of statement about man's basest motivations. I think he just figured that if he made it all really weird and slapped some Beethoven over the whole mess, people would think it was genius.
The same way I tried to write the most absurd paper I could for the Senior Honors class, figuring that if it didn't really make sense, it would probably pass for philosophy.
Many hailed Kubrick's film as a masterpiece.
My professor gave me a B.
Close enough.
Two-fer Tuesday ...
It is cold.
I know this because my Mac weather widget tells me that it's 9 outside.
I also know this because I just came in from shoveling show. Pushing, snow, really. It's the fluffy, Hollywood snow, but there's plenty of it, so the pushing took some time.
Planning for the cold, I put on two of everything: my stretchy leggings as well as my heavier-weight walking pants (a yoga pant/sweatpant hybrid: drawstring waist but straight, loose legs), a long-sleeve thermal T-shirt as well as a sweatshirt, my cashmere-lined leather gloves as well as my ridiculously floppy magenta fleece mittens, a scarf wound around my neck as well as one worn over my head. (I don't own a hat.)
I was outside perhaps 20 minutes. My fingertips have finally warmed enough for me to type without missing letters.
I didn't think it could snow when it was so cold. I figured the atmosphere was too dry. I was wrong. My driveway had four inches of snow on it. Maybe five. Thank God it was fluffy. I'd still be out there if it was wet, heavy snow.
No, actually, my neighbors would have fired up the snowblower and cleared my snow for me. They're great about that kind of thing.
When it's fluffy, I try to clear theirs as well as my own. Fair's fair. But William had already gotten to his (he uses his leaf blower to clear this kind of snow), and I would have frozen in place if I tried to do more than my own surfaces.
I fondly remember snow days as a kid: WGN radio the soundtrack of my mother's mornings. She'd listen to the weather and school closings and would come into my room and tell me that I could stay snuggled in, that school was canceled for the day.
Of course, nothing makes a kid get out of bed faster than the news that they don't have to get out of bed. When we got a day off for snow, we were damn well going to make the most of it. There were snowball fights to be fought, snowforts to be built, snowmen to make, snow angels, snow hills, snow, snow, snow.
In those days, we wore snowsuits or snow pants and jackets. Unlike Ralphie's little brother in "A Christmas Story," we could always put our arms down. I loved the zip-zop-zip-zop sound we'd make while walking, the nylon rubbing against itself. My mom used to put my feet in Baggies before slipping them into my boots, partly to aid in getting my feet into the boots, but also, I suspect, to keep my feet drier.
Today, I managed just fine with athletic socks and a beat-up old pair of New Balance. My pants didn't zip-zop, but the snow was squeaky.
I have earned a cup of cocoa.
And me without any marshmallows.
What Is Love?, Part Deux ...
Whew.
I just read my pal Steff's post about love.
Steff's posts are always good for inspiring a "Hmm ... ." I wrote about love before, here, but it's not like it's a topic that one can exhaust.
In Steff's post, she mentions that she's only ever used the L-word with one man. Ever.
As coincidence would have it (not that I believe in coincidence), he called this afternoon.
We dated briefly in college (his name is David, of course, because all men in my life are named David, except the ones who aren't) but, unlike every other man I've ever dated, we've stayed in touch for all these years.
Not regularly, necessarily. It's been years since I've seen him, but we pop up in each other's lives from time to time, and always, it's like no time has passed.
I should clarify my comment about only ever telling one man that I loved him. I've said it to male friends, of course. And I once said it to a guy because he said it to me (far too soon) and I was young and felt the need to say it back. But I didn't mean it. And when we split up, I learned the power of those three little words. It was the only relationship I've ever actively ended (as opposed to those dating scenarios in which you both stop calling each other, absurd as they are, or situations in which I've been the break-upee, not the break-uper) and he was hurt. How could I break up with him if I just told him that I loved him?, he wanted to know. Ouch.
So I'm very judicious with my use of the word "love." If I say it, I mean it. Which means I don't say it much.
