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Neuroscience: An Introduction to Your Brain
March 30, 2013
THIS CLASS IS FULL. PREFERENCE IS GIVEN TO THOSE WHO ATTENDED THE FIRST SESSION. IF YOU DID NOT ATTEND THE FIRST SESSION, WE CANNOT GUARANTEE A SEAT FOR YOU.
Can’t tell your amygdala from your orbitofrontal cortex? Curious about the neural underpinnings of everyday experiences like habits, cravings, decision making and memory? This three-session course offers a comprehensive overview of functional neuroanatomy – focusing on the major regions and networks in the brain that underlie perception, emotion, memory, self-regulation, and social interaction. Designed for those with little or no background in neuroscience, participants will become familiar with basic anatomy, major organizational principles of the brain, and the neural systems underlying a variety of processes we all experience on a daily basis.
No registration required! Recommended text: The Brain and the Inner World, Mark Solms and Oliver Turnbull (Other Press, 2003)
Instructor: Maggie Zellner, Ph.D., L.P., is the Executive Director of the Neuropsychoanalysis Foundation, adjunct faculty at the Rockefeller University, and editor of the journal Neuropsychoanalysis. For the past decade she has taught neuroscience to psychotherapists, graduate students and others interested in the brain in New York City, San Francisco, and Berkeley, and at congresses of the International Society for Neuropsychoanalysis. She has a reputation for conveying complex information in a dynamic and relatable way.
- Audience: Adults, College & Graduate Students, College/Graduate School Educators
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With a complex, inconsistent and multi-layered tax structure, the consumer has often ended up feeling cheated and ripped off. Cross-border compliance, compounding of taxes on domestic goods and separate central and state taxes had only made the system more complex. The central government took the final bold step the nation had been debating upon since the last 17 years.
At the stroke of the midnight hour on 30th of June 2017, Prime Minister Narendra Modi pressed the button to officially roll out the much-awaited Goods and Service Tax (GST).
GST made its mark on the here when it was first introduced in 2001. As one can clearly conclude from the chart posted above, it was a widely debated bill and even rejected in Rajya Sabha in 2015. Still, pursuant in its approach, the NDA Government made this a flagship decision of their current term, keeping in mind that the 2019 General Assembly polls are close and major policy changes will be critical signs of the work done by it.
GST is a multi-stage taxation scheme which will be levied on each point of manufacturing and processing until it reaches the end consumer. The taxes will be imposed on each sale, thus making it a destination-based taxation scheme. What happens in such a system is that the buyer has to pay the tax amount in all the phases and earn it back only when he or she further completes the transaction by selling the processed product. This scheme branches out into three main taxes- CGST (Central), SGST (State) and IGST (Inter-State). To prevent taxation overlapping, GST, within its mandate, has demarcated areas of administration for revenue collection.
The need for this system arises because it incorporates all other indirect taxes, such as central excise, service tax, special additional duty, Central Sales Tax (CST), and VAT. It will facilitate the creation of a single tax reporting structure, thus pushing India a step closer to becoming a unified market. There will be a proportionate reduction in economic distortions caused by the inter-state variations in taxes. One of the more important reasons why GST is needed is its ability to curb tax evasion and increase the revenue for the government.
This configuration reinforces the difference between needs and aspirations. It gives one the security that vegetables, fruits, and milk will be affordable, but also makes a middle-class family reconsider the decision about buying a four wheeler. It is good for a start; the products have been matched up to the tax bracket that they were closest to before the GST was implemented. But we look forward to revisions and corrections in the system as and when we settle into it.
However, the categorization of some products definitely needs attention. For example, while it is an excellent move to put condoms in the 0% tax category, sanitary napkins fall into the 12% category. There have been protests in UP as well, to reduce the tax on bicycles, which is the cheapest and most eco-friendly mode of transportation in almost all parts of the country.
But all of that being said, is it really such a rosy picture for the people? The average salaried employee ends up giving a good percentage of their wealth to the government. An individual whose income is 10LPA ends up paying 30% of the amount of income tax, and also has to pay taxes through GST, road tax, property tax, etc. It would be a fair estimate to say that around 45-50% of that person’s income will go to the government. While we understand the plight of the government in the form of very low percentages of citizens filing their income tax, one simply cannot kill the law abiding Samaritan who pays his or her taxes on time, while trying to improve their family’s standard of living.
By Anirudh Singla
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This event was held on December 1, 2011 at Downtown Library: Multi-Purpose Room
Filmmaker David Gatten will discuss his use of historical documents, "out-dated" instructional texts, and rare books as both inspiration and image in his film-making practice.
Over the last fifteen years Gatten's work has explored the intersection of the printed word and the moving image, while investigating the shifting vocabularies of experience and representation within intimate spaces and historical documents. Through traditional research methods (reading old books) and non-traditional film processes (boiling old books), the films trace the contours of both private lives and public histories, combining elements of philosophy, biography and poetry with experiments in cinematic forms and narrative structures.
David Gatten was born in Ann Arbor and is currently Visiting Professor and Distinguished Filmmaker in Residence in the Program in the Arts of the Moving Image at Duke University. His films have been exhibited internationally, he is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and his works are in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Art Institute of Chicago.
On November 30th (the day before this event), Gatten will present a program of historic films at the Michigan Theater as part of the 50th Ann Arbor Film Festival Retrospective Screening Series.
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A LIFE-SAVING service is now flying high in Bradford - literally.
The speed at which a helicopter can travel, avoiding the delays on our daily commuter journeys, is essential when transporting poorly children from one hospital to another.
Two years ago The Children's Air Ambulance took to the skies. This dedicated air transfer service for critically ill children and babies
can assist in moving youngsters needing urgent and lifesaving medical care to the place of expertise.
Understood to be the first of its kind, the service is also believed to be the only dedicated helicopter emergency transfer service for seriously ill children and babies, flying them from one hospital to a more specialist unit alongside their team of clinicians - a journey usually made by land.
It is estimated around 5,800 children need transferring between hospitals every year, the majority are currently transported by land resulting in long and arduous journeys for seriously ill youngsters.
The Children's Air Ambulance can drastically cut the time it takes to carry out the transfers, resulting in sick children and babies getting life saving care as soon as possible and giving them the best chances of survival and recovery.
Now, with a little help from a Bradford firm, the charity is developing its essential service with a landing site in Bradford.
There are only 11 dedicated childrens hospitals in the UK which are supplemented by special units such as Bradford Neo Natal and Leeds Heart Unit.
The charity's partnership with fashion firm, FGH Holdings (Freeman, Grattan Holdings), was formed when the charity approached the company to see whether or not it could make use of its helipad close to its Thornton Road warehouse, to access Bradford Royal Infirmary as and when a situation to transfer a young patient may arise.
A spokesman for FGH explains the helipad had been in existence for many years but hadn't been used for a long time until the charity approached FGH to see if they could use it.
A spokesman for the Children's Air Ambulance explains they were seeking a landing place close to Bradford Royal Infirmary and approached the company to see if they could make use of the helipad.
The helicopter can travel up to 200mph which means it can get from Bradford to London in an hour.
"That is incredibly quick," says the spokesman.
Instances where young people may need to be moved swiftly is if they require specific medical equipment or surgery. Some patients with a chronic condition may be transferred for pre-planned surgery.
"The helicopter is a lot smoother and less stressful," says the spokesman.
The ability to transfer patients and medical teams swiftly also means staff can return to their stations and hospital bed are freed up sooner.
But maintaining the service can be costly. The charity needs around £1.6m a year to survive - each trip can cost £15 per mile.
Inspired by the charity's work, staff from FGH decided not only to allow the charity to use the helipad, they also adopted the charity as their chosen charity for the year and raised a staggering £21,946.75 to ensure the service stays in the sky.
"We decided as this was such a worthy cause we would continue to support them as our nominated company charity for the next 12 months," says a spokesman for FGH.
"FGH employees have really embraced our efforts to fundraise and activities have included a Christmas Market, home baked cake stalls, name the Royal baby competition, a fantasy football league, raffles and tombola’s with fantastic prizes such as iPads, cameras, phones and fashion items kindly donated by FGH. We have received very generous financial donations from the Tony Rampton Trust who have also funded the landing lights at the helipad."
"In total we have raised a staggering £21,946.75 and would like to thank all our employees for their amazing support and generosity."
According to the charity, the money will fund 35 hours of flying. "And Bradford to London is one hour - that is 35 trips to London which they have funded and that is a phenomenal amount."
"That is 35 lives saved or changed," says the charity spokesman.
Simon Kirk, Head of Resilience and Operations at Bradford Teaching Hospitals, said: “The ability to move unwell children and babies by air ambulance and land close to the Bradford Royal Infirmary site will allow quicker treatment and improve overall patient care.
“We are grateful to both Freeman Grattan Holdings and the Children’s Air Ambulance for providing this important capability to Bradford Teaching Hospitals.”
For more information about The Childrens Air Ambulance visit theairambulanceservice.org.uk.
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Dear Coach Joan,
I have found it impossible to obtain job offers. Upon reflection, given the training, additional education completed, good references, extensive life-experience, etc., that I offer, as an older person, the singular characteristic seeming to prevent being hired is ageism, which, of course is hard to actually confirm.
Any thoughts about both the reality of ageism, in our society, and how to succeed, despite it?
Thank you for writing and I am sorry you are in the frustrating position of not getting job offers for positions you believe you are fully qualified for. That hurts. Whether it’s due solely to a competitive job market, or based on unfair criteria, it never feels good to be rejected.The job seeking process is often fraught with emotional ups and downs but can be especially difficult when we don’t know if we’re being fairly evaluated.
We know it is against the law for employers to discriminate on the basis of age, race, gender, etc., but does that mean it doesn’t occur?
In my experience I do believe that sometimes there is both conscious and unconscious bias in the hiring process. People are sometimes screened and judged based on their perceived age, size, color, or other often extraneous characteristics. And I do believe that ageism and other isms do sometimes play a role in evaluating candidates. I think that ageism is more prevalent in the ‘younger industries’ like high-tech, but it can be operating in other industries as well. And I believe that in general, unless trained out of it, most people look to hire candidates who are similar to themselves.
So, the bad news is that the playing field is not necessarily a fair one, and we are sometimes pre judged by aspects of ourselves that fall into stereotypes that are either wrong or irrelevant to what we offer as a job candidate.
But, William, here’s the good news:
Knowing that you might be pre judged badly based on your perceived older age, do what you can to counter that impression. You can intentionally shape first impressions and counter some of the biases that people might have about older workers:
- Make sure your appearance is up to date. Why be rejected based on something as easily fixable as clothing and grooming? Look to fit into today’s prevalent culture. Groom yourself with a good haircut, perhaps even dye your hair if you have grey or white hair. I had a client do that and he was surprised at how interviewers seemed more open to him with his ‘younger’ hair. I wouldn’t go as far as suggesting plastic surgery, but if minor changes like hair style, makeup and choice of clothing can be changed to look younger, then do it. And as I suggest to all job seekers, be awake, alert, positive, walk with a brisk step, show energy and enthusiasm.
- Do your homework. Be prepared, do your research. Be knowledgeable about the position and the organization. Come prepared with current and relevant examples of your work and results you brought about. Be articulate and prepared with intelligent questions. Show that you understand the organization and the context they operate in. Bring in fresh ideas and thoughtful strategies. Practice interviewing with a friend or colleague and get feedback for improvement. Be authentic and assertive! Talk about your recent accomplishments and project vigor and a strong work ethic — and show that your brain is ON!
We have research (sourced from AARP Magazine) that older workers, in fact, are more reliable, steadier and often provide better judgement and problem solving skills, based on years of experience. And we also know that some of the concerns that hiring managers have about older workers can be counteracted by proactively discussing them. For instance, a friend of mine in the teaching field said that her hiring team is sometimes reluctant to hire an older teacher, concerned they will invest a lot in training them, and worry that the new hire won’t stay long enough for that investment to pay off. So why not proactively suggest to the employer that are you very healthy, ambitious, love your field of work, and plan to work for at least another 10-15 yrs.
And I’d like to leave you with an encouraging anecdote. A friend who owns a small business in the Bay Area confided to me that he actually prefers to hire older workers! He has a conscious bias toward older candidates. Why? He finds them to be more conscientious, appreciative of the work opportunity, resourceful, and often better problem solvers based on years of experience.
Bottom line, the real world is not always fair, but by understanding the playing field better, you can intentionally shape your preparation and presentation to put your best foot forward. And I wouldn’t be surprised if you saw those job offers appear, William. Persevere, keep applying for the positions you know you can do, and best of luck to you!
Kindly send your work and career related questions to: email@example.com
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Pierre Hardy Poworama, 2011, displayed at the Out of the Box: The Rise of Sneaker Culture exhibit at The Bata Shoe Museum. Collection of the Bata Shoe Museum, gift of Pierre Hardy. Image C 2013 Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto, Canada.
By Caley SkinnerOn April 25th, Toronto's Bata Shoe Museum opened an exhibit called Out of the Box: The Rise of Sneaker Culture. This marks the first North American exploration of the urban footwear style, which originally appeared in the 19th century. The Bata Shoe Museum is showing over 120 sneakers from across 150 years; standouts include a pair donated by rapper Run DMC and current designs from powerhouses such as Christian Louboutin, Prada and Lanvin. With the current explosion in sneaker popularity (or, more specifically, wedge sneaker popularity), it's no wonder Toronto's fab footwear museum has chosen to explore this type of footwear now! For more information on Out of the Box: The Rise of Sneaker Culture, you can visit batashoemuseum.ca/exhibitions. [ The Bata Shoe Museum] More daily fashion news: Heidi Klum starts a hair revolution at The Grove [ CocoPerez] 9 fashion exhibits you should see now that aren't about punk [ Fashionologie] The 10 best online shopping sites [ ELLECanada.com]
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Wind Quintet, Op.43 (Nielsen, Carl)
Since this work was first published after 1922 with the prescribed copyright notice, it is unlikely that this work is public domain in the USA. However, it is in the public domain in Canada (where IMSLP is hosted), the EU, and in those countries where the copyright term is life+70 years or less.
No files submitted.
Scores and Parts
Copenhagen: Wilhelm Hansen, No.2285, 1923. Plate 18204.
PDF split of Daphnis "Complete Parts" file (#15828) by Sallen112.
- Soni Ventorum Wind Quintet
- (frecorded in 1975)
- (recorded in 1993)
- (recorded in 1985)
|Work Title||Wind Quintet|
|Movements/Sections||3 (or 4) movements
|Year/Date of Composition||1922|
|Piece Style||Early 20th century|
|Instrumentation||flute, oboe (also English horn), clarinet (A), bassoon, horn (F)|
|External Links||Wikipedia article|
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Sentence 1. is ungrammatical. The verb 'piss' needs to agree in number with its subject: 'that pisses'. Sentence 2. is grammatical.1. They always drive over the dotted lines and that piss me off.
2. They always drive over the dotted lines and that pisses me off.
that (subject; relative pronoun, singular)
pisses (verb, singular)
'that' refers back to one clause: 'They always drive over the dotted-line'. You could replace the relative pronoun with another singular pronoun "it", like this,
It pisses me off.
You could also replace the relative pronoun with "The fact that", like this,
The fact that they always drive over the dotted-line pisses me off.
=> The underlined portion functions as the subject. It's one clause, so it agrees in singular number with the verb:
They always drive over the dotted-line = It/That
You could also omit 'The fact', like this,
That they always drive over the dotted-line pisses me off.
Note, 'dotted-line' does not require an -s to express all the dots in the line. It means the line is dotted (i.e., one line that's dotted, a dotted-line).
All the best, :D
- For Teachers
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Photography workshop with local photographer Rod Ireland
Are your kids interested in taking photo’s? If they are, this is a great Autumn workshop to develop their photography skills through fun and engaging activities, whilst surrounded by the beautiful colours of Autumn. Taking pictures from a ‘worms view’, freezing motion and capturing movement and making pictures stand out with some simple techniques? Just some of the things covered during the fun session with local professional photographer, Rod Ireland.
Please note all children attending the workshop should bring a camera. Can be anything from a phone camera to a professional DSLR.
Parental supervision required.
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At least 250 Palestinian and left-wing demonstrators clashed with Border
Police forces at the Kalandia checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah
Sunday afternoon as part of "Naksa Day," or the 44th commemoration of
the 1967 Six-Day War Palestinians see as a "setback" due to the capture of their land.
Channel 10 reported that protesters threw rocks,
Molotov cocktails, and burning tires in the direction of police forces,
who responded by firing tear gas and shock grenades. As winds began blowing the
gas back at police officers, security forces began firing rubber bullets in an attempt to
disperse the demonstration.
Naksa Day: 3 reported dead, 10 hurt on Israel-Syria border
Editorial: Gearing up for Naksa
PM: We will protect borders with determination, restraint
In light of the demonstration, the IDF closed the Kalandia crossing, the IDF spokesperson said, adding that one Border Police officer was lightly injured by stones thrown by Palestinians.
Forty Palestinians were injured during the course of the demonstration, Israel Radio reported.
In Hebron, protesters threw rocks and bottles at a
kindergarten in Beit Hadassah. The children were brought inside and
no injuried were reported.
In other areas of the West Bank, dozens of Palestinians and left-wing activists marched toward the Elon
Moreh settlement, attempting to break through the
Protesters were dispersed after setting a small fire, which was subsequently extinguished.
In Ramallah, a 200-person rally was taking place in the city's main Manara Square.
In Gaza's Beit Hanun, hundreds of Palestinian held a march, with some 20
managing to reach the Erez Border Crossing, Israel Radio reported,
citing Hamas security sources.
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Mythology & Beliefs: Pales In Greek and Roman Mythology, Pales was the Roman goddess of shepherds and herdsmen.
Pales in Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology
a Roman divinity of flocks and shepherds, is described by some
as a male, and by others as a female divinity; whence some
modern writers have inferred that Pales was a combination of
both sexes; but such a monstrosity is altogether foreign to
the religion of the Romans. (Verg. A. 3.1, 297, Georg. 3.1;
Serv. ad Virg. Eclog. 5.35; Ov. Fast. 4.721, 746, 766; Dionys.
A. R. 1.88 ; Athen. 8.361.) Some of the rites performed at the
festival of Pales, which was celebrated on the 21 st of April,
the birth-day of the city of Rome, would indeed seem to
indicate, that the divinity was a female character; but
besides the express statements to the contrary (Serv. ad Virg.
Georg. 3.1; Arnob. ad v. Gent. 3.23; Martian. cap. i. p. 27),
there also are other reasons for believing that Pales was a
male divinity. The name seems to be connected with Palatinus,
the centre of all the earliest legends of Rome, and the god
himself was with the Romans the embodiment of the same idea as
Pan among the Greeks. Respecting the festival of the Palilia
see Dict. of Ant. s. v. (Hartung, Die Relig. der Röm. vol. ii.
p. 148, &c.) - A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and
mythology, William Smith, Ed.
Pales in Wikipedia
In Roman mythology, Pales was a deity of shepherds, flocks and
livestock. Regarded as a male by some sources and a female by
others, and even possibly as a pair of deities (as Pales could
be either singular or plural in Latin).
Pales' festival, called the Parilia, was celebrated on April
21. Cattle were driven through bonfires on this day. Another
festival to Pales, apparently dedicated "to the two Pales"
(Palibus duobus) was held on July 7.
Marcus Atilius Regulus built a temple to Pales in Rome
following his victory over the Salentini in 267 BC. It is
generally thought to have been located on the Palatine Hill,
but, being a victory monument, it may have been located on the
route of the triumphal procession, either on the Campus
Martius or the Aventine Hill. - Wikipedia
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Evidence of Beluga Intelligence Raises Questions about Captivity
A growing number scientific and anecdotal reports suggest that there is much more to a cetacean’s brain than the captivity industry might care to admit
NOC, the ‘talking’ beluga whale who has become posthumously famous after the release of a report revealing his speech, had the same legal standing as the computer or handheld device that you are using to read this article. After his capture from Churchill, Manitoba, in Canada, he became a piece of property, owned first by the Navy and later the National Marine Mammal Foundation (NMMF). He was used in various acoustic experiments for years and was denied the right to control any aspect of his life: the right to bodily integrity; the right to privacy of any sort; and any other right which you and I (thankfully) possess.
Photo of Painting by Opal-On-Black
Recently, 18 wild belugas similarly lost their freedom. They were captured off the coast of Russia and are currently being held in a pen in the Black Sea. They could soon become the property of the Georgia Aquarium and other such facilities in the United States. The freedoms they once enjoyed - to traverse the oceans with their families; to socialize with whoever they chose; to live their lives as they wish - have been removed from them, potentially forever.
In both cases, as with every other captive cetacean on the planet, this removal of freedoms and designation as property is in the name of ‘education’, ‘science’ and ‘conservation’. Regardless of the validity of these statements, the question becomes whether the complete removal of rights from these individuals is ethically defensible. The justifications given, whether stated or implied, are that beluga whales are not capable of having emotions, complex thoughts, and do not otherwise possess those human qualities which entitle us to the basic rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. But are these justifications grounded in scientific fact? Are beluga whales indeed lacking these qualities?
There is a burgeoning body of both scientific and anecdotal evidence suggesting that there is much more to a cetacean’s brain than the captivity industry, comprised of places like SeaWorld and the Georgia Aquarium, might care to admit. These businesses thrive on perpetuating the image that dolphins and whales are suitable for human entertainment and as experimentation subjects. The industry openly flaunts their control over them, displaying them in shows where they are forced to perform degrading tricks every day. The industry profits from their captives to the tune of billions of dollars each year, generating significant motivation to continue withholding rights from cetaceans.
If the Georgia Aquarium had to prove that belugas have no more emotional or cognitive abilities than a footstool, they would fail, and would not be able to justify keeping them captive. The onus should be on the industry to prove, beyond a doubt, that cetaceans are nothing more than stimulus-response automatons before being condemned to concrete tanks.
NOC’s spontaneous human speech mimicry is significant in the question of whether belugas belong in captivity. To the scientists at the NMMF, it was an interesting manipulation of his vestibular air sacs and phonic lips, which they conceded as requiring significant effort on NOC’s part to accomplish. More significantly, however, is the fact that underpinning those physical sounds was an apparent motivation — or a desire — to communicate with humans.
According to Thomas White, director of the Center for Ethics and Business at Loyola Marymount University and author of In Defense of Dolphins – The New Moral Frontier (2007), having desires and the power to make choices in one’s life is indicative of a complex mind and the possession of a sense of self —or self-awareness. While self-awareness tests have not been conducted on beluga whales, other cetaceans with similar brain size and structure have passed these tests. There is good reason to believe that belugas would pass as well.
Contributing to the evidence of self-awareness in belugas is the fact that NOC was not imitating random sounds, like the water filtration system in his tank, or the clanging of feed buckets – he was mimicking sounds coming from humans, which could indicate that he recognized humans as being ‘other minds’. White argues that the ability to recognize other minds is “… a necessary trait of a sophisticated consciousness” and that this ability renders one vulnerable to feeling the emotional pain of being treated unfairly or cruelly at the hands of another mind. “…harm that may result from (a dolphins’) contact with humans could be intensified by the awareness that we are beings with the power to act differently, but choose not to.” Each of us has experienced this kind of exquisite pain, and it is likely that NOC felt it as well.
When asked about what could have motivated NOC to go to such great efforts to make human-like sounds, the lead author of the report, Sam Ridgeway, offered the following: "The whale often heard divers talking over underwater communication equipment… I think that vocal animals like feedback. Perhaps this figured in his motivation.” If one looks beyond this response, however, it does not take a great logical leap to suppose that perhaps NOC had something to convey to the human scientists. The fact that he repeated the word “Out” over and over, while a diver was in the tank with him, does not appear to have figured into Ridgeway’s official conclusions. It is precisely this sort of conclusion that the Georgia Aquarium is banking on — one that places beluga whales into the category of ‘property,’ rather than ‘thinking, feeling, communicative being.
A charming piece of anecdotal evidence provides a further clue into the cognitive abilities of a beluga whale. In this video the whale bobs its head to music being played outside of its tank. According to neurobiologist Aniruddh Patel, dancing, or the ability to perceive rhythms and synchronizing body movements to what is heard, is the product of a complex set of processes — one that was, until recently, among the coveted hallmarks of exclusively human abilities. The act of dancing to a beat is surprisingly complex — it requires creating and responding to a model inside one’s head in relation to what is being heard externally. It indicates the ability to predict and expect. It also indicates that belugas could be vocal learners, just like people. Vocal learning suggests evolution of complex languages — another indication of cognitive complexity.
The evidence suggests that, at the very least, there is a chance that beluga whales are intelligent, have desires, and are self-aware. Because it is impossible to prove that belugas are essentially inanimate objects, they should not be considered and treated as property. If your footstool repeated the word “Off” to you, would you still rest your feet firmly upon it? If you saw some indication that it used complex language, that it could dance, and that it wanted to dance: would you unequivocally deny it the ability to do so?
The captive cetacean industry is trying it’s best to avoid these kinds of questions, instead claiming that they “love” animals and it is through a sense of caring and concern that they must keep these beings captive. They cannot prove that cetaceans do not have emotions or intelligence, yet they are still allowed to deny all freedoms.
When a whale tells a person to get out of his tank, it is easy to think that it was some sort of strange coincidence or that it was an animal looking for ‘feedback’. But it is just as easy, and perhaps easier still, to recognize that the whale looking back at you from within the tank is another self-aware mind.
The people at the Georgia Aquarium have made up their minds about keeping belugas captive. Have you?
For updates on the Georgia Aquarium permit and other cetacean captivity issues, see dolphinproject.org
A previous version of this story incorrectly located Churchill in Alberta instead of Manitoba.
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The economy was experiencing the start of a boom in the early 1990s, before Clinton took office. Clinton decided early in his first term that debt reduction, rather than tax cuts, was the best way to preserve this economic growth. Footnote here
In 1993, President Clinton and Congress made an effort to cut the deficit. They enacted a five-year deficit reduction package of spending cuts and higher revenues. The law was designed to cut the accumulated deficits from 1994 to 1998 by about $500 billion.
In 1998, the Federal budget reported its first surplus ($69 billion) since 1969. In 1999, the surplus nearly doubled to $124 billion. As a result of these surpluses, Federal debt held by the public was reduced from $3.8 trillion at the end of 1997 to $3.6 trillion at the end of 1999.
The booming US economy brought economic benefits right across the income spectrum. The unemployment rate dropped by half, to 4%, a 40-year-low, while the economy created 15 million jobs.
Unemployment graph/chart here
The stock market grew even faster – by more than three times – creating thousands of millionaires among middle class stockholders and employees of fast-growing tech companies – before the NASDAQ fell back sharply in 2001.
Stock market Graph/chart here
But the growth was not evenly distributed. The US has the highest rate of inequality of any industrialized country, and that inequality increased during Clinton’s years in office. It was only in the last few years of the boom that economic growth percolated down, as average wages began to rise and unemployment fell among minority communities.
Some of the policies Clinton embraced, such as the expansion of the earned income tax credit, were designed to redistribute money to working families. But others, such as welfare reform, meant that even less government support was likely for poor people at the bottom of the income distribution. Footnote here
Overall, the decade of the 90’s was a period of low inflation, low unemployment, and record budget surpluses.
Did Clinton have anything to do with the shift to surplus?
Clinton was President during a time of rapid business cycle expansion. The reasons for the rapid growth include a change in policy at the Federal Reserve and the stock market bubble.
The Fed abandoned the theory that 6% unemployment was the best that the economy could do without accelerating inflation. Unemployment was allowed to fall to 4% and growth continued beyond the point at which the Fed, in the past, would have pulled the plug. Footnote here
The stock market bubble, a 14 trillion increase in stock holdings over the last decade caused many upper income households to spend freely. This spending, even if it was based on paper increases in wealth that soon disappeared, provided a considerable stimulus to the economy – much the same as we would get from a large increase in deficit spending by the federal government. Footnote here
The economic policies for which Clinton can claim responsibility – e.g., NAFTA, the creation and expansion of the World Trade Organization – served primarily to prevent the majority of Americans from sharing in the gains from economic growth. And then there was welfare reform, which threw millions of poor single mothers at the mercy of one of the lowest-wage labor markets in the industrialized world. Footnote here
In short, Clinton’s policies continued the upward redistribution of income and wealth that were the hallmarks of the Reagan era. It was not until 1999 that the median real wage reached its pre-1990 level, and it remains anchored today at about where it was 27 years ago.
Real Wage Graph/chart here
Many observers credit Alan Greenspan, the Fed chief, rather than President Clinton, with the careful management of the economy during the Clinton years. Footnote here
The New Millennium
Recession of 2001
After the great run of the 1990s, the U.S. economy was hit with a recession that started in March of 2001 and ended in November 2001.1 The start of a recession is when the economy reaches a peak of activity. The National Bureau of Economic Research mainly looks at four activities, which are determined monthly, to gage the start of a recession; current employment, current industrial production, real manufacturing and trade sales, and current real personal income less transfers. The start of the 2001 recession was marked by a slight decline in the current employment and a large decrease in industrial production compared to previous recessions. The figure below shows the decrease in industrial production after mid 2000.
Current Industrial Production
The dark line shows the movement of industrial production in 1999-2001
and the dashed line the average over the past 6 recessions.
Another method to determine when the economy is in a recession is to look at the U.S GDP. The problem with GDP is that it is determined quarterly as opposed to monthly. Historically, a recession is a decline in the GDP over two quarters. The figure below shows percent change in the U.S. GDP from the preceding quarter. 2
From 1994 to 2000, the economy grew around 4 %; then in Q3 2000 the economy contracted and again in Q1-Q3 of 2001. The red circle marks the recession.
The potential causes of the recession are many. A few of the reasons include the decline in stock market wealth, increases in energy costs and increases in interests. It is beyond the scope of this paper to analyze all of the potential causes. Instead, the burst of the stock market bubble and the subsequent decline in business investment will be discussed.
During the late 1990s, the stock market saw gains like never before. There was much hype about the new economy and everybody thought the economy is going to grow forever. Next, the unthinkable happened. Investors started to realize that new companies could not generate profits and started selling their investments. The figure below shows the value of the NASDAQ starting in 1998.
The NASDAQ peaked above 5000 and fell back to pre 1999 levels by the time the economy entered the recession. The drop in stock values meant that people lost a lot of stock wealth. The meant there was less capital available to invest in businesses.
On a related note, businesses were ramping up capital investment during the 1990s to prepare for the Y2K problem. The next two figures show how the capital investment ramped up during the late 1990s and fell after 2000.3 The first figure shows the gross domestic private investment in billions starting in 1996. There was steady growth from 1996 to 2000 and then a substantial decline. The start of the decline coincides with the bust of the stock market bubble.
The other figure shows the percent quarterly change in nonresidential private fixed investment starting in 1996. Except for a few quarters, there was over 10% growth in investment from 1996 to 2000. Again, coinciding with the stock market bust, there is a sizeable decrease in the private fixed investment. In fact, there is decrease in private investment starting in 2001 and extends until mid-2003. The stock market bubble and decrease in business investment helped to fuel the recession.
A result of the recession was higher unemployment. The figure below shows how the unemployment decreased during the late 1990s to 4% and then rose up to 5.7% right after the recession and approached 6% in future years. Usually after a recession the unemployment rate starts to decrease and inflation starts to increase. One peculiar item about this recession and subsequent recovery is the unemployment rate is not dropping; in fact, some economists are calling this period “The Jobless Recovery” and are calling for reforms to stimulate job growth.4 The figure below shows the increase in unemployment and decrease in inflation after the recession.5
The decline in private sector jobs is greater than in any of the past three recoveries. This high unemployment is leading to lower standards of living for most families. But the trend of higher unemployment and low inflation follows the Phillips curve.
Use of Monetary and Fiscal Policy to Stabilize Economy
The Federal Reserve board tries to cool down hot economies by trying to raise the intended federal funds rate. The converse is also true; if the economy is in a recession the FOMC will lower interest rates to encourage new investment and increases in planned autonomous spending. The following figure shows the intended federal funds rate from 1994 to current.6
When the economy was heating up during 1999-2000, the FOMC was starting to raise interest rates to slow down the economy. Then in 2001, the economy went into recession and the FOMC started to decrease interest rates rapidly. In fact, it dropped from 6% in January of 2001 to 1.75% by December 12th the same year. That is a remarkable drop.
The other method to help the economy is to use fiscal policy.
The tax relief bill of 2001 was introduced by president Bush immediately after his instatement in office, and was approved by congress and signed into law in late May. The bill consisted of four major parts, two of which were characterized by new nomenclature to add a political “spin:”
1. Reduction and restructuring of base-level income taxes
2. Phase-out of the estate tax (referred to by the Bush administration as the “Death Tax”)
3. Increase of the child credit
4. 10% deduction for married couples (referred to as elimination of the “Marriage Penalty”)
The income tax changes consisted of tax cuts throughout most income brackets. It also added a new bracket at the bottom of the income scale (bracket 1 in Table 1). This bracket will be phased in by 2008, and will have an upper limit of $7,000 for childless singles, $10,000 for single parents, and $14,000 for married couples. The upper and lower limits of the other brackets remain the same, and the percentage changes to them were made retroactive to 2000 through an immediate refund.
January 9, 2018
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Editor's note: The SABR Salute, first bestowed upon writer Fred Lieb in 1976, was designed as a manner of recognizing the contributions of some of the older members of the Society. Subsequent SABR Salutes appeared in the SABR Membership Directory and honored members who had made great contributions to baseball historical research. Eugene Murdock (1921-1992) received the SABR Salute in 1991; the following biographical sketch appeared in that year's membership directory.
When SABR held its 10th anniversary convention in Toronto July 24-26, 1981, the scheduled game of birdwatching (Blue Jays vs Orioles) was cancelled because of the player strike. We cranked up our own baseball game on the Erindale Campus — Canada vs USA — and one of the stars — along with Roy Hughes—was Professor Gene Murdock of Marietta College. At 60 years of age, he held the bat at the very end and swung with great confidence and authority from the left side.
It is surprising to learn, after the fact, that he never played regularly with any team. Even in high school in Lakewood, Ohio, where he was born April 30, 1921, he was not the star player but sports editor of the school paper. That role established the pattern of his baseball interest as researcher and reporter. The first major league game he attended was Yankees vs. Indians at League Park on August 10, 1929. Babe Ruth hit his 499th home run off Milt Shoffner, a hurler Gene would interview many years later.
Gene entered Wooster College in Ohio when war started in Europe in September 1939. With the military draft later hanging over him, he completed his BA requirements on an accelerated basis in December 1942 before spending three years in the Army, one-half of the tour in the European theater. Upon discharge in 1946, he entered Columbia University in New York to work with history professor Allan Nevins. It was that Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer who taught Gene the importance of oral history. (More about that later.) He received his MA in l948 and Ph.D. in 1951.
Dr. Murdock, who married Rita McColl in October 1950, served his first teaching assignment at Rio Grande College in southern Ohio in 1952-56. He then became assistant professor of history at Marietta College in 1956 and moved up to full professor in 1963. He was chairman of the history department from 1972 to his retirement in 1986, after which he became Historian of the College. Throughout this period, he belonged to many historical societies and associations, some of which he headed as president, as well as serving on different editorial boards. In April 1991 his fellow historians bestowed upon him the Ohio Academy of History’s Distinguished Service Award.
Gene, who has lived all these years across the Ohio River from Marietta, in Williamstown, West Virginia, joined SABR as member No. 38 on September 10, 1971. He had published articles in Baseball Digest since 1965, and became a regular contributor to the annual SABR Baseball Research Journal. His first article, in the 1973 Journal, dealt with the contributions of 19th-century players, a field not well explored at that time. Most of his articles after that resulted from his substantial efforts in the field of oral history.
From 1973 to 1987 it was “Have Tape Recorder, Will Travel” as he interviewed 76 former players in 22 states from Connecticut to California. Professor Nevins had given him sound advice to concentrate on the older persons and those not necessarily in the public eye. More than 80 percent of those interviewed have since passed on. The interviews ran from 30 minutes to five hours in two interviews for Lute Boone, a good-field, no-hit infielder, who was far more interesting to talk to than Lefty Grove, for example. Twenty-two of the best interviews, including a combined effort on Joe and Luke Sewell (The Tuscaloosa Twosome), are chapters in a 360-page book published by Meckler Publishing in June 1991. The title is Baseball Players and Their Times, Oral Histories of the Game: 1920-40. It is the latest of three baseball books Gene has authored.
In May 1974 Gene wrote The Tragedy of Ban Johnson for the Journal of Sports History. Later he expanded this research on the long-time American League President, a former Marietta College student, into a 300-page book entitled Ban Johnson, the Czar of Baseball, published by Greenwood Press in 1982. Will Harridge provided some material for this detailed study, but the author was surprised and disappointed at the lack of historical information in the AL files.
In 1984 Greenwood Press published Gene’s book Mighty Casey All-American. This 160-page volume is a historical and literary examination of Ernest L. Thayer’s masterpiece, Casey at the Bat. In the historical section, Gene analyzes the controversy surrounding the authorship of the poem and discusses whether or not there was a real “Casey” and a real Mudville — all tongue-in-cheek, of course. In the literary part he introduces and supplies the text for 75 parodies of the original poem.
Gene’s contribution to the administrative side of SABR also has been substantial. He served as president from 1976 to 1978. Before that he was chairman of the SABR Hall of Fame Committee, which recommended improvements in the selection process, primarily of the Veterans Committee. One was a more balanced selection by era, as the 1920-45 era had far more players enshrined than any other. SABR did help get three 19th-century players enshrined but the Veterans Committee went ahead and put in an additional 15 players (including Tony Lazzeri) from the heavy-hitting 1920-45 period. Gene also headed the SABR nominating committee in 1981-82 and his proposal for two-year terms for the four operating officers was later implemented.
Our 1991 honoree has had some rough going in recent years. Rita, his wife of 37 years, died suddenly in June 1987. Three years later, in May 1990, Gene was diagnosed with a malignancy in his jaw. Radiation cleared that up by fall, but the malignancy recurred in his abdomen in December 1990. He is now in remission. He did have one special thrill during his illness. Regrettably, it was not baseball-related, but that should not detract from this SABR Salute. Let it be known that on October 30, 1990, Professor Eugene C. Murdock fired a hole-in-one on the 188-yard No. 2 hole at the Minibel Golf Course, Vienna, West Virginia. It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving baseball scholar.
To get back to the SABR Salute page, click here.
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Famed for its breathtaking scenery and majestic peaks, Rocky Mountain National Park is a top destination for vacationers. The park boasts a diverse choice of leisure and recreational activities to enjoy and is host to visitors from around the world. Explore lakes, streams, waterfalls and craggy peaks on the myriad of trails in RMNP. Abundant wildlife can also be found throughout the park, and it's not uncommon to have traffic stopped by a herd of Elk crossing the road.
The park was first explored in 1820 and formally established as a national park in 1915 by President Woodrow Wilson. The 1920s saw a building boom in the park and it later became a top vacation destination shortly after World War II. Today it is renowned for its scenic beauty and bevy of outdoor activities to enjoy, attracting more than 3 million visitors a year.
Rocky Mountain National Park (http://www.nps.gov/romo/) boasts more than 265,000 acres of natural beauty and is teeming with wildlife. The park offers an extensive network of trails, lakes, paths and campgrounds to enjoy. Activities in the park are almost endless and include fishing, biking, hiking, climbing, bird watching and much more.
Some of sites of interest in the park include the Fall River Visitor's Center, the Alpine Visitor’s Center, Bear Lake, Trail Ridge Road, Twin Owls, Old Fall River Road and the scenic Longs Peak. The town of Estes Park with it's charming downtown, attracts visitors and residents alike with unique shops, homemade candies and ice cream, as well as a wide variety of dining options. On the West side of the park is the town of Grand Lake, which boasts the largest natural lake in Colorado. Roosevelt National Forest and other beautiful protected areas surround the park as well.
Local events include amphitheater programs, Junior Ranger programs, guided snow shoe hikes, an annual Artist in Residence program and numerous summer programs led by Park staff.
To learn more about homes near Rocky Mountain National Park please contact First Colorado Realty for additional information. With its exceptional value, striking views and coveted location, real estate near Rocky Mountain National Park has never been a better investment.
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The National Association of State Procurement Officials (NASPO) has released a survey of practices among its members that reveals details such as whether agencies centralize purchasing decisions, what factors they consider when awarding contracts and how they use technology in their operations. The 2011-2012 edition of the “NASPO Survey of State Procurement Practices ” gives an overview of state procurement laws, regulations and practices, and it offers insight on the various initiatives states have implemented.
The NASPO survey results can be useful to legislators, vendors, faculty, students, and state and local government procurement officials. The survey includes information on local government procurement and how it relates to state procurement. For instance, 42 states responding to the survey indicated that they have legal authority to participate in cooperative purchasing. Of those states, 39 reported that they may participate in cooperative agreements with local governments within the state, and 30 states can participate with local governments outside the state.
In 23 states, the authority over local government cooperative procurement is managed through the state government’s central purchasing office. Over half of the responding states (25) allow local governments to use state central contracts.
Read more about the survey on our sister website, govpro.com.
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Implementing good eating habits from an early age go a long way in securing your child’s oral health for life. As a children’s family dentist for the Oro Valley area, we’re passionate about protecting kids’ teeth from the very beginning, which is why we make diet counseling a complimentary part of our practice at every appointment.