To my family, all the time. Friends, not often enough.
But David's the only man I've ever said it to in *that* way.
David has a magnetic personality. He's a force of nature. More charming than anyone I've ever met, but in a very real way. There's charming charming and there's smarmy charming. David is charming charming. A boundless heart. Unfathomable generosity. A true love for humankind. An insatiable curiosity about the world. And a father's limitless pride.
There are certain people - very few, sadly, though we're lucky if we have even those - with whom you identify in a mystical way, a connection deep and profound that belies understanding. You inherently respond to something in their soul. It defies explanation. It just is. Words to describe it don't exist. You just know it and feel it and I don't believe it ever goes away.
Soulmate is a word that seems cheapened from overuse, but that's as close as I can come to a label.
Finding a soulmate is a quest for many. David is one, surely. So why aren't we together? Well, technically, we are. We always will be. But he's not here and I'm not there. Maybe we were physically together in another life and we've met up again in this incarnation. Or maybe we'll be together down the road. Or maybe we won't.
But it's nice to know he's there.
Doofus, Party Of One? ...
Yeah, yeah, I know, politics is nasty blog fodder in these parts. I have readers who don't like it when I pipe up about politics, and everyone who reads me on any kind of regular basis knows where I stand on Fearless Leader.
Of course, part of what I don't like about the current administration is the "us vs. them" mentality, not just abroad but in our own backyards. Civil discourse has been ground into the carpet like a half-smoked Marlboro under a dusty boot. "Hell no, you can't have an opinion," everyone seems to say, "unless it matches mine."
But on this topic, I will speak: Dude admits that global warming is an issue, even wants to save the polar bears that are teetering on the brink of extinction, but refuses to implement CO2 caps because doing so might be bad for the economy.
Um, how about we take a step back from the books and look at the bigger picture: If the planet's destroyed, the U.S. economy is gonna be pretty far down on the list of things to care about. As sea levels rise, large portions of the continents will end up under water and millions of people will be displaced. Finally, Malibu beachfront for cheap.
Even before I watched "An Inconvenient Truth," I blogged about the film's list of simple things we can do to make a difference. And then I watched the movie, and blogged about it here.
I've become much more aware of my energy consumption. I admit that I still drive too fast and therefore realize less fuel efficiency, but I recycle more than ever (and I recycled a lot before) and keep things not only turned off but unplugged. I use my treadmill less than an hour a day. Why leave it plugged in and turned on when I'm not using it? (No, smart ass, I'm not talking about leaving the belt running all day.) I don't necessarily make coffee every morning. Why leave the coffee pot plugged in all the time? It takes two seconds to plug it in when I want to use it. Many little things add up to a big difference.
El Presidente flies around on a big airplane which, on any given flight, is mostly empty. And hey, he'll be dead by the time this global-warming business really comes home to roost.
The United States is home to approximately 5 percent of the world's population, yet we dump nearly 25 percent of the world's CO2 in to the atmosphere.
So it frosts my ass when Georgie Boy refuses to play ball because he can't dictate all the rules. Last I checked, we didn't own the planet.
Some might say that we throw a lot of money toward global-warming initiatives, more than anyone else in the world. Yup, we're mighty good at throwing money at situations. Iraq comes to mind. There's a well-oiled machine for you. Oops, did I say "oil"?
Al Gore, back in the days of Bill and Al's Presidentialpalooza, signed the Kyoto Protocol, but we've never ratified it, so as far as we're concerned, it truly isn't worth the paper it's written on.
So it's not just George's problem, but the problem keeps getting worse. Al, for his part, is out there trying to shake people by their collective shoulders. (And good for him and his Nobel Peace Prize nomination.)
But The Big G is in the Oval Office these days. A lot of smart scientist types just released a report that we're the cause of the problem and it's a problem that won't go away for generations to come.
So how about we put some of that good ol' American ingenuity to work in figuring out how to make the economy work while protecting the planet instead of whining that we don't like the new rules?
We made the mess. It's up to us to do what we can to clean it up, not continue to trash the place and let someone else worry about it later.