Communicating your child’s current diet and eating patterns give us the opportunity to help you protect their teeth from cavities and decay based on nutrition. We discuss your child’s nutrition at every appointment because as they grow, what they eat and drink are likely to change. A quick discussion of your child’s diet will include:
- Their current foods, drinks, and snacks
- The frequency each is consumed
- Tips for any recommended adjustments
We ask about your child’s current nutrition habits in order to point out the good, the bad, and offer suggestions when needed. We understand that all children are unique and may have differing oral health needs. Being able to understand how your child’s teeth and gums are impacted by nutrition reduces their risk for cavities and decay, and helps you avoid more costly, complicated dental treatments in the future.
We are firm believers that prevention is an important element in your child’s oral health success. Our goal is to provide you with the tips and tools needed to find that success at home. For more information on diet counseling or other services we provide as a family dentist to the Oro Valley area, please contact Northwest Children’s Dentistry today.
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By David Gibson
Religion News Service
(RNS) Does European Christendom need Christianity to survive?
It may seen an odd question for a religious culture that once stretched from Britain to the Bosphorus, born of a deep and diffuse
faith that inspired great cathedrals and monasteries and filled them with believers for centuries.
But when right-wing extremist Anders Breivik killed 77 people in a horrific rampage in Norway last month, he highlighted a novel
development in the history of the West: a burgeoning alliance between believers and nonbelievers to promote Europe's Christian identity.
"European Christendom and the cross will be the symbol in which every cultural conservative can unite under in our common defense," Breivik wrote in his rambling 1,500-page manifesto. "It should serve as the uniting symbol for all Europeans whether they are agnostic or atheists."
Whether Breivik himself can be considered a bona fide Christian given his lack of a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God," as he put it, was a topic of much debate. There was no doubt, however, that he was a devout believer "in Christianity as a cultural, social, identity and moral platform."
In fact, that's been the case for any number of unbelievers for more than a decade.
One prominent example was the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, who spent her last years before her death in 2006 inveighing against a Muslim influx that was turning the continent into what she called "Eurabia."
Fallaci liked to describe herself as a "Christian atheist" -- an interesting turn of phrase -- because she thought Christianity provided Europe with a cultural and intellectual bulwark against Islam.
There's also Scottish-born historian and political conservative Niall Ferguson, who calls himself "an incurable atheist" but is also a
vocal champion for restoring Christendom because, as he puts it, there isn't sufficient "religious resistance" in the West to radical Islam.
(Ferguson dedicated his latest book, "Civilization: The West and the Rest," to his new partner, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born Dutch atheist who has promoted the values of Christianity over those of her native Islam.)
The modern-day crusade for Christendom by nonbelievers tends to be rooted in fears about Muslim immigration, but it's also fueled by worries about the deterioration of European culture -- and nostalgia for the continent's once central place in world affairs.
For some atheists, retaining European identity is reason enough to set aside long-standing enmity between churches and nonbelievers that dates back to the secularism of the Enlightenment and the anti-clericalism of the French Revolution.
And unlike the persistent sniping between atheists and believers in the U.S., Europe's nonreligious conservatives have found ready allies in the continent's religious leaders -- most notably Pope Benedict XVI.
Even before he was elected pope in April 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was spearheading the Vatican effort, however unsuccessful, to have the European Union's new constitution recognize the continent's Christian heritage. He also rejected the idea of allowing Muslim Turkey into the EU. "Europe is a cultural continent," he told a French magazine, "not a geographical one."
As pope, Benedict eventually softened his opposition to Turkey's entry into the EU but continued to insist that Europe's Christian
culture must be protected, even as religious belief among Europeans declined.
In August 2005, just a few months after his election as pope, Benedict met secretly with Fallaci, news that upset Muslims when it
leaked out. Muslims were even angrier at the pontiff's controversial speech a year later in Regensburg, Germany, when he depicted Islam as prone to violence and alien to Christian Europe.
"Attempts at the 'Islamification' of the West cannot be denied," Benedict's closest aide, Monsignor Georg Ganswein, said in a 2007
interview. "And the associated danger for the identity of Europe cannot be ignored out of a wrongly understood sense of respect."
"The Catholic side sees this clearly," he added, "and says as much."
But some atheists see this as well, and are equally happy to say so.
One of Christendom's most prominent atheist advocates is the Italian philosopher and politician Marcello Pera. In 2004, he delivered a series of lectures with then-Cardinal Ratzinger that set out their shared view of the need to restore Christian identity in Europe in order to battle both Islam and moral degeneration.
Later, Benedict wrote a forward to Pera's book, "Why We Must Call Ourselves Christians," which promotes Benedict's argument that Western civilization can be saved if people live "as if God exists," whether they believe that or not.
It's not a new argument -- 17th-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal held that even if God's existence cannot be proved, people ought to act as though God exists because they have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
But the updated version seems to be winning some converts. In a landmark ruling last March, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Italy could continue to display crucifixes in public school classrooms because the cross with Jesus on it is a "historical and cultural" symbol rather than a religious one.
While the Vatican welcomed that decision, others wonder whether the cost was too high -- essentially emptying a container of its meaning in order to preserve the cultural form.
And an empty container, no matter how attractive on the outside, can be filled with all manner of beliefs on the inside.
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All I have to do is peek into the disaster that is my teen's room, and I'm reminded that there is a lot of stuff that occupies a life. As scrapbookers, we've become skilled at capturing snippets of our everyday lives...so why not do the same for your teen?
Teen STUFF lends itself to layouts about rooms, fave clothes, musical tastes, well-loved books, and gadgets. Don't stress if your teen has adopted a "no 'rents allowed" policy - simply hand them a camera! Teens loooove to take photos (mine shout "Facebook!" whenever they snap a self-portrait), and probably won't mind if you borrow a few shots.
When documenting what's cool in your teen's life right now, be sure to include...
Fashion - You can sneak your teen's fashion choices into just about any layout. One of the reasons that I wanted to use this photo of my daughter on a layout was so that I could document her super cool shades. If you can't convince your teen to put on a fashion show, just offer to do his/her laundry...then sneak a few pics!
Their Space - I know it's a scary prospect to venture into a teen's room...but you can do it! Grab your camera, and take a tour of your teen's space. It's sure to be a great view of their life! Top Picks - Ask your teen to write a top ten list of their favorite books, tv shows, or movies. Ask for a playlist from their ipod. Or how 'bout a list of top 5 facebook status updates or tweets?
Tell your teen that scrapbooks are just like time capsules - 10 or 20 years from now, they'll marvel at what they loved when they were young. Everything comes back in fashion eventually anyway - so they'll be able to show that they were cool way back in the day!
today's teen tip: let go of the messy room battles - simply close the door. Adopt a "no food or drink in bedroom" policy to prevent science projects from growing - but otherwise? Butt out! It's really easier on everyone.
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As I mentioned in last week’s column, the months of March and April seem to provide Oklahoma anglers the best opportunities to catch both state- and lake-record fish. Some of the earliest spawning fish move to accessible waters and are more vulnerable to an angler’s offerings.
This week the new Hudson Lake-record hybrid bass enters the books at 20.5 pounds, caught in the tail waters of Pensacola Dam. And though it was below the dam that contains the waters of Grand Lake, the tail waters are recognized as part of Hudson Lake.
The fish was caught by Disney, OK resident Chad Blackman using a 12-foot spinning rod, and an over-sized jig suspended about 6 feet below a cork. Blackman, fishing alone, tied his small boat to the cable crossing the river and made a long cast towards the dam. After hooking the fish, which immediately headed downstream, Blackman had to pass his equipment below the cable in order to fight the giant. The last few feet before landing the fish required Blackman to bring the fish to his somewhat under-sized net by hand because of the length of his rod.
After boating the hybrid, he immediately left and rushed the fish to his father’s business, Blue Water Bait and Tackle, where it was officially weighed and witnessed. The fish was 31 ¼” long with a girth of 27”. After weighing, the fish was revived in one of the bait tanks, then transported to Grand Lake and released alive and well.
The hybrid betters the mark of 13.8 pounds set by Bruce Walker last year.
The Grand Lake record hybrid shared the same girth, was an inch shorter but weighed in at 22-pounds, 3.2 ounces. That record was set in 1995 by lady-angler Melissa Knox.
Hybrid striped bass have been stocked in Grand Lake and biologists believe the Hudson fish had most likely escaped Grand with water releases from that body of water.
Hybrids are a cross between striped bass and white bass and grow to enormous sizes. They go through the motions of the spawn, but the spawn is not viable. They don’t, however, grow to the size of their parent striped bass.
The current striped bass state record stands at 47-8, was 48” long, with a girth of 30” and was caught in the lower Illinois River (below Tenkiller Dam) in 1996.
The areas below most of our state’s dams are very popular with bank anglers as well as those waters that can provide enough water depth to float a small boat. The fish congregate below the structures because of water releases that bring healthy as well as injured bait fish from the waters above. These stunned bait fish make easy pickings for the predator fish and almost any species can be caught.
Personally, I look for many more record-sized species to be caught in the coming months. The time is getting right for all species during the spring here in the Sooner State.
For all state- and lake-record fish weights, as well as the species and lakes that are qualified, go to www.wildlifedepartment.com.
Fly fishing history exhibit on display
A historic display of the history of the Green Country Fly Fishers is currently on display for the month of March at the Bartlesville Public Library. Be sure to drop by and view this club’s widely renowned history. One might be surprised how much the members of this local club’s members have contributed to the sport of fly fishing.
And don’t forget the NWTF fundraiser tomorrow night at the Bartlesville Community Center. It is a fun-filled family event and will feature dinner and a raffle for 13 different styles/types of guns. Doors open at 6 PM and dinner is at 7:30.
Until next week, good luck and good hunting and fishing!
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CPA firms that use advancement programs for their professionals overwhelmingly agree that formal promotion of mentoring, sponsorship, and gender and minority initiatives helps them attract and retain people, according to a new AICPA survey.
In an environment where competition for skilled professionals is intense, many firms have embraced programs that are designed to help their people advance. These programs are rated as a success by a large majority of people at firms that use them.
Almost half (45%) of the 492 respondents to the AICPA's 2017 CPA Firm Gender Survey said their firms are using mentoring programs. A much smaller portion of firms (12%) use sponsorship programs, in which firm leaders take a formal role in guiding promising employees to career opportunities, professional development, and promotions.
Gender initiatives (11%), combined diversity and inclusion programs (6%), and minority initiatives (2%) also are used by firms. Among survey respondents whose firms use these programs, the portion who said it has an impact on attracting or retaining talent was:
- 87% for mentoring programs.
- 97% for sponsorship programs.
- 85% for gender initiatives.
- 90% for combined diversity and inclusion programs.
- 90% for minority initiatives.
"There are two important takeaways here," Melissa Hooley, CPA, CGMA, chair of the AICPA Women's Initiatives Executive Committee, said in a news release. "One, firms that use these programs have seen a beneficial impact on attracting and retaining talent. And two, firms that are taking active steps to promote women and minorities likely will have a competitive advantage when it comes to securing talent."
Smaller firms tend to have the highest percentage of women partners, according to the survey. Women make up 42% of partners at firms with two to 10 CPAs; 30% of partners at firms with 11 to 20 CPAs; 26% of partners at firms with 21 to 99 CPAs, and 21% of partners at firms with 100 or more CPAs. These figures were nearly identical to those from the 2015 CPA Firm Gender Survey, except for the percentage of women partners at firms with 11 to 20 CPAs (which fell nine percentage points from 39% in 2015).
The survey also found that women maintained parity with men at CPA firms through the senior manager level, with the percentage of women declining at higher levels after that. And almost nine in 10 (89%) of firms have instituted some form of modified work arrangements, of which flextime and reduced hours were the most popular.
—Ken Tysiac (firstname.lastname@example.org) is a JofA editorial director.
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A bill introduced in Congress this week would give student veterans using the Post-9/11 GI Bill an extra nine months of benefits if they pursue a degree in a STEM field – science, technology, engineering and math.
Reps. David B. McKinley (R-WV) and Dina Titus (D-NV) introduced the bipartisan GI Bill STEM Extension Act of 2014 on Wednesday. It was assigned to a House committee, which will consider it before possibly sending it on to the House or Senate as a whole.
“This common sense plan will give those who have sacrificed for our freedom the tools to be successful in the 21st Century economy,” McKinley said in a statement. “This will not only benefit veterans, but will make America’s economy more competitive as well.”
The bill was inspired by meetings McKinley had with student veterans in West Virginia, who said it can be difficult completing certain degrees in the 36 months allotted by the GI Bill. It’s a solution supported by the Student Veterans of America (SVA).
“Given the appropriate resources, veterans possess the talent and experience to make a huge, positive impact in America’s communities and economy,” said D. Wayne Robinson, SVA president. “We must do everything we can to help veterans capitalize on their experience and pursue careers in advanced fields like STEM.”
Want to learn more about what STEM jobs really are? – READ MORE HERE
Click here if you want to learn more about the post-9/11 GI Bill benefits that would apply to you?
If you have questions about the Montgomery GI Bill, we got you covered.
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Two sets of rules on how packing plants can use irradiation to kill bacteria on red meat and how to label the products are expected to be issued mid-summer, reports the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Depending on the comments received and how long it takes to address concerns contained in the comments, USDA projects the rule could be finalized by the end of the year.
If that happens, meat companies wanting to use irradiation, might begin to do so sometime in 1999.
Regulation Details A petition to approve the meat industry's use of low-dose irradiation to kill bacteria was approved last December by the Food and Drug Administration. However, the agency left it up to USDA to develop rules for its application.
Those rules were expected to be issued within 60 to 90 days of the petition's approval.
But the irradiation rulemaking process has been bogged down with details and conflict.
The irradiation proposal is expected to provide a framework for its incorporation into a HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) system.
USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) must consider minimum/maximum absorbed dose specifications for irradiated pork and specifications for trichinae.
Regulations need to address the different options for packers to use irradiation - sending meat out to an irradiator or having an irradiator at their facility, says Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman.
Labeling is another detail to be addressed which has raised the ire of the National Food Processors Association. The trade group views irradiation as a process, not as a food additive that must appear on the label, and has petitioned FSIS to seek public comment on labeling for irradiated meat products.
Regulations must also address product safety and worker safety, so that consumers can get the full benefit that irradiation has to offer, says USDA.
But whether consumers will pay for an irradiated meat product or whether meat plants will invest in the technology remain to be seen.
Irradiation was approved for poultry in 1992 but has not been widely adopted because of cost and consumer concerns.
Laser Finds Contaminants Meanwhile, scientists at USDA's Agricultural Research Service and Iowa State University have built a hand-held laser that can alert meat packers to unseen fecal contamination on carcasses.
The detector causes fecal matter on meat to glow in a specific color, so it is easy to spot contamination, according to researchers who are seeking a patent on the process.
Because the detector works in seconds, packers can quickly sanitize carcasses before disease-causing bacteria spreads.
The new technology will ease the burden on packers trying to meet stiffer USDA rules for sanitation following the E. coli 0157:H7 outbreaks in the Pacific Northwest. FSIS is enforcing a zero tolerance policy for fecal contamination on livestock and poultry.
Up to now, meat inspectors have had to rely on visual inspection methods.
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The key to saving your life during a heart attack is time. Don't wait. Call 911 as soon as you experience any symptoms of a heart attack and go to the nearest hospital. Because heart disease is the number one killer of both women and men, everyone should be familiar with the warning signs. The most common ones are:
Discomfort in the center of the chest that lasts for more than a few minutes, or goes away and comes back. It can feel like uncomfortable pressure, squeezing, fullness, or pain.
Pain or discomfort in other areas of the upper body, including the arms, back, neck, jaw, or stomach.
Other unexplained symptoms, such as a shortness of breath, cold sweats, nausea, vomiting, or light-headedness.
As with men, women's most common heart attack symptom is chest pain or discomfort, but women are somewhat more likely to experience some of the other common symptoms, particularly shortness of breath, nausea, vomiting, and back or jaw pain.
By Hassan Tabandeh, MD, Virginia Cardiovascular Associates of Warrenton, VA
Jorge Minera, M.D.
Key to Women's Heart Health is Education
According to the American Stroke Association, in the case of stroke, time lost is brain lost. Stroke is the third leading cause of death and disability in the U.S. But there is some good news. If you can spot the signs and act fast, there are treatments that may reduce the risk for damage from the most common type of stroke.
Stroke occurs when one of the blood vessels in the brain ruptures or is blocked by a clot. When this happens, brain cells are deprived of oxygen and nutrients. If deprived for even a few minutes, these cells begin to die. Brain cells cannot be replaced, which means the effects of stroke are often permanent. That’s a good reason to know the warning signs.
The sudden onset of any of the following symptoms may indicate that a person is having a stroke:
To be effective, treatment must be given within three hours of the start of a stroke. Tests must also be taken first. It’s crucial to call 911 immediately if there’s any reason to think you might be having a stroke. Do not just go to bed and hope that the symptoms will be better in the morning.
Call even if the symptoms appear for only a few minutes and then disappear. You could be having a transient ischemic attack, or ministroke, which may precede a full stroke.
Take Steps to Prevent Stroke
According to experts, as many as four out of five strokes could be prevented. To prevent a stroke, control your blood pressure, which is the biggest risk factor. You can help manage your blood pressure and lower your risk of suffering a stroke by:
If your family or personal history indicates that you are at high risk for stroke, ask your doctor what else you can do to help reduce your risk.
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Professor Elaine Pagels, well-known for her contributions to the study of early Christian-era Gnostic movements and documents, has produced a gracefully written study of the development and utilization of one of the prominent figures of Christian literature and theology — “the Adversary,” the Diabolos, or Satan. As she indicates in her introduction, her interest in the Prince of Darkness was motivated by a desire to demonstrate how Christians have developed and utilized this mysterious figure to identify their opponents, “whether Jews, pagans, or heretics, with forces of evil, and so with Satan” (p. xxiii).
The chapter headings of her six chapters suggest the trend of her thinking: 1, “The Gospel of Mark and the Jewish War”; 2, “The Social History of Satan: from the Hebrew Bible to the Pharisees”; 3, “Matthew’s Campaign against the Pharisees: Deploying the Devil”; 4, “Luke and John Claim Israel’s Legacy: The Split Widens”; 5, “Satan’s Earthly Kingdom: Christians against Pagans”; 6, “The Enemy Within: Demonizing the Heretics.”
Chapter 1 begins with a discussion of the role of Jewish historian and Roman collaborator Flavius Josephus, who recorded the events of the Jewish Wars of A.D 66-73.1 In Pagels’s view, the war poisoned the relationship between the Jews and Jewish converts to Christianity and gave those converts the idea of identifying personal human adversaries — in this case, the other Jews — as servants of Satan. For this reason, it is necessary for Pagels to assume that all four Gospels are later than the fall of Jerusalem (A.D. 70), a dating accepted by many but far from all New Testament scholars. The Gospels present the work of the historic Jesus as a conflict between God and Satan, one that came to a preliminary climax on Calvary. If either a Gospel or the putative Q source — which contains many of the references to Satan — is earlier than A.D. 70, it spoils her case.
Pagels looks on the Scriptures as nothing more than human products. She does not explicitly deny the concept of divine inspiration; she simply ignores it. Mark’s gospel is not history, but is rather eschatological prophecy. The Evangelists’ preoccupation — and indeed that of Jesus Himself — with supernatural beings such as angels and demons, and especially the Devil, is most important. “The subject of cosmic war [between God and Satan] serves primarily to interpret human relationships…For many readers of the gospels ever since the first century, the thematic opposition between God’s spirit and Satan has vindicated Jesus’ followers and demonized their enemies” (13).
In this way the first chapter previews the thesis of the book. The followers of Jesus, beginning with the Evangelists themselves, adopted the folk traditions that tell of Satan and other personal evil powers to denigrate their opponents and to justify hostility to — and later, mistreatment of — such opponents. In Pagels’s view this is the source of Christian anti-Semitism. “The New Testament gospels almost never identify Satan with the Romans [Gentiles], but they consistently associated him with Jesus’ Jewish enemies…” (13).
In chapter 2 Pagels notes that Israel and the Jews also deprecated their adversaries. Anthropologists have observed that most of the peoples of the world define two pairs of opposites — human/not human and we/they. The Jews, she maintains, shared this common human failing. Nevertheless, universalistic notes are found “where one might least expect it,” for example in God’s election of Abraham, with the promise, “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3, p. 37). She describes Moses, although a Hebrew by birth, as “the quintessential alien” because he was adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter and raised as an Egyptian. Supposedly Judaism, unlike Christianity, was friendly to outsiders. She can say this only by disregarding Jesus’ words in the Great Commission to “make disciples of every nation” (Matt. 28:18).
Satan originally appears in the Jewish Scriptures as one of the bene elohim or sons of God, she maintains, not at first an adversary but one of God’s agents. Gradually, however, as the Jews suffered from foreign invaders and experienced internal conflicts, the figure of Satan was utilized to justify the animosity of “us” against “them.” Thus there arose a religious elitism or exclusivism that went beyond the familiar designation of the Jewish nation as the Chosen People, denigrating those outside as servants or children of Satan. The enthusiastic separatist sect, the Essenes, regarded themselves as “Israel at its best.” Luke picked up this theme, seeing Jesus’ followers as the only genuine Israelites. John intensified the animosity, labeling the adversaries of Jesus simply “the Jews.”
In chapter 3, Pagels draws on her extensive knowledge of extracanonical, apocryphal, and frequently heretical early Christian-era literature to argue that there was considerable disagreement among the early Christians about what Jesus actually taught. Even though orthodox Christians believed there was a “faith once committed to the saints” (Jude 3) and rejected divergent views, Pagels saw the early Christian movement as richly diverse. From her perspective, the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas preceded even “the earliest [canonical] Gospel,” Mark, by 10 years (69) and is thus by implication a better source than Mark or any of the other Evangelists. Her late dating of the canonical Gospels, beginning with Mark in A.D. 70 and ending with John in about A.D. 100, permits the inference that the Christian faith is entirely explicable in terms of social and cultural dynamics — war, the Roman conquest, Christian-Jewish tensions, and other factors.
The fact is that the early church was well aware of the variant traditions Pagels refers to and rejected them, excluding them from the kanon tes alethias — the “rule of truth.” While Pagels contends that the charge of demonic influences was trumped up so that the church could reject them, the church claimed that it rejected them because they actually were demonic fabrications. Of course, one can only accept this ecclesiastical logic if one is willing to believe, like Jesus and the apostles, that demonic powers exist. But Pagels’s interpretation begs the question. She explains the whole tradition of Satan, his wiles, works, and coworkers as the product of the religious imagination, pressed into service for polemical ends. There is no doubt that it was used for polemical ends, but what she completely fails to ask is whether there was and is any such thing as a personal evil Power behind the tradition.
Pagel’s affirms that Matthew’s gospel represents the stage of early Christianity when congregations still included many Jews; the satanic imagery helped to distinguish the new messianic fellowships from the Jewish followers of the Pharisees. She regards Luke and John — which she dates quite late — as intensifying the “demonization” of adversaries. John makes “the Jews” into a symbol of “all evil,” a practice we would find quite horrid “if an influential author today made women, or for that matter Muslims or homosexuals, the ‘symbol of all evil’”(104-105). That John actually “demonizes” the Jews as such is asserted but not demonstrated.
In the fourth chapter, Pagels presses the argument that the Gospel writers sought to incriminate the Jews and exonerate the Romans for the judicial murder of their Lord. They depict the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, as a weak, vacillating figure who allowed himself to be manipulated by Jewish agitators. Contemporary Roman and Jewish sources describe a different kind of man — cruel, arbitrary, and contemptuous of the Jews and their sensitivities. He was not likely to have scruples about killing a potential Jewish troublemaker, or in any case to yield to Jewish pressure. Of course, it is impossible to affirm or deny the report that Pilate succumbed to the pressure of the Jewish hierarchy and the mob that it stirred up if one rejects the historical accuracy of the Gospels, since there are no other detailed records of the event. A fact that Pagels fails to mention is that Pilate’s position was insecure because his patron — Sejanus, the commander of the Praetorian Guard — was implicated in a conspiracy and executed. Pilate certainly did not want it reported back to Rome that he was “no friend of Caesar.” Additionally, describing a high Roman official as weak and indecisive would have hardly endeared the Gospel writers to the Roman authorities.
After the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, the Christian movement came under increasing pressure from the Roman government. (As long as the Christians were regarded as a Jewish sect, they enjoyed official toleration.) According to Pagels, growing opposition from Roman officialdom caused the early Christians to shift their identification of Satan from the Jews to the Romans.
In chapter 5 Pagels describes two noted second-century thinkers — Justin Martyr, the first philosopher to become a Christian, and Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher-emperor under whom Justin became a martyr. Abandoning the “beauty” of traditional pagan piety, Justin came to perceive the various gods, including Apollo, Aphrodite, and Zeus, “as allies of Satan — despite the brilliant panoply of their public processions, their thousands of temples and glittering priesthoods, despite the fact that they were worshipped by the emperor himself, who served in person as their pontifex maximus. Born again, Justin saw the universe of spiritual energies, which pious pagan philosophers called daimones, as, in his words, ‘foul daimones’” (120).
Justin was naturally shocked at the criminalization of Christians by the two “most enlightened emperors,” Antoninus Pius and his “son,” Marcus Aurelius. (The Christians “demonized” their adversaries, but for some centuries were not in a position to persecute and execute them. To Pagels this demonization appears more reprehensible than the kind of criminalization the emperors followed up with execution.)
Justin Martyr is presented as admirable for the strength of his convictions and his willingness to suffer for them, but nevertheless he suffers by comparison with the sympathetically portrayed Marcus Aurelius, who “probably would have detested Justin’s ‘Christian philosophy’ as obscenely grandiose — the opposite of what Marcus regarded as the hard-won truths he himself had gained from philosophy” (126). Marcus was a “conservative,” whereas Christians “did teach converts not only that the bonds of family, society, and nation are not sacred, but that they are diabolic encumbrances designed to enslave people to ‘Roman customs,’ that is, to demons” (143). Christians, in other words, deserved to be criminalized as radical troublemakers.
In the next century, the great Christian thinker Origen “undermined religious sanction for the state” and suffered for his faith (146), while the Roman historian Celsus warned of the “insanity” that caused Christians to offend the emperor and potentially to ruin the empire. Additionally, Christians were so otherworldly that they often renounced commercial transactions and sexual activity, even — in the case of Origen — resorting to self-castration.
In chapter 6 we read of Christians gradually acquiring power as Christianity became the religion of the empire and its European successor-states. These Christians used the concept of Satan to demonize their adversaries and to treat them with the utmost severity.
Pagels cites a variety of extracanonical and heretical sources as evidence that Christianity was extremely diverse, not to say incoherent, before it ultimately settled down into the conformity of orthodoxy. During this period, those ultimately regarded as heretics were moderate by comparison with the orthodox, not creating a radical dichotomy between good and evil; the orthodox regularly saw themselves as representing radical goodness and their opponents as the spawn of Satan.
There were, of course, exceptions. Even Matthew recorded the words “Love your enemies” (Matt. 5:34), which were “attributed to Jesus.” After this concession, Pagels concludes: “For the most part, however, Christians have taught — and acted upon — the belief that their enemies are evil and beyond redemption” (184).
Even a relatively evenhanded presentation of the contents of The Origin of Satan reveals that Pagels, although an Episcopalian, treats Jesus — whom she does not designate with His messianic title, Christ — and His movement as simply a sociological phenomenon. She never uses any language suggestive of personal faith: Jesus’ death was “ignominious” (it was); that it was intended and perceived as a vicarious atoning sacrifice is never mentioned. Historical events, such as the Jewish War, play a decisive role in her analysis, not least because she simply presupposes the unfounded dating of the Gospels as essentially postwar. The Evangelists had to blame the death of Jesus — a conflict with Satan — on the Jews rather than on the Romans, and to identify them with Satan. The Romans subsequently also suffered this identification. The Resurrection — arguably a supremely important historical event — goes unmentioned, as though it had not happened.
Despite Pagels’s well-known academic eminence, there are great gaps in her scholarship. Her discussion of the sociological origins of the Satan figure makes no mention of Persian dualism and apocalyptism, which most scholars think made a far larger contribution than the Jewish materials she cites. There are several remarkable historical inaccuracies. The Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem is misdated by a century (43: ca. 687 instead of ca. 586 B.C.). St. Francis of Assisi is misdated by two centuries (184: 15th century instead of the 13th). Marcus Aurelius is frequently described as the son of Antoninus Pius, as though he were the elder emperor’s offspring, trained by his “father” for the imperial role (126), whereas actually Marcus was adopted by Antoninus for that purpose.
Since the thesis of The Origin of Satan is plausible only if it is historically reliable, such identifiable errors do arouse a measure of skepticism. More serious, however, is Pagels’s evident total suspension of belief, if not actual unbelief, and her disregard of fundamental factors in the rise of Christianity. To discuss the rise of Christianity without reference to the apostles’ faith inevitably gives a distorted picture. Most significant is her tacit denial that a supernatural power of evil exists; it is only a sociological construction. Inasmuch as she thinks Jesus and His disciples conceived His ministry and mission precisely as a battle with such a power, one must conclude that she thinks Him and them misguided.
This book is a remarkable tour de force. In view of its unexpressed and highly debatable presuppositions, its substantial omissions, its occasional surprising errors, and its effective unbelief in the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, it seems rather like a tour de farce.— Reviewed by Harold O. J. Brown
Harold O. J. Brown is Forman Professor of Ethics in Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Director of the Rockford Institute Center on Religion and Society.
1Like many other contemporary scholars, Pagels uses the politically correct designations C.E. and B.C.E. (Common Era and Before the Common Era) and the term “the Hebrew Bible” instead of A.D., B.C., and the Old Testament. She does this perhaps only as a concession to current trends, or perhaps this is indicative of a conviction that the origin of the Christian religion is fully explicable in terms of social dynamics and was not influenced by any supernatural influence, whether divine or demonic.
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How to Use QR Codes in Student Projects
Scannable bar codes may be just what you need to spark some student interest in your classroom - read on to learn how to use them to showcase your student work and give some life to your classroom's infographics.
Last April ago I took a trip to Tokyo, Japan. One thing that really stood out to me there was the abundance of these scannable barcodes. These things were everywhere - flyers, posters, billboards, even in advertisements on the sides of commercial vans. Over the past few months, I've watched these codes gain popularity in the United States (If you're from another part of the world, I would love to hear about the trends you've seen - leave a comment).
So, what is a QR code?
"A QR Code is a matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code), readable by QR scanners, mobile phones with a camera, and smartphones...scan the image of the QR Code to display text, contact information, connect to a wireless network, or open a web page in the phone's browser." - Wikipedia
How do I make a QR code?
My favorite way to create them is with bit.ly, a free URL shortener that now automatically creates QR codes for your shortened URLs.
How can I use QR Codes with my students?
Bibliography of student work
Create a page on your wiki or blog, or craft an email or a handout to give to parents that includes links to student work. Along with the links, put a QR code for each of the virtual projects. This way, viewers have the option to view immediately via their smartphone, and if they are viewing a print version, they don't have to enter the URL into a computer.
Link to additional resources for class materials
Put QR codes on all of the elements on your periodic table poster, link them to a wiki page or better yet, a fun video showcasing that element. Challenge your students to come up with a better idea, and have them bring in their own QR code.
Inspirational quote up in your classroom? Include a code that brings up a photograph of the author.
Have a classical poem up instead of a quote? Use a code that takes you to a podcast of the poem.
Music teachers can create codes that link to podcasts of classical music. When you're playing a particular piece in class, attach the related code on the music itself, so students can listen to the recording at home.
Reports & Projects
With any assigned book or reading, include QR codes linking to book reviews. Include codes to the online versions of your assignments, your classroom's calendar of events with upcoming due dates, or related videos, articles, etc.
How are you going to use QR Codes in your classroom?
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Today Politico ran an op-ed from George Allen, former governor and U.S. senator from Virginia, about the economic harm of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) greenhouse gas regulations. The costly and burdensome regulations from the EPA will impact every sector of the economy
Exceprt from the piece:
“The EPA began its regulatory expansion into our homes and entrepreneurial livelihoods in 2009 by asserting that greenhouse gas emissions pose a threat to public health. Congress has never explicitly given the EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse gases — the agency interprets its power based on an expansive reading of the Clean Air Act.
The Clean Air Act, however, was not meant to regulate greenhouse gases, a fact that has become readily apparent as the EPA has taken up the rulemaking process. The cascading effect of the EPA ruling that CO2 and other greenhouse gases are pollutants would cause America’s economy to grind to a halt. Almost any new construction, from power plants to apartment buildings — 6 million new facilities in all — would be subject to EPA permitting requirements and the costs and delays that go with them.”
The EPA continues to pile on with more and more regulations that are driving up energy prices and hurting our ability to compete. It’s time for Washington to move forward with the policies outlined in the NAM’s Growth Agenda to keep manufacturers competitive.
Latest posts by Jeff Ostermayer (see all)
- We Must Continue to Fight to Protect the First Amendment - June 26, 2013
- New Commerce Secretary Pritzker Confirmed By Senate - June 25, 2013
- Happy 150th Birthday to Bayer - June 21, 2013
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Over the years, one of my more favourite sayings when looking at traditional media and how it is evolving with new media is: "everything is 'with' not 'instead of'." Because it's just an opinion, it's always interesting to see what certain polls and surveys say.
"Nearly half (42%) of Americans say they wouldn't miss reading their local newspaper if it were to shut down, and only 43% say that losing their local newspaper would hurt civic life in their community 'a lot,' according to research from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press."
That was news yesterday from Marketing Charts in their news item, Local Newspapers Won't be Missed by 42% of Americans.
So, the future of the newspaper industry is not hyper-local and it's not about covering the events that no one else is covering in your local neighbourhood? That seems shocking.
Is your gut reaction that this is because of the Internet? That more and more people are turning to the Internet for all of their locals needs? Or, is it simply because the news moves and happens faster online? Or, is it because of the environment? Meaning, the business of killing trees and transporting the printed word every which way is no longer a reasonable business model?
Turns out it's not what you think.
"When it comes to local news, more people say they get that news from local TV stations than any other source. About two-thirds (68%) say they regularly get local news from TV reports or television station websites, 48% say they regularly get news from local newspapers in print or online, 34% say they get local news regularly from radio and 31% say they get their local news, more generally, from the internet."
Interpreting that data might suggest that it's not about the digital channels as much as it is about the fact that people would rather look, listen or interact if given the choice prior to reading.
There might be an argument to be made that the decline in interest in newspapers and magazines is less about the Internet and much more an issue of overall literacy.
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10 Facts You Need to Know About Astigmatism
Astigmatism is a very common vision issue but is often misunderstood. Many of us fall somewhere on the astigmatism spectrum, but we may not recognize a problem at first. It is not an eye disease or an indicator of a health condition but is related to how light is focused within the eye. We’ll clear up what may be behind your blurry vision and share 10 facts you need to know about astigmatism.
What Is Astigmatism?
Astigmatism is a vision condition that affects nearly 1 in 3 Americans. When your cornea has an irregular curvature, light rays coming into the eye are not focused properly, causing objects to appear blurry. You may also sense there’s a problem if you have frequent headaches, your eyes feel tired, or images in the distance are hard to see.
The exact cause of astigmatism has not been pinpointed, but genes most likely play a role. The condition can also appear following a surgical procedure or an eye injury. Astigmatism symptoms and whether the condition worsens differs from person to person, but in general, we all are born with some degree of it.
Other issues affecting your vision can coincide with astigmatism, including farsightedness, called hyperopia, and nearsightedness, known as myopia. Since these eye conditions affect how our eyes refract or bend incoming light, they are known as refractive errors.
Facts About Astigmatism
1. It’s Caused by a Cornea with an Irregular Shape
If you have astigmatism, you may have noticed you have trouble focusing, whether up close or on distant objects. When light enters the eye, the transparent surface called the cornea and lens bend the rays to focus correctly at the back part of the eye, or the retina. The cornea has a smooth surface with an equal curve in each direction. Astigmatism affects the curvature of the cornea so that the surface is curved unevenly, creating a rough layer, and light is then refracted incorrectly.
If you are afflicted with astigmatism, the shape of the cornea is not the more favorable round shape of a basketball but is shaped more like a football. A rounded cornea monitors the light coming in from the world around you, allowing you to focus and clearly see things. Any differentiation from this shape causes the light to distribute unevenly, making objects a blur.
2. Astigmatism Is Divided into Two Categories
There are two kinds of astigmatism, lenticular and corneal. If your lens curve irregularly, it is called lenticular astigmatism. If your cornea curves differently in one direction, it is known as corneal astigmatism.
3. There Are Three Types of Astigmatism
Astigmatism is further divided into three different types.
- Myopic astigmatism is when one or both eye meridians, the invisible lines that divide your eye from left to right, bottom to top, are nearsighted.
- Hyperopic astigmatism results when one or both meridians are farsighted.
- Mixed astigmatism occurs when you have one nearsighted meridian and one farsighted meridian.
Astigmatism can also be categorized as regular or irregular astigmatism. Regular astigmatism occurs when the principal meridians are perpendicular to each other, and irregular astigmatism occurs when the principal meridians are not 90 degrees apart. Irregular astigmatism can be caused by cornea scarring, eye surgery, or keratoconus, a disease that thins the cornea.
4. Most of Us Have Some Degree of Astigmatism
Nearly all of us are born with some form of astigmatism, but many times it doesn’t affect our vision to the point of concern. You may go several years without spotting any issues until your vision starts to change as the condition worsens. Astigmatism can affect anyone, but studies have shown that Hispanic, East Asian, and Bangladeshi groups have a higher prevalence of astigmatism. Also, if you already require glasses or contact lenses, you have a 40% chance of having astigmatism too.
5. Symptoms of Astigmatism Can Be Missed
Vision problems can come on very slowly, so you may miss the first tell-tale sign of astigmatism. Headaches and eye strain can also be tied to other conditions, so diagnosis may be delayed. The most proactive approach to identifying astigmatism or other eye issues is to visit your eye doctor on a regular basis.
Many everyday tasks can also cause vision problems, like frequent use of electronics, smartphones, and computers. Keeping up with regular eye check-ups can help detect a vision issue early before it becomes a problem.
6. Look Out for Early Signs to Avoid Future Issues
While astigmatism is not dangerous, if it continues to progress without treatment, it can lead to other eye issues that are more permanent and disruptive. Lazy eye, for instance, can be caused by astigmatism that was present at birth. Taking your children for regular eye exams is a good way to keep tabs on their eye health and make sure their eyesight is in top shape.
7. Astigmatism Can Affect Depth Perception
Viewing the world around you in 3D refers to your depth perception. Astigmatism, among other eye issues, alters your depth perception so you may not be able to determine the correct distances between objects and how close or far they are from you.
Most people may only notice an issue with depth perception if they have astigmatism in one eye, which causes their sight to be off balance. Borders of objects may also be blurred and out of focus.
8. Your Optometrist Can Help Diagnosis the Condition
If you start to notice your vision is blurry or have difficulty seeing things up close or from a distance, your eye doctor can help determine the cause with an eye examination. This exam will include reading the letter chart and measuring your visual acuity, which is how well your eyes can see shapes and finer details. Your optometrist will also measure how well your eyes can focus using several lenses in front of your eyes. He or she will then analyze your results to help diagnose astigmatism or other vision conditions.
9. Your Condition May Progress with Time
While astigmatism is not an eye disease and does not negatively affect your eye health, a deterioration in vision can still affect your life. Without proper corrective lenses or treatment, you may notice your astigmatism becoming worse as the years go by, and things you could once see well, are no longer in focus. If you keep up with your eye care and regular eye exams, your doctor may spot these changes, even if they’re minor, and can get ahead of further issues.
10. Astigmatisms May Run in the Family
You can thank your parents for your astigmatism. The odd-shaped cornea associated with astigmatism is thought to be a genetic trait and may be passed from one generation to the next. Your doctor will likely discuss your family history with you since having relatives with the condition increases your risk of developing it.
Astigmatism Treatment Options
A routine eye exam includes tests that look for farsightedness, nearsightedness, and astigmatism. One such test is called retinoscopy and it involves a variety of lenses being placed in front of your view while your optometrist shines a light into your eye. This helps determine the amount of astigmatism and what treatment is best for you.
Most of the time, prescription contact lenses or glasses can change how the eye takes in light to correct the astigmatism. Your doctor may also suggest orthokeratology, which is a noninvasive procedure that reshapes the cornea curvature slowly over time. Using a series of special contact lenses, the cornea is smoothed and evened out to fix the astigmatism.
Laser surgery can also treat some types of astigmatism. The cornea shape is altered using a laser that takes away a portion of the eye tissue. For instance, LASIK, the most common type of refractive surgery, improves your vision by rounding out the cornea permanently to eliminate the astigmatism.
If you’re ready for the world to come into focus and correct astigmatism, schedule an eye exam today.
Eating for Eye Health
Like the other organs in your body, your eyes are sensitive to the effects of inflammation, whether it's inflammation stoked by a poor diet or by health conditions such as diabetes.
You can counteract the effects of inflammation by eating a nutrient-dense diet replete with anti-inflammatory essential amino acids and omega-3 fatty acids, as well as vitamins and antioxidants, such as lutein, zeaxanthin, lycopene, zinc, and vitamins C and A.
Eye-saving foods include:
- Leafy greens
- Cruciferous vegetables
- Citrus fruits
- Sweet potatoes
- Green beans
- Red bell peppers
- Nuts and seeds
- Wild-caught seafood
- Grass-fed meat
- Bone broth
You also start protecting your eyes against astigmatism, macular degeneration, and other eye conditions with our amino acid blends designed to counteract inflammation and promote active aging here.
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Long Way Home
Long Way Home is a kinetic narration and spatial experience, in which a kite moving along in a circular path is used in a projected environment. The loop structure of the story, the kite in its clockwise movement, and the repetition of events all emphasize the circular structure of time.
The hand-drawn animation shows an old man walking with a kite. After losing hold of the kite line he makes several attempts to reach it before he finally manages to hang on to the kite. It pulls him up into the sky, while an animated city appears below him. Night falls, and the city’s windows and billboards light up until the city vanishes under a mist of smoke. The old man slowly descends, touching down safely – and holding on to the line of the kite, starting again from the beginning in a never-ending cycle. Sounds are used to illustrate the surroundings and create an atmosphere that underscores the storyline.
Katharina Klemm/Gerald Schauder
Mentoring: Prof. Heide Hagebölling
Programming: Luis Négron / Martin Nawrath
(C) 2013 KHM / Academy of Media Arts Cologne.
Three different video sources are projected from a wide-angle beamer. One for the city, one for the main character and another that highlights the kite and tracks its movement like a spotlight. All is done with Max/MSP and Arduino.
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Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Asian Hair Gets a Bad Rep...
Asia is the worlds largest and most populous continent, having a population of almost 4 billion people. To put this number into perspective the population of the USA is just over 300 million.
Contrary to what most people think Asia is not simply China. Asia is made up of a number of regions and people, China simply being one of them.
Everything shown in green is considered Asia; please note Russia is also considered part of Asia.
The misconception out there is that Asian hair is the worst hair on the market, have you heard or read the following anywhere?
-Asian hair is stick straight
-Asian hair is always very coarse
-Asian hair is very dark (black in color)
-Asian hair will only look good if worn by an Asian person
-Asian hair will not last
As with any product there is good and bad and Asian hair is no different… so yes over processed Asian hair is bad but so is over processed European hair and we won’t mention Indian since we have established that India is also considered part of Asia.
There is a wide variety of Asian hair on the market with origins from Malaysia to Mongolia and Russia. Some Asian hair is very straight others are very wavy; some can be very fine while others can be coarse, some is very dark and yet others are light in color, it all depends on where it came from. Because of its population and diversity Asia is an excellent source of human hair so when trying to decide what type of hair to purchase make sure you understand what you want and why you want it.
I can wear any hair I want but I like to wear my hair straight with some body so I choose to wear virgin Asian hair from Malaysia, the color is dark brown and the texture is slightly coarse which looks like perm straight without having any chemicals. The hair has good weight so it tends to sit where I put it. It does not accumulate a static charge and holds a curl very well this equals great value for your money.
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The oft-prophesied collapse of capitalism is looming over our world’s daily supply of goods. The global economic system is on the ropes and must not be allowed to fail. So proclaims government, financial marketeers, tottering czars of industry, media mandarins, and just about everybody else who can pay to be heard. But since their efforts to avert failure have so far inspired little confidence, some attention might be given to Plan B. After all, despite its arcane procedures, capitalism is really just an accounting system, a way of ensuring that the world’s work gets done and that those who do it are properly compensated.
Now I’m not stupid enough to forget that capitalism is also a system that has allowed a substantial though relatively small group of human beings to amass titanic wealth and, so to speak, to capitalize on that wealth by exercising transformative power over the whole planet and everyone on it. If they were all wise and benevolent, that might be a satisfactory arrangement; they aren’t, and it isn’t. So any discussion of how human history (let alone human well-being) might continue after the demise of capitalism must get a good fix on the roots of greed and why it has persisted despite the abundant evidence of its perversity.
Latest posts by sororyzbl (see all)
- Tea Party Groups Out AGAINST Net Neutrality - Aug 13, 2010
- Obama and the Collective Psychological Meltdown of Fox News - Aug 9, 2010
- Gulf States Order Blackberry Users To Cover Their Phones In A Tiny Burqa - Aug 6, 2010
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Bacterial vaginosis is caused when the bacteria that are normally harmless start multiplying and create inflammation, pain and itching in the vaginal walls. Bacterial vaginosis is not transmitted through sex and can affect anyone including children.
In fact it is very common that it affects most women at some point of their lives. Symptoms include a greyish or yellowish foul smelling discharge from the vagina, inflammation and itching along with pain.
Women who normally get itching and pain shy away from consulting a doctor and suffer in silence. You no longer need to do that. A number of superb remedies can help in treating the diseases at home itself and prevent it from aggravating.
Take fresh yoghurt every day, at least 2 cups in order to remove the bad bacteria that are causing bacterial vaginosis. Take a tampon and soak in yoghurt with live cultures. Insert it into the vagina to bust the bacteria that is acting on the vaginal walls. Replace the tampon with fresh yoghurt at least every 2 hours. This will remove the bacterial vaginosis within a few days.
2. Tea Tree Oil
Tea tree oil is very acidic and a strong treatment that can destroy the bacteria with every application. For applying it inside the vagina, dilute it with a little water and smear it inside the vagina with your fingers or using a tampon. This action will make the vaginal atmosphere very acidic and kill the bacteria without allowing them to multiply.
Chew some garlic cloves every day when you have bacterial infections to handle. Garlic capsules can be inserted inside the vagina for removing the vaginal bacteria effectively.
Photo Credit: The-mediterranean-diet.com
You can also prepare garlic oil at home for this purpose. Take 250 gms of garlic and add to olive or coconut oil. Keep this in a glass jar and under sunlight for two weeks. This can be used for external application to remove bacteria.
4. Grapefruit Seeds
An extract prepared from grapefruit seeds can be used for treating bacterial vaginosis. This can be taken every day continuously until the bacterial action stops and the itching and inflammation in the vagina slowly subsides and you feel better and very well in a few days time.
5. Cranberry Juice
Cranberry juice is normally suggested for UTIs and bacterial vaginosis in pregnant women. They are very safe and can be taken to remove the infection and prevent the infection from surfacing again. Drink cranberry juice 3 times a day when you have bacterial vaginosis. Take the juice every day to prevent further infections as well.
6. Apple Cider Vinegar
Apple cider vinegar can be used for rinsing the vaginal area and also for soaking yourself in the bath. Take two cups of apple cider vinegar which is an acidic solution and add in the tub. Fill it with warm water and sit on it or soak in the tub. Ensure that your vagina is opened for the water to enter inside and start acting on the bacteria. Insert a finger inside to keep the vagina open for 10 minutes. This has to be done every day, preferably two times a day for the bacterial vaginosis to be removed.
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Terre Haute is growing.
The city population increased from 60,785 in 2010 to 61,112 in 2012, according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics. The rise amounted to 327 people, or half a percentage point, but the slight growth still represents positive momentum. Several Indiana cities saw there populations drop two years after the 2010 Census was calculated, including Muncie (down 0.2 percent), South Bend (-0.3), Anderson (-1.0), Gary (-1.4) and Hammond (-1.4). By inching upward, Terre Haute can stabilize its labor force as Baby Boomers continue to retire in greater numbers.
The void left by retiring Boomers may be offset by increasing racial diversity and immigrants to the community and state. The numbers of Hispanic, blacks, Asians and other minorities grew at a faster pace than whites. In fact, in Vigo County, the number of whites fell by 73 people in the two-year period, while other groups increased. Statewide, the average age of white residents stood at 40.2 years, compared to 31.3 for blacks, 30.6 for Asians and 24.5 for Hispanics.
Growth, particularly among family-age people, is vital for this community. For Terre Haute to thrive, thirty- and fortysomething couples must choose to live, work and raise children here. However, from 2000 to 2010, the 35- to 44-year-old sector of the local populous dwindled, from 15,148 at the turn of the century to 13,285 two years ago when the last census was taken. Likewise, Vigo County had 1,401 fewer school-age kids in 2010 than a decade earlier. A 2010 study by an outside consultant predicted an extended decrease in county population. As enrollment shrank, Chauncey Rose Middle School was closed by the Vigo County School Corp.
Obviously, a stagnant or shrinking population can wound a community’s future.
Terre Haute needs young to learn in local schools and keep those education centers vibrant. The town needs those students to graduate prepared for college or technical workforce training, preserving the local economic base. The community needs young parents and their children contributing to and involved in charities, volunteering, paying taxes, coaching youth sports teams, filling houses of worship, supporting arts activities, and becoming active voices in civic issues.
Cities such as Terre Haute should embrace their growing diversity, especially among immigrants, said Ball State University economist Michael Hicks. “For communities all around Indiana, immigration acceptance is important,” said Hicks, director of Ball State’s Center for Business and Economic Research.
Terre Haute possesses numerous unique quality-of-life attributes that make it attractive to new residents, including the steady enhancement of its college-town atmosphere, engaging arts projects, solid schools, the trails system, recognition of the Wabash River as an economic and cultural asset, and a gradual transformation of the downtown. The city can sustain and add to those pluses by welcoming more and more newcomers.
Growth is clearly possible here. Sure, other Hoosier towns — Fishers, Noblesville, Carmel, Greenwood, Bloomington, Indianapolis and Lafayette — grew faster in the 2010-2012 window, but Terre Haute is hanging tough as the state’s 12th-largest town. The city’s challenge now is to keep the newest elements of its population and bring in more employers and, thus, more residents.
Terre Haute population up 327 people from 2010 U.S. Census figures
Terre Haute is growing.
Feeling carried: Filmmaker captures late uncle’s walk through illness and into ‘whatever is next’
Paul Fleschner sensed a remarkable strength as he filmed his beloved uncle one final time.
EDITORIAL: Dysfunctional relationship with schools chief doesn’t bode well for potential Pence presidency
A window to the future may be unfolding in Indiana.
Readers’ Forum: July 13, 2014
• Telling the truth about smoking
• Larger energy bills on the way, thanks to EPA
• Embrace the compassion, not self-righteousness
• Wondering about country’s leaders
• New amendments have hurt country
FLASHPOINT: EPA proposal will have little impact on environment, but could hurt coal industry
I recently signed on as an original co-sponsor to a bipartisan bill led by one of my Democrat colleagues from West Virginia that would stop the newly released Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations on existing coal-generated power plants.
RONN MOTT: Troubled history in that place called Iraq
People are dying, again, in Iraq. And, again, people other than Iraqis will ultimately make the decision about what happens to this ancient land.
Editorial: The Bennett ‘settlement’
It takes a special kind of arrogance to flout ethics laws in the manner which former state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett has violated them. Even when he finally admitted his transgressions, he claimed he could have avoided the matter altogether had he just changed the department’s ethics policy before engaging in the troublesome conduct.
In essence, this was the old “mistakes were made” acknowledgment of wrongdoing. And the real mistake to which Bennett admits was apparently not changing the rules before he violated them. This is a truly Nixonian moment.
- Readers’ Forum: July 11, 2014
RONN MOTT: That Old Man River
I was surprised to learn the people in Cairo are now taking water taxis to avoid the traffic, the confusion and the dangers that are appearing on Cairo, Egypt’s, streets. I mean, I was surprised the people in Cairo, these native Egyptians, were surprised they could take a water taxi and get to where they wanted to go using the Nile River as a highway. So, for the Egyptians living in Cairo, everything old is brand new again.
EDITORIAL: A green idea worth pursuing
It sounds like a blue-ribbon idea.
READERS' FORUM: July 10, 2014
• Herb Faire a great success
• Appreciation for a ‘lovely angel’
• Thanks for stirring fireworks show
EDITORIAL: Be safe, be responsible
The Independence Day weekend brought a brief respite in construction work on area roadways. In particular, it provided needed relief to the congested segment of Interstate 70 in Clay County that is undergoing resurfacing this summer.
Readers’ Forum: July 9, 2014
• Don’t eliminate our six-day mail
• Zamperini death stirs memories
RONN MOTT: Black Dog
We had some excitement around our house the other day and it was not the good kind.
There was a small dog, black in color with a spiked collar on his neck, and he was the spitting image of a small Doberman. I don’t know if they have miniature Dobermans but this dog could have been a mixed breed that came out looking like a Doberman although smaller.
Readers’ Forum: July 8, 2014
• T-S ignores common decency
• Lighten up on Donald Sterling
• Time to reject Dems in Congress
• Fueling the EPA
MS. TAKES: Great music is made during all generations
Number Two son tells us that his 20-year-old son has been listening to “Big Band” music with apparent enjoyment. As if that wasn’t enough of a surprise, I was talking with a young girl, barely out of her teens and she told us that she really wasn’t into rap. She said, “It isn’t really music, it’s just talk.”
Readers’ Forum: July 7, 2014
• The moral issue is major issue
Editorial: City financial health demands an open, honest discussion
Obscured by the recent rift over use of departmental funds in the city of Terre Haute’s budget are serious issues related to our city government’s overall financial health. The answers may be mired in the complexity of municipal finance, but coming to grips with the situation is important to the city’s future.
Readers’ Forum: July 6, 2014
• Coats ignoring climate science
• Do those mustache posters exist?
• Utility rate freeze took determination
• What perversion is next in line?
• Opinions vary, but voters will decide
• This preaching must stop — now
• Golf fundraiser a huge success
Flashpoint: State’s lawyer has duty to represent state in marriage lawsuit appeal
Recent federal court actions that first struck down Indiana’s statute limiting marriage to the traditional definition, and then stayed that order pending appeal, have left many in our state in legal limbo. As the attorney who represents state government and defends its laws, I know this difficult case stirs many people’s deeply held beliefs that touch their lives in very personal ways. Not since my office had to represent the state in lawsuits arising from the State Fair disaster has a dispute been so seemingly impossible to address in a way that the public would accept as being fair to all concerned.
Flashpoint: The Supreme Court decision and ‘closely held’ corporations
The much awaited Supreme Court decision in Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby came down this week. The court ruled in a 5-4 decision that the 1993 Religious Freedom and Restoration Act (RFRA) does cover “closely held” corporations, even if those corporations are for profit.
RONN MOTT: Learning more about Jefferson
During this Fourth of July weekend, I’ll be reading John Meacham’s biography of Thomas Jefferson.
EDITORIAL: Celebrate your independence
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
As eloquent and declaratory as that statement is, implementing its principles has been a decades-long pursuit for these United States of America. Our nation, it seems, is the quintessential work in progress, even though what this country has created in terms of a stable, collective society is, let’s face it, pretty darn good.
- Readers’ Forum: July 4, 2014
RONN MOTT: The Men Who Made the Country
The Fourth of July is the day we celebrate our independence from Great Britain. It reminds me of something David Ben-Gurion would say, at a much later date, about British rule: “If you have to have a master, the British are about as good at it as anybody.” Of course, we really don’t need a master.
GREG ZOELLER: State’s lawyer has duty to represent state in marriage lawsuit appeal
Recent federal court actions that first struck down Indiana’s statute limiting marriage to the traditional definition, and then stayed that order pending appeal, have left many in our state in legal limbo.
Readers’ Forum: July 3, 2014
• Over the top on immigration
FLASHPOINT: HIP 2.0 gives consumers better choices
On Wednesday, the State of Indiana submitted its proposal for the Healthy Indiana Plan 2.0 to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
MIKE PENCE: HIP 2.0 gives consumers better choices
Today, the state of Indiana submitted its proposal for the Healthy Indiana Plan 2.0 to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
If approved, the Healthy Indiana Plan 2.0 would replace traditional Medicaid for low-income, able-bodied Hoosier adults. Unlike traditional Medicaid, which is government-driven, HIP 2.0 is consumer-driven.
Editorial: Texting law serves safety
July 1 each year marks the day in Indiana when new laws take effect. But rather than focus on new laws today, let’s observe the anniversary of a law that went on the books three years ago this month — the law that barred texting while driving.
- Readers’ Forum: July 2, 2014
- More Opinion Headlines
- Feeling carried: Filmmaker captures late uncle’s walk through illness and into ‘whatever is next’
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2014 Engineers Week
UD students celebrate National Engineers Week Feb. 16-22
8:59 a.m., Feb. 12, 2014--University of Delaware engineering students will teach and mentor young girls as part of festivities surrounding National Engineers Week (E-week), Feb. 16-22.
E-week is an annual celebration of how engineers make a difference in the community and aims to increase public awareness about the need for engineers by engaging kids, educators and parents. DuPont and IEEE-USA will serve as the 2014 co-chairs for the event.
New Vita Nova
This year’s theme, “Let’s Make a Difference,” encourages engineers, engineering students, technicians and others in the field to share their knowledge, experiences and enthusiasm by volunteering in classrooms, recognizing the work of a colleague or hosting a public event.
In honor of that mission, members of UD’s Alpha Omega Epsilon engineering sorority and the UD student chapter of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) will mentor young girls with a budding interest in math and science during an Engineering Mini College for Girls later this month.
The students, from local elementary schools, will learn about polymers, experiment with computer programming and conduct controlled experiments, among other activities.
The president of the SWE UD chapter, Casey Siwinski, said volunteering in the mini college is a chance for her to give back to the community by inspiring the next generation of women engineers.
“Engineers have the desire to do right by society and as students we may not initially think of outreach as an option,” said Siwinski. “This gives us an opportunity to see the benefits of outreach early and encourages us to continue volunteering as we move into professional careers.”
Understanding the importance of outreach and awareness is a critical component of preparing engineering students for the profession, according to Melissa Jurist, UD K-12 engineering program coordinator.
“The field needs more mentors,” said Jurist. “Getting that experience now will make them good citizen engineers in the future.”
The College of Engineering will kick-off E-week with a reception and carnival on Monday, Feb. 17, at 11 a.m. in the DuPont Hall front lobby.
Throughout the week UD engineering students will have the opportunity to participate in a variety of activities including a Speed Mentoring networking event, which connects current female students with women professional engineers, a Meet the Engineering Greeks open house, dodge ball tournament, broomball and more.
For a full list of E-week events on campus, visit the website.
Article by Collette L. O’Neal
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What are the NMTCs?
The New Markets Tax Credit (“NMTC”) Program, an incentive for investment in economically distressed areas, is administered by the Community Development Financial Institutions (“CDFI”) Fund within the U.S. Department of Treasury. The NMTC Program attracts private capital into low-income communities by permitting individual and corporate investors to receive a tax credit against their federal income tax in exchange for making equity investments in qualified projects in designated low-income communities with poverty rates of at least 20 percent or median incomes at or below 80 percent of the area median. For more details, visit the CDFI Fund.
Are you Eligible?
To be eligible, the school needs to demonstrate that the project could not go forward “but-for” additional subsidy from the NMTC. Also, the use of NMTCs must be tied to a “substantial improvement” of the property which is generally 25% above the cost basis of the property. As described above, the project must be in designated low-income communities with poverty rates of at least 20 percent or median incomes at or below 80 percent of the area median.
To determine if a project site is NMTC eligible, check out this mapping tool.
How to Secure NMTCs for a Charter School Project:
Unlike some business tax credits, the NMTC Program is allocated a fixed amount each year. Community Development Entities (“CDEs”) apply for these tax credits each year. Competition for NMTCs is stiff, only about one-third of CDEs who apply are awarded funds. Because CDEs must compete for allocation, they look for high-impact, “shovel ready projects.” CDEs are certified by Treasury and can range from a local economic development authority to a national bank or nonprofit, so you will need to identify a CDE that serves your area. Many CDEs have online intake forms you can fill out to apply for credits, though this process varies. Be ready to provide CDEs with a full prospectus on your project, including projected job creation, square footage to be constructed or rehabilitated, children served, sources of funds, and project costs. To learn which of the recent CDEs finance educational community facilities, check out this list from the 2019 Round (Awarded in July, 2020):
|Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC)||$50,000,000|
|Partners for the Common Good||$35,000,000|
Some familiar charter school lenders are certified CDEs and have received NMTCs. To contact a few of these lenders for NMTCs, please visit The Lending Project, a new, free loan matching service.
To learn more about NMTCs
For additional information, these videos provide a quick overview.
Baker Tilly (4 minutes)
NMTC Coalition (3 minutes)
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Earlier this month, the Supreme Court heard a petition seeking directions to ensure audio-visual recording of the proceedings in trial courts. The reasoning behind the request was that recording proceedings would enhance the fairness of trials. The Supreme Court decided to limit the question to whether CCTV (video only) cameras may be installed at various locations in the courts, in order to better serve security and administrative needs.
This is not the first time the Supreme Court has discussed the use of CCTV cameras for security and other purposes. However, there is also no comprehensive law that deals with the use of CCTV cameras and related security and privacy issues.
In the present case, the Court initially noted that multiple courts, including the courts in Gurgaon have undertaken such efforts in the past. The Court then requested the additional solicitor general and a senior advocate present in the court as amicus to visit the courts in Gurgaon, and report on the matter within four weeks. It stated that once the report is received, it will consider directing installation of CCTV (video only) cameras at district courts in various states. It has also indicated that any recordings made by these CCTV cameras will not be available to the public, and will be retained for specified periods of time only.
The Court has considered the use of CCTV cameras in public places in previous cases. In Deputy Inspector General of Police and Anr. v. S. Samuthiram, a case regarding eve-teasing / sexual harassment, the Court took cognizance of such cases and the need for prevention mechanisms. Amongst other things, it directed all states and union territories to install CCTV cameras in public places. The CCTV cameras were to be positioned such that they act as a deterrent to potential offenders, and if an offence was committed, the offenders would be caught / identified.
In Dilip K. Basu v. State of West Bengal and Ors, the Court considered the request of the amicus, and directed state governments to: (a) take steps to install CCTV cameras in all the prisons in their respective states, within a period of one year from the date of the order (but not later than two years), and (b) consider installation of CCTV cameras in police stations in a phased manner depending upon the incidents of human rights violation reported in such stations.
State governments have also, in various instances, directed the installation of CCTV cameras in public places. In Tamil Nadu, the state government has directed that CCTV cameras must be installed in every public building. The cameras must be installed in accordance with the recommendations of the local police officers. Such recommendations may be made for purposes such as ensuring public order or controlling crimes and the reasons for the recommendation must be recorded in writing.
In Chandigarh, the local government released a set of draft rules meant to regulate mobile app-based transport aggregators (such as Uber and Ola). Among other things, these draft rules require that every taxi must install a CCTV unit to monitor activities inside the taxi in real time. The rules suggest that the video feed from the CCTV cameras should be linked to a control room established by the aggregator.
The above are some examples of courts and government bodies providing for installation and use of CCTV cameras and video recordings. There is a common trend among them – the orders and rules only deal with when and where the units are to be installed, and used. They do not, however, provide a procedural / regulatory mechanism to ensure proper, lawful use of such cameras and associated video recordings.
Maintenance of law and order, security, deterrence of criminal activity, and identification of offenders, are all important issues, and appropriate means should be adopted to provide for the same. At the same time, there needs to be a balance between such means, and individual rights, such as the right to privacy. These laws and orders largely deal with installation and use of CCTV cameras in public places, where some may argue that an individual does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy. However, reports suggest there is misuse of CCTV cameras, especially where installed in customer heavy locations such as retail outlets.
Such misuse could be dealt with under some existing provisions of laws such as the Information Technology Act, 2000 – for example under the provision which criminalizes capturing of images or videos of an individual’s private parts, or the data protection rules. However, these laws are of limited applicability, and deal mostly with sensitive personal information, and images or videos of a private / sexual nature. We do not currently have a comprehensive law that deals with surveillance equipment and its use in public spaces. Although some states such as Tamil Nadu provide that CCTV cameras must be installed based on police recommendations, there is no general prohibition or restriction on their installation and use. Further, there are no specific restrictions on the collection, use, retention, or transfer of any video recordings, or information that is derived from such recordings. There is no mechanism put in place to deal with a situation where an individual’s data is shared without authorization.
Certain authorities within the country appear to have recognized this gap, and taken some steps towards addressing these issues. In Maharashtra, the local municipal corporation in Navi Mumbai has implemented a CCTV surveillance system to help the local police maintain law and order. The corporation has issued a ‘voluntary code of conduct’ in relation to all surveillance camera systems in public and private places. This document attempts to “provide a framework to all the stakeholders so that there is proportionality and transparency in their use of surveillance”. Among other things, it provides that (i) the use of a surveillance system must always be for a legitimate and specified purpose; (ii) establishments must be transparent about the use of CCTV cameras on their premises; and (iii) access to the video feed will be limited and subject to clearly defined rules on persons who can gain access and purposes for which access may be gained.
Even a limited framework such as this, goes a long way towards ensuring transparency and protection of individual rights and freedoms. Perhaps the Supreme Court will provide more nuanced directions, not only on the installation of CCTV cameras, but also on the use of associated video recordings when the matter is next brought up.
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[Show abstract][Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: Cryopreservation of bovine embryos can be performed by a variety of methods with variable degree of success. Here, we report a new, easy to perform, simple, inexpensive, and successful method for vitrification of bovine blastocysts. In vitro produced bovine blastocysts were exposed to vitrification solution (5.5 m ethylene glycol, 10% serum and 1% sucrose) in one single step for 20 s, loaded on a paper container prepared from commonly available non-slippery, absorbent writing paper, and then were directly plunged into liquid nitrogen for storage. Vitrified blastocysts were warmed by serial rinsing in 0.5, 0.25 and 0.125 m sucrose solution for 1 min each. Results showed that one step exposure of bovine blastocysts to cryoprotective agents was sufficient to achieve successful cryopreservation. Under these conditions, more than 95% of blastocysts survived the vitrification-warming on paper containers which was significantly higher than those obtained from other containers, such as electron microscope (EM) grid (78.1%), open pulled straw (OPS; 80.2%), cryoloop (76.2%) or plastic straw (73.9%). Embryo transfer of blastocysts vitrified-warmed on paper container resulted in successful conception (19.3%) and full-term live birth of offspring (12.3%) which were lower (P < 0.05) than those obtained from non-vitrified blastocysts (38.0 and 32.7%) but were comparable (P > 0.05) to those obtained from blastocysts vitrified-warmed on EM grid (23.3 and 14.2%). Our results, therefore, suggest that paper may be an inexpensive and useful container for the cryopreservation of animal embryos.
[Show abstract][Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: Phosphatidylinositol-3-kinases (PI3K) play pivotal roles in the meiotic progression of oocytes from metaphase I to metaphase II stage. This study evaluated the effect of 3-methyladenine (3MA), a specific inhibitor of Class III PI3K, on the meiotic progression of porcine oocytes. Immature porcine oocytes (n=4744) retrieved from abattoir-derived oocytes were cultured in the absence or presence (10mM) of 3MA for 22h and evaluated for meiotic progression by florescent Hoechst 33342 staining. Data were analysed by chi-square test or ANOVA using SPSS software, and differences at P<0.05 were considered significant. Results showed that 3MA treatment arrested the immature porcine oocytes at germinal vesicle (GV) stage in the presence (99.2±0.8 v. 54.0±10.1%) or absence (96.5±1.8 v. 41.0±17.6%) of cumulus cells. Furthermore, a significantly high proportion (60.9±13.8%) of 3MA-treated oocytes acquired a nucleolus completely surrounded by a rim of highly condensed chromatin (GV-II stage). When immature oocytes, arrested at GV stage for 22h by 3MA, were further cultured for 22h in the absence of 3MA, 96.1±1.5% of oocytes reached metaphase II stage at 42h of in vitro maturation and did not differ (P>0.05) from nontreated control oocytes with respect to their ability to fertilize, cleave (74.1±1.2 v. 72.7±2.8%), and form blastocyst (15.4±1.5 v. 12.7±0.6%) upon IVF or parthenogenetic activation (cleavage rate: 89.8±1.7 v. 84.6±5.1%; blastocyst rate: 44.3±12.4 v. 45.1±7.6%). These data suggest that 3MA reversibly blocks and synchronizes the meiotic progression of porcine oocytes at GV stage without affecting their ooplasmic maturation in terms of post-fertilization/activation in vitro embryonic development. Our data also provide indirect evidence for the likely participation of Class III PI3K in meiotic maturation of porcine oocytes beyond GV stage.
Reproduction Fertility and Development 01/2011; 23(1):230-231. DOI:10.1071/RDv23n1Ab265 · 2.40 Impact Factor
[Show abstract][Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: Testis-derived male germ-line stem (GS) cells, the in vitro counterpart of spermatogonial stem cells, can acquire multipotency under appropriate culture conditions to become multipotent adult germ-line stem (maGS) cells, which, upon testicular transplantation, produce teratomas instead of initiating spermatogenesis. This study evaluated the DNA methylation and expression of imprinted microRNA (miRNA) in mouse GS and maGS cells. The GS and maGS cell lines were established essentially as described earlier (Jung et al. 2010 Mol. Hum. Reprod. PMID: 20610616) and were quantified for maternally (miR-296-3p, miR-296-5p, miR-483) and paternally (miR-127, miR-127-5p) imprinted miRNA by real-time TaqMan(®) MicroRNA assay and for DNA methylation at imprinting control regions of respective miRNA (Gnas-Nespas DMR, Igf2-H19 ICR, and Dlk1-Dio3 IG-DMR) by bisulfite genomic sequencing. Sperm and embryonic stem (ES) cells were used as controls for comparison. Results showed that, similar to sperm, expression of maternally imprinted miRNA was consistently higher (P<0.001), whereas that of paternally imprinted miRNA was consistently lower (P<0.001) in GS cells than in control ES cells. The DNA methylation analyses further confirmed that imprinted miRNA were androgenetic in GS cells. On the other hand, DNA methylation of maGS cells resembled that of ES cells, but the expression pattern of imprinted miRNA was intermediate between that of GS cells and ES cells. The expression of imprinted miRNA in GS and maGS cells was also altered during their in vitro differentiation but varied with both the differentiation stage and the miRNA. In conclusion, our data suggest that GS cells have androgenetic DNA methylation and expression of imprinted miRNA which changes to an ES cell-like pattern upon their conversion to maGS cells and, therefore, may serve as an epigenetic miRNA signature or molecular marker to distinguish GS cells from maGS cells.
Reproduction Fertility and Development 01/2011; 23(1):248. DOI:10.1071/RDv23n1Ab302 · 2.40 Impact Factor
[Show abstract][Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: Fatty liver hemorrhagic syndrome (FLHS) is characterized by increased hepatic triacylglycerol content associated with liver hemorrhages and results in a sudden decline in egg production. Genetic, environmental, nutritional, and hormonal factors have all been implicated in the etiology of FLHS, but the exact cause of FLHS is still unknown. Estrogens have been implicated in the development of excess fat content of the liver and in the etiology of FLHS. This study investigated estradiol (E(2)) administration in hens and its effect on lipid metabolism. Hy-Line Brown laying hens were intramuscularly injected with E(2) on a daily basis for 3 wk. The dosages were 0, 0.5, and 1.0 mg/kg of BW, with corn oil injections used as a control. Egg production and quality were measured among the groups, with no significant difference seen in egg production. Liver weights of hens treated with E(2) were greater than those of control hens, but the increase was not statistically significant. Serum glutamic-oxaloacetic transaminase and glutamic-pyruvic transaminase activities and E(2) plasma concentrations increased in a dose-dependent manner, with plasma concentration of E(2) increasing from 6,900 to 19,000 pg/mL. No significant differences in free cholesterol or phospholipids were observed, but there was a significant increase in hepatic triacylglycerol levels. Injection with E(2) showed an increased expression of mRNA for peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (23-fold), but not for peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α. A statistically significant increase was seen for fatty acid synthase, apolipoprotein B, and adenosine triphosphate citrate lyase, but not for acetyl coenzyme A carboxylase, apolipoprotein VLDL-II, microsomal triglyceride transport protein, or malic enzyme. For proteins involved in the oxidation of E(2), only cytochrome P450 3A37 showed a statistically significant increase. The present results suggest that E(2) upregulates the synthesis of fatty acids and triacylglycerols and the accumulation of hepatic lipids by increasing mRNA expression related to lipid metabolism, and that excess E(2) in the blood leads to activation of E(2) catabolic metabolism (cytochrome P450 3A37)-related mRNA expression.
[Show abstract][Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: Epidermal growth factor (EGF) has been considered a potential regulator of meiotic and cytoplasmic maturation in mammalian oocytes, but inconsistencies exist between earlier studies, probably due to differences in the culture conditions used. Using a serum- and hormone-free in vitro maturation (IVM) medium, this study investigated the specific contribution of EGF on IVM of porcine (Sus scrofa) oocytes and its interactive effects with follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), porcine follicular fluid (pFF), cumulus cells, and serum. It was noteworthy that EGF functionally mimicked the action of FSH and could completely replace FSH for nuclear maturation (83.2+/-4.4% vs. 55.9+/-5.2%; mean+/-SEM), whereas EGF had a synergistic effect with FSH on cytoplasmic maturation of porcine oocytes (P<0.05). Specific inhibition of EGF receptor (EGFR) by tyrphostin AG 1478 inhibited both EGF- and FSH-induced meiotic resumption (17.9+/-5.2% and 18.2+/-4.4%, respectively), thereby suggesting that EGFR signaling pathway was essential for oocyte reentry into the meiotic cell cycle. Furthermore, it is possible that FSH action occurs via the EGFR signaling pathway to induce meiotic maturation, although alternate pathways could not be excluded. There were also individual or combined effects of cumulus cells, FSH, serum, and pFF with EGF on IVM of porcine oocytes (P<0.05). Although FSH had a synergistic effect with EGF on cytoplasmic maturation, pFF masked the effects of EGF on both nuclear and cytoplasmic maturation of porcine oocytes (P<0.05). Moreover, the presence of cumulus cells was essential for EGF action. In conclusion, a defined system was used to better examine the effects of EGF. We inferred that EGF functionally mimics FSH for nuclear maturation of porcine oocytes, and its exogenous supplementation into IVM medium can optimize the beneficial effects of FSH on cytoplasmic maturation of oocytes to obtain enhanced embryo development in vitro.
[Show abstract][Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: Sequences from the clones of full-length enriched cDNA libraries serve as valuable resources for functional genomic studies. We have analysed 1970 high-quality chromatograms (Phred value >or= 30) that were obtained from sequencing the 5' ends of brainstem, liver, neocortex and spleen clones derived from full-length enriched cDNA libraries from Korean native pigs. In addition, 50,000 pig expressed sequence tag (EST) sequence trace files were obtained from Genbank and combined with our sequencing information to facilitate SNP identification in silico. The process generated 8118 contigs, of which 239 included minimum one sequence from Korean native pig and contained 678 putative coding single nucleotide polymorphisms (cSNPs). Of these, 33 putative cSNPs were randomly selected for confirmatory analysis and validated using 20 pigs from four different breeds (Duroc, Landrace, Yorkshire, Korean native pig). Of the 33 putative cSNPs, 20 were confirmed (61%), which was similar to the frequency reported in other studies. We also identified 15 new cSNPs from the validation process, which were not detected by our in silico analysis. Our study shows that analysing genetically diverse pig breeds including the Korean native pig could serve as a useful strategy for generating a large number of cSNPs.
Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics 05/2009; 126(2):127-33. DOI:10.1111/j.1439-0388.2008.00765.x · 1.57 Impact Factor
[Show abstract][Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: Retrovirus-mediated exogenous gene transfection of somatic cells is an efficient method to produce transgenic embryos by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). This study evaluated whether efficiency of transgenic embryos production, by SCNT using fibroblast cells transfected by retrovirus vector, is influenced by the introduced transgene and whether recloning could further improve its efficiency. Transgenic cloned embryos were produced by SCNT of porcine foetal fibroblast cells transfected by either LNbeta-Z or LNbeta-enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) retrovirus vector and evaluated for their developmental ability in vitro. Blastomeres from four-cell stage porcine embryos, produced by SCNT of foetal fibroblast cells transfected with LNbeta-EGFP retroviral vector, were subsequently recloned into enucleated metaphase II oocytes and evaluated for changes in chromatin configuration, in vitro embryo development and gene expression. Analysis of results showed that cleavage and blastocyst rates of porcine SCNT embryos, using LacZ (53.6 +/- 6.4%; 12.0 +/- 5.7%) or EGFP (57.5 +/- 6.3%; 10.1 +/- 4.1%) transfected fibroblasts, did not differ (p > 0.05) from those of non-transfected controls (60.9 +/- 8.2%; 12.3 +/- 4.0%). Recloning of blastomeres did not further improve the in vitro development rate. Interestingly, the nuclei of blastomere underwent slower remodelling process than somatic cell nuclei. Both cloned and recloned embryos showed 100% transgene expression and there were no evidence of mosaicism. In conclusion, our data shows that the efficiency of transgenic cloned embryos production by SCNT of somatic cells transfected with replication-defective retrovirus vector is not influenced by the transgene introduction into donor cells and recloning of four-cell stage blastomere could not further improve its efficiency.
[Show abstract][Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: Simultaneous quantification of multiple proteins could be a very useful tool in cell signaling studies. Parthenogentic embryos do not develop to term, although their in vitro developmental ability to the blastocyst stage and to form pluripotent stem cells upon culture is comparable to those of sperm- or somatic nucleus-introduced embryos. This study was designed to quantify the expression of eight selected proteins by multiple selected reaction monitoring (mSRM) of trypsinized preparations from porcine zygotes (n = 1500) produced by parthenogenesis. The trypsinized samples were prepared, spiked with isotopically labeled synthetic MAP3K (IPTGTV*HNQAK) peptides as internal standards for quantification (asterisk denotes isotopic amino acid residue), and analyzed by reverse phase LC-MS/MS. Upon the appearance of the target peptide, SRM data were acquired within fragmention mass ±1.5 m/z and each SRM transition, with its respective retention time, was validated as indicative of each specific peptide. Data were processed by integrating the appropriate peaks for the native and internal standard peptide, followed by calculation of the ratio of peak areas to estimate the relative abundance of the peptide. Analysis of data showed that the relative abundance of Janus kinase 2 (JAK2), signal transducer and activator of transcription 1 (STAT1), STAT2, calpastatin, complement cytolysis inhibitor, plakoglobin, serotransferrin, and epsilon-globin were 203.72, 138.52, 60.50, 18.63, 31.23, 0.85, 10.33, and 0.12, respectively. These data were consistent with those observed by reverse phase LC-MS/MS combined with 1-dimensional (1-D) sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) of cellular lysates from porcine embryos (n = 6000). The data presented here, therefore, provide mSRM of embryos for the first time in any species and suggest that mSRM in combination with reverse-phase LC-MS/MS combined with 1-D SDS-PAGE could be a powerful tool for proteome analysis of porcine embryos to obtain vital new information for understanding the basic biology of embryonic development.
This study was supported by grants from Biogreen 21, RDA, and the Korea Health 21 R&D Project, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Republic of Korea.
Reproduction Fertility and Development 01/2008; 20(1). DOI:10.1071/RDv20n1Ab173 · 2.40 Impact Factor
[Show abstract][Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: We have demonstrated previously that retroviral-mediated gene transfer is a promising method to produce transgenic avian, porcine, and bovine embryos. This study was designed to evaluate the development potential of transgenic porcine embryos produced by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) of fetal fibroblast (pFF) cells transfected by a robust replication-defective retroviral vector harboring enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) or β-galactosidase (LacZ) gene. Moloney murine leukemia virus (MoMLV)-based retroviral vectors encapsidated with VSV-G (vesicular stomatitis virus G) glycoprotein and harboring EGFP or LacZ under the control of β-actin promoter were produced and used to transfect primary pFF cells that were subsequently used for SCNT of enucleated porcine oocytes matured in vitro. Our results showed that all surviving cells after transfection and antibiotic selection expressed the genes without any evidence of replication-competent retrovirus. The fusion, cleavage, and blastocyst rates were 85.6 ± 6.5, 53.6 ± 6.4, and 12.0 ± 5.7% for EGFP; 83.5 ± 8.2, 57.5 ± 6.3 and 10.1 ± 4.1% for LacZ; and 80.5 ± 4.2, 60.9 ± 8.2 and 12.3 ± 4.0% for controls, respectively. Mosaicism was not observed in any of the group as evidenced by the expression of LacZ or EGFP in individual blastomeres of all embryos upon staining with β-galactosidase (for LacZ) or when visualized under UV illumination of an epifluorescent microscope using the fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) filter set (for EGFP). Further recloning of EGFP-expressing blastomeres, obtained from 4-cell-stage cloned embryos produced by SCNT of pFF cells infected with EGFP harboring vector, into enucleated metaphase II (MII) oocytes resulted in consistent expression of EGFP in recloned blastocysts. Interspecies SCNT (iSCNT) of transfected pFF into enucleated bovine oocytes could also result in consistent gene expression without any adverse effect on blastocyst rate (5.5 v. 4.9%) compared with non-transfected pFF. These data indicate that the replication-defective retroviral vector used in the present study is robust and independent of the genes inserted. Furthermore, introduction of transgenes by this method does not influence the in vitro development rate of cloned embryos.
This work was supported by a grant from Biogreen 21 Program, RDA, Republic of Korea.