Because later will be here sooner than we think.
Dream Come True ...
Sometime, last week perhaps, I was watching Oprah.
One of her guests, not a movie star or a recording star or a politician but just an everyday gal, sat across from Oprah on the set, talking about whatever it was she was talking about. Teary-eyed, at the end of the segment, she told Oprah that it was her life's dream to meet her.
Oprah, of course, is accustomed to hearing that, as much as any mere mortal can be accustomed to being worshipped so. But without skipping a beat, she said, "Now you'll get a bigger dream."
Because there's always a bigger dream.
Today, I received the most miraculous e-mail.
One of my very dear friends sent word (and pictures) that her daughter has arrived from Korea. She and her husband had been waiting and waiting. In November, many of us gathered for a baby shower. I've been excited the entire time, but it didn't yet feel quite real. Their daughter was on the other side of the world, waiting to be granted a passport. A few weeks ago, they got word that she would be arriving a little sooner than anticipated. Today, the e-mail came.
She's here.
I, being a sap, started to cry.
Becoming a parent: There is no bigger dream.
For me, anyway. And for them. And for many.
So what are the dreams after the arrival of the bundle of joy? The dream of her health and happiness? The dream of a life full of love? The dream of a future filled with family and friends?
Good dreams for her. Good dreams for all of us.
A few years ago, I reconnected with the brother of a friend from my Tribune days. It was only briefly, just one conversation. But it was one of those conversations that resonated loud and clear, just the right message at just the right moment. And it all boiled down to a simple question: "In this moment, are you OK?"
His point was, no matter what may lie in wait for us outside our doors - issues with money or relationships or careers - the answer to the question "In this moment, am I OK?" is almost always "Yes." And since all we really have is right this minute, we're more OK than we realize.
My friends, of course, are more OK than OK.
And I couldn't be happier for them. It's not every day you get word of a dream come true.
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TITANIC Home All about Titanic News and Reviews Photo Gallery Send an Email About the Author
TITANIC Home
WHO WAS TITANIC?
Legendary gambler Alvin “Titanic” Thompson (1892-1974) traveled with his golf clubs, a .45 revolver and a suitcase full of cash. He won and lost millions playing cards, dice, golf, pool and dangerous games of his own invention. He also killed five men. “But they’d all tell you they had it coming,” he said. And he married five women, each one a teenager on her wedding day. Titanic ruled New York’s underground craps games in the 1920s—he was the model for Sky Masterson, the gambler-hero of Guys and Dolls. He traded card tricks with Houdini, conned Al Capone, hustled golf with Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson and Lee Trevino. He lost a million playing pool with Minnesota Fats, then teamed up with Fats and won it all back. As dramatic as a blockbuster movie, full of amazing true stories and tips every bettor should heed, Titanic Thompson is an epic story from award-winning author Kevin Cook—the rags-to-riches life of the greatest gambler who ever lived.
“Even money you’re going to read this book in a night, maybe two. Five to one you’re going to practice shuffling cards or throwing quarters against a wall or chipping golf balls into a shot glass when you’re finished. Ten to one you’re going to claim you can throw a peanut over a three-story building. Hundred to one you’re going to get married a bunch of times, kill a few people, make and lose a fortune and...oh, read the book and find out. You won’t be disappointed.” — best-selling author Leigh Montville
http://www.amazon.com/Titanic-Thompson-Man-Who-Everything/dp/0393071154/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1286644280&sr=1-1 http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Titanic-Thompson/Kevin-Cook/e/9780393071153/?itm=1&USRI=titanic+thompson http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Titanic-Thompson/
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Pop culture October 31, 2016
Five facts about women’s health that should REALLY scare you this Halloween
birth control, education, women in politics
It’s difficult to say what’s scarier: the trove of Stranger Things demogorgon Halloween costumes we’ll see this Halloween or the state of women’s health legislation in the United States. Here are five terrifying actualities that could give even the spookiest haunted house a run for its money.