Reproduction Fertility and Development 01/2008; 20(1). DOI:10.1071/RDv20n1Ab310 · 2.40 Impact Factor
[Show abstract][Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: Transgenic chickens, ubiquitously expressing a human protein, could be a very useful model system for studying the role of human proteins in embryonic development as well as for efficiently producing pharmaceutical drugs as bioreactors. Human parathormone (hPTH) secreted from parathyroid glands plays a significant role in calcium homeostasis and is an important therapeutic agent for the treatment of osteoporosis in humans. Here, by using a robust replication-defective Moloney murine leukemia virus-based retrovirus vector encapsidated with vesicular stomatitis virus G glycoprotein, we generated transgenic chickens expressing hPTH under the control of a ubiquitous Rous sarcoma virus promoter. The recombinant retrovirus was injected into the subgerminal cavity of freshly laid eggs at the blastodermal stage. After 21 d of incubation, 42 chicks hatched from 473 retrovirus-injected eggs. All 42 living chicks were found to express the vector-encoded hPTH gene in diverse organs, as revealed by PCR and reverse transcription-PCR analysis by using primer pairs specific for hPTH. Four days after hatching, 6 chicks died and 14 chicks showed phenotypic deformities. At 18 wk of age, only 3 G(0) chickens survived. They also released the hPTH hormone in their blood and transmitted the hPTH gene to G(1) embryos. However, although the embryos were alive at d 18 of incubation, none hatched. An electrochemiluminescence immunoassay further showed that the hPTH expression level was markedly elevated in mammalian cells infected by the retrovirus vector. Thus, we demonstrated that transgenic chickens, expressing a human protein under the control of a ubiquitous promoter, not only could be an efficient bioreactor for the production of pharmaceutical drugs, but also could be useful for studies on the role of human proteins in embryonic development. To our knowledge, this is the first report on the production of a human protein (hPTH) in transgenic chickens under the control of a ubiquitous promoter by using a replication-defective Moloney murine leukemia virus-based retrovirus vector system.
[Show abstract][Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: Mass spectrometry (MS) is a powerful emerging tool in proteomics for global identification and quantification of proteins and their differential analysis. The aim of this study was to utilize MS for global peptide sequencing and the relative quantification of peptide sequences in porcine embryos produced by parthenogenesis. Oocytes (n = 6000) recovered from abattoir-derived prepubertal porcine ovaries were matured in vitro for 42–44 h and parthenogenetically activated by a single electric pulse of 1.36 kV cm-1. After 24 h of in vitro culture in NCSU23 medium supplemented with 0.4% BSA, presumptive zygotes were sampled in Laemmli buffer and stored in liquid nitrogen until analysis. SDS-PAGE was used as the first step to separate intact proteins into 16 fractions. Each fraction was then in-gel tryptic-digested and analyzed by nanoLC-nano-ESI-MS/MS to sequence the peptide components in each fraction by LTQ ion-trap mass spectrometer (Finnigan, Fresno, CA, USA) after peptide purification by C18 ZipTips (Millipore, Billerica, MA, USA). Synthetic peptides from Myoglobin (LFTGHPETL*EK) and MAP3 Kinase (IPTGTV*HNQAK) protein having an isotope-labeled carbon (*) were used as internal standards for relative quantification. In total, 54 060 peptides were sequenced. Of these, 259 proteins were identified in the NCBI protein database for Sus scrofa using Spectrum Mill software (Agilent Technologies, Palo Alto, CA, USA). Of these, 199 proteins were identified with high confidence having at least 2 peptide sequences matching each protein. These included heat shock protein families, ribosomal proteins, cytoskeletal proteins, mitochondrial enzymes, disulfide isomerase proteins, glutathione S-transferase, DNA methyltransferase, STAT1, Ras-related protein Rab 1A, voltage-dependent ion channel proteins, zinc finger proteins and elongation factors, etc., which are involved in several important metabolic and cell signaling pathways. Several proteins including DNA methyltransferase 1, peroxidoxin 2, ubiquitin carboxyl-terminal hydrolase L1, serpin, heat shock proteins, cytoskeletal proteins, mitochondrial enzymes, elongation factor 1, bone morphogenetic protein, glucose-related proteins, etc., were among the highly abundant proteins. Our results thus showed that proteomic strategy can be successfully applied to analyze porcine embryo proteome. To our knowledge, this is the first time that several proteins have been sequenced and quantified in porcine parthenotes by proteomic means. In the long run, this study may help the understanding of mechanisms underlying embryonic development and identification of biomarkers of embryo quality.
This work was supported by grants from the Research Project on the Production of Bio-organs (No. 200503030202), Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, and Korea Health 21 R&D Project (No. A060769), Ministry of Health and Welfare, Republic of Korea.
Reproduction Fertility and Development 01/2007; 19(1). DOI:10.1071/RDv19n1Ab2 · 2.40 Impact Factor
[Show abstract][Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: Classical approaches for producing transgenic livestock require labor-intensive, time-consuming, and expensive methods but have low transgenic efficiency and a high mosaicism rate. This study evaluated a simplified method for producing transgenic porcine embryos by microinjecting a DNA construct into unfertilized metaphase oocytes that were subsequently fertilized in vitro. For this, oocytes recovered from abattoir-derived prepubertal porcine ovaries were matured in vitro for 42–44 h and were microinjected with DNA solution (10 ng µL-1) using a femtojet microinjector (Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany). The DNA (4.7 kb) was derived from the pEGFP-C1 plasmid (Clontech Laboratories Inc., Palo Alto, CA, USA), which contains the enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) encoding transgene under the control of cytomegalovirus promoter, and linearized with ApaLI restriction enzyme. Injected oocytes were then in vitro-fertilized using fresh epididymal sperm obtained from abattoir-derived porcine testis by standard procedure and cultured in NSCU23 medium supplemented with 0.4% BSA. The efficiency of transgenesis was monitored by visualization of green florescence under UV illumination using a EGFP filter set. Data were analyzed by Student's t-test. Results showed that the cleavage rate of injected oocytes (68.7 ± 0.5%) was similar to that of non-injected control oocytes (67.8 ± 0.4%). However, a high percentage of injected oocytes showed a developmental block at the 2–4 cell stage. The EGFP expression rate at 2–4 cell stage, when expressed as proportion of injected oocyte, was 17.2 ± 0.1%. Interestingly, mosaicism was not observed. The EGFP expression rate increased to 26.7 ± 0.1% when the DNA concentration was increased to 40 ng µL−1. Injecting the DNA solution near the metaphase plate of the oocyte did not improve (P < 0.05) the EGFP expression rate (22.2 ± 0.1%). A high proportion of EGFP-expressing oocytes blocked at the 4–8 cell stage and did not progress to blastocyst, possibly due to random integration of the transgene in developmentally important gene loci. Our results thus suggest oocyte-mediated gene transfer as a promising tool for producing transgenic livestock. However, further research is required to improve its efficiency.
This work was supported by the Research Project on the Production of Bio-Organs (No. 200503030201), Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Republic of Korea.
Reproduction Fertility and Development 01/2007; 19(1). DOI:10.1071/RDv19n1Ab402 · 2.40 Impact Factor
[Show abstract][Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: In vitro production of cloned porcine embryos by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) has become routine in several laboratories but the efficiency and quality of the resultant blastocysts remains sub-optimal. Cloned porcine blastocysts show low cell number, high fragmentation rate, and apoptosis which results in lower pregnancy rates upon embryo transfer. Earlier we reported that supplementation of culture media with amino acids benefit pre-implantation embryo development of in vivo- as well as in vitro-fertilized porcine embryos (Koo et al. 1997 Theriogenology 48, 791–802). This study evaluated how exogenous amino acids could affect pre-implantation development and quality of cloned or parthenogenetic porcine embryos. The effects of commercially available amino acids, referred to as Eagle's non-essential amino acids (NEAA), added or not added (control) to NCSU23 medium containing fatty acid-free BSA were studied. Oocytes recovered from abattoir-derived prepubertal porcine ovaries were matured in vitro and parthenogenetically activated (PA) or nuclear-transferred with fetal fibroblasts (SCNT), as described earlier (Uhm et al. 2000 Mol. Reprod. Dev. 57, 331–337). At 168 h post-activation, blastocysts were harvested for assessment of embryo quality by TUNEL labeling, Hoechst 33342 staining, and gene expression analysis. Results showed that, in the PA group, the cleavage rate was not affected by the supplementation of NEAA. However, the blastocyst rate was significantly improved when NEAA was present in the medium compared to that of the control group (38.9 ± 0.3 vs. 27.5 ± 0.3%, respectively) throughout the culture period. The supplementation during the pre-compaction period alone gave better results than during the post-compaction period alone (59.5 ± 0.9 vs. 33.4 ± 0.3%, respectively). In the SCNT group, however, both cleavage (73.6 ± 0.2 vs. 64.2 ± 0.4%) and blastocyst rate (18.7 ± 0.2 vs. 13.8 ± 0.3%) were improved by NEAA supplementation. Furthermore, these blastocysts had higher hatching ability (30.0 ± 1.8 vs. 14.6 ± 4.9%) than those of control group (P < 0.05). Supplementation of NEAA also increased the mean nuclei number of PA-derived (76.1 ± 4.9 vs. 66.5 ± 3.3) as well as SCNT-derived (43.1 ± 2.6 vs. 31.8 ± 1.9) blastocysts and reduced the time during which blastocysts formed. TUNEL assay revealed that incidence of nuclear fragmentation and apotosis was reduced by NEAA. Real-time qRT-PCR for Bax and Bcl-XL transcripts revealed that the relative abundance of Bax was reduced while that of Bcl-XL was increased. These effects were more pronounced when NEAA was present during the pre-compaction period alone. Thus, our data suggest that NEAA improves the yield and quality of cloned porcine embryos by enhancing blastocyst expansion and positively modulating the total cell number and apoptosis. These data may have implications for understanding the nutritional needs of cloned porcine embryos produced in vitro and for optimizing the composition of culture media to support their development.
This work was supported by the Research Project on the Production of Bio-Organs (No. 200503030201), Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Republic of Korea.
Reproduction Fertility and Development 01/2007; 19(1). DOI:10.1071/RDv19n1Ab60 · 2.40 Impact Factor
[Show abstract][Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: Xenotransplantation of porcine organs has the potential to overcome the current critical shortage of allogenic organs for transplantation in humans. However, the existence of porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERVs) presents a problem for the clinical use of xenografts from pigs. In an attempt to understand the molecular characteristics of PERVs, we cloned the PERV env gene from six pig breeds (ie, Berkshire, Duroc, Landrace, Yorkshire, and two types of miniature pigs) in Korea. A total of 141 env clones were isolated and their sequences were analyzed. Phylogenetic analyses of these genes revealed the presence of PERVs, from both classes A and B, in 54% and 46% of the env clones, respectively. Among these clones, 37 isolates had the correct open reading frame (ORF; 27 clones in subclass A and 10 clones in subclass B), while the others had premature termination. These PERV nucleotide sequences can be used in a database for comparisons of PERV distribution among different pig breeds and for monitoring PERV infection using isolates with functional ORFs. Recombinant envelope of subclass A and B with functional ORF was expressed by vaccinia virus systems. Additionally isolated env clones can be used for various experiments, such as PERV control and infectivity tests, and may enhance the understanding of molecular mechanisms through pseudotyped PERV viruses.
[Show abstract][Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: Little is known about the specific functions of the human cortical structures receiving nociceptive input, their relationship to various dimensions of pain, and the modulation of these inputs by attention. We now review studies demonstrating the subdural potentials evoked by a cutaneous laser stimulus which produces a pure pain sensation by selective activation of cutaneous nociceptors (LEPs). These LEPs were localized over human anterior and middle cingulate (A & MCC), somatosensory (S1) and parasylvian (PS) cortices. LEP, lesion and imaging data define pain-related elements within each of these structures: insula and parietal operculum within PS, anterior and middle cingulate cortex, and possibly Brodman's areas 3a, 3b and 1 within SI. LEPs recorded over each of these areas is modulated with laser intensity and evoked pain. Attention to the painful laser produces an increase in the amplitude of LEPs over all three cortical areas and emergence of a late positive potential over ACC alone. These studies provide clear evidence of human cortical structures receiving nociceptive input and the modulation of that input by exogenous (e.g. laser intensity) and endogenous factors (e.g. directed attention).
[Show abstract][Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: Cryopreservation of porcine oocytes has a special importance in reproductive biotechnologies owing to the high lipid content of the oocytes. The objective of this study was to investigate the efficiency of a new and simple method of oocyte vitrification for cryopreservation of porcine oocytes. Abattoir ovary-derived prepubertal porcine oocytes at germinal vesicle (GV) or metaphase II (MII) stage were exposed for 10-15 min to vitrification solution I that contained 4% (v/v) ethylene glycol (EG) in either TCM-199 supplemented with 20% FCS or phosphate-buffered NCSU23 medium supplemented with 0.4% BSA. Oocytes were then washed thrice in EG (35%; v/v)-based vitrification solution II containing sucrose (13.7%; w/v) and polyvinyl pyrrolidone (5%; w/v) and placed in groups of 25-50 oocytes per 1-2 µL droplet onto aluminum foil kept directly over the liquid nitrogen (LN2). After visually observed vitreous formation, they were transferred to cryovials and directly plunged into LN2 for storage. Thawing was performed in sucrose- or EG-based media. After warming, the viability was assessed by fluorescein diacetate (FDA) staining and in vitro maturation (IVM) of GV-stage oocytes was determined based on cumulus expansion and polar body extrusion. In addition, the developmental capacity of oocytes was assessed by in vitro fertilization (IVF). Effects of pretreatment with cytochalasin B (CB) on the post-thaw viability, nuclear maturation, and developmental capacity were also investigated. The results demonstrated that the rate of oocytes having normal morphology was more than 90% in all groups. Viability based on esterase enzyme activity and oolemma integrity, as determined by FDA staining, ranged from 80% (without CB) to 86% (with CB) for MII-stage oocytes and 79% (without CB) to 90% (with CB) for GV-stage oocytes. The IVM rate of pelleted GV-stage oocytes reached 70% based on cumulus expansion and 55% based on polar body extrusion. Sucrose-based thawing media was found to be superior to EG-based media. Although the vitrification method resulted in a high survival rate based on the morphological appearance, FDA staining, and IVM rate, developmental rates of pelleted oocytes were found to be compromised. However, we believe that there is a scope for improving the developmental rates with further modifications in the method.
Reproduction Fertility and Development 01/2006; 18(2). DOI:10.1071/RDv18n2Ab96 · 2.40 Impact Factor
[Show abstract][Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: It is well known that very early development of the mammalian pre-implantation embryo is regulated by gene transcripts and proteins stored in the oocyte and that the embryonic genome gains control of development following 1 to 3 cleavage divisions. An active transcription and translation is required for chromatin condensation and germinal vesicle breakdown in pig oocyte. The transition from maternal to embryonic control of development is a gradual event, and following this transition, the maternally derived transcripts and proteins are gradually degraded. Successful embryonic development is dependent on the temporal and stage-specific expression of proper genes, but information on specific gene expression during early stages before zygotic gene activation (ZGA) is limited. Before activation of the embryonic genome, mRNA and proteins synthesized during oocyte growth and maturation contribute to early development. In this study, we compared the mRNA transcripts level among porcine immature, in vitro-matured and cleaved 2- to 4-cell stage embryos after in vitro fertilization to identify genes that show differential mRNA transcript levels during maturation and very early embryonic development. For the first strand cDNA synthesis, oligo (dT) primers were added to the total RNA isolated from each sample. Using annealing control primer (ACP)-based GeneFishing PCR, we detected tens of different genes showing differential mRNA transcript level (DRTL) and nine DRTL genes were identified to be KCRF, CAMSAP1, SMP1, FLJ20647, LOC132321, NADH1, NADH6, HERC3, and TEGT. Of 9 DRTL genes, TEGT showed higher mRNA transcript level at the immaturation stage, and mRNA transcript levels of the other 8 genes were increased after in vitro maturation. Therefore, we focused on TEGT (testis enhanced gene transcript), which is highly expressed in testis and also in oocytes before in vitro maturation. Differential mRNA transcripts pattern of CAMSAP1 and TEGT were confirmed using RT-PCR and real-time RT-PCR. Porcine TEGT (pTEGT) was cloned and sequenced to have an ORF of 714 bp nucleotides and to encode an integral membrane protein. When overexpressed in HEK293 cells, pTEGT suppressed apoptosis induced by etoposide. We found that pTEGT, but not TEGT-C (C-terminal deletion mutant), inhibited etoposide- and staurosporine-induced cell death. Next, we found that introduction of TEGT siRNA suppressed the anti-apoptotic effect of TEGT. Interestingly, expression of TEGT suppressed etoposide-induced ERK activation, suggesting that ERK phosphorylation is involved in the anti-apoptotic function of the gene. Several reports showed that apoptosis and MAP kinase signaling pathways play important roles in oocyte maturation and early embryo development. Therefore, the anti-apoptotic effect of TEGT was suggested to play a key role in the normal ooctye maturation and early embryo development.
This work was supported by the Research Project on the Production of Bio-organs, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Republic of Korea.
Reproduction Fertility and Development 01/2006; 18(2). DOI:10.1071/RDv18n2Ab130 · 2.40 Impact Factor
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The unwinding of Dodd-Frank. The firing up of shuttered coal plants. The rollback of rules that increase overtime pay for low-wage workers.
Hours after Donald J. Trump won the race for the White House, scores of regulations that have reshaped corporate America in the last eight years suddenly seemed vulnerable.
While many questions remain about how Mr. Trump will govern, a consensus emerged Wednesday in many circles in Washington and on Wall Street about at least one aspect of his impending presidency: Mr. Trump is likely to seek vast cuts in regulations across the banking, health care and energy industries.
“This is going to be a president who will be the biggest regulatory reformer since Ronald Reagan,” Stephen Moore, one of Mr. Trump’s economic advisers said in an interview on Wednesday. “There are just so many regulations that could be eased.”
Although Mr. Trump is a maverick politician, his anti-regulation stance is that of an old-school Republican. It is driven by a belief that the economy will grow faster if businesses are freed from the long arm of the federal government.
Or at least that is what some analysts and economists say they think is Mr. Trump’s rationale. Even after a long campaign of endless rallies and debates, Mr. Trump and his closest advisers have disclosed relatively few specific economic policy proposals.
And some of what he has proposed seems contradictory. For example, he has said he would roll back the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul, while his party platform calls for breaking up the big banks.
Mr. Trump will probably find common ground with many Republicans in Congress, including Speaker Paul D. Ryan, on cutting regulation. They clashed during the campaign over Mr. Trump’s past conduct toward women and inflammatory statements about ethnic groups, and many Republicans do not see eye to eye with Mr. Trump on immigration and trade.
“But Ryan and Trump are like-minded on regulation in a way they are not on trade and immigration,” said Ted Gayer, director of the economic studies program at the Brookings Institution and a former Treasury official under President George W. Bush. “That is red meat for both of them.”
Here is a rundown on how Mr. Trump’s presidency could gut regulations from Wall Street to Silicon Valley:
A clean Republican sweep of the White House and Congress would normally be greeted by loud cheers across Wall Street.
But Mr. Trump’s victory is not a clear boon for bankers and financiers in the way that past Republican wins have been.
On paper, many of his campaign proposals appear to favor banks and investors, including a promise to undo Dodd-Frank, which was passed after the 2008 financial crisis.
Yet repealing the law and its many rules seems unlikely to gain much traction in Congress. And even many banks admit they have spent so much time and money complying with the law, they would rather keep it.
Several Obama administration officials said on Wednesday that they did not expect Congress to completely repeal Dodd-Frank. Instead of undertaking such a costly and controversial effort, one likely possibility is that the Trump administration and Congress would take aim at a handful of specific rules that most irritate the banks, including what is known as the Volcker Rule, a centerpiece of Dodd-Frank that prohibits banks from placing risky bets with their own money.
Otherwise, many of the expected changes would benefit small and midsize banks rather than Wall Street banks. Regulators, for example, could raise the size at which a bank is subject to Dodd-Frank’s enhanced oversight.
Other pieces of Dodd-Frank could be picked off, like reining in the authority of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a hallmark of the Obama administration.
Mr. Trump could prune other low-hanging financial regulations, including a newly enacted Department of Labor rule that holds investment advisers liable for certain advice to their clients.
He also promised on the campaign trail to close the so-called carried interest tax loophole that increases the wealth of private equity executives.
And Mr. Trump’s campaign took aim at the honey pot of global banking revenue: free trade. For decades, banks have benefited from facilitating deals and lending to companies worldwide.
“Probably more so than any president in modern history it will be difficult to predict what issues he latches onto,” said Aaron Klein, a former Treasury official in the Obama administration, who is now a fellow at the Brookings Institution.
MICHAEL CORKERY, BEN PROTESS and LESLIE PICKER
In the energy industry, one of Mr. Trump’s first targets, according to Mr. Moore, an economic adviser, is President Obama’s effort to limit carbon emissions at coal-fired utilities.
Mr. Trump’s supporters say the rule drove coal companies into bankruptcy, even though the industry says that its problems are mostly caused by waning demand.
It is unclear whether the election of Mr. Trump can help struggling coal miners get back their jobs, but it will almost certainly upend the world’s efforts to curb the impact of global warming.
While some legal and procedural roadblocks would impede a complete dismemberment of Mr. Obama’s climate change regulations, a Trump administration could significantly weaken or slow them.
Mr. Trump has said that he would do everything in his power to undo Mr. Obama’s ambitious domestic and international climate change policies.
He has vowed to “cancel” the Paris Agreement. Nearly every country put forth plans to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide in that 2015 deal. But it is not possible for a world leader to unilaterally block or undo the accord, nor would it be possible for the United States to legally withdraw from it for at least the first term of a Trump administration.
Under the accord, Mr. Obama promised that the United States would cut emissions up to 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025, largely through the Environmental Protection Agency regulations on coal-fired power plants.
Mr. Trump could not immediately block the E.P.A. rules, but over the course of his administration he could ensure that they are weakened or rolled back. The rules are facing a legal challenge by 28 states and dozens of companies, and the case is expected to go before the Supreme Court as soon as next year. By appointing an industry-friendly Supreme Court justice and not arguing for the rules, Mr. Trump could weigh the court against them. He could also direct the E.P.A. to rewrite the regulations to be far more lax.
A Trump administration could weaken, or even repeal, the rules governing fuel economy and greenhouse gas standards for new cars and trucks.
Oil and natural gas executives are hopeful that Mr. Trump will deliver for them, too. They want a loosening of methane emission standards for existing oil wells and the opening of the long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline.
“I think he’s going to make a big difference,” said Darlene S. Wallace, president of Columbus Oil, an Oklahoma company.
CORAL DAVENPORT, CLIFFORD KRAUSS and HIROKO TABUCHI
As income inequality and stagnant wages became a major preoccupation among voters, the Obama administration brought regulations and enforcement actions intended to increase the leverage of workers. Most of these efforts are now endangered by the prospect of a Republican president and Republican Congress.
One achievement in this area has been a regulation raising the salary threshold below which workers automatically become eligible for time-and-a-half overtime pay, to $47,476 from $23,660.
In theory, the regulation could be undone by the Trump administration through a rule-making process similar to the one that produced it. But this could take months, if not years. Instead, some lobbyists expect Congress to pass a legislative compromise that would rein in the overtime rule, by phasing it in over a number of years, and by limiting or undoing the automatic upward adjustment in the salary threshold every three years.
Mr. Obama enacted a number of other policies through executive order rather than a more involved rule-making process, and these could be undone by a President Trump almost immediately, with the stroke of a pen. These include rules that increased the minimum wage and granted paid sick days to workers hired by federal contractors.
More broadly, the Obama administration has made a priority of aggressively enforcing laws protecting workers. To do so, some of its appointees have issued “interpretations” on such questions as which workers should be protected by minimum wage and overtime laws, documents that don’t carry the force of law but can lower the bar for pursuing employers.
Trump administration appointees could quickly reject such interpretations and enforce the law differently, said Marc Freedman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The president also makes important appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, which protects workers’ rights to organize and adjudicates questions of labor law. During the president’s second term, the board overturned decades of precedent and made it far more likely that a company would be held responsible for trampling on the labor rights of employees hired by contractors or franchisees that it does business with.
Mr. Trump’s appointees to the N.L.R.B. could easily reverse such rulings.
The idea of a Trump presidency triggered a sense of dread among many people in the liberal-leaning technology business.
Mr. Trump is seen as less favorably disposed toward the concentration of power among the handful of large companies that dominate the internet, including Facebook, Google and Amazon, said Glenn Kelman, chief executive of Redfin, an online real estate firm
“I think Donald Trump may be facile with Twitter but mostly feels hostility towards these companies and their size,” Mr. Kelman said.
During the campaign, Mr. Trump told an audience in May that “we’re going get Apple to start building their damn computers and things in this country, instead of in other countries.”
Many technology executives have called that idea far-fetched since most of Apple’s supply chain, including many of its parts makers, are in Asia.
Mr. Trump also blasted Jeffrey P. Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon, saying that he was using the political influence of The Washington Post, which Mr. Bezos owns, to discourage government action against Amazon on tax and antitrust issues.
And Mr. Trump has called for the rejection of AT&T’s bid for Time Warner.
Still, analysts expect that he will appoint antitrust regulators at the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department who will largely follow traditional Republican approaches to the free market.
Craig Berman, a spokesman for Amazon, declined to comment.
Mr. Trump will be under pressure by major telecom and cable firms to roll back aspects of net neutrality. The rule inhibits how broadband providers manage traffic on their networks to ensure any website is equally accessible to consumers.
Telecom and cable firms continue to challenge the rules in court and Mr. Trump, with the encouragement of Republicans in Congress, may seek to abandon the regulation.
NICK WINGFIELD, VINDU GOEL and CECILIA KANG
Shares of drug makers rallied on Wednesday on apparent relief that Hillary Clinton, who had vowed to enact a series of drug-pricing controls, had lost the election. But several in the industry said that the broader debate over high drug prices would probably continue and that it was unclear what positions Mr. Trump might take.
“The truth is, who knows?” said Ron Cohen, chief executive of Acorda Therapeutics and the chairman of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, an industry trade group. “We still have to deal with the basic issues that are confronting us as an industry, and those have not changed just because of an election.”
Outrage over the rising cost of prescription drugs has spiked in recent years as Americans struggle to pay for their medicines. Egregious examples of price increases, like those on Mylan’s EpiPen and older drugs sold by Valeant Pharmaceuticals, prompted congressional hearings and investigations.
At the same time, the drug industry has gone to war with insurers and employers who pay for their workers’ health coverage. Those dynamics, several people said, have not changed, and outrage over high drug prices is seen as a bipartisan issue.
Nonetheless, Mr. Trump placed less emphasis on the issue than Mrs. Clinton did during the campaign.
He has said he would be in favor of allowing the federal government to negotiate for the price of prescription drugs in Medicare’s Part D program and to allow for the importation of drugs from countries like Canada, both positions that are opposed by the industry and have historically been associated with Democrats.
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Audiobus: Use your music apps together.
What is Audiobus? — Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.Download on the App Store
Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.
Is Swift enough for developing MIDI-based app?
I know similar questions have been asked before. But I was wondering about some specifics and the current state of Swift.
I'm not a programmer, I have some basic experience with Python and Haskell. I have some ideas for a MIDI-centric app — as any sort of musical live coding is impossible right now on iOS I'd like to create something that's close to live coding at least in spirit and flow. An interface for applying 'functions' to outcoming midi-messages. I really like to write my music sometimes and not point&click it It'll still be touch-based and not code-based, but visually more text-centric.
Is Swift enough for something like that? Should I also learn Obj-C (is it worth learning it at all at this point)? C? Or just immerse myself in C++?
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It’s back-to-school time, which means parents’ inboxes are stuffed with advice and to-do lists about how to make this a successful year for your kid.
This to-do list can look dramatically different depending on the age and grade of your student, but one thing remains universal: The need to keep the lines of communication open and honest.
That’s why I found the last set of tips on this new resource particularly helpful.
A group called Learning Heroes, which partners with some of the most prominent education and parent organizations to pool parent resources, just released an online toolbox called The Super 5: Back-to-School Power Moves. This is an interactive collection of actionable tips to help parents support their children’s academic success and their social-emotional well-being.
The tips were inspired, in part, by findings from a national poll earlier this year.
One finding was about the disconnect between what parents believed about their children’s achievement–and what was actually true. About 90 percent of all parents said their child was achieving at or above grade level in reading or math, but according to NAEP data, the reality is much lower (36 and 40 percent, respectively).
That’s why there are pragmatic questions like these, with links to data about testing, standards and grade-by-grade learning goals:
The poll also found that parents said they could use more knowledge and information about social-emotional learning, and we know from the Education Post parent poll that most parents see themselves as being most responsible for their child’s learning and they value their child’s happiness first and foremost. That’s why I found this bank of tips especially interesting:
So dig in, and have a great school year.
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Blue and White Striped Fish
Created by Ben Gatski and Kate Gatski
The artist created this Striped Fish entirely from reclaimed metal. He hand draws the pattern on the metal with soapstone and cuts it with a hand held plasma cutter. He then hand hammers and arc welds the fish into shape. It is painted with blue milk paint.
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Restorative Yoga is a powerful practice for our minds, bodies and spirits.
During Restorative Yoga we move from doing to being. In this simple act of non-doing we enjoy mental and emotional well-being, and increase our vitality. We may also smooth our relationships, and increase our creativity and productivity. In restorative yoga doing less, truly is more. Book a Personalized Class Now
We use props: blankets, bolsters, blocks, etc. to reduce strain, prevent injury, create comfort and facilitate health and relaxation.
What is relaxation? According to Oxford Dictionaries relaxation is when the body and mind are free from tension and anxiety. It is much deeper than a diversion.
Yoga is more than poses and breath exercises. It began, and continues, as a system to gain freedom from suffering and to remind us of our true nature.
When you embrace self-reflection, make true relaxation a priority, and surrender to the process, you will enjoy a variety of benefits. Here are a few: resolve chronic pain, support physical & mental well-being, soothe persistent pain, alleviate headaches, improve sleep, strengthen emotional resilience, help women's health issues. Book a Personalized Class Now
Is Restorative Yoga for You? Are you ready to transition from busy to being? Are you ready to restore, rejuvenate and renew? If you answered yes to one or more of the questions, then YES Restorative Yoga is for you.
Taking regular time to relax and renew will help you heal the effects of chronic stress and is essential to living well.
I'm here ready to coach and guide you to a place of inner calm, deep rest and more freedom. I will help you adapt each pose so it feels good in your body, create a routine you will stick with and guide you to let go of expectations so your neural pathways strengthen.
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Among the national flags waving in the streets on Double Ten National Day yesterday, hand-printed flags, expressing individual hopes for an end to nuclear power in the country, were also seen at numerous coffee shops, hostels and book shops nationwide.
The flags were printed with the words “NO NUKES, No more Fukushima” on them.
The event was started by a coffee shop owner nicknamed A-fa (阿發) in July, through a post on Facebook.
A-fa said she is not a radical social activist, but that she had often thought about what she could do to express her support for the anti-nuclear power movement. She began writing letters to individual shops to ask if they wanted to join her in displaying anti-nuclear power flags on National Day.
In the Facebook post explaining her initiative, she wrote: “Taiwan cannot be happy when facing many different problems, but if anything goes wrong at the nuclear power plants, all that we truly cherish and worked hard for will be gone.”
She said that she hopes the simple message that the flags encourage could become a “Happy Birthday” song for Taiwan on National Day.
At the registering deadline for flag-printing last month, 1090 stores or individuals — more than three times the original estimated number, were registered to display the flag yesterday. There were also others who printed out small paper flags to place in their stores.
Dozens of participants from across the nation shared photographs of their flags at different places on the event’s Facebook page yesterday. Among the locations were coffee shops, book shops, breakfast shops, an egg cake stall, a hair salon and a hostel on Lanyu (蘭嶼).
Later yesterday evening, the event initiator wrote on the Facebook page that she wondered whether the government will review its decision and listen to people’s voices because of the flags bearing anti-nuclear messages.
“But at least I’ve made some little changes in my daily life to try to help the environment,” she wrote.
“We all have a responsibility to make the environment better,” she added.
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Previous | Next >
Note: For the complete lessons,
with additions, see the AYP
Easy Lessons for Ecstatic Living Books.
Lesson 149 - The eight limbs of yoga, and samyama
Melting the darkness
Date: Thu Mar 25, 2004 5:34pm
New Members: It is recommended you read from the beginning of the web archive, as previous
lessons are prerequisite to this one. The first lesson is, "Why
It is time to move on to samyama, which involves moving outward with our attention in pure
bliss consciousness, resulting in the cultivation of so-called yogic powers as a side
effect. Before we discuss samyama, let's talk about the eight limbs of Patanjali's Yoga
Sutras, which we have not done yet. Samyama is a combined application of the last three of
these eight limbs, and ties in with the other five limbs as well, so this is a good time
to cover them. All of yoga is connected, you know. It all connects through the human
nervous system. In fact, all of yoga is a product of the human nervous system. Not the
other way around, as we sometimes tend to think.
It took a while for people to believe that the world is round instead of flat, and that
the sun is the center of the solar system instead of the earth. It took some proof. Then
almost everyone believed, and the rush was on to find all the benefits in the new
knowledge, the new paradigm.
Now it is time for us to come to grips with the fact that the human nervous system is the
center of all spiritual experience and all divine bliss. That is your nervous system, the
one you are sitting in right now. The sooner we get used to the idea that each of us is a
direct gateway to the divine, the better it will be for everyone. As with the acceptance
of any knowledge, it takes some proof. In this case, the proof is in you. Open a few doors
here and there by doing some effective yoga practices and you will see what you are. Then
the rush will be on to open it all up. A new paradigm is born!
Nothing is new, you know. Our ancient ancestors knew of these things. Much of it was
written down. But communications were poor, and people lived so much in superstition. It
is different now. We can find any information we want. There are so many doors of
knowledge opening to everyone. The old wisdom is becoming new again. The human nervous
system hasn't changed over all this time. It has been waiting patiently, like a treasure
chest longing to be opened. It is time.
Patanjali's book of yoga sutras is one of the greatest scriptures of all time. Not only
does it tell us what we are, but also it tells us how the doors of the nervous system can
be opened. It lays out the relationships between the natural principles of opening that
exist in us. This is done with the famous eight limbs of yoga.
We have been traveling through the eight limbs ever since we started the lessons of
AdvancedYogaPractices. We have not gone in order, and some would call this
non-conventional. We have gone in a way that is effective and makes sense, so there will
be no apologies. We'll talk about that some more, but first let's review the eight limbs:
1. Yama It means "restraint," and includes ahimsa (non-violence), satya
(truthfulness), asteya (non-stealing), brahmacharya (preservation of sexual energy and
cultivation of it), and aparigraha (non-covetousness).
2. Niyama It means "observance," and includes saucha (purity and
cleanliness), samtosa (contentment), tapas (heat/focus/austerity), svadhyaya (study of
scriptures and self), and isvara pranidhana (surrender to the divine).
3. Asana It means "posture," and includes all those asanas we have come
to know and love. In the lessons, asanas are used as a preparation for pranayama and
meditation. Certain asanas stimulate the rise of kundalini.
4. Pranayama It means "restraint of life force/breath," and includes the
pranayama methods we have discussed, plus some we are yet to discuss. Pranayama cultivates
the soil of the nervous system, preparing it for deep meditation and divine experience.
Particular kinds of pranayama raise kundalini.
5. Pratyahara It means "introversion of senses." In the lessons,
pratyahara is both effect and cause, occurring as kundalini rises and ecstatic experiences
draw our attention naturally inward. Then, through pratyahara, we come to know our sensory
experience as a continuum spanning the full range of manifestation from the first inner
vibrations of pure bliss consciousness (OM) all the way out into the physical world.
6. Dharana It means "concentration or focus of attention," and is the
first step in taking the mind inward through meditation. In the lessons, we don't hold the
attention on anything for long. We just bring attention easily to an object (the mantra),
and then let it go how it will. This brings attention almost immediately beyond the
beginning perception for the object, which is what we want. The mind will take us inward
if we give it the opportunity.
7. Dhyana It means "meditation," and is the flow of attention inward. It
can also be described as the expansion of attention beyond any object. In the lessons, the
mantra is used as the vehicle for this. We come easily to the mantra, and then the mantra
changes and disappears. Our attention expands, arriving in its natural unattached state -
8. Samadhi It means "absorption/transcendence," and it is what we
experience in daily meditation. It expands over time, eventually becoming our natural
state of being in daily activity. It is pure bliss consciousness, the inner silent
witness. Samadhi in its various stages of unfoldment is the experience of our immortal
universal Self. That is what we are.
You may have noticed that after yama and niyama, which were presented pretty much with the
classical definitions (except for brahmacharya), all the rest of the limbs were given a
twist according to the way these lessons have been presenting the knowledge of advanced
yoga practices. This is a normal thing. In fact, every yoga teaching has its own way of
presenting the eight limbs of yoga.
The eight limbs of yoga are so logical and easy to understand that virtually every teacher
of yoga claims to be teaching them, which is true to one degree or another, because the
eight limbs cover everything one can do in yoga. In this sense, they represent a complete
road map, a blueprint and spiritual checklist of the various ways to open the human
nervous system to divine experience.
Taken together as an overall system, the eight limbs have been referred to as
"ashtanga yoga" and "raja (royal) yoga." But what is in a name?
AdvancedYogaPractices are the eight limbs too. So is any approach to human spiritual
transformation, in part or whole, including what we find in all the world's mainstream
religions. If it has to do with human spiritual transformation, it is going to be found
somewhere in the eight limbs. That is the beauty of the eight limbs. When you look at any
spiritual teaching or religious tradition using the eight limbs as a measuring rod, you
will see right away what is there, and what is not. The more enlightened traditions will
have more of the limbs covered, and the less enlightened ones will have fewer limbs
Traditionally, the eight limbs have been taken in sequence. The rationale has been that
people have to learn to behave themselves and prepare through strict codes of conduct
before they can begin doing more direct spiritual practices. Once they know how to behave
rightly, they can begin with the body (asanas), and, later, work their way in through the
breath (pranayama), and, finally, be ready for concentration (dharana), meditation
(dhyana), and pure bliss consciousness (samadhi). With a traditional approach like this it
can be a long road to hoe, especially if a guru (in the flesh) holds his disciples to the
highest standards of performance each step along the way. Even Patanjali had this sequence
of practice in mind when he wrote the yoga sutras.
That part of it (going through the eight limbs in sequence over a long period of time)
doesn't work very well. This has become widely recognized in the yoga community, and
Patanjali must have known it too. Maybe in his time it wasn't so easy to be jump-starting
people with advanced yoga practices like deep meditation and spinal breathing the way we
can do it today.
Over the years different teachers have jumped directly into the eight limbs in different
places. Some start with asanas and others with pranayama. Some focus first on devotion and
then jump to meditation, or something else. Some jump straight into meditation, and then
work their way back through the limbs. As you know, these lessons are of the latter
approach. We start with deep meditation, and then head into pranayama, physical
techniques, and so on, keeping a good awareness of the role of bhakti/desire all the way
One thing everyone who does yoga has found is that the limbs of yoga are connected,
meaning, if we start in one limb, the others will be affected, and, as we purify and open,
we will eventually be drawn into all of the limbs. It is common for new meditators to
become voracious spiritual readers (svadhyaya), lean toward a purer diet (saucha), and
feel more sensitive about the wellbeing of others (ahimsa). In fact the best way to
achieve progress in yama and niyama is by going straight to samadhi with deep meditation.
Then harmonious behavior comes naturally from inside, rather than having to be enforced
from outside. These things are indicators of the connectedness of yoga. It occurs on all
levels of practice. Sometimes it is called "Grace," because spiritual blessings
seem to come out of nowhere. In truth, such blessing are being telegraphed through us via
spiritual conductivity rising in our nervous system from something we did somewhere on the
eight-limbed tree of yoga. Even the sincere thought, "Is there something more than
this?" is a powerful yoga practice, and it is found in the niyama limb it is
surrender, bhakti. As you know from the lessons, this conductivity in the nervous system
becomes "ecstatic" when kundalini begins to move. When that happens we are
really getting connected through the limbs of yoga - here, there, and everywhere.
If we engage in effective practices in a coordinated way in multiple limbs from early on,
then our nervous system will be purifying and opening most rapidly. This is an important
principle that is recognized in the core strategy of these lessons using an
integrated system of practices, having the option of working through as many limbs as
Samyama is a jumping off point from the eight limbs. It is something different from any
one limb that can be used to purify and open the nervous system. In Patanjali's Yoga
Sutras it gets a whole chapter called, "supernormal powers."
Samyama is defined as the combination of the last three limbs of yoga used with an object.
So, using focused attention (dharana), meditation (dhyana), and deep inner silence
(samadhi) with an object, or objects, in a particular way we are able to develop
supernormal powers, also called siddhis. Patanjali tells us that samyama is a more
intimate practice and that it leads to "the light of knowledge." He also tells
us to avoid getting distracted by the experiences that come up when doing samyama. We have
been dealing with this in the lessons already. We see lights or have some ecstatic
experiences, and we have to remind ourselves to easily go back to the practice we are
doing. This is because experiences do not advance our spiritual progress. Only practices
do. The same goes for siddhis when they manifest themselves. As was mentioned way back in
lesson #76, we do samyama to expand pure bliss consciousness and
ecstasy in the nervous system, and beyond.
If we come to samyama expecting to get some powers for our personal use, we will not get
much. This is the beauty of samyama. Morally, it is a self-regulating practice. It depends
on the presence of inner silence. No inner silence, no pure bliss consciousness - no
samyama. It is not possible to do this practice without at least some inner silence in the
nervous system. If we have some samadhi, then automatically we will also have some yama
and niyama. The more samadhi we have, the more the yama and niyama, and also the more
success there will be in samyama. If there is a lot of samadhi (first stage of
enlightenment), there will be a lot of yama and niyama, and a lot of progress in samyama.
The limbs of yoga are always hanging together like that.
Samyama is working on the deepest level of consciousness within us, and coaxing it into
full manifestation by giving it a series of channels to move through in our nervous
system. With samyama we are moving inner silence. We are moving the immovable, moving the
rock of pure consciousness. Actually, we are expanding the rock. We are expanding it out
through our nervous system. With most practices we are working from the outside inward.
With samyama, we are going the other way. We are working from the inside outward. With
most practices we begin with our limited ego-self and go in. With samyama, we begin with
our universal divine-Self and come out. That is the difference between samyama and the
As consciousness moves outward with samyama, we experience more opening, and all of our
practices move to a higher level. This is the advantage of integration of practices.
Everything we do in yoga helps everything else we are doing in yoga. In this way yoga
practices become like a spiral of ecstatic bliss going higher and higher.
So, as we continue to do the practices we have learned so far, we will also have the
option to add samyama practice, which is opening our nervous system in yet another way.
The prerequisites for doing samyama are not so many. It is a mental procedure, so there
are no physical prerequisites. Unless, of course, you start flying willy-nilly through the
air, and then the appropriate physical precautions should be taken. :-)
Anyone who is meditating for a few months and is experiencing some inner silence can do
samyama, with effects in proportion to the amount of inner silence established in the
nervous system. Samyama expands and stabilizes our inner silence, so it is an excellent
complement to meditation. In the next lesson, we will cover the particulars of samyama
With the eight limbs of yoga, and samyama, we will be melting the darkness everywhere. Let's do it.
The guru is in you.
Note: For detailed discussion on practical application of the
limbs of yoga, see the AYP Eight Limbs of Yoga
For detailed instructions on samyama
practice, see the
AYP Samyama book.
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The Linus Pauling Institute has some very exciting research to report on potential therapies for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Using a mouse model of ALS, Dr. Joseph Beckman (one of the leading researchers in this field, and a distinguished professor at the Linus Pauling Institute) and his colleagues in Australia and the United Kingdom have shown that a copper compound, called CuATSM, delayed the onset of symptoms and extended lifespan.
If you were only to follow nutrition news headlines the last few months, you might think that multivitamins are useless and that the scientific community is in complete agreement that multivitamins are a waste of money. These headlines stem from an editorial written by medical doctors (Guallar et al., “Enough Is Enough”), which claimed that “the case is closed” on vitamin and mineral supplements and that there is “no clear benefit” of taking them.
This is simply not the case. In a recently published letter in Annals of Internal Medicine, nutrition experts from the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University, the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute, Tufts University, and the Harvard School of Public Health gather scientific evidence to show that the conclusions by Guallar and colleagues are just plain wrong.
Perhaps it would be instructive to take a closer look.
This is confusing and frustrating for all of us. As is the case with most headlines, when you look more closely at the study details, explanations emerge. We have been gathering information on omega-3 fatty acids for decades and slowly learning about the many, varied, and complex effects of omega-3 fatty acids on health.
When you read the next news headline, consider these important issues:
A report from the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) was published recently (February 25 issue) in the Annals of Internal Medicine. This report focused on the use of vitamin, mineral, or multivitamin supplements for the prevention of cardiovascular disease and cancer. The conclusions of the task force were largely that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the benefits and harms of most single-nutrient and multivitamin/mineral supplements with respect to prevention of cardiovascular disease and cancer, although they did issue caution for vitamin E and beta carotene supplements. For the most part, experts at the Linus Pauling Institute (LPI) at Oregon State University agree with these findings, and state they are supported by an evidence-based review of the scientific literature on vitamin and mineral supplements.
But do these conclusions mean you should stop taking your vitamins? Not in the slightest.
This article specifically takes excerpts from Offit’s recently published book “Do You Believe in Magic? The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine.” The Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University has a different point of view – one that is based on the totality of the evidence, rather than selective claims:
This week’s (December 16, 2013) headlines stated that adults should stop taking multivitamin/mineral supplements (what some refer to simply as a ‘multivitamin’) as they have no apparent health benefit and may potentially be harmful. We at the Linus Pauling Institute believe that these conclusions are wrong and ignore the totality of the evidence from decades of nutrition research.Continue reading →
Although the Linus Pauling Institute has a long-standing, deep relationship with micronutrient research, we also study other compounds for their role in human health and disease. If you ever read nutrition research or see it discussed in the news, you may come across the unusual word ‘phytochemical.’
Put simply, the word ‘phytochemical’ means ‘chemicals found in plants’ (phyto means plant or plant-derived). However, that is a very poor definition for the compounds that LPI is interested in, since it could apply to virtually anything from a plant. Starches, oils, and sugars, for example, could all be considered phytochemicals by this vague definition. Micronutrients could also be considered phytochemicals, as long as they originated from a plant source. Scientists have a more specific meaning for the word: phytochemicals are classes of compounds that are only found in plants that do not also fall into the category of essential nutrients. In other words, phytochemicals are compounds that we ingest when we eat plants, but they are the parts that aren’t absolutely needed by the body – in other words, they are not nutritionally essential.
Part of a healthy immune system involves responding to bacterial invasion. The body has many mechanisms to combat bacteria, including the white blood cells or leukocytes. Several types of leukocytes produce small strings of protein (referred to as peptides) that target invading bacteria. Through a variety of mechanisms, these peptides can associate with a bacterial cell membrane, breaking the cell open and driving it toward death. Collectively, these are known as “antimicrobial peptides”.
One of these antimicrobial peptides is known as cathelicidin. What makes cathelicidin unique among these peptides is that the gene associated with it (known as CAMP for Cathelicidin Antimicrobial Peptide) is regulated by vitamin D. Providing vitamin D to leukocytes promotes the expression of CAMP and to increase their bacteria-killing activities.
Regulation of the CAMP gene, especially in context of vitamin D, has been a central question driving the research of Dr. Adrian “Fritz” Gombart at the Linus Pauling Institute for many years. Recently, he spearheaded an effort at LPI to look for additional small molecules that may work alongside vitamin D to regulate cathelicidin production.
When you look at the Linus Pauling Institute website or read a blog or Facebook post from us, you often see the word ‘micronutrient.’ The more you read about us, the more you will see this term. This is not only because many world-renown authorities on micronutrients work at the LPI, but also because we maintain a database of scientifically accurate information regarding the roles of micronutrients in human health and disease, The Micronutrient Information Center (MIC).
If you want some vitamin C, where do you turn? Most people might say orange juice. So you go to the grocery store — and that’s where it gets complicated.
Take a look at fresh-squeezed, raw juice. Despite what you might think, this juice may contain low amounts of vitamin C. One reason is that orange varieties differ in vitamin C and water content, possibly making a very dilute juice. Secondly, crushed fruit contains active enzymes that can start destroying vitamin C as soon as it’s squeezed.
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Elon Musk’s Neuralink wants to insert sensors in human brains
Neuralink, co-founded by Elon Musk in 2016, is the brain-machine interface start-up that is focused on helping people with brain disorders. It is ultimately aimed at connecting “humans and computers” to “understand and treat brain disorders, preserve and enhance one’s own brain, and create a well-aligned future”.
Shedding more light on Neuralink’s progress at an event in San Francisco on Tuesday, Musk said it has plans to insert highly flexible brain reading “threads” into the brain that would link a human brain directly to a computer to detect the activity of neurons.
According to Musk, the technology will help “solve brain disorders of all kinds” and let humans merge with artificial intelligence (AI).
The chip called “N1 sensor” sits outside the head and will wirelessly receive information from “threads” embedded in the brain.
Controlled by an iPhone app, the chip could support “as many as 3,072 electrodes per array distributed across 96 threads” where each “thread” is extremely thin i.e. 4 to 6 ?m in width, smaller in diameter than a human hair. The flexible brain reading threads will carry a high-volume data and amplify signals from the brain to the computer.
The chip will help “preserve and enhance your own brain” and “ultimately achieve a sort of symbiosis with artificial intelligence,” added Musk.
Neuralink says that it has also developed a robot to insert those threads in the brain by using a laser beam to pierce the skull.
According to a research paper released by Neuralink, the robots under the direction of a neurosurgeon, have conducted at least 19 surgeries on animals and successfully placed the “threads” 87 percent of the times.
“I think this is going to be important at a civilization-wide scale. Even under a benign AI, we will be left behind. With a high bandwidth brain-machine interface, we will have the option to go along for the ride,” Musk said.
“This has the potential to solve several brain-related diseases. The idea is to understand and treat brain disorders, preserve and enhance your own brain and create a well-aligned future.”
Musk said that long-term goal is to find a way to “achieve a sort of symbiosis with AI but that is not a mandatory thing. This is something you can choose to have if you want.
“With a high-bandwidth brain-machine interface, I think we can actually help scores of patients.”
The company is seeking U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to start human clinical trials in order to put their studies to the test as soon as next year.
“It will take a long time, and you’ll see it coming,” Musk said. He said in the future there could be an “app store” for different programs that could tap the technology.
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Sonic 3D (subtitled as Flickies' Island in Europe, Blast elsewhere) is a video game starring Sonic the Hedgehog. Released in November 1996 in the UK, the game saw lone playable character Sonic traverse Flickies' Island, aiming to stop Doctor Robotnik's latest evil scheme.
After his last defeat, Robotnik happened to discover the existance of another dimension, where a species of Flicky lived. Realising they could travel anywhere in large Rings, Robotnik captured them and used them in his latest breed of Badnik. Sonic visited the island one day and saw what the evil genius had done to his friends, so set about on another adventure to save them.
Five months after Sonic 3D hit UK shores, a brief adaptation appeared in the pages of Sonic the Comic. Beginning in Issue 104 and lasting three issues, the story Fllickies' Island had the same idea as the game, having Robotnik capture the Flickies and using them in new Badniks in his attempt to take over the world. Instead of happening to visit the island, Sonic learned about the Flickies' dilemma through Tails and his ability to talk to the birds. Reluctantly, Sonic went with them to find Robotnik in his new Rusty Ruin Zone base. The story changed when a Prosecutor from the Drakon Empire arrived to take the threat away for trial.
Although the actual adaption was brief, Robotnik remained on Flickies' Island until he was defeated again in Issue 130. Straight after, Sonic and the Freedom Fighters headed to Flickies Island to rid it of Robotnik's influence, but were caught up in Agent X's plans.
Although never explicitly stated, Robotnik's exploits on Flickies' Island take part in a ruined building and so could be considered to be in the Rusty Ruin Zone. Even more tenuously, the majority of the island seems to be green and tropical, perhaps relating to the Green Grove Zone. However, all adventures on the island simply relate to the whole area by its name. Absolutely no fiery, icy or springy locations are to be found.
From this point in Sonic the Comic, right until the Sonic Adventure story arc, Sonic was given a different look, in line with SEGA's model sheets. Now, Sonic's spikes were pointed upwards more often than not, particularly when looking forward. His traditional "Christmas tree" look was gone, now looking like Super Sonic or the (yet to be invented) Shadow the Hedgehog.
Flickies would also make minor appearances, although they were just hostages to be rescued from Badniks.
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Google's contact-lens technology is one step closer to helping diabetics better manage their condition.
In a deal announced Tuesday, the Alcon eye care unit of Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis will license the smart lens technology from the Google[x] research division. Under the agreement, Novartis and Google will team up to develop an actual smart lens to address certain medical problems.
The key goal behind the technology is to help people with diabetes. Currently, those with diabetes must prick their skin throughout the day to check their blood glucose levels, a task that can be time-consuming and painful. But without the constant monitoring of their blood glucose levels, diabetics can put themselves at risk with potential damage to the eyes, kidneys, and heart.
As a less invasive solution, Google's smart lens technology would continuously measure the tear fluid in the eye to track the glucose levels. Those readings would then be sent wirelessly to the user via a mobile device.
"We're now testing a smart contact lens that's built to measure glucose levels in tears using a tiny wireless chip and miniaturized glucose sensor that are embedded between two layers of soft contact lens material," project co-founders Brian Otis and Babak Parviz said in a blog post in January when the technology was announced. "We're testing prototypes that can generate a reading once per second."
The lenses themselves are outfitted with tiny sensors and microchips. Google has said that the chips and sensors in the lens are "so small they look like bits of glitter," while the embedded antenna is "thinner than a human hair."
The smart lens technology could also be a boon to people with presbyopia, a condition in which the eye loses its ability to autofocus, rendering people unable to see objects up close. The smart lens tech could correct vision by trying to restore the eye's autofocus capability through a contact or intraocular lens.
Since unveiling the project in January, Google had been seeking partners to bring the smart lens to the consumer market.
"Alcon and Google have a deep and common passion for innovation," Alcon division head Jeff George said in a statement. "By combining Alcon's leadership in eye care and expertise in contact lenses and intraocular lenses with Google's innovative 'smart lens' technology and groundbreaking speed in research, we aim to unlock a new frontier to jointly address the unmet medical needs of millions of eye care patients around the world."
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A sheriff in the Hudson River Valley near Albany, New York, about to go into the hills in the fall of 1839 to collect back rents from tenants on the enormous Rensselaer estate, was handed a letter:
... the tenants have organized themselves into a body, and resolved not to pay any more rent until they can be redressed of their grievances. . . . The tenants now assume the right of doing to their landlord as he has for a long time done with them, viz: as they please.
You need not think this to be children's play... . if you come out in your official capacity ... I would not pledge for your safe return. ... A Tenant.
When a deputy arrived in the farming area with writs demanding the rent, farmers suddenly appeared, assembled by the blowing of tin horns. They seized his writs and burned them.
That December, a sheriff and a mounted posse of five hundred rode into the farm country, but found themselves in the midst of shrieking tin horns, eighteen hundred farmers blocking their path, six hundred more blocking their rear, all mounted, armed with pitchforks and clubs. The sheriff and his posse turned back, the rear guard parting to let them through.
This was the start of the Anti-Renter movement in the Hudson Valley, described by Henry Christman in Tin Horns and Calico. It was a protest against the patroonship system, which went back to the 1600s when the Dutch ruled New York, a system where (as Christman describes it) "a few families, intricately intermarried, controlled the destinies of three hundred thousand people and ruled in almost kingly splendor near two million acres of land."
The tenants paid taxes and rents. The largest manor was owned by the Rensselaer family, which ruled over about eighty thousand tenants and had accumulated a fortune of $41 million. The landowner, as one sympathizer of the tenants put it, could "swill his wine, loll on his cushions, fill his life with society, food, and culture, and ride his barouche and five saddle horses along the beautiful river valley and up to the backdrop of the mountain."
By the summer of 1839, the tenants were holding their first mass meeting. The economic crisis of 1837 had filled the area with unemployed seeking land, on top of the layoffs accompanying the completion of the Erie Canal, after the first wave of railroad building ended. That summer the tenants resolved: "We will take up the ball of the Revolution where our fathers stopped it and roll it to the final consummation of freedom and independence of the masses."
Certain men in the farm country became leaders and organizers: Smith Boughton, a country doctor on horseback; Ainge Devyr, a revolutionary Irishman. Devyr had seen monopoly of land and industry bring misery to the slumdwellers of London, Liverpool, and Glasgow, had agitated for change, had been arrested for sedition, and fled to America. He was invited to address a Fourth of July rally of farmers in Rensselaerville, where he warned his listeners: "If you permit unprincipled and ambitious men to monopolize the soil, they will become masters of the country in the certain order of cause and effect...."
Thousands of farmers in Rensselaer country were organized into Anti-Rent associations to prevent the landlords from evicting. They agreed on calico Indian costumes, symbol of the Boston Tea Party and recalling original ownership of the soil. The tin horn represented an Indian call to arms. Soon ten thousand men were trained and ready.
Organizing went on in county after county, in dozens of towns along the Hudson. Handbills appeared:
ANTI-RENTERS! AWAKE! AROUSE!...
Strike till the last armed foe expires,
Strike for your altars and your fires-
Strike for the green graves of your sires,
God and your happy homes!
Sheriffs and deputy sheriffs trying to serve writs on farmers were surrounded by calico-clad riders who had been summoned by tin horns sounding in the countryside-then tarred and feathered. The New York Herald, once sympathetic, now deplored "the insurrectionary spirit of the mountaineers."
One of the most hated elements of the lease gave the landlord the right to the timber on all the farms. A man sent onto a tenant's land to gather wood for the landlord was killed. Tension rose. A farm boy was killed mysteriously, no one knew by whom, but Dr. Boughton was jailed. The governor ordered artillerymen into action, and a company of cavalry came up from New York City.
Petitions for an antirent bill, signed by 25,000 tenants, were put before the legislature in 1845. The bill was defeated. A kind of guerrilla war resumed in the country, between bands of "Indians" and sheriffs' posses. Boughton was kept in jail seven months, four and a half months of that in heavy irons, before being released on bail. Fourth of July meetings in 1845 attended by thousands of farmers pledged continued resistance.
When a deputy sheriff tried to sell the livestock of a farmer named Moses Earle, who owed $60 rent on 160 stony acres, there was a fight, and the deputy was killed. Similar attempts to sell livestock for rent payments were thwarted, again and again. The governor sent three hundred troops in, declaring a state of rebellion existed, and soon almost a hundred Anti-Renters were in jail. Smith Boughton was brought to trial. He was charged with taking papers from a sheriff but declared by the judge to have in fact committed "high treason, rebellion against your government, and armed insurrection" and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Those "Indians" found to be armed and disguised at Moses Earle's farm, where the deputy had been killed, were declared by the judge to be guilty of murder, and the jury was so instructed. All were found guilty, and the judge sentenced four to life imprisonment and two to be hanged. Two of the leaders were told to write letters urging the Anti-Renters to disband, as their only chance to escape heavy sentences. They wrote the letters.
The power of the law thus crushed the Anti-Rent movement. It was intended to make clear that farmers could not win by fighting-that they must confine their efforts to voting, to acceptable methods of reform. In 1845, the Anti-Renters elected fourteen members to the state legislature. Governor Silas Wright now commuted to life imprisonment the two death sentences and asked the legislature to give relief to the tenants, to end the feudal system in the Hudson Valley. Proposals to break up the huge estates on the death of the owners were defeated, but the legislature voted to make illegal the selling of tenant property for nonpayment of rent. A constitutional convention that year outlawed new feudal leases.
The next governor, elected in 1846 with Anti-Rent support, had promised to pardon the Anti-Rent prisoners, and he did. Throngs of farmers greeted them on their release. Court decisions in the 1850s began to limit the worst features of the manorial system, without changing the fundamentals of landlord-tenant relations.
Sporadic farmer resistance to the collection of back rents continued into the 1860s. As late as 1869, bands of "Indians" were still assembling to thwart sheriffs acting for a rich valley landowner named Walter Church. In the early 1880s a deputy sheriff trying to dispossess a farmer on behalf of Church was killed by shotgun fire. By this time most leases had passed into the hands of the farmers. In three of the main Anti-Rent counties, of twelve thousand farmers, only two thousand remained under lease.
The farmers had fought, been crushed by the law, their struggle diverted into voting, and the system stabilized by enlarging the class of small landowners, leaving the basic structure of rich and poor intact. It was a common sequence in American history.
Around the time of the Anti-Renter movement in New York, there was excitement in Rhode Island over Dorr's Rebellion. As Marvin Gettleman points out in The Dorr Rebellion, it was both a movement for electoral reform and an example of radical insurgency. It was prompted by the Rhode Island charter's rule that only owners of land could vote.
As more people left the farm for the city, as immigrants came to work in the mills, the disfranchised grew. Seth Luther, self-educated carpenter in Providence and spokesman for working people, wrote in 1833 the "Address on the Right of Free Suffrage," denouncing the monopoly of political power by "the mushroom lordlings, sprigs of nobility . . . small potato aristocrats" of Rhode Island. He urged non-cooperation with the government, refusing to pay taxes or to serve in the militia. Why, he asked, should twelve thousand working people in Rhode Island without the vote submit to five thousand who had land and could vote?
Thomas Dorr, a lawyer from a well-to-do family, became a leader of the suffrage movement. Working people formed the Rhode Island Suffrage Association, and in the spring of 1841 thousands paraded in Providence carrying banners and signs for electoral reform. Going outside the legal system, they organized their own "People's Convention" and drafted a new constitution without property qualifications for voting.
In early 1842, they invited votes on the constitution; fourteen thousand voted for it, including about five thousand with property-therefore a majority even of those legally entitled to vote by the charter. In April they held an unofficial election, in which Dorr ran unopposed for governor, and six thousand people voted for him. The governor of Rhode Island in the meantime got the promise of President John Tyler that in the case of rebellion federal troops would be sent. There was a clause in the U.S. Constitution to meet just that kind of situation, providing for federal intervention to quell local insurrections on request of a state government.
Ignoring this, on May 3, 1842, the Dorr forces held an inauguration with a great parade of artisans, shopkeepers, mechanics, and militia marching through Providence. The newly elected People's Legislature was convened. Dorr led a fiasco of an attack on the state arsenal, his cannon misfiring. Dorr's arrest was ordered by the regular governor, and he went into hiding outside the state, trying to raise military support.
Despite the protests of Dorr and a few others, the "People's Constitution" kept the word "white" in its clause designating voters. Angry Rhode Island blacks now joined the militia units of the Law and Order coalition, which promised that a new constitutional convention would give them the right to vote.
When Dorr returned to Rhode Island, he found several hundred of his followers, mostly working people, willing to fight for the People's Constitution, but there were thousands in the regular militia on the side of the state. The rebellion disintegrated and Dorr again fled Rhode Island.
Martial law was declared. One rebel soldier, captured, was blindfolded and put before a firing squad, which fired with blank bullets. A hundred other militia were taken prisoner. One of them described their being bound by ropes into platoons of eight, marched on foot 16 miles to Providence, "threatened and pricked by the bayonet if we lagged from fatigue, the rope severely chafing our arms; the skin off mine. . . . no water till we reached Greenville ... no food until the next day.... and, after being exhibited, were put into the State prison."
A new constitution offered some reform. It still gave overrepresentation to the rural areas, limited the vote to property owners or those who paid a one-dollar poll tax, and would let naturalized citizens vote only if they had $134 in real estate. In the elections of early 1843, the Law and Order group, opposed by former Dorrites, used intimidation of state militia, of employees by employers, of tenants by landlords, to get out their vote. It lost in the industrial towns, but got the vote of the agrarian areas, and won all major offices.
Dorr returned to Rhode Island in the fall of 1843. He was arrested on the streets of Providence and tried for treason. The jury, instructed by the judge to ignore all political arguments and consider only whether Dorr had committed certain overt acts (which he never denied committing), found him guilty, whereupon the judge sentenced him to life imprisonment at hard labor. He spent twenty months in jail, and then a newly elected Law and Order governor, anxious to end Dorr's martyrdom, pardoned him.
Armed force had failed, the ballot had failed, the courts had taken the side of the conservatives. The Dorr movement now went to the U.S. Supreme Court, via a trespass suit by Martin Luther against Law and Order militiamen, charging that the People's Government was the legitimate government in Rhode Island in 1842. Daniel Webster argued against the Dorrites. If people could claim a constitutional right to overthrow an existing government, Webster said, there would be no more law and no more government; there would be anarchy.
In its decision, the Supreme Court established (Luther v. Borden, 1849) a long-lasting doctrine: it would not interfere in certain "political" questions, to be left to executive and legislature. The decision reinforced the essentially conservative nature of the Supreme Court: that on critical issues- war and revolution-it would defer to the President and Congress.
The stories of the Anti-Renter movement and Dorr's Rebellion are not usually found in textbooks on United States history. In these books, given to millions of young Americans, there is little on class struggle in the nineteenth century. The period before and after the Civil War is filled with politics, elections, slavery, and the race question. Even where specialized books on the Jacksonian period deal with labor and economic issues they center on the presidency, and thus perpetuate the traditional dependency on heroic leaders rather than people's struggles.
Andrew Jackson said he spoke for "the humble members of society- the farmer, mechanics and laborers... ." He certainly did not speak for the Indians being pushed off their lands, or slaves. But the tensions aroused by the developing factory system, the growing immigration, required that the government develop a mass base of support among whites. "Jacksonian Democracy" did just that.
Politics in this period of the 1830s and 1840s, according to Douglas Miller, a specialist in the Jacksonian period (The Birth of Modern America), "had become increasingly centered around creating a popular image and flattering the common man." Miller is dubious, however, about the accuracy of that phrase "Jacksonian Democracy":
Parades, picnics, and campaigns of personal slander characterized Jacksonian politicking. But, although both parties aimed their rhetoric at the people and mouthed the sacred shibboleths of democracy, this did not mean that the common man ruled America. The professional politicians corning to the fore in the twenties and thirties, though sometimes self-made, were seldom ordinary. Both major parties were controlled largely by men of wealth and ambition. Lawyers, newspaper editors, merchants, industrialists, large landowners, and speculators dominated the Democrats as well as the Whigs.
Jackson was the first President to master the liberal rhetoric-to speak for the common man. This was a necessity for political victory when the vote was being demanded-as in Rhode Island-by more and more people, and state legislatures were loosening voting restrictions. As another Jacksonian scholar, Robert Remini (The Age of Jackson), says, after studying electoral figures for 1828 and 1832:
Jackson himself enjoyed widespread support that ranged across all classes and sections of the country. He attracted farmers, mechanics, laborers, professionals and even businessmen. And all this without Jackson being clearly pro- or antilabor, pro- or antibusiness, pro- or antilower, middle or upper class. It has been demonstrated that he was a strikebreaker [Jackson sent troops to control rebellious workers on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal], yet at different times ... he and the Democrats received the backing of organized labor.
It was the new politics of ambiguity-speaking for the lower and middle classes to get their support in times of rapid growth and potential turmoil. The two-party system came into its own in this time. To give people a choice between two different parties and allow them, in a period of rebellion, to choose the slightly more democratic one was an ingenious mode of control. Like so much in the American system, it was not devilishly contrived by some master plotters; it developed naturally out of the needs of the situation. Remini compares the Jacksonian Democrat Martin Van Buren, who succeeded Jackson as President, with the Austrian conservative statesman Metternich: "Like Metternich, who was seeking to thwart revolutionary discontent in Europe, Van Buren and similar politicians were attempting to banish political disorder from the United States by a balance of power achieved through two well-organized and active parties."
The Jacksonian idea was to achieve stability and control by winning to the Democratic party "the middling interest, and especially ... the substantial yeomanry of the country" by "prudent, judicious, well-considered reform." That is, reform that would not yield too much. These were the words of Robert Rantoul, a reformer, corporation lawyer, and Jacksonian Democrat. It was a forecast of the successful appeal of the Democratic party-and at times the Republican party-in the twentieth century.
Such new forms of political control were needed in the turbulence of growth, the possibility of rebellion. Now there were canals, railroads, the telegraph. In 1790, fewer than a million Americans lived in cities; in 1840 the figure was 11 million. New York had 130,000 people in 1820, a million by 1860. And while the traveler Alexis de Tocqueville had expressed astonishment at "the general equality of condition among the people," he was not very good at numbers, his friend Beaumont said. And his observation was not in accord with the facts, according to Edward Pessen, a historian of Jacksonian society (Jacksonian America).
In Philadelphia, working-class families lived fifty-five to a tenement, usually one room per family, with no garbage removal, no toilets, no fresh air or water. There was fresh water newly pumped from the Schuylkill River, but it was going to the homes of the rich.
In New York you could see the poor lying in the streets with the garbage. There were no sewers in the slums, and filthy water drained into yards and alleys, into the cellars where the poorest of the poor lived, bringing with it a typhoid epidemic in 1837, typhus in 1842. In the cholera epidemic of 1832, the rich fled the city; the poor stayed and died.
These poor could not be counted on as political allies of the government. But they were there-like slaves, or Indians-invisible ordinarily, a menace if they rose. There were more solid citizens, however, who might give steady support to the system-paid-paid workers, landowning farmers. Also, there was the new urban white-collar worker, born in the rising commerce of the time, described by Thomas Cochran and William Miller (The Age of Enterprise):
Dressed in drab alpaca, hunched over a high desk, this new worker credited and debited, indexed and filed, wrote and stamped invoices, acceptances, bills of lading, receipts. Adequately paid, he had some extra money and leisure time. He patronized sporting events and theaters, savings banks and insurance companies. He read Day's New York Sun or Bennett's Herald-the "penny press" supported by advertising, filled with police reports, crime stories, etiquette advice for the rising bourgeoisie... .
This was the advance guard of a growing class of white-collar workers and professionals in America who would be wooed enough and paid enough to consider themselves members of the bourgeois class, and to give support to that class in times of crisis.
The opening of the West was being helped by mechanization of the farm. Iron plows cut plowing time in half; by the 1850s John Deere Company was turning out ten thousand plows a year. Cyrus McCormick was making a thousand mechanical reapers a year in his factory in Chicago. A man with a sickle could cut half an acre of wheat in a day; with a reaper he could cut 10 acres.
Turnpikes, canals, and railroads were bringing more people west, more products east, and it became important to keep that new West, tumultuous and unpredictable, under control. When colleges were established out West, eastern businessmen, as Cochran and Miller say, were "determined from the start to control western education." Edward Everett, the Massachusetts politician and orator, spoke in 1833 on behalf of giving financial aid to western colleges:
Let no Boston capitalist, then, let no man, who has a large stake in New England .. . think that he is called upon to exercise his liberality at a distance, toward those in whom he has no concern. ... They ask you to give security to your own property, by diffusing the means of light and truth throughout the region, where so much of the power to preserve or to shake it resides. . . .
The capitalists of the East were conscious of the need for this "security to your own property." As technology developed, more capital was needed, more risks had to be taken, and a big investment needed stability. In an economic system not rationally planned for human need, but developing fitfully, chaotically out of the profit motive, there seemed to be no way to avoid recurrent booms and slumps. There was a slump in 1837, another in 1853. One way to achieve stability was to decrease competition, organize the businesses, move toward monopoly. In the mid-1850s, price agreements and mergers became frequent: the New York Central Railroad was a merger of many railroads. The American Brass Association was formed "to meet ruinous competition," it said. The Hampton County Cotton Spinners Association was organized to control prices, and so was the American Iron Association.
Another way to minimize risks was to make sure the government played its traditional role, going back to Alexander Hamilton and the first Congress, of helping the business interests. State legislatures gave charters to corporations giving them legal rights to conduct business, raise money- at first special charters, then general charters, so that any business meeting certain requirements could incorporate. Between 1790 and 1860, 2,300 corporations were chartered.
Railroad men traveled to Washington and to state capitals armed with money, shares of stock, free railroad passes. Between 1850 and 1857 they got 25 million acres of public land, free of charge, and millions of dollars in bonds-loans-from the state legislatures. In Wisconsin in 1856, the LaCrosse and Milwaukee Railroad got a million acres free by distributing about $900,000 in stocks and bonds to fifty-nine assemblymen, thirteen senators, the, governor. Two years later the railroad was bankrupt and the bonds were worthless.
In the East, mill owners had become powerful, and organized. By 1850, fifteen Boston families called the "Associates" controlled 20 percent of the cotton spindleage in the United States, 39 percent of insurance capital in Massachusetts, 40 percent of banking resources in Boston.
In the schoolbooks, those years are filled with the controversy over slavery, but on the eve of the Civil War it was money and profit, not the movement against slavery, that was uppermost in the priorities of the men who ran the country. As Cochran and Miller put it:
Webster was the hero of the North-not Emerson, Parker, Garrison, or Phillips; Webster the tariff man, the land speculator, the corporation lawyer, politician for the Boston Associates, inheritor of Hamilton's coronet. "The great object of government" said he "is the protection of property at home, and respect and renown abroad." For these he preached union; for these he surrendered the fugitive slave.
They describe the Boston rich:
Living sumptuously on Beacon Hill, admired by their neighbors for their philanthropy and their patronage of art and culture, these men traded in State Street while overseers ran their factories, managers directed their railroads, agents sold their water power and real estate. They were absentee landlords in the most complete sense. Uncontaminated by the diseases of the factory town, they were also protected from hearing the complaints of their workers or suffering mental depression from dismal and squalid surroundings. In the metropolis, art, literature, education, science, flowered in the Golden Day; in the industrial towns children went to work with their fathers and mothers, schools and doctors were only promises, a bed of one's own was a rare luxury.
Ralph Waldo Emerson described Boston in those years: "There is a certain poor-smell in all the streets, in Beacon Street and Mount Vernon, as well as in the lawyers' offices, and the wharves, and the same meanness and sterility, and leave-all-hope-behind, as one finds in a boot manufacturer's premises." The preacher Theodore Parker told his congregation: "Money is this day the strongest power of the nation."
The attempts at political stability, at economic control, did not quite work. The new industrialism, the crowded cities, the long hours in the factories, the sudden economic crises leading to high prices and lost jobs, the lack of food and water, the freezing winters, the hot tenements in the summer, the epidemics of disease, the deaths of children-these led to sporadic reactions from the poor. Sometimes there were spontaneous, unorganized uprisings against the rich. Sometimes the anger was deflected into racial hatred for blacks, religious warfare against Catholics, nativist fury against immigrants. Sometimes it was organized into demonstrations and strikes.
"Jacksonian Democracy" had tried to create a consensus of support for the system to make it secure. Blacks, Indians, women, and foreigners were clearly outside the consensus. But also, white working people, in large numbers, declared themselves outside.
The full extent of the working-class consciousness of those years-as of any years-is lost in history, but fragments remain and make us wonder how much of this always existed underneath the very practical silence of working people. In 1827 an "Address ... before the Mechanics and Working Classes ... of Philadelphia" was recorded, written by an "Unlettered Mechanic," probably a young shoemaker, who said:
We find ourselves oppressed on every hand-we labor hard in producing all the comforts of life for the enjoyment of others, while we ourselves obtain but a scanty portion, and even that in the present state of society depends on the will of employers.
Frances Wright of Scotland, an early feminist and Utopian socialist, was invited by Philadelphia workingmen to speak on the Fourth of July 1829 to one of the first city-wide associations of labor unions in the United States. She asked if the Revolution had been fought "to crush down the sons and daughters of your country's industry under ... neglect, poverty, vice, starvation, and disease...." She wondered if the new technology was not lowering the value of human labor, making people appendages to machines, crippling the minds and bodies of child laborers.
Later that year, George Henry Evans, a printer, editor of the Workingman's Advocate, wrote "The Working Men's Declaration of Independence." Among its list of "facts" submitted to "candid and impartial" fellow citizens:
l. The laws for levying taxes are . . . operating most oppressively on one class of society....
3. The laws for private incorporation are all partial . .. favoring one class of society to the expense of the other. . ..
6. The laws .. . have deprived nine tenths of the members of the body politics, who are not wealthy, of the equal means to enjoy "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." ... The lien law in favor of the landlords against tenants ... is one illustration among innumerable others.
Evans believed that "all on arriving at adult age are entitled to equal property."
A city-wide "Trades' Union" in Boston in 1834, including mechanics from Charlestown and women shoe binders from Lynn, referred to the Declaration of Independence:
We hold . .. that laws which have a tendency to raise any peculiar class above their fellow citizens, by granting special privileges, are contrary to and in defiance of those primary principles....
Our public system of Education, which so liberally endows those seminaries of learning, which ... are only accessible to the wealthy, while our common schools ... are so illy provided for ... Thus even in childhood the poor are apt to think themselves inferior.. . .
In his book Most Uncommon Jacksonians, Edward Pessen says: "The leaders of the Jacksonian labor movement were radicals.. . . How else describe men who believed American society to be torn with social conflict, disfigured by the misery of the masses, and dominated by a greedy elite whose power over every aspect of American life was based on private property?"
Episodes of insurrection of that time have gone unrecorded in traditional histories. Such was the riot in Baltimore in the summer of 1835, when the Bank of Maryland collapsed and its depositors lost their savings. Convinced that a great fraud had taken place, a crowd gathered and began breaking the windows of officials associated with the bank. When the rioters destroyed a house, the militia attacked, killing some twenty people, wounding a hundred. The next evening, other houses were attacked. The events were reported in Niles' Weekly Register, an important newspaper of that time:
Last night (Sunday) at dark, the attack was renewed upon Reverdy Johnson's house. There was now no opposition. It was supposed that several thousand people were spectators of the scene. The house was soon entered, and its furniture, a very extensive law library, and all its contents, were cast forth, a bonfire made of them in front of the house. The whole interior of the house was torn out and cast upon the burning pile. The marble portico in front, and a great portion of the front wall were torn down by about 11 o'clock.. .. They proceeded to that of the mayor of the city, Jesse Hunt, esq. broke it open, took out the furniture, and burnt it before the door. . ..
During those years, trade unions were forming. (Philip Foner's History of the Labor Movement in the U.S. tells the story in rich detail.) The courts called them conspiracies to restrain trade and therefore illegal, as when in New York twenty-five members of the Union Society of Journeymen Tailors were found guilty of "conspiracy to injure trade, riot, assault, battery." The judge, levying fines, said: "In this favored land of law and liberty, the road to advancement is open to all.... Every American knows that or ought to know that he has no better friend than the laws and that he needs no artificial combination for his protection. They are of foreign origin and I am led to believe mainly upheld by foreigners."
A handbill was then circulated throughout the city:
The Rich Against the Poor!Judge Edwards, the tool of the aristocracy, against the people! Mechanics and working men! A deadly blow has been struck at your liberty!... They have established the precedent that workingmen have no right to regulate the price of labor, or, in other words, the rich are the only judges of the wants of the poor man.
At City Hall Park, 27,000 people gathered to denounce the court decision, and elected a Committee of Correspondence which organized, three months later, a convention of Mechanics, Farmers, and Working Men, elected by farmers and working people in various towns in New York State. The convention met in Utica, drew up a Declaration of Independence from existing political parties, and established an Equal Rights party.
Although they ran their own candidates for office, there was no great confidence in the ballot as a way of achieving change. One of the great orators of the movement, Seth Luther, told a Fourth of July rally: "We will try the ballot box first. If that will not effect our righteous purpose, the next and last resort is the cartridge box." And one sympathetic local newspaper, the Albany Microscope, warned:
Remember the regretted fate of the working-men-they were soon destroyed by hitching teams and rolling with parties. They admitted into their ranks, broken down lawyers and politicians.... They became perverted, and were unconsciously drawn into a vortex, from which they never escaped.
The crisis of 1837 led to rallies and meetings in many cities. The banks had suspended specie payments-refusing to pay hard money for the bank notes they had issued. Prices rose, and working people, already hard-pressed to buy food, found that flour that had sold at $5.62 a barrel was now $12 a barrel. Pork went up. Coal went up. In Philadelphia, twenty thousand people assembled, and someone wrote to President Van Buren describing it:
This afternoon, the largest public meeting I ever saw assembled in Independence Square. It was called by placards posted through the city yesterday and last night. It was projected and carried on entirely by the working classes; without consultation or cooperation with any of those who usually take the lead in such matters. The officers and speakers were of those classes.... It was directed against the banks.
In New York, members of the Equal Rights party (often called the Locofocos) announced a meeting: "Bread, Meat, Rent, and Fuel! Their prices must come down! The people will meet in the Park, rain or shine, at 4 o'clock, P.M. on Monday afternoon.... All friends of humanity determined to resist monopolists and extortioners are invited to attend." The Commercial Register, a New York newspaper, reported on the meeting and what followed:
At 4 o'clock, a concourse of several thousands had convened in front of the City Hall.. .. One of these orators ... is reported to have expressly directed the popular vengeance against Mr. EH Hart, who is one of our most extensive flour dealers on commission. "Fellow citizens!" he exclaimed, "Mr. Hart has now 53,000 barrels of flour in his store; let us go and offer him eight dollars a barrel, and if he does not take it..."
A large body of the meeting moved off in the direction of Mr. Hart's store . . . the middle door had been forced, and some twenty or thirty barrels of flour or more, rolled into the streets, and the heads staved in. At this point of time, Mr. Hart himself arrived on the ground, with a posse of officers from the police. The officers were assailed by a portion of the mob in Dey Street, their staves wrested from them, and shivered to pieces. .. .
Barrels of flour, by dozens, fifties and hundreds were tumbled into the street from the doors, and thrown in rapid succession from the windows... . About one thousand bushels of wheat, and four or five hundred barrels of flour, were thus wantonly and foolishly as well as wickedly destroyed. The most active of the destructionists were foreigners-indeed the greater part of the assemblage was of exotic origin, but there were probably five hundred or a thousand others, standing by and abetting their incendiary labors.
Amidst the falling and bursting of the barrels and sacks of wheat, numbers of women were engaged, like the crones who strip the dead in battle, filling the boxes and baskets with which they were provided, and their aprons, with flour, and making off with it....
Night had now closed upon the scene, but the work of destruction did not cease until strong bodies of police arrived, followed, soon afterward, by detachments of troops.. . .
This was the Flour Riot of 1837. During the crisis of that year, 50,000 persons (one-third of the working class) were without work in New York City alone, and 200,000 (of a population of 500,000) were living, as one observer put it, "in utter and hopeless distress."
There is no complete record of the meetings, riots, actions, organized and disorganized, violent and nonviolent, which took place in the mid-nineteenth century, as the country grew, as the cities became crowded, with working conditions bad, living conditions intolerable, with the economy in the hands of bankers, speculators, landlords, merchants.
In 1835, fifty different trades organized unions in Philadelphia, and there was a successful general strike of laborers, factory workers, hook-binders, jewelers, coal heavers, butchers, cabinet workers- for the ten-hour day. Soon there were ten-hour laws in Pennsylvania and other states, but they provided that employers could have employees sign contracts for longer hours. The law at this time was developing a strong defense of contracts; it was pretended that work contracts were voluntary agreements between equals.
Weavers in Philadelphia in the early 1840s-mostly Irish immigrants working at home for employers-struck for higher wages, attacked the homes of those refusing to strike, and destroyed their work. A sheriffs posse tried to arrest some strikers, but it was broken up by four hundred weavers armed with muskets and sticks.