The US is the only industrialized nation without ANY paid family leave
American women are not guaranteed any paid leave when they have children. None. Compare that to the UK, which offers 40 weeks. Or Singapore, which offers 16 weeks. Or Iran, which offers 12. And American men? None for them either. The UK, Denmark, Australia, Kenya, and Venezuela all offer two weeks to new dads.
“Our policies are stuck in the Mad Men era,” Kirsten Gillibrand said during the Democratic National Convention. “We are the only industrialized nation that does not guarantee workers paid family leave. Many women can’t even get a paid day off to give birth.”
This topic has been a hot one during the 2016 election cycle, with both parties showcasing a plan that would improve the current state of affairs. Ideally, no matter who’s elected, this issue should become a thing of the past.
That Twix bar is tax-free, but your tampons aren’t
Menstrual products are currently taxed in 37 states. Of those states without a tax, only eight have specifically nixed the tax — Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and New Jersey — while the remaining five don’t have any sales tax at all.
Sales tax laws are determined at the state level and applied to what the state governments deem ‘luxuries.’’ In the case of these 37 states, included in those luxuries: tampons and pads. Seriously. It makes little sense, considering groceries and some medications are not taxed (including, ahem, Viagra).
“Basically we are being taxed for being women,” Cristina Garcia, an assemblymember in California said in a press release in January. Garcia’s bill to end the tax passed in California’s Congress, but was vetoed by Governor Jerry Brown back in September.
There’s no federal requirement for schools to offer sex ed (or that it be medically accurate, for that matter)
Teen pregnancies have dropped to historic lows in recent years, but America still has the highest rate of unintended teen pregnancy of all developed countries, according to Planned Parenthood.
A root cause could be sexual education, or lack thereof. Data shows that states with abstinence-only sexual education programs have the highest rate of teen pregnancy. Nearly $2 billion has been spent by Congress over the past 25 years to initiate abstinence-based sex ed programs, with no tangible research backing their effectiveness.
There’s good news and meh news about this. The good news: the Obama administration cut the $10 million that’s historically funded abstinence-only education from the 2017 federal budget. The meh news: Every state still decides how it educates teens. You can use this tool from the National Conference of State Legislature to see what your state is doing about it.
Your employer can opt out of birth control coverage
The media circus around the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision may seem like old news, but it’s still affecting women across the country. To rewind: In 2014, the Supreme Court ruled that (despite the Affordable Care Act requiring insurance to cover contraception without a copay), “corporations with religious owners cannot be required to pay for insurance coverage of contraception.”
It’s still unclear how many women are affected by their employees’ decision to forego birth control coverage, but according to POLITICO, “advocates of the birth control coverage requirement argue that if even one woman is barred from coverage because of her employer’s religious views, that’s too many.”
There is a law in place meant specifically to deny poor minority women from being able to get an abortion
It’s no secret that various politicians (many of them male) have made it difficult for women to access safe, affordable abortions. But despite various victories for abortion access — like the Texas Supreme Court striking down a proposed bill that would have required abortion clinics strict regulations that would have made it increasingly more difficult for women to access abortion in the state — there’s one law that bars many women from abortion coverage.
The Hyde Amendment, which was passed in 1976 and implemented in 1977, prohibits federal funding for abortion procedures and care. So that means what, exactly? That Medicaid, which is funded by the government, won’t fund an abortion.
However, there have been limited exceptions since 1994, with Medicaid covering the procedure in cases of rape, incest, or a health threat to a woman’s life. And various states will still cover the procedure under certain circumstances, including Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia.
In 1980, Justice Thurgood Marshall said that the amendment was “designed to deprive poor and minority women of the constitutional right to choose abortion.” This still holds true, considering, women of color are more likely to be uninsured or covered by Medicaid.
Ashley Ross is a freelance writer in New York City who has written for The New York Times, TIME, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, SHAPE, Glamour.com and more. She's a former gymnast and a graduate of the University of Florida.
How hormonal birth control affected my mental heal...
How the way you talk about sex could improve your ...
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