Soon, however, antagonism developed between these Irish Catholic weavers and native-born Protestant skilled workers over issues of religion. In May 1844 there were Protestant-Catholic riots in Kensington, a suburb of Philadelphia; nativist (anti-immigrant) rioters destroyed the weavers' neighborhoods and attacked a Catholic church. Middle-class politicians soon led each group into a different political party (the nativists into the American Republican party, the Irish into the Democratic party), party politics and religion now substituting for class conflict.
The result of all this, says David Montgomery, historian of the Kensington Riots, was the fragmentation of the Philadelphia working class. It "thereby created for historians the illusion of a society lacking in class conflict," while in reality the class conflicts of nineteenth-century America "were as fierce as any known to the industrial world."
The immigrants from Ireland, fleeing starvation there when the potato crop failed, were coming to America now, packed into old sailing ships. The stories of these ships differ only in detail from the accounts of the ships that earlier brought black slaves and later German, Italian, Russian immigrants. This is a contemporary account of one ship arriving from Ireland, detained at Grosse Isle on the Canadian border:
On the 18th of May, 1847, the "Urania", from Cork, with several hundred immigrants on board, a large proportion of them sick and dying of the ship-fever, was put into quarantine at Grosse Isle. This was the first of the plague-smitten ships from Ireland which that year sailed up the St. Lawrence. But before the first week of June as many as eighty-four ships of various tonnage were driven in by an easterly wind; and of that enormous number of vessels there was not one free from the taint of malignant typhus, the offspring of famine and of the foul ship-hold.... a tolerably quick passage occupied from six to eight weeks. . ..
Who can imagine the horrors of even the shortest passage in an emigrant ship crowded beyond its utmost capacity of stowage with unhappy beings of all ages, with fever raging in their midst ... the crew sullen or brutal from very desperation, or paralyzed with terror of the plague-the miserable passengers unable to help themselves, or afford the least relief to each other; one-fourth, or one- third, or one-half of the entire number in different stages of the disease; many dying, some dead; the fatal poison intensified by the indescribable foulness of the air breathed and rebreathed by the gasping sufferers-the wails of children, the ravings of the delirious, the cries and groans of those in mortal agony!
. .. there was no accommodation of any kind on the island . . . sheds were rapidly filled with the miserable people... . Hundreds were literally flung on the beach, left amid the mud and stones to crawl on the dry land how they could... . Many of these ... gasped out their last breath on that fatal shore, not able to drag themselves from the slime in which they lay. ...
It was not until the 1st of November that the quarantine of Grosse Isle was closed. Upon that barren isle as many as 10,000 of the Irish race were consigned to the grave-pit. . ..
How could these new Irish immigrants, themselves poor and despised, become sympathizers with the black slave, who was becoming more and more the center of attention, the subject of agitation in the country? Indeed, most working-class activists at this time ignored the plight of blacks. Ely Moore, a New York trade union leader elected to Congress, argued in the House of Representatives against receiving abolitionist petitions. Racist hostility became an easy substitute for class frustration.
On the other hand, a white shoemaker wrote in 1848 in the Awl, the newspaper of Lynn shoe factory workers:
... we are nothing but a standing army that keeps three million of our brethren in bondage.. . . Living under the shade of Bunker Hill monument, demanding in the name of humanity, our right, and withholding those rights from others because their skin is black! Is it any wonder that God in his righteous anger has punished us by forcing us to drink the bitter cup of degradation.
The anger of the city poor often expressed itself in futile violence over nationality or religion. In New York in 1849 a mob, largely Irish; stormed the fashionable Astor Place Opera House, where an English actor, William Charles Macready, was playing Macbeth, in competition with an American actor, Edwin Forrest, who was acting the same role in another production. The crowd, shouting "Burn the damn den of aristocracy," charged, throwing bricks. The militia were called out, and in the violence that followed about two hundred people were killed or wounded.
Another economic crisis came in 1857. The boom in railroads and manufacturing, the surge of immigration, the increased speculation in stocks and bonds, the stealing, corruption, manipulation, led to wild expansion and then crash. By October of that year, 200,000 were unemployed, and thousands of recent immigrants crowded into the eastern ports, hoping to work their way back to Europe. The New York Times reported: "Every ship for Liverpool now has all the passengers she can carry, and multitudes are applying to work their passage if they have no money to pay for it."
In Newark, New Jersey, a rally of several thousand demanded the city give work to the unemployed. And in New York, fifteen thousand people met at Tompkins Square in downtown Manhattan. From there they marched to Wall Street and paraded around the Stock Exchange shouting: "We want work!" That summer, riots occurred in the slum areas of New York. A mob of five hundred attacked the police one day with pistols and bricks. There were parades of the unemployed, demanding bread and work, looting shops. In November, a crowd occupied City Hall, and the U.S. marines were brought in to drive them out.
Of the country's work force of 6 million in 1850, half a million were women: 330,000 worked as domestics; 55,000 were teachers. Of the 181,000 women in factories, half worked in textile mills.
They organized. Women struck by themselves for the first time in 1825. They were the United Tailoresses of New York, demanding higher wages. In 1828, the first strike of mill women on their own took place in Dover, New Hampshire, when several hundred women paraded with banners and flags. They shot off gunpowder, in protest against new factory rules, which charged fines for coming late, forbade talking on the job, and required church attendance. They were forced to return to the mill, their demands unmet, and their leaders were fired and blacklisted.
In Exeter, New Hampshire, women mill workers went on strike ("turned out," in the language of that day) because the overseer was setting the clocks back to get more time from them. Their strike succeeded in exacting a promise from the company that the overseers would set their watches right.
The "Lowell system," in which young girls would go to work in the mills and live in dormitories supervised by matrons, at first seemed beneficent, sociable, a welcome escape from household drudgery or domestic service. Lowell, Massachusetts, was the first town created for the textile mill industry; it was named after the wealthy and influential Lowell family. But the dormitories became prisonlike, controlled by rules and regulations. The supper (served after the women had risen at four in the morning and worked until seven thirty in the evening) often consisted merely of bread and gravy.
So the Lowell girls organized. They started their own newspapers. They protested against the weaving rooms, which were poorly lit, badly ventilated, impossibly hot in the summer, damp and cold in the winter. In 1834, a cut in wages led the Lowell women to strike, proclaiming: "Union is power. Our present object is to have union and exertion, and we remain in possession of our own unquestionable rights. . . ." But the threat of hiring others to replace them brought them back to work at reduced wages (the leaders were fired).
The young women, determined to do better next time, organized a Factory Girls' Association, and 1,500 went on strike in 1836 against a raise in boardinghouse charges. Harriet Hanson was an eleven-year-old girl working in the mill. She later recalled:
I worked in a lower room where I had heard the proposed strike fully, if not vehemently, discussed. I had been an ardent listener to what was said against this attempt at "oppression" on the part of the corporation, and naturally I took sides with the strikers. When the day came on which the girls were to turn out, those in the upper rooms started first, and so many of them left that our mill was at once shut down. Then, when the girls in my room stood irresolute, uncertain what to do ... I, who began to think they would not go out, after all their talk, became impatient, and started on ahead, saying, with childish bravado, "I don't care what you do, I am going to turn out, whether anyone else does or not," and I marched out, and was followed by the others.
As I looked back at the long line that followed me, I was more proud than I have ever been since. . . .
The strikers marched through the streets of Lowell, singing. They held out a month, but then their money ran out, they were evicted from the boardinghouses, and many of them went back to work. The leaders were fired, including Harriet Hanson's widowed mother, a matron in the boardinghouse, who was blamed for her child's going out on strike.
Resistance continued. One mill in Lowell, Herbert Gutman reports, discharged twenty-eight women for such reasons as "misconduct," "disobedience," "impudence," "levity," and "mutiny." Meanwhile, the girls tried to hold on to thoughts about fresh air, the country, a less harried way of life. One of them recalled: "I never cared much for machinery. I could not see into their complications or feel interested in them. ... In sweet June weather I would lean far out of the window, and try not to hear the unceasing clash of sound inside."
In New Hampshire, five hundred men and women petitioned the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company not to cut down an elm tree to make space for another mill. They said it was "a beautiful and goodly tree," representing a time "when the yell of the red man and the scream of the eagle were alone heard on the hanks of the Merrimack, instead of two giant edifices filled with the buzz of busy and well-remunerated industry."
In 1835, twenty mills went on strike to reduce the workday from thirteen and a half hours to eleven hours, to get cash wages instead of company scrip, and to end fines for lateness. Fifteen hundred children and parents went out on strike, and it lasted six weeks. Strikebreakers were brought in, and some workers went back to work, but the strikers did win a twelve-hour day and nine hours on Saturday. That year and the next, there were 140 strikes in the eastern part of the United States.
The crisis that followed the 1837 panic stimulated the formation in 1845 of the Female Labor Reform Association in Lowell, which sent thousands of petitions to the Massachusetts legislature asking for a ten-hour day. Finally, the legislature decided to hold public hearings, the first investigation of labor conditions by any governmental body in the country. Eliza Hemingway told the committee of the air thick with smoke from oil lamps burning before sunup and after sundown. Judith Payne told of her sickness due to the work in the mills. But after the committee visited the mills-for which the company prepared by a cleanup job-it reported: "Your committee returned fully satisfied that the order, decorum, and general appearance of things in and around the mills could not be improved by any suggestion of theirs or by any act of the legislature."
The report was denounced by the Female Labor Reform Association, and they worked successfully for the committee chairman's defeat at the next election, though they could not vote. But not much was done to change conditions in the mills. In the late 1840s, the New England farm women who worked in the mills began to leave them, as more and more Irish immigrants took their place.
Company towns now grew up around mills in Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, using immigrant workers who signed contracts pledging everyone in the family to work for a year. They lived in slum tenements owned by the company, were paid in scrip, which they could use only at company stores, and were evicted if their work was unsatisfactory.
In Paterson, New Jersey, the first of a series of mill strikes was started by children. When the company suddenly put off their dinner hour from noon to 1:00 P.M., the children marched off the job, their parents cheering them on. They were joined by other working people in the town- carpenters, masons, machinists-who turned the strike into a ten-hour-day struggle. After a week, however, with the threat of bringing in militia, the children returned to work, and their leaders were fired. Soon after, trying to prevent more trouble, the company restored the noon dinner hour.
It was the shoemakers of Lynn, Massachusetts, a factory town northeast of Boston, who started the largest strike to take place in the United States before the Civil War. Lynn had pioneered in the use of sewing machines in factories, replacing shoemaker artisans. The factory workers in Lynn, who began to organize in the 1830s, later started a militant newspaper, the Awl. In 1844, four years before Marx and Engels's Communist Manifesto appeared, the Awl wrote:
The division of society into the producing and the non-producing classes, and the fact of the unequal distribution of value between the two, introduces us at once to another distinction-that of capital and labor... . labor now becomes a commodity.... Antagonism and opposition of interest is introduced in the community; capital and labor stand opposed.
The economic crisis of 1857 brought the shoe business to a halt, and the workers of Lynn lost their jobs. There was already anger at machine-stitching replacing shoemakers. Prices were up, wages were repeatedly cut, and by the fall of 1859 men were earning $3 a week and women were earning $1 a week, working sixteen hours a day.
In early 1860, a mass meeting of the newly formed Mechanics Association demanded higher wages. When the manufacturers refused to meet with their committees, the workers called a strike for Washington's Birthday. That morning three thousand shoemakers met in the Lyceum Hall in Lynn and set up committees of 100 to post the names of scabs, to guard against violence, to make sure shoes would not be sent out to be finished elsewhere.
In a few days, shoeworkers throughout New England joined the strike-in Natick, Newburyport, Haverhill, Marblehead, and other Massachusetts towns, as well as towns in New Hampshire and Maine. In a week, strikes had begun in all the shoe towns of New England, with Mechanics Associations in twenty-five towns and twenty thousand shoe-workers on strike. Newspapers called it "The Revolution at the North," "The Rebellion Among the Workmen of New England," "Beginning of the Conflict Between Capital and Labor."
One thousand women and five thousand men marched through the streets of Lynn in a blizzard, carrying banners and American flags. Women shoebinders and stitchers joined the strike and held their own mass meeting. A New York Herald reporter wrote of them: "They assail the bosses in a style which reminds one of the amiable females who participated in the first French Revolution." A huge Ladies' Procession was organized, the women marching through streets high with snowdrifts, carrying signs: "American Ladies Will Not Be Slaves. . . Weak in Physical Strength but Strong in Moral Courage, We Dare Battle for the Right, Shoulder to Shoulder with our Fathers, Husbands, and Brothers." Ten days after that, a procession often thousand striking workers, including delegations from Salem, Marblehead, and other towns, men and women, marched through Lynn, in what was the greatest demonstration of labor to take place in New England up to that time.
Police from Boston and militia were sent in to make sure strikers did not interfere with shipments of shoes to be finished out of the state. The strike processions went on, while city grocers and provisions dealers provided food for the strikers. The strike continued through March with morale high, but by April it was losing force. The manufacturers offered higher wages to bring the strikers back into the factories, but without recognizing the unions, so that workers still had to face the employer as individuals.
Most of the shoeworkers were native-born Americans, Alan Dawley says in his study of the Lynn strike (Class and Community). They did not accept the social and political order that kept them in poverty, however much it was praised in American schools, churches, newspapers. In Lynn, he says, "articulate, activist Irish shoe and leather workers joined Yankees in flatly rejecting the myth of success. Irish and Yankee workers jointly ... looked for labor candidates when they went to the polls, and resisted strikebreaking by local police." Trying to understand why this fierce class spirit did not lead to independent revolutionary political action, Dawley concludes that the main reason is that electoral politics drained the energies of the resisters into the channels of the system.
Dawley disputes some historians who have said the high rate of mobility of workers prevented them from organizing in revolutionary ways. He says that while there was a high turnover in Lynn too, this "masked the existence of a virtually permanent minority who played the key role in organizing discontent." He also suggests that mobility helps people see that others are in similar conditions. He thinks the struggle of European workers for political democracy, even while they sought economic equality, made them class-conscious. American workers, however, had already gained political democracy by the 1830s, and so their economic battles could be taken over by political parties that blurred class lines.
Even this might not have stopped labor militancy and the rise of class consciousness, Dawley says, if not for the fact that "an entire generation was sidetracked in the 1860's because of the Civil War." Northern wage earners who rallied to the Union cause became allied with their employers. National issues took over from class issues: "At a time when scores of industrial communities like Lynn were seething with resistance to industrialism, national politics were preoccupied with the issues of war and reconstruction." And on these issues the political parties took positions, offered choices, obscured the fact that the political system itself and the wealthy classes it represented were responsible for the problems they now offered to solve.
Class-consciousness was overwhelmed during the Civil War, both North and South, by military and political unity in the crisis of war. That unity was weaned by rhetoric and enforced by arms. It was a war proclaimed as a war for liberty, but working people would be attacked by soldiers if they dared to strike, Indians would be massacred in Colorado by the U.S. army, and those daring to criticize Lincoln's policies would be put in jail without trial-perhaps thirty thousand political prisoners.
Still, there were signs in both sections of dissent from that unity- anger of poor against rich, rebellion against the dominant political and economic forces.
In the North, the war brought high prices for food and the necessities of life. Prices of milk, eggs, cheese were up 60 to 100 percent for families that had not been able to pay the old prices. One historian (Emerson Fite, Social and Industrial Conditions in the North During the Civil War) described the war situation: "Employers were wont to appropriate to themselves all or nearly all of the profits accruing from the higher prices, without being willing to grant to the employees a fair share of these profits through the medium of higher wages."
There were strikes all over the country during the war. The Springfield Republican in 1863 said that "the workmen of almost every branch of trade have had their strikes within the last few months," and the San Francisco Evening Bulletin said "striking for higher wages is now the rage among the working people of San Francisco." Unions were being formed as a result of these strikes. Philadelphia shoemakers in 1863 announced that high prices made organization imperative.
The headline in Fincher's Trades' Review of November 21, 1863, "THE REVOLUTION IN NEW YORK," was an exaggeration, but its list of labor activities was impressive evidence of the hidden resentments of the poor during the war:
The upheaval of the laboring masses in New York has startled the capitalists of that city and vicinity.. . .
The machinists are making a hold stand... . We publish their appeal in another column.
The City Railroad employees struck for higher wages, and made the whole population, for a few days, "ride on Shank's mare."...
The house painters of Brooklyn have taken steps to counteract the attempt of the bosses to reduce their wages.
The house carpenters, we are informed, are pretty well "out of the woods" and their demands are generally complied with.
The safe-makers have obtained an increase of wages, and are now at work.
The lithographic printers are making efforts to secure better pay for their labor.
The workmen on the iron clads are yet holding out against the contractors. ...
The window shade painters have obtained an advance of 25 percent.
The horse shoers are fortifying themselves against the evils of money and trade fluctuations.
The sash and blind-makers are organized and ask their employers for 25 percent additional.
The sugar packers are remodelling their list of prices.
The glass cutters demand 15 percent to present wages.
Imperfect as we confess our list to be, there is enough to convince the reader that the social revolution now working its way through the land must succeed, if workingmen are only true to each other.
The stage drivers, to the number of 800, are on a strike.. . .
The workingmen of Boston are not behind.... in addition to the strike at the Charlestown Navy Yard. .. .
The riggers are on a strike. .. .
At this writing it is rumored, says the Boston Post, that a general strike is contemplated among the workmen in the iron establishments at South Boston, and other parts of the city.
The war brought many women into shops and factories, often over the objections of men who saw them driving wage scales down. In New York City, girls sewed umbrellas from six in the morning to midnight, earning $3 a week, from which employers deducted the cost of needles and thread. Girls who made cotton shirts received twenty-four cents for a twelve-hour day. In late 1863, New York working women held a mass meeting to find a solution to their problems. A Working Women's Protective Union was formed, and there was a strike of women umbrella workers in New York and Brooklyn. In Providence, Rhode Island, a Ladies Cigar Makers Union was organized.
All together, by 1864, about 200,000 workers, men and women, were in trade unions, forming national unions in some of the trades, putting out labor newspapers.
Union troops were used to break strikes. Federal soldiers were sent to Cold Springs, New York, to end a strike at a gun works where workers wanted a wage increase. Striking machinists and tailors in St. Louis were forced back to work by the army. In Tennessee, a Union general arrested and sent out of the state two hundred striking mechanics. When engineers on the Reading Railroad struck, troops broke that strike, as they did with miners in Tioga County, Pennsylvania.
White workers of the North were not enthusiastic about a war which seemed to be fought for the black slave, or for the capitalist, for anyone but them. They worked in semislave conditions themselves. They thought the war was profiting the new class of millionaires. They saw defective guns sold to the army by contractors, sand sold as sugar, rye sold as coffee, shop sweepings made into clothing and blankets, paper-soled shoes produced for soldiers at the front, navy ships made of rotting timbers, soldiers' uniforms that fell apart in the rain.
The Irish working people of New York, recent immigrants, poor, looked upon with contempt by native Americans, could hardly find sympathy for the black population of the city who competed with them for jobs as longshoremen, barbers, waiters, domestic servants. Blacks, pushed out of these jobs, often were used to break strikes. Then came the war, the draft, the chance of death. And the Conscription Act of 1863 provided that the rich could avoid military service: they could pay $300 or buy a substitute. In the summer of 1863, a "Song of the Conscripts" was circulated by the thousands in New York and other cities. One stanza:
We're coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more
We leave our homes and firesides with bleeding hearts and sore
Since poverty has been our crime, we bow to thy decree;
We are the poor and have no wealth to purchase liberty.
When recruiting for the army began in July 1863, a mob in New York wrecked the main recruiting station. Then, for three days, crowds of white workers marched through the city, destroying buildings, factories, streetcar lines, homes. The draft riots were complex-antiblack, antirich, anti- Republican. From an assault on draft headquarters, the rioters went on to attacks on wealthy homes, then to the murder of blacks. They marched through the streets, forcing factories to close, recruiting more members of the mob. They set the city's colored orphan asylum on fire. They shot, burned, and hanged blacks they found in the streets. Many people were thrown into the rivers to drown.
On the fourth day, Union troops returning from the Battle of Gettysburg came into the city and stopped the rioting. Perhaps four hundred people were killed. No exact figures have ever been given, but the number of lives lost was greater than in any other incident of domestic violence in American history.
Joel Tyler Headley (The Great Riots of New York) gave a graphic day-by-day description of what happened:
Second Day.... the fire-bells continually ringing increased the terror that every hour became more widespread. Especially was this true of the negro population. ... At one time there lay at the corner of Twenty-seventh Street and Seventh Avenue the dead body of a negro, stripped nearly naked, and around it a collection of Irishmen, absolutely dancing or shouting like wild Indians.... A negro barber's shop was next attacked, and the torch applied to it. A negro lodging house in the same street next received the visit of these furies, and was soon a mass of ruins. Old men, seventy years of age, and young children, too young to comprehend what it all meant, were cruelly beaten and killed....
There were antidraft riots-not so prolonged or bloody-in other northern cities: Newark, Troy, Boston, Toledo, Evansville. In Boston the dead were Irish workers attacking an armory, who were fired on by soldiers.
In the South, beneath the apparent unity of the white Confederacy, there was also conflict. Most whites-two-thirds of them-did not own slaves. A few thousand families made up the plantation elite. The Federal Census of 1850 showed that a thousand southern families at the top of the economy received about $50 million a year income, while all the other families, about 660,000, received about $60 million a year.
Millions of southern whites were poor farmers, living in shacks or abandoned outhouses, cultivating land so bad the plantation owners had abandoned it. Just before the Civil War, in Jackson, Mississippi, slaves working in a cotton factory received twenty cents a day for board, and white workers at the same factory received thirty cents. A newspaper in North Carolina in August 1855 spoke of "hundreds of thousands of working class families existing upon half-starvation from year to year."
Behind the rebel battle yells and the legendary spirit of the Confederate army, there was much reluctance to fight. A sympathetic historian of the South, E. Merton Coulter, asked: "Why did the Confederacy fail? The forces leading to defeat were many but they may be summed up in this one fact: The people did not will hard enough and long enough to win." Not money or soldiers, but will power and morale were decisive.
The conscription law of the Confederacy too provided that the rich could avoid service. Did Confederate soldiers begin to suspect they were fighting for the privileges of an elite they could never belong to? In April 1863, there was a bread riot in Richmond. That summer, draft riots occurred in various southern cities. In September, a bread riot in Mobile, Alabama. Georgia Lee Tatum, in her study Disloyalty in the Confederacy, writes: "Before the end of the war, there was much disaffection in every state, and many of the disloyal had formed into bands-in some states into well-organized, active societies."
The Civil War was one of the first instances in the world of modern warfare: deadly artillery shells, Gatling guns, bayonet charges-combining the indiscriminate killing of mechanized war with hand- to-hand combat. The nightmare scenes could not adequately be described except in a novel like Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage. In one charge before Petersburg, Virginia, a regiment of 850 Maine soldiers lost 632 men in half an hour. It was a vast butchery, 623,000 dead on both sides, and 471,000 wounded, over a million dead and wounded in a country whose population was 30 million.
No wonder that desertions grew among southern soldiers as the war went on. As for the Union army, by the end of the war, 200,000 had deserted.
Still, 600,000 had volunteered for the Confederacy in 1861, and many in the Union army were volunteers. The psychology of patriotism, the lure of adventure, the aura of moral crusade created by political leaders, worked effectively to dim class resentments against the rich and powerful, and turn much of the anger against "the enemy." As Edmund Wilson put it in Patriotic Gore (written after World War II):
We have seen, in our most recent wars, how a divided and arguing public opinion may be converted overnight into a national near-unanimity, an obedient flood of energy which will carry the young to destruction and overpower any effort to stem it. The unanimity of men at war is like that of a school of fish, which will swerve, simultaneously and apparently without leadership, when the shadow of an enemy appears, or like a sky darkening flight of grass-hoppers, which, also all compelled by one impulse, will descend to consume the crops.
Under the deafening noise of the war, Congress was passing and Lincoln was signing into law a whole series of acts to give business interests what they wanted, and what the agrarian South had blocked before secession. The Republican platform of 1860 had been a clear appeal to businessmen. Now Congress in 1861 passed the Morrill Tariff. This made foreign goods more expensive, allowed American manufacturers to raise their prices, and forced American consumers to pay more.
The following year a Homestead Act was passed. It gave 160 acres of western land, unoccupied and publicly owned, to anyone who would cultivate it for five years. Anyone willing to pay $1.25 an acre could buy a homestead. Few ordinary people had the $200 necessary to do this; speculators moved in and bought up much of the land. Homestead land added up to 50 million acres. But during the Civil War, over 100 million acres were given by Congress and the President to various railroads, free of charge. Congress also set up a national bank, putting the government into partnership with the banking interests, guaranteeing their profits.
With strikes spreading, employers pressed Congress for help. The Contract Labor Law of 1864 made it possible for companies to sign contracts with foreign workers whenever the workers pledged to give twelve months of their wages to pay the cost of emigration. This gave the employers during the Civil war not only very cheap labor, but strikebreakers.
More important, perhaps, than the federal laws passed by Congress for the benefit of the rich were the day-to-day operations of local and state laws for the benefit of landlords and merchants. Gustavus Myers, in his History of the Great American Fortunes, comments on this in discussing the growth of the Astor family's fortune, much of it out of the rents of New York tenements:
Is it not murder when, compelled by want, people are forced to fester in squalid, germ-filled tenements, where the sunlight never enters and where disease finds a prolific breeding-place? Untold thousands went to their deaths in these unspeakable places. Yet, so far as the Law was concerned, the rents collected by the Astors, as well as by other landlords, were honestly made. The whole institution of Law saw nothing out of the way in these conditions, and very significantly so, because, to repeat over and over again, Law did not represent the ethics or ideals of advanced humanity; it exactly reflected, as a pool reflects the sky, the demands and self-interest of the growing propertied classes... .
In the thirty years leading up to the Civil War, the law was increasingly interpreted in the courts to suit the capitalist development of the country. Studying this, Morton Horwitz (The Transformation of American Law) points out that the English commonlaw was no longer holy when it stood in the way of business growth. Mill owners were given the legal right to destroy other people's property by flood to carry on their business. The law of "eminent domain" was used to take farmers' land and give it to canal companies or railroad companies as subsidies. Judgments for damages against businessmen were taken out of the hands of juries, which were unpredictable, and given to judges. Private settlement of disputes by arbitration was replaced by court settlements, creating more dependence on lawyers, and the legal profession gained in importance. The ancient idea of a fair price for goods gave way in the courts to the idea of caveat emptor (let the buyer beware), thus throwing generations of consumers from that time on to the mercy of businessmen.
That contract law was intended to discriminate against working people and for business is shown by Horwitz in the following example of the early nineteenth century: the courts said that if a worker signed a contract to work for a year, and left before the year was up, he was not entitled to any wages, even for the time he had worked. But the courts at the same time said that if a building business broke a contract, it was entitled to be paid for whatever had been done up to that point.
The pretense of the law was that a worker and a railroad made a contract with equal bargaining power. Thus, a Massachusetts judge decided an injured worker did not deserve compensation, because, by signing the contract, he was agreeing to take certain risks. "The circle was completed; the law had come simply to ratify those forms of inequality that the market system produced."
It was a time when the law did not even pretend to protect working people-as it would in the next century. Health and safety laws were either nonexistent or unenforced. In Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1860, on a winter day, the Pemberton Mill collapsed, with nine hundred workers inside, mostly women. Eighty-eight died, and although there was evidence that the structure had never been adequate to support the heavy machinery inside, and that this was known to the construction engineer, a jury found "no evidence of criminal intent."
Horwitz sums up what happened in the courts of law by the time of the Civil War:
By the middle of the nineteenth century the legal system had been reshaped to the advantage of men of commerce and industry at the expense of farmers, workers, consumers, and other less powerful groups within the society. ... it actively promoted a legal redistribution of wealth against the weakest groups in the society.
In premodern times, the maldistribution of wealth was accomplished by simple force. In modern times, exploitation is disguised-it is accomplished by law, which has the look of neutrality and fairness. By the time of the Civil War, modernization was well under way in the United States.
With the war over, the urgency of national unity slackened, and ordinary people could turn more to their daily lives, their problems of survival. The disbanded armies now were in the streets, looking for work. In June 1865, Fincher's Trades' Review reported: "As was to be expected, the returned soldiers are flooding the streets already, unable to find employment."
The cities to which the soldiers returned were death traps of typhus, tuberculosis, hunger, and fire. In New York, 100,000 people lived in the cellars of the slums; 12,000 women worked in houses of prostitution to keep from starving; the garbage, lying 2 feet deep in the streets, was alive with rats. In Philadelphia, while the rich got fresh water from the Schuylkill River, everyone else drank from the Delaware, into which 13 million gallons of sewage were dumped every day. In the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, the tenements fell so fast, one after another, that people said it sounded like an earthquake.
A movement for the eight-hour day began among working people after the war, helped by the formation of the first national federation of unions, the National Labor Union. A three-month strike of 100,000 workers in New York won the eight-hour day, and at a victory celebration in June 1872, 150,000 workers paraded through the city. The New York Times wondered what proportion of the strikers were "thoroughly American."
Women, brought into industry during the war, organized unions: cigarmakers, tailoresses, umbrella sewers, capmakers, printers, laundresses, shoeworkers. They formed the Daughters of St, Crispin, and succeeded in getting the Cigarmakers Union and the National Typographical Union to admit women for the first time. A woman named Gussie Lewis of New York became corresponding secretary of the Typographers' Union. But the cigarmakers and typographers were only two of the thirty-odd national unions, and the general attitude toward women was one of exclusion.
In 1869, the collar laundresses of Troy, New York, whose work involved standing "over the wash tub and over the ironing table with furnaces on either side, the thermometer averaging 100 degrees, for wages averaging $2.00 and $3.00 a week" (according to a contemporary account), went on strike. Their leader was Kate Mullaney, second vice-president of the National Labor Union. Seven thousand people came to a rally to support them, and the women organized a cooperative collar and cuff factory to provide work and keep the strike going. But as time went on, outside support dwindled. The employers began making a paper collar, requiring fewer laundresses. The strike failed.
The dangers of mill work intensified efforts to organize. Work often went on around the clock. At a mill in Providence, Rhode Island, fire broke out one night in 1866. There was panic among the six hundred workers, mostly women, and many jumped to their deaths from upper-story windows.
In Fall River, Massachusetts, women weavers formed a union independent of the men weavers. They refused to take a 10 percent wage cut that the men had accepted, struck against three nulls, won the men's support, and brought to a halt 3,500 looms and 156,000 spindles, with 3,200 workers on strike. But their children needed food; they had to return to work, signing an "iron-clad oath" (later called a "yellow-dog contract") not to join a union.
Black workers at this time found the National Labor Union reluctant to organize them. So they formed their own unions and carried on their own strikes-like the levee workers in Mobile, Alabama, in 1867, Negro longshoremen in Charleston, dockworkers in Savannah. This probably stimulated the National Labor Union, at its 1869 convention, to resolve to organize women and Negroes, declaring that it recognized "neither color nor sex on the question of the rights of labor." A journalist wrote about the remarkable signs of racial unity at this convention:
When a native Mississippian and an ex-confederate officer, in addressing a convention, refers to a colored delegate who has preceded him as "the gentleman from Georgia" .. . when an ardent and Democratic partisan (from New York at that) declares with a rich Irish brogue that he asks for himself no privilege as a mechanic or as a citizen that he is not willing to concede to every other man, white or black ... then one may indeed be warranted in asserting that time works curious changes.. ..
Most unions, however, still kept Negroes out, or asked them to form their own locals.
The National Labor Union began to expend more and more of its energy on political issues, especially currency reform, a demand for the issuance of paper money: Greenbacks. As it became less an organizer of labor struggles, and more a lobbyist with Congress, concerned with voting, it lost vitality. An observer of the labor scene, F. A. Sorge, wrote in 1870 to Karl Marx in England: "The National Labor Union, which had such brilliant prospects in the beginning of its career, was poisoned by Greenbackism and is slowly but surely dying."
Perhaps unions could not easily see the limits to legislative reform in an age where such reform laws were being passed for the first time, and hopes were high. The Pennsylvania legislature in 1869 passed a mine safety act providing for the "regulation and ventilation of mines, and for the protection of the lives of the miners." Only after a hundred years of continuing accidents in those mines would it be understood how insufficient those words were-except as a device to calm anger among miners.
In 1873, another economic crisis devastated the nation. It was the closing of the banking house of Jay Cooke-the banker who during the war had made $3 million a year in commissions alone for selling government bonds-that started the wave of panic. While President Grant slept in Cooke's Philadelphia mansion on September 18, 1873, the banker rode downtown to lock the door on his bank. Now people could not pay loans on mortgages: five thousand businesses closed and put their workers on the street.
It was more than Jay Cooke. The crisis was built into a system which was chaotic in its nature, in which only the very rich were secure. It was a system of periodic crisis-1837, 1857, 1873 (and later: 1893, 1907, 1919, 1929)-that wiped out small businesses and brought cold, hunger, and death to working people while the fortunes of the Astors, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, Morgans, kept growing through war and peace, crisis and recovery. During the 1873 crisis, Carnegie was capturing the steel market, Rockefeller was wiping out his competitors in oil.
"LABOR DEPRESSION IN BROOKLYN" was the headline in the New York Herald in November 1873. It listed closings and layoffs: a felt-skirt factory, a picture-frame factory, a glass-cutting establishment, a steelworks factory. And women's trades: milliners, dressmakers, shoe-binders.
The depression continued through the 1870s. During the first three months of 1874, ninety thousand workers, almost half of them women, had to sleep in police stations in New York. They were known as "revolvers" because they were limited to one or two days a month in any one police station, and so had to keep moving. All over the country, people were evicted from their homes. Many roamed the cities looking for food.
Desperate workers tried to get to Europe or to South America. In 1878, the SS Metropolis, filled with laborers, left the United States for South America and sank with all aboard. The New York Tribune reported: "One hour after the news that the ship had gone down arrived in Philadelphia, the office of Messrs. Collins was besieged by hundreds of hunger-bitten, decent men, begging for the places of the drowned laborers."
Mass meeting and demonstrations of the unemployed took place all over the country. Unemployed councils were set up. A meeting in New York at Cooper Institute in late 1873, organized by trade unions and the American seed on of the First International (founded in 1864 in Europe by Marx and others), drew a huge crowd, overflowing into the streets. The meeting asked that before bills became law they should be approved by a public vote, that no individual should own more than $30,000; they asked for an eight-hour day. Also:
Whereas, we are industrious, law-abiding citizens, who had paid all taxes and given support and allegiance to the government,
Resolved, that we will in this time of need supply ourselves and our families with proper food and shelter and we will send our bills to the City treasury, to be liquidated, until we shall obtain work... .
In Chicago, twenty thousand unemployed marched through the streets to City Hall asking "bread for the needy, clothing for the naked, and houses for the homeless." Actions like this resulted in some relief for about ten thousand families.
In January 1874, in New York City, a huge parade of workers, kept by the police from approaching City Hall, went to Tompkins Square, and there were told by the police they couldn't have the meeting. They stayed, and the police attacked. One newspaper reported:
Police clubs rose and fell. Women and children ran screaming in all directions. Many of them were trampled underfoot in the stampede for the gates. In the street bystanders were ridden down and mercilessly clubbed by mounted officers.
Strikes were called in the textile mills of Fall River, Massachusetts. In the anthracite coal district of Pennsylvania, there was the "long strike," where Irish members of a society called the Ancient Order of Hibernians were accused of acts of violence, mostly on the testimony of a detective planted among the miners. These were the "Molly Maguires." They were tried and found guilty. Philip Foner believes, after a study of the evidence, that they were framed because they were labor organizers. He quotes the sympathetic Irish World, which called them "intelligent men whose direction gave strength to the resistance of the miners to the inhuman reduction of their wages." And he points to the Miners' Journal, put out by the coal mine owners, which referred to the executed men this way: "What did they do? Whenever prices of labor did not suit them they organized and proclaimed a strike."
All together, nineteen were executed, according to Anthony Bimba (The Molly Maguires). There were scattered protests from workingmen's organizations, but no mass movement that could stop the executions.
It was a time when employers brought in recent immigrants-desperate for work, different from the strikers in language and culture-to break strikes. Italians were imported into the bituminous coal area around Pittsburgh in 1874 to replace striking miners. This led to the killing of three Italians, to trials in which jurors of the community exonerated the strikers, and bitter feelings between Italians and other organized workers.
The centennial year of 1876-one hundred years after the Declaration of Independence-brought forth a number of new declarations (reproduced by Philip Foner in We the Other People). Whites and blacks, separately, expressed their disillusionment. A "Negro Declaration of Independence" denounced the Republican party on which they had once depended to gain full freedom, and proposed independent political action by colored voters. And the Workingmen's party of Illinois, at a July 4 celebration organized by German socialists in Chicago, said in its Declaration of Independence:
The present system has enabled capitalists to make laws in their own interests to the injury and oppression of the workers.
It has made the name Democracy, for which our forefathers fought and died, a mockery and a shadow, by giving to property an unproportionate amount of representation and control over Legislation.
It has enabled capitalists ... to secure government aid, inland grants and money loans, to selfish railroad corporations, who, by monopolizing the means of transportation are enabled to swindle both the producer and the consumer.. ..
It has presented to the world the absurd spectacle of a deadly civil war for the abolition of negro slavery while the majority of the white population, those who have created all the wealth of the nation, are compelled to suffer under a bondage infinitely more galling and humiliating. . ..
It has allowed the capitalists, as a class, to appropriate annually 5/6 of the entire production of the country. . . .
It has therefore prevented mankind from fulfilling their natural destinies on earth-crushed out ambition, prevented marriages or caused false and unnatural ones-has shortened human life, destroyed morals and fostered crime, corrupted judges, ministers, and statesmen, shattered confidence, love and honor among men, and made life a selfish, merciless struggle for existence instead of a noble and generous struggle for perfection, in which equal advantages should be given to all, and human lives relieved from an unnatural and degrading competition for bread.. ..
We, therefore, the representatives of the workers of Chicago, in mass meeting assembled, do solemnly publish and declare .. .
That we are absolved from all allegiance to the existing political parties of this country, and that as free and independent producers we shall endeavor to acquire the full power to make our own laws, manage our own production, and govern ourselves, acknowledging no rights without duties, no duties without rights. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the assistance and cooperation of all workingmen, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our means, and our sacred honor.
In the year 1877, the country was in the depths of the Depression. That summer, in the hot cities where poor families lived in cellars and drank infested water, the children became sick in large numbers. The New York Times wrote: "... already the cry of the dying children begins to be heard. ... Soon, to judge from the past, there will be a thousand deaths of infants per week in the city." That first week in July, in Baltimore, where all liquid sewage ran through the streets, 139 babies died.
That year there came a series of tumultuous strikes by railroad workers in a dozen cities; they shook the nation as no labor conflict in its history had done.
It began with wage cuts on railroad after railroad, in tense situations of already low wages ($1.75 a day for brakemen working twelve hours), scheming and profiteering by the railroad companies, deaths and injuries among the workers-loss of hands, feet, fingers, the crushing of men between cars.
At the Baltimore & Ohio station in Martinsburg, West Virginia, workers determined to fight the wage cut went on strike, uncoupled the engines, ran them into the roundhouse, and announced no more trains would leave Martinsburg until the 10 percent cut was canceled. A crowd of support gathered, too many for the local police to disperse. B. & O. officials asked the governor for military protection, and he sent in militia. A train tried to get through, protected by the militia, and a striker, trying to derail it, exchanged gunfire with a militiaman attempting to stop him. The striker was shot in his thigh and his arm. His arm was amputated later that day, and nine days later he died.
Six hundred freight trains now jammed the yards at Martinsburg. The West Virginia governor applied to newly elected President Rutherford Hayes for federal troops, saying the state militia was insufficient. In fact, the militia was not totally reliable, being composed of many railroad workers. Much of the U.S. army was tied up in Indian battles in the West. Congress had not appropriated money for the army yet, but J. P. Morgan, August Belmont, and other bankers now offered to lend money to pay army officers (but no enlisted men). Federal troops arrived in Martinsburg, and the freight cars began to move.
In Baltimore, a crowd of thousands sympathetic to the railroad strikers surrounded the armory of the National Guard, which had been called out by the governor at the request of the B. & O. Railroad. The crowd hurled rocks, and the soldiers came out, firing. The streets now became the scene of a moving, bloody battle. When the evening was over, ten men or boys were dead, more badly wounded, one soldier wounded. Half of the 120 troops quit and the rest went on to the train depot, where a crowd of two hundred smashed the engine of a passenger train, tore up tracks, and engaged the militia again in a running battle.
By now, fifteen thousand people surrounded the depot. Soon, three passenger cars, the station platform, and a locomotive were on fire. The governor asked for federal troops, and Hayes responded. Five hundred soldiers arrived and Baltimore quieted down.
The rebellion of the railroad workers now spread. Joseph Dacus, then editor of the St. Louis Republican, reported:
Strikes were occurring almost every hour. The great State of Pennsylvania was in an uproar; New Jersey was afflicted by a paralyzing dread; New York was mustering an army of militia; Ohio was shaken from Lake Erie to the Ohio River; Indiana rested in a dreadful suspense. Illinois, and especially its great metropolis, Chicago, apparently hung on the verge of a vortex of confusion and tumult. St. Louis had already felt the effect of the premonitory shocks of the uprising. . . .
The strike spread to Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania Railroad. Again, it happened outside the regular union, pent-up anger exploding without plan. Robert Bruce, historian of the 1877 strikes, writes (1877: Year of Violence) about a flagman named Gus Harris. Harris refused to go out on a "double- header," a train with two locomotives carrying a double length of cars, to which railroaders had objected because it required fewer workers and made the brakemen's work more dangerous:
The decision was his own, not part of a concerted plan or a general understanding. Had he lain awake that past night, listening to the rain, asking himself if he dared quit, wondering if anyone would join him, weighing the chances? Or had he simply risen to a breakfast that did not fill him, seen his children go off shabby and half-fed, walked brooding through the damp morning and then yielded impulsively to stored-up rage?
When Harris said he would not go, the rest of the crew refused too. The strikers now multiplied, joined by young boys and men from the mills and factories (Pittsburgh had 33 iron mills, 73 glass factories, 29 oil refineries, 158 coal mines). The freight trains stopped moving out of the city. The Trainman's Union had not organized this, but it moved to take hold, called a meeting, invited "all workingmen to make common cause with their brethren on the railroad."
Railroad and local officials decided that the Pittsburgh militia would not kill their fellow townsmen, and urged that Philadelphia troops be called in. By now two thousand cars were idle in Pittsburgh. The Philadelphia troops came and began to clear the track. Rocks flew. Gunfire was exchanged between crowd and troops. At least ten people were killed, all workingmen, most of them not railroaders.
Now the whole city rose in anger. A crowd surrounded the troops, who moved into a roundhouse. Railroad cars were set afire, buildings began to burn, and finally the roundhouse itself, the troops marching out of it to safety. There was more gunfire, the Union Depot was set afire, thousands looted the freight cars. A huge grain elevator and a small section of the city went up in flames. In a few days, twenty-four people had been killed (including four soldiers). Seventy-nine buildings had been burned to the ground. Something like a general strike was developing in Pittsburgh: mill workers, car workers, miners, laborers, and the employees at the Carnegie steel plant.
The entire National Guard of Pennsylvania, nine thousand men, was called out. But many of the companies couldn't move as strikers in other towns held up traffic. In Lebanon, Pennsylvania, one National Guard company mutinied and marched through an excited town. In Altoona, troops surrounded by rioters, immobilized by sabotaged engines, surrendered, stacked arms, fraternized with the crowd, and then were allowed to go home, to the accompaniment of singing by a quartet in an all-Negro militia company.
In Harrisburg, the state capital, as at so many places, teenagers made up a large part of the crowd, which included some Negroes. Philadelphia militia, on their way home from Altoona, shook hands with the crowd, gave up their guns, marched like captives through the streets, were fed at a hotel and sent home. The crowd agreed to the mayor's request to deposit the surrendered guns at the city hall. Factories and shops were idle. After some looting, citizens' patrols kept order in the streets through the night.
Where strikers did not manage to take control, as in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, it may well have been because of disunity. The spokesman of the Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Company in that town wrote: "The men have no organization, and there is too much race jealousy existing among them to permit them to form one."
In Reading, Pennsylvania, there was no such problem-90 percent were native-born, the rest mostly German. There, the railroad was two months behind in paying wages, and a branch of the Trainman's Union was organized. Two thousand people gathered, while men who had blackened their faces with coal dust set about methodically tearing up tracks, jamming switches, derailing cars, setting fire to cabooses and also to a railroad bridge.
A National Guard company arrived, fresh from duty at the execution of the Molly Maguires. The crowd threw stones, fired pistols. The soldiers fired into the crowd. "Six men lay dead in the twilight," Bruce reports, "a fireman and an engineer formerly employed in the Reading, a carpenter, a huckster, a rolling-mill worker, a laborer.... A policeman and another man lay at the point of death." Five of the wounded died. The crowd grew angrier, more menacing. A contingent of soldiers announced it would not fire, one soldier saying he would rather put a bullet through the president of Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron. The 16th Regiment of the Morristown volunteers stacked its arms. Some militia threw their guns away and gave their ammunition to the crowd. When the Guardsmen left for home, federal troops arrived and took control, and local police began making arrests.
Meanwhile the leaders of the big railway brotherhoods, the Order of Railway Conductors, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, the Brotherhood of Engineers, disavowed the strike. There was talk in the press of "communistic ideas . . . widely entertained ... by the workmen employed in mines and factories and by the railroads."
In fact, there was a very active Workingmen's party in Chicago, with several thousand members, most of them immigrants from Germany and Bohemia. It was connected with the First International in Europe. In the midst of the railroad strikes, that summer of 1877, it called a rally. Six thousand people came and demanded nationalization of the railroads. Albert Parsons gave a fiery speech. He was from Alabama, had fought in the Confederacy during the Civil War, married a brown-skinned woman of Spanish and Indian blood, worked as a typesetter, and was one of the best English- speaking orators the Workingmen's party had.
The next day, a crowd of young people, not especially connected with the rally of the evening before, began moving through the railroad yards, closed down the freights, went to the factories, called out the mill workers, the stockyard workers, the crewmen on the Lake Michigan ships, closed down the brickyards and lumberyards. That day also, Albert Parsons was fired from his job with the Chicago Times and declared blacklisted.
The police attacked the crowds. The press reported: "The sound of clubs falling on skulls was sickening for the first minute, until one grew accustomed to it. A rioter dropped at every whack, it seemed, for the ground was covered with them." Two companies of U.S. infantry arrived, joining National Guardsmen and Civil War veterans. Police fired into a surging crowd, and three men were killed.
The next day, an armed crowd of five thousand fought the police. The police fired again and again, and when it was over, and the dead were counted, they were, as usual, workingmen and boys, eighteen of them, their skulls smashed by clubs, their vital organs pierced by gunfire.
The one city where the Workingmen's party clearly led the rebellion was St. Louis, a city of flour mills, foundries, packing houses, machine shops, breweries, and railroads. Here, as elsewhere, there were wage cuts on the railroads. And here there were perhaps a thousand members of the Workingmen's party, many of them bakers, coopers, cabinetmakers, cigarmakers, brewery workers. The party was organized in four sections, by nationality: German, English, French, Bohemian.
All four sections took a ferry across the Mississippi to join a mass meeting of railroad men in East St. Louis. One of their speakers told the meeting: "All you have to do, gentlemen, for you have the numbers, is to unite on one idea-that the workingmen shall rule the country. What man makes, belongs to him, and the workingmen made this country." Railroaders in East St. Louis declared themselves on strike. The mayor of East St. Louis was a European immigrant, himself an active revolutionist as a youth, and railroad men's votes dominated the city.
In St. Louis, itself, the Workingmen's party called an open-air mass meeting to which five thousand people came. The party was clearly in the leadership of the strike. Speakers, excited by the crowd, became more militant: ". . . capital has changed liberty into serfdom, and we must fight or die." They called for nationalization of the railroads, mines, and all industry.
At another huge meeting of the Workingmen's party a black man spoke for those who worked on the steamboats and levees. He asked: "Will you stand to us regardless of color?" The crowd shouted back: "We will!" An executive committee was set up, and it called for a general strike of all branches of industry in St. Louis.
Handbills for the general strike were soon all over the city. There was a march of four hundred Negro steamboat men and roustabouts along the river, six hundred factory workers carrying a banner: "No Monopoly- Workingmen's Rights." A great procession moved through the city, ending with a rally of ten thousand people listening to Communist speakers: "The people are rising up in their might and declaring they will no longer submit to being oppressed by unproductive capital."
David Burbank, in his book on the St. Louis events, Reign of the Rabble, writes:
Only around St. Louis did the original strike on the railroads expand into such a systematically organized and complete shut-down of all industry that the term general strike is fully justified. And only there did the socialists assume undisputed leadership.... no American city has come so close to being ruled by a workers' soviet, as we would now call it, as St. Louis, Missouri, in the year 1877.
The railroad strikes were making news in Europe. Marx wrote Engels: "What do you think of the workers of the United States? This first explosion against the associated oligarchy of capital which has occurred since the Civil War will naturally again be suppressed, but can very well form the point of origin of an earnest workers' party. . . ."
In New York, several thousand gathered at Tompkins Square. The tone of the meeting was moderate, speaking of "a political revolution through the ballot box." And: "If you will unite, we may have here within five years a socialistic republic. . . . Then will a lovely morning break over this darkened land." It was a peaceful meeting. It adjourned. The last words heard from the platform were: "Whatever we poor men may not have, we have free speech, and no one can take it from us." Then the police charged, using their clubs.
In St. Louis, as elsewhere, the momentum of the crowds, the meetings, the enthusiasm, could not be sustained. As they diminished, the police, militia, and federal troops moved in and the authorities took over. The police raided the headquarters of the Workingmen's party and arrested seventy people; the executive committee that had been for a while virtually in charge of the city was now in prison. The strikers surrendered; the wage cuts remained; 131 strike leaders were fired by the Burlington Railroad.
When the great railroad strikes of 1877 were over, a hundred people were dead, a thousand people had gone to jail, 100,000 workers had gone on strike, and the strikes had roused into action countless unemployed in the cities. More than half the freight on the nation's 75,000 miles of track had stopped running at the height of the strikes.
The railroads made some concessions, withdrew some wage cuts, but also strengthened their "Coal and Iron Police." In a number of large cities, National Guard armories were built, with loopholes for guns. Robert Bruce believes the strikes taught many people of the hardships of others, and that they led to congressional railroad regulation. They may have stimulated the business unionism of the American Federation of Labor as well as the national unity of labor proposed by the Knights of Labor, and the independent labor-farmer parties of the next two decades.
In 1877, the same year blacks learned they did not have enough strength to make real the promise of equality in the Civil War, working people learned they were not united enough, not powerful enough, to defeat the combination of private capital and government power. But there was more to come.
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The force are holding internet safety sessions to make parents aware of the dangers of the internet for children and steps they can take to minimise any risk. They say they deal with Facebook issues on a day to day basis.
A series of Internet safety sessions are be run in the Scottish Borders to give parents help and guidance on keeping children safe while online.
Officers in Kelso, Hawick, Eyemouth, Peebles, Galshiels and Melrose will hold a series of one hour sessions over the next six months.
A presentation by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Unit will be given highlighting the risks young people face while online. The sessions are open to everyone. PC Rachel Stevenson said:
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Over 100,000 images ranging from ancient medical manuscripts to etchings by artists such as Vincent Van Gogh and Francisco Goya are now available for free download as hi-res images on our website.
Drawn from the historical holdings of the world-renowned Wellcome Library, the images are being released under the Creative Commons-Attribution only (CC-BY) licence. This means that all the historical images can be downloaded here to freely copy, distribute, edit, manipulate, and build upon as you wish, for personal or commercial use as long as the source Wellcome Library is attributed.
The historical collections offer a rich body of historical images including manuscripts, paintings, etchings, early photography and advertisements. The earliest item is a 3000 year old Egyptian prescription on papyrus, and treasures include exquisite medieval illuminated manuscripts and anatomical drawings, ranging from delicate 16th century fugitive sheets, whose hinged paper flaps reveal hidden viscera, to Paolo Mascagni’s vibrantly coloured etching of an ‘exploded’ torso.
From the beauty of a Persian horoscope for the 15th-century prince Iskandar to sharply sketched satires by Rowlandson, Gillray and Cruikshank, the collection is sacred and profane by turns. Photography includes Eadweard Muybridge’s studies of motion, John Thomson’s remarkable nineteenth century portraits from his travels in China and a newly added series of photographs of hysteric and epileptic patients at the famous Salpêtrière Hospital.
Simon Chaplin, Head of the Wellcome Library, says “Together the collection amounts to a dizzying visual record of centuries of human culture, and our attempts to understand our bodies, minds and health through art and observation. As a strong supporter of open access, we want to make sure these images can be used and enjoyed by anyone without restriction.”
Catherine Draycott, Head of Wellcome Images says, “Wellcome Images is an invaluable visual resource for anyone interested in themes around medicine and the wider history of health and we are delighted to make our growing archive of historical images freely available to all, and provide the mechanism for direct access to them. We hope that users, both personal and commercial take full advantage of the material available.”
Our specialist team of researchers at Wellcome Images are available to advise and assist with sourcing and searching for images and can be contacted at firstname.lastname@example.org.
Why not try it out now, just search for images you are interested in, choose your favourites and click on ‘Download hi-res images’ and follow the instructions to download your images instantly.
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Over at LGBTQ Nation, Barbara Weicksel looks at the distance between President Obama’s inaugural speech and the words of Press Secretary Jay Carney the next day on marriage equality:
As happy as I was to hear President Obama say in his second inaugural address:
“Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law. For if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.”
… I was just an unhappy to hear White House Press Secretary Jay Carney the following day say that while President Obama personally supports civil gay marriage, he doesn’t believe gay marriage should be a federal issue.
Do you believe that women would have ever been given the right to vote if that had been left up to the individual States to vote on? As it is – women are still looking for that equal pay thing to click in.
She’s got a point – until there’s a federal standard, our rights will be subject to the whims of individual states. It’s not right that our marriage can be stripped away just by crossing a state line.
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Breastfeeding and a Vaginal Birth Could Keep Your Newborn Healthier, Study Says
A new study led by Anita Kozyrskyj, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, found that babies born by C-section had a different set of microbes in their digestive tracts than babies who were born vaginally. Additionally, the study also determined that breastfed babies had a different makeup of bacteria in their bodies than other babies who were fed via formula.
The study author, Kozyrskyj, said that her team of researchers goal was to show that a “decision about elective C-sections may cause changes that parents can’t see but nevertheless affect development.” That is to say — these ‘bugs’ that live in babies help digest food are different, depending on whether or not baby was born vaginally or via C-section, was nursed or fed via formula.
Researchers studied 24 babies and compared the bacteria found in baby poop samples collected when each infant was just 3 months old. They knew, prior to the study, that C-section deliveries could result in a higher risk of asthma, diabetes, cancer and even obesity, but they didn’t know how. Their recent work suggests that at least part of that risk may be due to the microbes forming inside baby.
Here’s how they did it:
Through vaginal delivery, babies are welcomed to the world of bacteria and viruses because they pass through the birth canal — their birth serves at their first informal immunization. As they pass through, the pick up the microbial content of their mothers and as they continue to develop (and age), they distinguish between bacterial friend and foe. Alternatively, babies born through Cesarean section, skip the “immunization,” leaving them more susceptible to bacteria. During the course of the study, researchers found that babies born by C-section had fewer forms of the bacteria known as Escherichia and Shigella. Kozyrskyj (the study author) says that these two forms are known as “seeding species” and they lay the building blocks for the next groups of microbes. They are also critical species that help a baby’s immune system decipher between good and bad bacteria. Though she says that they are still learning about the order of the microbes, Kozyrskyj believes that “if there is an order, then timing is important.”
The study concluded similar findings for breastfeeding. Formula-fed babies, the research shows, have more Peptostreptococcaceae bacteria and Clostridium difficile (which causes diarrhea and other unpleasant side effects in adults), while breastfed babies do not.
And though these findings are critical for researchers, their work is far from finished. Kozyrskyj plans to connect these changes in bacteria abundance to childhood conditions — searching for more answers as to what causes these afflictions. She said, “The next step is to link these changes to childhood conditions and assess whether these children have different risks for diseases, how severe their conditions are and what the patterns of these diseases are.”
Were these findings shocking for you?
Plus, more from The Bump:
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TEL AVIV (Oct. 18)
Prime Minister Levi Eshkol said today that he had “every reason to believe” that the United States would live up to its signed agreements on the provision of weapons to Israel. He also expressed the hope that France would fulfill the commitments on arms deliveries to Israel it had made before the outbreak of the Six-Day War. France has embargoed all arms shipments to the Middle East since last June.
Mr. Eshkol, in an interview with the Tel Aviv daily, Yediot Achonot, did not specify what weapons were expected from the United States but it was assumed he was referring to the two squadrons of Douglas A-4 Skyhawk jet bombers Israel ordered last year for delivery this Autumn. State Department officials asserted in Washington yesterday that consultations with Congressional leaders would have to precede any decision on provision of weapons to the Middle East.
(Cairo dispatches today quoted Vice-President Aly Sabry of Egypt, visiting Egyptian towns on the west bank of the Suez Canal, as warning the inhabitants there to prepare for all eventualities “including renewal of fighting as ferocious as the political battle presently going on.” Some London observers saw in this an intimation that Egypt was preparing to step up military activity along the canal, the east bank of which is under Israeli occupation.)
In the course of the wide-ranging interview, Mr. Eshkol commented on the many reports of proposals at the United Nations for a Middle East settlement and stressed that Israel would not accept a revival of the 1949 armistice agreements with Egypt, Jordan and Syria. These agreements, he said, had been rendered null and void by the Arab attack last June. The Prime Minister said that Israel was always ready to listen to advice on how to solve Middle East problems, “but we are not prepared to listen to advice from third parties who do not have the power and the possibility to carry out their advice.”
PREMIER IS CRITICAL OF ‘BEVIN SPIRIT’ IN BRITISH FOREIGN OFFICE
Mr. Eshkol was particularly irked over the British position in recent days and said Britain, in seeking a Middle East settlement, was motivated by its desire to get the Suez Canal reopened so that oil could flow freely to Britain. He said it was painful to observe that the spirit of the late Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, who took a strongly anti-Jewish position in the last days of the Palestine mandate, had been “revived in a Labor Government Foreign Office in 1967.”
(In Washington, official American sources indicated today that the current talks between Ambassador Arthur J. Goldberg and Foreign Minister Mahmoud Riad of Egypt were primarily aimed at restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries, terminated by Cairo last June. They said Egypt had taken the initiative in this move and said it could be a step towards a Middle East settlement.)
(At the United Nations, Corneliu Manescu, the Rumanian Foreign Minister and President of the General Assembly, told newsmen that a solution of the Middle East problem would have to be “equitable and acceptable to all parties.” He said that in working toward a solution, he favored recourse to the Security Council followed by another debate in the General Assembly if necessary.)
Mr. Eshkol warned the Jordanian Government to end infiltration into Israel by marauders from Jordanian bases and intimated that if it continued, Israeli forces would pursue the marauding bands into Jordan. He cautioned, however, that “there is a time for everything.”
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A commission of experts convened by the government of the state of Brandenburg presented their recommendations in 1992 for the new design of the Sachsenhausen Memorial. They determined that the most urgent tasks were to be the preservation of remnants; extensive documentation and differentiated presentation of the historical events in each of the two camps; promotion of a critical confrontation with history; and a critical evaluation and accurate reworking of the GDR Memorial design.
The original buildings and structural remains of the concentration camp are "guarantors of the memory." Therefore, their preservation and restoration are of utmost priority. Because for decades only the facades of most of the historical buildings were attended to, and with the continued existence of almost all the buildings being in danger, their preservation requires considerable expenditure.
After the buildings have been restored, small permanent exhibitions which address the significant aspects of the history of those sites will be installed inside the structures. For example, the exhibition in Barracks R I and R II of the former infirmary will focus on medicine and racism under National Socialism. The history of the Soviet Special Camp is documented both in the new Museum opposite to the massgrave in the commanders yard, as well as in two historic stone barracks of the "Zone II".
The precondition of a permanent exhibition are the established facts about all phases and aspects of the history of the location. In the GDR scientific research on the history of National Socialism was limited and tainted by narrowly defined ideological concerns. Research on the postwar history of the site took place only after the reunification of Germany. The memorial, therefore, is making a concerted effort to quickly fill the gaps in historical knowledge by conducting its own research and working in cooperation with university sponsored research projects.
The memorial perceives itself as a "site available for learning" and offers its visitors a multitude of opportunities to become engaged in the history of the site. Visitors are invited to use the various information materials and media, to work alone or in groups, independently or with a guide, and to probe general questions or conduct intensive research.
The Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp was built in the summer of 1936 by concentration camp prisoners from the Emsland camps. It was the first new camp to be established after Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler was appointed Chief of the German Police in 1936. The design of the grounds was conceived by the SS architects as the ideal concentration camp setting, giving architectural expression to the SS worldview, and symbolically subjugating the prisoners to the absolute power of the SS. As a model for other camps, and in view of its Location just outside the Reich capital, Sachsenhausen acquired a special role in the National Socialist concentration camp system. This was reinforced in 1938 when the Concentration Camp Inspection Office, the administrative headquarters for all concentration camps within the German sphere of influence, was transferred from Berlin to Oranienburg.
More than 200,000 people were imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp between 1936 and 1945. At first the prisoners were mostly political opponents of the Nazi regime. However, increasing numbers of members of groups defined by the National Socialists as racially or biologically inferior were later included. By 1939 large numbers of citizens from the occupied European states arrived. Tens of thousands of people died of starvation, disease, forced Labor and mistreatment, or were victims of the systematic extermination operations of the SS. Thousands of other prisoners died during the death marches following the evacuation of the camp at the end of April 1945. Approximately 3,000 sick prisoners, along with the doctors and nurses who had stayed behind in the camp, were liberated by the Russian and Polish troops of the Red Army.
In August 1945 the Soviet Special Camp No. 7 was moved to the central area of the former concentration camp. Most of the buildings, with the exception of the crematoria and extermination facilities, were still used for the same purposes. Nazi functionaries were held in the camp, as were political undesirables, arbitrarily arrested prisoners and inmates sentenced by Soviet military tribunals. By 1948 Sachsenhausen, now upgraded to Special Camp No. 1, was the largest of three special camps in the Soviet Zone of Occupation. By the closing of the camp in the spring of 1950, there had been approximately 60,000 people imprisoned there, at Least 12,000 of whom died of malnutrition and disease.
In 1956, after the grounds and barracks had been used for years by the Soviet Army, the People's Police and the People's National Army of the G.D.R., plans were prepared for the establishment of the Sachsenhausen National Memorial, which was inaugurated on April 22, 1961. Instead of just choosing to preserve the remaining original structures, the planners decided on a memorial site that would symbolize the "victory of anti-fascism over fascism". It was incorporated into the few remaining original buildings and later reconstructions of historical buildings.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall and with German unification, the memorial was placed under the temporary administration of the Brandenburg Ministry of Science, Research and Culture. Since January 1993, the Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum has been part of the Brandenburg Memorials Foundation, which is funded equally by the Federal Republic of Germany and the state of Brandenburg. The Museum of the Death Marches in the Belower Forest near Wittstock was established in 1981 and is administratively linked to the Memorial. In these woods, 18,000 prisoners, who had been forced by the SS on a death march in the direction of Schwerin, rested for a number of days in late April and early May of 1945.
Former concentration camp prisoners at the 50th anniversary of the liberation on April 22, 1995
Text: Courtesy of the Sachsenhausen State Museum of the German Federal Republic
For other monuments see:
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I’ve made smoothies for years, but they were always very similar: banana, strawberries/raspberries, milk. Here’s three rather divergent smoothies that shake (ahem) things up. You can swap out almost any of the ingredients unless they’re in the name of the smoothie. the number one most important ingredient in these is banana. It will add natural sweetness and bind together the ingredients without being unhealthy. It also doesn’t have a strong taste.
I use a vitamix to make these: 30-60 seconds and everything is smooth. But I think with some coaxing and judicious ordering of ingredients, a regular blender could handle most of these.
This smoothie isn’t that tasty (it has a semi-sweet gardeny taste with a pulpy texture). But it’s super-healthy. There’s a ton of greens that can be difficult to eat on their own and you can dump in a lot of vegetables, so long as they don’t have a strong taste.
- One whole pear (you can core if you like)
- One banana
- Apple juice (just a half cup will sweeten the smoothie)
- Handful kale
- Handful carrots
- Half cucumber
- Green Superfood
- Cup of water (or chilled green tea)
- 1/4 cup Coconut milk (optional)
- Ginger (Tbsp)
There are three parts of this: the sweet ingredients, the super-healthy green ingredients, and the creamy ingredients (banana, coconut milk). The sweet ingredients end up dominating the taste, which is good, but the sweetness is cut by all the green vegetables. You can substitute in a lot of other things: spinach, sprouts, cauliflower, grape juice for apple juice, etc.
Peaches & Cream
The goal here is a lightly sweet, smooth and creamy shake. Rather than going for fiber and vitamins, you can add a lot of protein to this one.
- Frozen peaches (1 cup)
- Fresh peaches (1 cup)
- Banana (1 large or 2 small)
- Skim Milk (1 cup)
- Fat Free Yogurt (1 cup)
- 1/2 scoop Vanilla or Cookies & Cream Protein Powder
Peaches have a relatively mild flavor, so you can’t sneak in too many vegetables; the light orange color is also delicate so any greens will turn it murky (if you care about that). I can toss in a handful of carrots without changing the taste or color. Also worth considering: cottage cheese instead of yogurt, vanilla extract, coconut milk.
As long as you add enough blueberries, this smoothie has a very strong taste and a texture that accommodates grittier ingredients.
- Frozen Blueberries (1-2 cups)
- Small handful spinach
- Half cucumber
- 1 large banana
- Flax seed
You can substitute in tea or milk instead of water. A few carrots or heads of broccoli can be added as well.
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Leadership with Al Qaeda is highly selective. Only about 200 individuals have sworn loyalty (bayat) to bin Laden and provide the leadership cadre. Empty leadership positions caused by deaths and captures are filled by highly motivated subordinates. These leaders have extensive contacts in the Islamist world and communicate via the Internet.
Bin Laden recruited a large number of Afghan fighters into Al Qaeda at the end of the Afghan-Soviet War. Many of these recruits headed back to their native countries, where they formed indigenous terrorist groups. Among the more prominent groups affiliated with Al Qaeda are Abu Sayyaf (the Sword of God, Philippines), the Armed Islamic Group (the GIA, Algeria), Hezbollah (the Party of God, Lebanon), the Islamic Group (Egypt), Hamas (Palestine), the Islamic Jihad (Egypt), Jemaah Islamiyah (Indonesia), and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF, Philippines), along with at least 22 additional groups.
Al Qaeda believes in training its operatives in basic combat skills. As many as 110,000 trainees have trained in Al Qaeda camps from 1989 to 2001. Probably about 30,000 have graduated during that period. About 3,000 trainees were assessed as capable of advanced training for terrorist operations. Graduates of these camps retain their affiliation with Al Qaeda when they go elsewhere.
Al Qaeda established various training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the 1990s. Most of the instructors were Egyptians and had previous experience in the military or in security forces. After the U.S.-led Operation ENDURING FREEDOM and the loss of Afghanistan as a base, several of these camps were transferred to remote areas in Pakistan to join the Pakistani camps already there.
Instructors at the camps issue a training manual to the trainees that emphasizes teamwork, willing submission to leaders, and, above all, secrecy. Among its recommendations are that apartment living arrangements during a mission should be in groups of three. The manual also recommends that martyrdom missions have at least four targets for greatest effect.
Only a select few of the trainees were deemed worthy of a martyrdom mission. Psychological profiling was conducted by the instructors to select those most worthy. The best candidates were those who were highly religious and well educated. A graduate of the al-Masada Training Camp, Hasan Abd-Rabbuh al-Suraghi, put it another way, stating that instructors looked for candidates who were "young, zealous, obedient, and [who had] a weak character that obeys instructions without question." The instructors had no difficulty finding volunteers.
Western terrorist analysts have been confused over the extent of Al Qaeda's control over these groups. The only consensus is that Al Qaeda has been able to establish a degree of coordination among its member groups. Rohan Gunaratna, a Sri Lankan and a former research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, has described Al Qaeda as "a secret, almost virtual organization, one that denies its own existence in order to remain in the shadows."
Al Qaeda is a selective organization that rigidly oversees the selection of its members to carry out operations. It recruits only the most talented and motivated candidates, who then earn a modest salary of about $200 a month; those with great responsibilities may receive up to $300. Before the loss of Afghanistan in late 2001, Al Qaeda had trained more than 5,000 operatives in a dozen training camps to carry out terrorist operations. Recruits were processed through main training camps before being sent to various locations for specialized training. About 55 possible training locations existed.
Besides specialized training, political and religious instruction also took place. Bin Laden made regular visits to the camps, where he gave lectures and pep talks. He also held personal talks with those selected for special operations. Bin Laden met with Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah when they arrived for training in Afghanistan. Because of Al Qaeda's high prestige in the Muslim world, there are many Arabs—probably as many as 100,000—who are willing to join Al Qaeda if invited. This highly selective system is used to make operations resistant to foreign intelligence services penetration. Those agents who have attempted to penetrate Al Qaeda are killed when discovered or even suspected. In 2002 Al Qaeda had operatives active in 55 countries.
Financial support for Al Qaeda comes from a variety of sources. In the early years bin Laden used his personal fortune of $30 million–$35 million to support many of Al Qaeda's operations, but, after leaving Sudan, his personal fortune diminished, and other sources of income had to be developed. Other significant sources of funding have come from Islamic nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), such as Islamic charities and foundations. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, Western authorities attacked these NGOs, and a considerable amount of funding for Al Qaeda suddenly dried up. For a time financial support came from state sponsors—Afghanistan, Iran, and Sudan—but these sources of funding have also mostly ceased.
Al Qaeda has conducted operations in a systematic way. It developed operations by using three types of operatives. Local militants were recruited for groundwork but had no knowledge of the details of a plan. Sleepers were sent to live and work in the area long before the operation. Finally, Al Qaeda specialists and martyrs were brought in at the final stages of the mission. Once the mission was accomplished, the survivors were to go underground again. This was the type of operation that Al Qaeda carried out in the African embassy bombings. Al Qaeda planners, however, are flexible and willing to improvise in case conditions change.
Al Qaeda's first terrorist operation took place in 1992. This was the bombing of a hotel in Aden, Yemen, on December 29, 1992, that barely missed its targeted U.S. troops. On June 26, 1995, an Al Qaeda–led group attempted to assassinate Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak as he visited Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Al Qaeda cooperated with an Iranian group in a June 25, 1996, truck bombing outside the Khobar Towers in Dharhran, Saudi Arabia, that killed 19 U.S. servicemen and wounded 500 others. Its next operation was the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on August 7, 1998, killing 234 people. A suicide bombing of the American warship USS Cole on October 5, 2000, killed 17 sailors and wounded 39 others. All of these attacks paled beside the havoc of the Al Qaeda–led suicide attacks on the World Trade Center's twin towers and on the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
Since September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda has taken direct credit for or indirectly inspired a number of terrorist attacks. These included attacks in Bali (October 2002); Casablanca, Morocco (May 2003); Madrid (March 2004); London (July 2005); Amman, Jordan (November 2005); and Algiers (December 2007). Would-be suicide bombers linked directly or indirectly to Al Qaeda included the 2001 shoe bomber Richard Reid and the 2009 underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. It can be difficult, however, to ascertain the level of Al Qaeda involvement in such attacks.
The collapse of the Taliban in Afghanistan in the autumn of 2001 was a serious blow to Al Qaeda's future operations. It lost its main base for the training of its operatives, as well as a secure staging area. Another important loss was Al Qaeda's military operations chief, Mohammad Atef. He was the victim of a Predator strike in the early days of the attack on the Taliban in Afghanistan. The survival of bin Laden and his second-in-command, al-Zawahiri, has allowed Al Qaeda to reestablish operations outside of Afghanistan, although on a much more limited basis. Because of its decentralized command structure, Al Qaeda has been able to recover some of its strike capability by entrusting operations to subordinate groups. Despite this, Al Qaeda has been put on the defensive, forced to pursue operations prematurely or send operatives underground as sleepers for future operations.
Since 2003, Al Qaeda military forces have been fighting alongside Taliban forces in Afghanistan. Because bin Laden was aware in advance of the September 11 attacks, he began distributing Al Qaeda's fighting assets throughout Afghanistan so that Al Qaeda forces could survive the onslaught of American retaliation. It took the American military the three weeks until October 7, 2001, to begin offensive operations against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. During this interval, Al Qaeda dismantled its forces in Afghanistan and sent most of them into Pakistan and other central Asian countries. Most of the battles during the initial phase of Operation ENDURING FREEDOM—such as those at Tora Bora and Shahi Kowt—were delaying actions designed to allow Al Qaeda forces time to escape into Pakistan.
Besides fighting and planning future operations, Al Qaeda has become increasingly active on the Internet, where it contacts its operatives and recruits sympathizers. Al-Neda and al-Ansar have been the two most prominent websites for Al Qaeda. Information provided on these websites by Al Qaeda members gives justification for Al Qaeda operations. Al Qaeda operatives also use the Internet to post audio and video messages. Western intelligence services have tried, with only limited success, to close down these websites.
Al Qaeda and Taliban forces have made a military comeback since 2003. From secure bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan, military operations have been launched without fear of detection. The Afghan government has had to depend on North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces for security, but parts of Afghanistan have fallen into the hands of the Al Qaeda–Taliban alliance. The continued presence of U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, as well as ever-rising numbers of civilian casualties from NATO airstrikes, have increased popular support for Al Qaeda and the Taliban in recent years. But the continued instability in Afghanistan may prove to be the undoing of the Taliban–Al Qaeda alliance. In January 2010, Taliban leaders suggested that they were willing to break with Al Qaeda in order to bring about peace.
The loss of Afghanistan as a training and staging area has hindered Al Qaeda's terrorist operations. Immediately after the loss of its training camps, Al Qaeda's leadership began to look for alternate sites. An unlikely replacement has been Europe. An underground railroad of recruits for Al Qaeda has been set up from the Middle East to Germany and Great Britain. Both Germany and Great Britain have been more tolerant in their laws against suspected terrorists, although both have tightened their laws since September 11. After receiving training, many Al Qaeda recruits have returned to the Middle East and been smuggled into Iraq to join the Sunni resistance to the American occupation of Iraq, and to fight Iraq's Shiites.
The U.S. government estimates that it has captured or killed some two-thirds of Al Qaeda's top leadership. Suspected Al Qaeda members are kept at the Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp or at a network of secret Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) interrogation centers. Others have been put on trial in other countries, including Egypt and Syria, through the process of extraordinary rendition. The loose and secretive structure of Al Qaeda, combined with the revelation of certain operational errors within the U.S. military and CIA, has made it difficult to verify the two-thirds claim. For example, when Abu Zubaydah was captured in March 2002, he was believed to be third in Al Qaeda's hierarchy. After years of interrogation and torture, the U.S. government in September 2009 changed its position, asserting that it no longer believed Zubaydah had ever been a member of Al Qaeda.
On May 1, 2011 (May 2 Pakistani local time), U.S. Navy SEALs, acting on intelligence gathered over the course of several months, raided a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where bin Laden was believed to be hiding. In the ensuing firefight, bin Laden and four others were killed. Western intelligence and security forces, however, continue to consider Al Qaeda a major threat, poised to strike at any time and anywhere with any type of weapon, from biological to nuclear. This threat was underscored by the fact that shortly after the announcement of bin Laden's death, members of Al Qaeda and other extremist groups promised retribution for bin Laden's killing.
Stephen E. Atkins
Corbin, Jane. Al Qaeda: In Search of the Terror Network. New York: Thunder's Mouth, 2002; Gunaratna, Rohan. Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002; Hassan, Hamdi A. Al Qaeda: The Background of the Pursuit for Global Jihad. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell International, 2004; Wright, Lawrence. The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. New York: Knopf, 2006.
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The ever slightly oafish Pat Robertson (you remember him: that fine Christian gentleman who just a few years ago defended Chinas infanticidal one-child policy, lest he imperil his own lucrative business relations with the PRC by publically criticizing the regime) has opined that the earthquake in Haiti is only the most recent result of a curse that the nation contracted back in the days of Toussaint Louverture, when they (that is, apparently, all the Haitians and their posterity) conducted a ceremony in which they made a deal with the devil, promising him their allegiance in exchange for liberation from the French. (And here I had been thinking the problem was all those damned zombies.) I suppose, speaking anthropologically, it is interesting to know that, in the damaged imaginations of some Christians, God might really operate in that way: handing over an entire nation of souls, from the kindliest old crone to the smallest babe in arms, to relentless misery, generation after generation, as a result of a magical pact made at the end of the eighteenth century; O quam inscrutabilia sunt iudicia Dei , as the Augustinians of old were fond of saying. Not that I would be so bold as to suggest that our adversary the Devil does not go about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, and so on, but one does expect Christians to take seriously Pauls claim that all the malign or incompetent cosmic powers have been made subject to Christ, which would seem to imply that Old Scratch simply has no independent discretion in such matters. Failing that, one would hope at least that Christians are on the whole disposed to believe that God is just and merciful and”you know” good .
Setting his Manichean theology aside, however, the Rev. Robertson is a bit confused on the historical details. I imagine that the episode he has in mind is a fabled”which may be precisely the right word”Vodoun ritual of August 1791, in which a large gathering of slaves, under the leadership of a Jamaican houngan named Dutty Boukman, sacrificed a pig to the female loa Ezili Danto and pledged themselves to the overthrow of their masters. It was not a diabolist ritual as far as anyone knows, and it seems unlikely any deals were explicitly struck with the infernal polity. At least, there is no record of Satan being present at the event, either in person or by embassy, and one would think that so prominent a figure would have been noted. But, whatever the case, even though the first slave rebellion is said to have begun the day after the ceremony, it was not ultimately that band of choiroctonous animists that led the actual Haitian revolution. Toussaint Louverture”a cautious man, who took considerable time arriving at his revolutionary principles”was inspired principally by the French Revolution and the new doctrine of the Rights of Man, and the forces he led against the French, the British, and the Spaniards were a mixed lot, comprising not a few rationalist idealists.
But even if I find it highly doubtful that the Prince of Darkness can legitimately claim Haiti as his bonded fief, I think it fair to say that, in many other ways, the nation has been bedeviled throughout its history”by colonial masters who relinquished their possessions with only the most brutal reluctance, by all the other colonial and regional powers with interests in the Caribbean (which include, I regret to say, the strategic and corporate interests of the United States), by a succession of corrupt indigenous governments, by profligate abuse of the native ecology, and by one of the most spitefully destructive and unjust foreign debts ever imposed upon a poor people by a wealthy power. It is the last of these that principally concerns me here.
Any good satellite image of the island of Hispaniola is a fairly sobering picture of stark chromatic asymmetry. The eastern side of the island and the low western slopes of the central highland range, which fall within the borders of the Dominican Republic, are still green, arborescent, fertile; the western, Haitian side of the island, by contrast, is hemmed with a few emerald patches, but is otherwise dun and gray. This is not the work of nature; at one time, all of Hispaniola was verdant and fructiferous. And the difference in physical environment between the two nations reflects an equally dramatic difference in political and social fortunes.
The Dominican Republic is by no means a rich country, but it is a fairly stable one, which provides as best it can for its people, and which manages such resources as it has fairly prudently. Haiti, however, has never known a day as an independent nation when it was not sunk in abysmal poverty and beleaguered by enemies foreign and domestic. Why is this? The two peoples share much the same history: They are Catholics, descended from slaves of West African extraction, whose nations economies are largely agrarian. They speak different languages, admittedly, but that is not a great barrier between them; culturally, they are in most respects indistinguishable.
There is, however, one enormous feature of Haitis postcolonial history that sets it apart from its contiguous neighbor, and that in very large measure predetermined the nations economic fortunes from the beginning: that is, its debt to France, acquired in the early nineteenth century, which France”empire, monarchy, and republic alike”was absolutely punctilious in seeing discharged down to the last sou .
It is, of course, an extraordinarily difficult thing for any small nation”or for most large nations, for that matter”to rise out of an indurated culture of poverty. Haiti, I think, was never given a fighting chance. As soon as the small republic had won its independence, in 1804, France began to blockade its ports and embargo its goods, and continued doing so for more than twenty years. It relented at last only in 1825, when Haiti had no choice but to consent to indemnify the French government for Frances lost possessions”plantations, slaves, and so forth”on Hispaniola. The sum agreed upon was 150 gold francs, which in modern terms would be more than 21 billion dollars. This was so far in excess of Haitis actual wealth, however, that the small republic had to borrow the money; and the only creditor willing to advance the money was France itself, at an obscene rate of interest. The last payment on the debt was not made until 1947, by which time Haiti had been confirmed in its position in the world as a perpetual debtor state, never able to produce in any year more than a pitiable fraction of what it owes.
There are obviously a host of reasons why Haiti is so very poor. Many nations are at least partially culpable for its sufferings (the story, for instance, of American sugar and fruit interests on the island, and of the 1916 occupation, and of our covert support for the Duvalier dictatorship, and so forth is quite tragic and embarrassing). And the Haitians have been betrayed by their ruling class so often and so monstrously that it is difficult to isolate many historical intervals of just governance. And an earthquake as massive as the one that just struck Haiti would have done immense damage to any nation.
But, in assessing why it is that Haiti remains year after year the poorest nation in an impoverished region of the world, and why its infrastructure is built to no standard safety code whatsoever”let alone one capable of withstanding the effects of an earthquake of 7.0 on the Richter scale”one must conclude that France bears a singularly large portion of the responsibility. Of all of Haitis oppressors, France was for most of the nations history the most pitiless, the most truly diabolical . And I certainly hope”bearing as I do a great affection towards the French”that France will take this opportunity to restore to Haiti the wealth it exacted from her over the course of 143 years.
It will require some care, obviously, to make sure that such money goes to the people of Haiti and actually does something to improve their lot; and it will be years yet before anything like a habitable order will be raised out of a ruin so general. But, apart from such restitution, it is hard to imagine how France can ever properly exorcise the devils of its past dealings with Haiti.
David B. Harts most recent book is Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies.
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Leontyne Price: Voice of a Century by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Raul Colon
This picture book biography looks at the life of Leontyne Price, an African-American opera singer who burst through the color barrier. Born in Mississippi in 1927, Leontyne grew up poor in money but rich in music from both her parents. They also taught her that she was just as good as anyone else, no matter what their color. Leontyne was inspired when she saw Marian Anderson perform and then got to sing in the church choir when Anderson performed in 1939 after being barred from a whites-only concert hall. Leontyne headed to Ohio to college where she planned to be a teacher, but when her voice was discovered she changed her major to voice. She then went to Julliard and on to the world stage where she sang on Broadway in Porgy and Bess. She became the first black singer to star at La Scala and broke wide the door that Marian Anderson had first opened.
Weatherford writes in prose that reads like poetry, broken into stanzas and offering celebrations of this inspiring woman on the page. From the pride and power of her upbringing by her parents to the final pages that show how far she has come, the book captures the strength and determination that it took to take a natural gift and break down barriers with it. Weatherford’s words are filled with moments that are inspiring, times that are amazing, but she also keeps things down to earth, showing even on the final page that Price is entirely human even as she reaches incredible heights in her career.
Colon’s illustrations are beautiful. Filled with his trademark scratches and lines, they have a beautiful flowing texture that carries from one image to the next. He uses sweeping colors to show the beauty of the music coming from both Price and Anderson, filling the world with the colors of music.
A beautiful and powerful testament to one of the ground breaking artists of our time. Appropriate for ages 7-9.
Reviewed from copy received from Knopf Books for Young Readers.
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Regional temperature and rainfall worldwide will be affected by big changes that are underway in key global climate systems.
New research shows regional temperature and rainfall worldwide will be affected by big changes that are underway in key patterns in the global climate system.
The latest climate predictions and global observations suggest that shifts in key global climate patterns, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), an El Niño in the tropical Pacific and the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) are underway. They are implicated in the weak Indian monsoon and relatively inactive Atlantic hurricane season this year and will affect regional temperature and rainfall worldwide in coming years. They also affect global temperature; with a warming influence from El Nino and positive PDO, and a cooling from a negative AMO.
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For more than a decade, Adobe Photoshop has been the de facto image-editing program used by professionals and art students alike. But there are plenty of casual users who only dabble with Photoshop for simple tasks, such as photo resizing and cropping -- oblivious to the sheer power of Photoshop's graphics manipulation abilities. These decidedly non-power users (and we know some of you are included in this group) can do so more with this versatile program -- and we're here to show you how.
Whether you've just installed Photoshop for the first time or know your away around a the Tools toolbar, we put together a few of the most essential Photoshop skills to get you started on your photo editing endeavors. Before you know it, you'll be fixing up your grandmother's torn-up black and white wedding photos and airbrushing the heck out of yourself for your Facebook photo.
Understanding how to record an action script is vital to becoming a Photoshop power user. Actions can help increase productivity by using prerecorded macros to emulate repetitive tasks, allowing you to step away while your computer automatically gets the job done. In this particular tutorial, we'll show you how to resize a large batch of photos, but you can record virtually any action that may be neccessary to your Photoshop needs, including color correction, level adjustment or even applying filters.
1. Before you start this project, we suggest that you gather your images from their respective locations and place them all in one folder. This way, it will make it much easier to save a huge batch of images and access them afterward.
Fire up Photoshop and open up a photo from the set you’ve previously isolated. At this point, we only need one photo to record the action.
2. Go to Window - Actions, or use the shortcut keys Alt + F9. Click the “New Action” button. A dialog box will pop up asking you to give it a name. You also have the option to set the action as one of your defaults or assign it a function key.
3. Press the red circle in the actions palette and get ready to record. Remember that everything you do from this point on is tracked and added to the new action, so make sure that any tool you utilize follows in the precise order you'd want your macro to emulate.
Resize the photos to your desired width and height, then Save for Web... and select the file type you would like to save your image as. We suggest that you save your photos as high resolution JPEGs for use on the web, or otherwise, PNG.
4. Close your image and select the Stop symbol on the Actions palette. Your Macro should be all set for your batch of photos. Locate the folder where you stored your photos beforehand and load them all up in Photoshop.
5. Go to File – Automate – Batch; a new dialogue window will open up. Under Play – Set, which should automatically set to Default Actions, select the name of the Action you just created.
Under Source, make sure that the option Open Files is selected. Destination should be set to none, since you’ve already recorded that in your action. Click OK, sit back, and observe your macro in action.
Alternatively, you can manually set a destination for your resized images, and use the File Naming section of the Batch Process window to add prefixes, suffixes, or sequential numbers to your newly resized images. If you do this, make sure to check the "Over Action 'Save As' Commands" box as well.
They say that pen is mightier than the sword, and indeed, the Pen Tool is a powerful blade -- easily one of Photoshop's most difficult tools to use, which is why it merits giving it a bit of an introduction before you use it freeform.
Open up a new image, giving it workable dimensions (800 width by 600 height should be enough), and strike up your Pen tool by selecting it from the tool bar (or by pressing P).
We've provided a cheat sheet to give you a thorough understanding of what each option in the top navigation bar does for the Pen tool. Click on the image to enlarge it.
Download the cheat sheet if need be and try your hand at making your own shapes and curves. Keep in mind that maneuvering your pen tool can seem incredibly challenging at times. As long as you’ve got the basics down, it should be a fairly simple attempt. The trick is in figuring out how to create subpaths, which is the point at which the path starts.
To create a curve, start by clicking anywhere in your document, then click and hold elsewhere on your blank palette. Slowly drag the mouse in any direction to create an anchor point.
The bullet points now illustrate where your curve points are, which further enhance the current curve. To move these curve points, hold ALT and drag. To move the anchor point or the subpath, hold CTRL. Refer to the image below to distinguish between the subpath, an anchor point, and a curve point.
Photoshop has a great built-in tutorial on how to use the pen tool. Hit F1 to do a search in the how-to guide and keep practicing!
Using what you've just learned about the Pen Tool, we're going to trace our object, extract it, and save it as a new image.
1. Open up your image of choice. If this is your first time cutting out an object, we suggest choosing a photo that does not contain an elaborate background.
2. Select the Pen tool to begin tracing the image. Start at a decent anchor point and make a path around your image, but be precise. When you’re finished tracing, make sure the lines are all connected.
3. To make a selection out of your path, right click and select Make Selection, making sure Anti-Aliased is selected and Feathering is set to zero.
Copy it by using the Ctrl + C shortcut. Then, go to File – New, select OK and paste your image with Ctrl + V.
The window at the top left is your extracted object.
Quick Tip: You can use this same extraction technique in Adobe Image Ready to export objects from an Animated GIF. Simply load the GIF in Image Ready, select a frame, and then repeat the above steps.
Long nights toiling in the dark room have become a thing of the past, thanks to the simplification of applying photo filters and color correction. If you’re a photographer—whether casual, professional, or a serious hobbyist— knowing how to work with digital photography in Photoshop can save time and improve the visual quality of your images. Level adjustment in Photoshop lets you tweak the constrast and brightness of your photos, so you can make sharper images and highlight you photo subject.
1. Open up your image in Photoshop. Click on “Create new adjustment layer”. You’ll be given a selection list. Choose “Levels”.
You can always do contour tweaking by adjusting the Levels and Hue/Saturation of your photo from the Images - Adjustments tab. However, fine-tuning directly adjusts the layer in it’s entirety, which ruins the original photo quality and makes it difficult to do any additional contour alterations without scrapping the whole process and starting over from scratch. Using an adjustment layer avoids this pitfall and lets you play around with Levels without commiting to any changes.
Levels can be very tricky to adjust. It’s assumed that, generally, you wouldn’t need to adjust anything too drastically. In this case, we’re going to do the minimum possible to make this image a little more outstanding.
2. Photoshop uses histograms to visually represent the tonal range of your photo, which is incredibly useful in distinguishing between light shades in your image.
Play around with the levels to achieve the look you’re going for, or hit Auto to have your image instantly set to automatic levels (based on tonal range) and go from there. You can also select Options for more customization features.
The layer palette now has two layers—the original image and a levels adjustment layer. Should you change your mind about the way your photo looks, all you have to do is delete the adjustment layer.
3. Next, we want to enhance the color of the image by adjusting the hue and saturation. Like the first step, we’re going to create a New Adjustment Layer and select Hue and Saturation. Arrange your screen so that you can see both the dialogue box and the image.
Unlike the Levels box, from here you can choose between six different color schemes. For our photo, we want to increase the detail on the salad, so we only slighty increased the saturation and lowered the lightness for the reds and the yellows, which increased sharpness of the beer and tomatoes. For the lettuce and cucumbers, we muted them a bit so they wouldn't overshadow the vibrance of the other vegetables in the salad.
Adjustments for our tomatoes
Adjustments for our beer and lemon wedge
Adjustments for our lettuce and cucumber
4. You’ll notice a trio of eyedropper icons on the bottom, right side of the dialogue box, right above the rainbow color bar.
Each of these will help you accurately define the colors you wish to adjust, with the middle and right eyedroppers allowing you to add and subtract from your selection. Select the left eyedropper to select the approximate shade of the color you want to modify.
5. The sliders on the rainbow color bar at the bottom of the dialogue box can help with color fluidity—they also tell you what color you’re currently toying with. The inside brackets determine the color spectrum range and the outside ones determine how those colors blend in.
Be careful when saturating individual colors so that the image doesn’t stray too far from its original composition.
In general, level adjustments can be tricky to figure out. It may take some time before you figure out the formula to get a photo looking just the way you like it, but once you’ve played around with levels you’ll know exactly what to do for future photo projects.
Our original image looked a little bland, but this image brings more attention to the delicious food laid out on the table.
There’s no doubt that sometimes it's neccessary to fix those little nuances that plague digital photos, especially those taken indoors with a point-and-shoot camera.
Flash spots occur when the flash from the camera reflects back from the person’s face or a reflective object in the background. Suffice to say, flash spots are unflattering. They make the photo look over-exposed and take away from the overall aesthetic of the image, or they add too much shine to your subject’s face. Follow along to find out how to use Photoshop’s default filters to make your point-and-shoot photos look cleaner. You can also use this tutorial for airbrushing.
1. Point your cursor over to Image – Adjustments – Curves (or you can hit the shortcut, Ctrl + M). We’re going to use the curves to adjust the lighting in our photo.
With your mouse, click on the center-most point of the grid and drag it downward to diminish the lighting in the picture. Conversely, moving the curve upwards will increase the exposure of your image, causing it to look washed out. We want the image to be a bit dimmer than the original to remove the sheen from our subject’s face.
2. Duplicate the layer; you can do so by right clicking and selecting Duplicate Layer. Uncheck the visibility of your original image by clicking on the tiny eye icon next to it. We’ll be working with the duplicate to make all of our changes.
3. Go to Filter – Blur - Gaussian Blur and increase the radius only slightly until the shiny spots begin to fade away. Be careful not to blur out the entire photo.
4. Now, we want to bring back some texture to the image, especially if we want any semblance of human skin on your subjects. Go back to Filter and select Noise – Add Noise. Make sure Gaussian is selected and Monochromatic is unchecked.
Decrease the percentage so that it doesn’t look like rainbow speckles. Click okay, and now you have your base image, which we will fuse with our original to remove the flash spots.
5. Activate the original layer by clicking on the small eye icon. Select the eraser tool, pick a brush size, and make sure to turn down the hardness to zero percent in the brushes dialogue box. The master diameter of your brush really depends on the picture and the person featured in the picture; you want to make sure that you don’t use too big of a brush.
This is what the brush tool dialogue box looks like.
6. Touch up the areas that you see the flash spots, doing so slightly by sponging the area with your brush. Be careful not to remove too much when you’re removing flash spots from human faces as you could lose depth, causing your subjects to look flat (and fake!). Remember to zoom in and fix miniscule areas like gums and teeth, just for posterity.
This trick is incredibly essential for anyone looking to restore ancient family treasures for photo albums and preservation. Make sure that when you scan the photo, you do so at a high resolution to ensure the highest possible photo quality.
Click on the photo to get the original and take a closer look at its imperfections.
1. Open up your black and white photo, complete with scratches and whatever other imperfections may be present. Zoom in to get an accurate depiction of how severe your scratches are.
2. This next process can become incredibly meticulous, so put on your patience hat and prepare for mass amounts of left-mouse button clicking. (Alternatively, if you have a WACOM tablet lying around, now would be the time to put that thing to use since you can use the digitizer pen instead of incessantly clicking your mouse.)
Select the Spot Healing Brush tool from the toolbar, or press J on your keyboard. This particular tool will help clean up any small, unwanted marks from an image even more easily than the standard Healing brush (which, basically, copies and pastes). The Spot Healing Brush will make its own sample from the pixels around the mark and match in texture, tone and lighting.
Setting the mode will change the results of how your brush emulates the area surrounding it. For this project, you’ll want to use the “Replace” option, which will retain the grain, noise and texture of the original image, and select the “Proximity Match” option, which will emulate the pixels around the edge of the brush shape.
Toward the top of the window, you should see an option for brush size. Select whatever size you think best suits the scratch and make sure that Hardness is set to zero. Keep in mind that the brush size should really depend on the width and height of what you’re trying to fix. Just make sure that the brush size doesn’t exceed those parameters, otherwise you’ll constantly be hitting Ctrl + Z to undo.
3. Trace over any and all scratches in your photo. Instead of holding the left-mouse button down and dragging it over the scratches, click on the problem areas as if you were dabbing at it with a sponge. This is the most effective way to remove the scratches. However, if you’re fixing scratches in a lightly colored sky scene, you can very well drag the mouse across the scratch without any problem, but don’t go too crazy with your strokes—this method only works well if you make horizontal strokes.
If you see that your method doesn’t work for the darker areas of the photo, try reducing your brush size to fit each of the tiny specks on the picture and zoom in so the process doesn’t become too tedious.
4. Similarly, you could also use the Healing Brush Tool, which emulates a sample of your photo. It is almost like using the paintbrush and coloring over your image in one particular shade. This method works depending on the range of shades in the photo.
Once you’re finished, save your image at the highest resolution PNG. The end result may not look too different from its predecessor, but bear in mind that your picture can now be easily duplicated and printed out as a high quality photo.
This process can either test your patience or turn out to be a fairly simple task—it really depends on the complexity of the background in your image. In this case, we're going to use the Clone Tool to ensure that we can mask what once was. Copy and paste your photo into a new layer (or right-click and select “Duplicate Layer”). Having two layers means that you can mess one up and still retain the original, in case you run into some trouble and need to start over from scratch.
Click on the image to download the original and try out the tutorial for yourself
1. Select the Pen Tool and trace the main subject of your photo. This is to ensure that the Clone Stamp doesn’t identify the main image as something it should duplicate.
Right click and select “Make Selection”. When the dialogue box appears, make sure there is zero feathering selected, and then press “OK”.
Invert the selection so that everything else is selected except for what you traced. You can do so by going to Select – Inverse or by hitting Ctrl + Shift + I.
2. Select the Cloning Stamp Tool by pressing S. Scan your image and look for a suitable area to clone. This can be a tricky decision—if you choose the wrong spot, your image will look out of whack. We suggest that you clone certain areas one section at a time.
Hold the Alt key and click your left-mouse button to select a section of your background, and then choose a brush size. Make sure it’s set at Normal and Zero percent hardness, and that it feathers a bit.
3. Start the cloning process by repeatedly clicking with your mouse over the object you want to remove. It also becomes easier to do so if you zoom into the image. Look for repeating patterns and make sure when you dab with your clone tool that it matches the background—attention to detail is extremely crucial for pulling this off.
When you choose sections, try going horizontally for accuracy.
4. When you’re finished, and if your endeavor proved successful, delete your duplicated layer and save your image.
This tool also works well at removing scratches out of color photos and objects that seem out of place in a photo, such as a lamp post or a trash can.
What better way to finish off a soiree of Photoshop tutorials than by adding text? Text lets you add witty remarks and character to your image, giving it a sense of completion—or, you could be accidentally generating the next big meme. Either way, here’s a few tips on how to lively up your photos, besides adding thought bubbles or diagonal text.
You’ll need to create a path for the text to follow; do this by selecting the pen tool and make sure that paths is selected in the options bar towards the top of the window. Go ahead and create yourself a fun little shape. You can pretty much shape it however you like, but make sure it has some sort of fluidity. Otherwise, the text could come out looking a bit awkward and illegible.
You can also type according to the outline of a preloaded Photoshop shape or manipulate the text box so that the end result looks like the shape itself. To do so, make sure you have the pen tool selected and click the shape you’d like for your text box (it can be anything: a square, a circle, a heart, or a custom shape). Make sure that it is selected and then point your cursor inside the box (your cursor will have the text symbol with a circle around it). Click and type.
Take note of the various cursor states. You can decide on a start-point by dragging the cursor either way—the choice is yours. When you’re finished, you can either click on the outside of the shape selection or click on the check mark on the right side of the options bar, towards the top of the window.
Quick Tip: You can make your own shapes for the text boxes if you have a very complex graphic. Simply select the pen tool, customize your shape (making sure all open ends are closed), and then right click “Define Custom Shape”. Give it an alias of your choice and accept the changes. It should be available at the end of the custom shapes list.
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Ottawa will soon be home to Canada’s largest eco-friendly department store, offering local consumers thousands of environmentally sustainable products.
With more than 12,000 green products, among them eco-friendly housewares, cosmetics, toys and clothing, the store will contain the largest selection of environmentally responsible goods under one roof in North America.
Set to occupy part of the former Ikea building at the Pinecrest Shopping Centre in Nepean, the new store will be called terra20, and will be the first outlet in what the owners hope will become a national green retail chain.
The store will also offer an ecobar where customers can refill cleaning supplies into their own containers, thereby reducing packaging.
The grand opening of the 20,000-square-foot location (15,000 of which will be retail floor space and 5,000 warehouse space) is scheduled for September 15.
“If we are ready we will open a few days ahead of schedule,” says Pamela Tourigny, terra20’s community manager. “But not too much before that.
The brainchild of local entrepreneur Steve Kaminski, executive director of the Colonnade Group of Companies and a board member of the Ottawa Hospital Foundation, the idea for terra20 was sparked by a home building project.
“Steve was building a home a number of years ago and he was trying to incorporate sustainable materials,” recounts Tourigny. “He did a search of where he could get these materials but he found that there was no one-stop place to get them.”
This realization inspired Kaminski to come up with the idea of a department store that specialized in green merchandise.
Partnering with Bill Stewart, who has more than 20 years worth of experience in retail and is now the president of terra20, Kaminski was able to put in place his vision of founding an eco-friendly retailer.
An integral part of this vision is the participation of the store’s suppliers.
As part of its vendor agreements, terra20 requires each supplier to appear in the store either in person or virtually at least once a year in order to talk about their goods.
“Our intent is to have a few vendors in our store on a weekly or a bi-weekly basis,” says Tourigny. “We want them to interact with our customers (so they can) give their products a shot because they are great products.”
However, with suppliers across Canada, the United States and Europe, accommodations will need to be made for some of the presentations.
“It’s not very eco to have them flying from all over the place,” says Tourigny about suppliers who live far from Ottawa. The company is therefore looking at virtual options such as having presentations via Skype or video link when necessary.
“We are still working on that,” adds Tourigny.
While the Ottawa location will be the first terra20 store, the plan is to expand across the country. According to a media report, a second store is being planned for Toronto, with a possible launch next year.
When asked about future expansion plans, however, Tourigny says that nothing has been finalized.
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I do not know if there is 'something' in all yellow legged Leghorns, but in my experience there must be something in yellow legged black Leghorns from England. I have a black hen with very yellow legs. When crossed to 'ordinary browns', her daughters' legs go dusky(as if it was recessive). Can anybody else confirm this observation?
Yes, had similar results crossing yellow-legged black Jap roo (Id/Id) (ER/ER or E?) to Jubilee Indian Game bantam hen (wheaten, I/i+, Id/-). But the daughters weren't dusky, they were very dark legged (including I/i+ het. Dominant Whites). The sons were darkish/dusky when juveniles & ended up clean yellow-legged.
Fred Jeffrey (Bantam Breeding & Genetics) noted similar with Cote's study, with a cross between a yellow-legged Blue Frizzle Cochin (E/E ml+/ml+ co+/co+ Id w/w, * didn't distinguish between E or ER in this study) roo x Brown Leghorn hen (e+/e+ Id/-) where offspring had 'willow' legs.
*It's probably a sex-influenced trait, not sex-linked.
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[show abstract][hide abstract] ABSTRACT: The stable conformations of GABA(A)-benzodiazepine receptor bivalent ligands were determined by low temperature NMR spectroscopy and confirmed by single crystal X-ray analysis. The stable conformations in solution correlated well with those in the solid state. The linear conformation was important for these dimers to access the binding site and exhibit potent in vitro affinity and was illustrated for alpha5 subtype selective ligands. Bivalent ligands with an oxygen-containing linker folded back upon themselves both in solution and the solid state. Dimers which are folded do not bind to Bz receptors.
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This video features the latest generation of machine tenders developed by FANUC Robotics Authorized Integrators Automated Cells & Equipment. This, their Model LT10D Machine Tender, utilizes the FANUC M-10iA Robot.
The machine tending process starts when an operator loads three of the conveniently located drawers outside the robot cell and starts the machine tool cycle. The FANUC M-10iA Robot opens the top drawer, grips the first part, and begins the machine tending process. Finished parts may be loaded back into the drawer, or placed on a takeaway conveyor and removed from the system.
Automated Cells & Equipment Model LT10D Machine Tender is a drawer-based robotic machine tending solution that can be matched with a FANUC M-10iA or FANUC M-20iA six-axis, articulated robot. This system provides a flexible part handling system for tending virtually any machine tool including CNC lathes, mills or grinders. The LT10D frees up valuable operator time and maximizes the run time of the machine tool, leading to increased throughput and production. Even "lights out" production is possible with the LT10D.
Sample parts are just a push button away. When requested, the LT10D will produce a sample part to the operator via a slide chute. This allows the operator to validate part quality and make on-the-fly adjustments to the machine tool without interrupting the production process. A convenient tabletop is provided above the drawer system for the location of gages and other quality check materials.
Interested in this Automated Machining Center? Follow the link to request a robot quote, or learn more about our full line of innovative Machine Loading Robots.
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Does consumption of fish or fish oil supplements like EndurOmega increase prostate cancer risk?
Absolutely not, though the mainstream media would have us believe otherwise, with the blitz of alarming headlines and news stories regarding study results published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute July 2013 issue . We remain convinced that consuming omega-3 fatty acids benefits overall health, including prostate health, and an overwhelming body of research over the years confirms it.
The media frenzy concerning fish and fish oil supplementation was sparked by the SELECT study (Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial), which claims a link between higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids in the blood - specifically DHA, EPA, and DPA (all found in EndurOmega) - and an increased risk of prostate cancer
However, the following flaws in the study invalidate the findings:
1) The SELECT study was designed to review vitamin E and selenium intake - not fish oil - on prostate cancer risk.
2) This study did not monitor whether the male subjects ate fish or took fish oil supplements. It is not possible to link blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids and prostate cancer if there is no data to confirm how much fish or fish oil supplements, if any, were consumed.
3) The results were based solely on only one blood sample, taken very early in the study, to check for fatty acid levels in the blood. This particular test only indicates what a person ate over the course of a few hours; it has no bearing on medium-to-long-term consumption and certainly not over a six-year period as was the case with this study. Because blood levels of fatty acids rapidly change with short-term dietary alterations, it's misleading to flat-out wrong to link plasma omega-3 levels from a single blood test with an increased risk of prostate cancer.
4) Even if the results of this single blood test are taken into account, the differences are too minuscule to draw any meaningful conclusions. The men who had omega-3 blood levels of 4.48% were less likely to have prostate cancer, while those with a fractional 0.18% increase (4.66%) had astronomically higher rates - 44% greater risk of low-grade prostate cancer and a 71% increased risk of high-grade prostate cancer. Dr. Peter Bongiorno states, "The authors made a terrific leap by suggesting that this infinitesimally small number was enough to somehow promote cancer. The article also gave no information about how the fish oils could have possibly caused the cancer."
5) Other factors that contribute to cancer were never taken into account! Over 50% of the men in the study smoked, nearly 65% consumed alcohol regularly, and a whopping 80% were obese. How these vitally important factors could be overlooked or disregarded is astonishing.
Omega-3 fatty acids BENEFIT prostate health!
One study that included nearly 50,000 men showed that increased levels of EPA and DHA - the two fatty acids found primarily in fish and fish oil supplements - was correlated with a decreased risk of prostate cancer .
A study from Harvard that included more than 293,000 men concluded that a significantly lower rate of fatal prostate cancer was associated with increased omega-3 fatty acid intake .
A 2010 meta-analysis of over 15,000 men found a 63% reduction in prostate cancer death rates in those with higher fish consumption .
A study involving 6,300 Swedish men over a 30-year period showed that those who didn't eat fish had a 200% - 300% higher rate of prostate cancer as compared to the men who consumed large amounts of fish .
After evaluating this particular study and how the results were obtained, it is simply not rational to implicate omega-3's as being a cause for prostate cancer, especially given the abundance of existing and undeniably more credible research showing that omega-3's positively influence prostate health. We adamantly don't believe the misleading and inaccurate media hype and neither should you. The bottom line is that consumption of omega-3 fatty acids from fish or fish oil supplements (EndurOmega) benefit numerous areas of overall health, including prostate health.
Suggested additional reading:
Do Fatty Acids Really Increase Risk of Prostate Cancer?
Evaluating the results of the recent report from the SELECT Trial
Brasky TM, Darke AK, Song X, et al. Plasma Phospholipid Fatty Acids and Prostate Cancer Risk in the SELECT Trial. Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Jul 10 2013.
Leitzmann MF, Stampfer MJ, Michaud DS, et al. Dietary intake of n-3 and n-6 fatty acids and the risk of prostate cancer. The American journal of clinical nutrition. Jul 2004;80(1):204-216.
Bosire C, Stampfer MJ, Subar AF, et al. Index-based dietary patterns and the risk of prostate cancer in the NIH-AARP diet and health study. American journal of epidemiology. Mar 15 2013;177(6):504-513.
Szymanski KM, Wheeler DC, Mucci LA. Fish consumption and prostate cancer risk: a review and meta-analysis. The American journal of clinical nutrition. Nov 2010;92 (5):1223-1233.
Terry P et al. Fatty fish consumption and risk of prostate cancer. Lancet 2001; 357: 1764-6
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Local Treasure Diver Brings His Booty to Kobey’s
Joe Barnett doesn’t like to call himself a treasure hunter; he considers himself a researcher who has employed scientific methods to recover ancient artifacts, stashes of old coins and silver and gold jewelry. He’s legitimately acquired a hefty booty from salvaging sunken ships.
He brings some of his treasures to Kobey’s on weekends when he’s not away on a diving trip, which isn’t often. He dives 365 days a year, regularly traveling thousand of miles to locations all over the world. A resident of La Jolla, Barnett funds his trips by selling some of his finds, some found off our local shores.
Barnett’s simple booth attracts a steady stream of shoppers who stop to study his collection which includes authentic Spanish silver “pieces of eight” coins, bronze floor spikes from sunken merchant vessels, cannon balls and smaller “grape shot,” Spanish crosses and a nautical rope heavy with gold rings.
Referring to the rope, he explains: “That’s my booty. These rings are from modern ship wrecks, sailboats and yachts, while I’m looking for old coins on the scattering of a ship wreck.”
If a ring has a name or store name engraved on it, Barnett will attempt to trace it back to the owner to inquire if they wish to have it back. His finder’s fee is simply the worth of the gold.
For those who strike his fancy with a good question or a shared interest, Barnett might reveal one of his special artifacts which he keeps close by, but hidden away. These we’ll leave for Kobey’s treasure hunters to discover for themselves.
About himself, Barnett comments: “You could call a person like me a treasure hunter, but the term has a bittersweet connotation. I’m more on the legitimate side of the ledger. For instance, I found a slave ship which needs to be photographed so I won’t touch it because I want it done right That tells you something about me. I’ve also found two other important wrecks which have cannons around them. One looks like a Brinks truck on its side. I’m sure that will have lots of coins. It’s a galleon or a war ship, I’m not sure which, but it’s a time capsule, therefore it should be worked properly.”
Barnett has worked as a consultant on big treasure dive operations and regularly lectures on the topic. His biggest find came when working with Mel Fisher, world-renowned treasure diver, when salvaging the Spanish treasure galleons the Nuestra Señora de Atocha and the Santa Margarita. He recovered a 24kt. Gold and emerald necklace worth millions of dollars alone.
His most exciting personal finds include an intact cutlass sword, a pair of solid gold pointers and a chunk of concretion loaded with silver pieces of eight. These he could keep to himself.
About treasure diving, Barnett explains: “It has its own inertia. When you’re out in the field, finding things and first touching them after 500, 600 years, there’s nothing like it. But the research and history is the most interesting.”
Shoppers can sort through pictures of Barnett’s many trips and hundreds of artifacts recovered over his 20 years of diving.
Besides selling booty to pay his bills and travel expenses, Barnett returns to Kobey’s because it is a storehouse for him.
He says: “The magic of the swap meet is you never know what you’re going to find or who you’re going to meet. I had people come up and start telling me [ship wreck] stories. I thought, that’s interesting. That makes sense. People would show me things or pictures, and they helped me do research.”
In terms of the jewelry, Barnett asks a fair but firm price. Any piece he believes is of importance from a gemstone point of view he has appraised by friend and jeweler Carl Winchell of La Jolla. He encourages his buyers to have their pieces appraised to assess full value.
Barnett has many friends in the field with different areas of artifact expertise. They help him assess the value of some of his finds. Prices are very reasonable at his table. He was asking just $200 each for his pieces of eight coins, a fair trade for an object only to increase in value.
Barnett is available to private parties as a consultant, lecturer and sometimes will search for incidental losses. He has a reputation around the local dive circuit and those looking to secure his services usually find him that way.
Joe Barnett does not have a permanent space at Kobey’s, but can usually be found on I/H row or the back section.
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It is common these days for us to have many casual friends. Social networking sites make it very easy for us to connect with others in a friendly way and share our personal thoughts, feelings, and moments with like-minded people. Although we are generally interacting with a larger quantity of people than ever, we are nevertheless, lonelier than ever. This age is being called by some “the age of loneliness” and it is estimated the one in five Americans suffers from persistent loneliness.
So many of us feel lonely deep inside, even though we may be popular in our social circles, have the admiration of many friends, and even be married with children. Being surrounded by people does not make us less lonely. It may keep us busy. It may temporary distract us from the loneliness we feel. But it does not solve the problem of loneliness. Loneliness is an inner condition of emptiness, so cannot be resolved through changing our external situations. Filling our life with people is not synonymous with filling our hearts with love.
So what can we do to solve the problem of loneliness?
If we understand the root cause of the problem, then we can apply the appropriate remedy.
The problem of loneliness is not just a mental, emotional, or physical problem. It is actually much deeper than this. It is a condition of spiritual emptiness caused by our strong identification with the huge world of materiality and a corresponding lack of awareness of our true spiritual identity.
Most of us grow up in the assumption that we are our bodies and our minds. If asked to describe ourselves, we will immediately begin describing the features of our body and mind. I am a man or woman, with a particular age, body type, ethnicity, occupation, family and social roles, and so on. I am passionate, energetic, friendly, out-going, and artistic. Generally, we identify so closely with our mind and body that we fully believe this is who we are. But here is the reality of the situation clearly explained by Jagad Guru
However, according to the ancient yoga scriptures and other bona fide scriptures of the world, this is not who we are. In actuality, we are the eternal spiritual self who is temporarily wearing the mind and body. The mind and body are like layers of clothes. The gross physical body is like an outer layer of clothes. The mind, or subtle body, is like an under layer of clothes. Just as we are not the shirt, pants, etc. that we currently have on, we are not these “clothes” either. The mind and body are made of material energy, but we are made of a totally different kind of energy – spiritual energy.
Although most of us live under the misconception that we are material and completely base our life upon this fallacy, we can never be material. We are eternally spiritual, eternally separate from material energy by our very constitution. When we are not aware of our true spiritual identity, we will try very hard to find satisfaction in living as if we were material – constantly searching for fulfillment in sense pleasures and relationships based upon physical and mental connections. However, these interactions can never fulfill us. Whatever pleasure or warmth we derive from these activities does not actually touch us, but stays on the surface level of the mind (thoughts, emotions, etc.) and physical body – on the level of our “clothes.”
This is why we can feel so lonely and empty deep inside, even if our lives are full with relationships and social activity. Our problem cannot be solved through increasing or improving our material relationships. Rather, we need to engage in a relationship that will actually fulfill the spiritual self (us) wearing the material coverings. We need to engage in a conscious relationship with our spiritual Source, the very foundation of our existence.
Our longing for loving connection in this world is actually a longing to be reunited with our Supreme Friend. When we turn away from our spiritual nature and become lost in our material coverings, we unconsciously look for the Supreme in the temporary forms and relationships of this material world. We try to recreate the divine closeness and love that we are deeply missing. But because what we are looking for can only be found in our relationship with the Supreme Person, we feel a constant emptiness in the core of our hearts, a longing for a lost love , a pervasive and seemingly inexplicable loneliness. This is the loneliness of our age – a loneliness caused by our forgetfulness of our most essential relationship.
Fortunately, the Supreme Person Himself provides us with a way to reconnect with Him – to remember Him, to know and relate with Him in a very direct and personal way, and to naturally develop our love for Him. All scriptures of the world recommend meditation on the transcendental Names of the Supreme Person. In the yoga scriptures, this method for linking up with Supreme is described in detail and very clearly designated as the primary method for this day and age.
In the yoga system, this meditation is called mantra meditation. A mantra is a Name of God. When we hear and repeat a mantra, we are actually putting ourselves in the direct presence of the Supreme. This is because His Names are not ordinary sound. Rather, they are the Supreme Person in the form of spiritual sound vibration.
The Supreme in the form of spiritual sound descends from the spiritual platform to the material world without losing any of His potencies. Unlike us, He is never influenced by the material energy. The Supreme is always the Supreme regardless of where or how He chooses to appear. In this case, He appears as spiritual sound vibration to give those who want to personally know and relate with Him an easily accessible way to do this.
When we hear and chant or sing these transcendental Names of the Supreme, we are purifying our consciousness of material influence and realigning ourselves with the Supreme. The more purified our consciousness becomes, the more we are able to directly experience the presence of the Supreme Person in His Names and in our hearts . Through daily practice of mantra meditation, we become gradually more and more open to receive the warmth and love of God, – and the seed of love for Him sprouts and grows within us. In this way, we can cultivate a close and personal relationship with our Supreme Friend.
Thus, we can realize for ourselves the truth related in the scriptures – that God is not just an impersonal energy or someone who is so distant from us that we must worship Him from afar. He is our best Friend, closest relative, and ever well-wisher. He is most happy when He can relate with us in a very sweet, friendly, open, and loving way. And we are most happy when we can relate with Him in this way, too.
This is the solution to our problem of loneliness. When we are living daily in awareness of our true identity and are actively engaged in cultivating our inner relationship with our eternal Friend, our hearts are naturally full with the happiness and warmth of love. This is a spiritual fullness, so is not dependent upon any material factor. Whether we are in solitude or surrounded by friends and family, whether we are being revered or rejected, our heart remains fixed and full in transcendental love due to our loving relationship with God.
Even in the darkest of times, when all other friends and fortune may have left us, even when we leave our body at the end of our lifetime, our Supreme Friend remains with us. Through embracing His Names, we can feel Him within our heart, sweetly reminding us by His presence that we are never truly alone.
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Every Hour Is Happy Hour In Moutai, China's 'New Town of National Liquor'
Move over, South Beach. Fugeddaboutit, Cannes. The world capitol of partying hearty has found a new home in Moutai, China's “New Town of National Liquor”! Actually it's not the drunk & drunker crowd who are setting up house & home in the town where every hour is Happy Hour – nor are its new residents doing so by choice.
It all has to do with Moutai, China's national drink with a sparkling history that goes back 800 years. Moutai is a spirit distilled from fermented sorghum that is available in a range of proofs.
It has always been thought that the unique climate of the town of Moutai, located in Guizhou province in southwestern China, gave Moutai the drink its exceptionally smooth taste and scent. As the town's population grew and nearby rivers used by the main brewery Kweichow Moutai became polluted, concern rose that China's national drink would lose both its flavor and its reputation.
A solution was found that addresses the pollution problem and the interests of the people of the town of Moutai. Almost 400 small independent distilleries will be closed and up to 16,000 people will be relocated to the “New Town of National Liquor” some distance away.
The costs of the move are being underwritten by China Kweichow Moutai Distillery Co. and the Guizhou provincial government which has already spent more than 3 billion yuan ($450 million) to protect the Chishui River from which the brewery draws its water.
What will life be like for those who've made the move to China's New Town of National Liquor? Will driving become more risky than usual? Will Chinese university students flood the town on the country's version of Spring Break?
And of course, won't someone think about the children before the whole social experiment ends up, er, on the rocks? (via Xinhuanet, China Daily and China Today)
Please sign up for my latest chinese inventions articles here.
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St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church is a community of faithful people striving to live as people of faith. The mission of the Church is to reconcile people to God and each other in Christ. The way in which we live out our mission is through adoration, formation, and transformation.
By adoration we mean the worship of the Triune God in spirit and truth. We worship God with our body, mind, and spirits and seek him in the sacraments – Christ’s gifts to the Church. The core of our adoration is the continual offering of the most Holy Eucharist, commonly called the Mass.
By formation we do not mean education, although education is a part of formation. Formation is the shaping of world-views, behaviors, and relationships through engagement with the Biblical story, Traditions of the Church, and fellowship with other people of faith.
By transformation we mean the changed life that emerges when the people of God adore him and are formed by him. This changed life is not content with a broken world or injustice. Those who are being transformed by the grace of Christ live as graceful agents of transformation in our community and world.
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India’s ambitious national solar mission has a domestic content requirement (DCR) on solar panels, intended to create a local solar manufacturing base. Under the plan, a subsidy of up to Rs 1 crore per MW has been offered to solar developers sourcing components from local manufacturers. It also stipulates that 10% of the solar capacity target of 100,000 MW by 2022 should be built with domestically manufactured solar modules, which has led to a small part of the solar auctions being reserved for developers employing only domestic content. The US filed a case against this provision with the WTO a couple of years ago, arguing that it’s a protectionist plan that goes against the tenet of free trade.
Indian Government had offered a compromise recently saying that domestic content requirement would not be imposed on private solar developers or made part of the auctions and would be restricted to public services such as the railways and defense, which would come under the umbrella of “Government procurement” and should be exempted from WTO policies. But the US did not consider this alternative and pressed on with the case.
The WTO recently ruled this scheme “inconsistent with Article 2.1 of the TRIMS (Trade-Related Investment Measures) and Article III:4 of the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) 1994”. As a result of this, the DCR clause will have to be scrapped from the National Solar Mission, if the Indian Government accepts this ruling.
Precedent set by Ontario (Canada)
There is historical precedent in a case like this. WTO had ruled against a similar program of Ontario, a Canadian province. Under their program, 25% of all wind generating equipment and 60% of all solar generating equipment to be sourced from Ontario based production to qualify for Feed-In-Tariffs offered by the state. WTO, in ruling against this case, had called the scheme protectionist and non-compliant with international trade rules, so India could see it coming.
Why this is good news for Indians
Economists have always argued in favor of imports, wherever it makes economic sense, with the term comparative advantage. It argues that international efficiencies will make things cheaper for the global good. And this case is a good example in favor of comparative advantage. Reports have said that India's solar manufacturers largely assemble products with the basic material purchased primarily from China. Indian solar cells, as a result of which, are 8-10% costlier than those from China or Taiwan and are often technologically inferior. This means that the bids in solar auctions have to be higher for electricity produced from inferior panels, a trend that doesn’t help either the solar producer or the consumer
Lower cost for panels will lead to lower price of power produced and lower auction pricing. Not only is this good news for consumers in the near term (lower electricity prices), it’s going to arguably change the trajectory of solar installations. With a lower production cost, solar power can compete better with fossil fuels and that will help India not only meet the solar goals but also the climate goals. It can be argued that this ruling will only burnish India’s leadership in the world.
Need for defining next steps objectively
India has already said that they will challenge this ruling further with WTO. This ruling is a very public blow to the “Make In India” campaign that PM Modi has championed and could seem embarrassing to some. However, the Government needs to assess its priorities carefully and consider generating of cheaper and greener electricity at par with becoming a manufacturing super power. And there are ways to solve for these two objectives simultaneously. Instead of schemes like DCR, India should look to incentivize production of such products in manners which are WTO compatible like giving direct subsidies to domestic manufacturers, tax breaks, ensuring a strong line of long term credit at low rates, collaborating with global leaders to enhance domestic research and development.
The latter will create a much more sustainable manufacturing base that’s not dependent on government protection. For all of us who have lived through the protectionist era (think: Maruti cars or landline phones), it’s not an image you want to associate with the thriving Indian solar sector that’s setting global standards for speed and scale.
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and ETEnergyworld.com does not necessarily subscribe to it. ETEnergyworld.com shall not be responsible for any damage caused to any person/organisation directly or indirectly.
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Canary Wireless Digital Hotspotter@ 2005/08/04
for a signal. Now, many manufacturers are selling portable WiFi detectors that fit easily in your pocket. The problem
with the majority of these is they will only tell you if you've got a signal and the signal strength. The problem with
that is there's no way to tell if the WiFi network is Encrypted or not. Today we take a look at a new next generation
WiFi detector from Canary Wireless, their Digital Hotspotter. Not only can it detect opened and closed networks, it can
tell you the SSID as well as other information.
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very fun way for toddler to learn English Alphabets.
* Full ABC
* All Alphabets
* Without any restrictions
* Real sound and human pronunciations
Let your kids learn English Alphabets in an easier way by relating each Alphabet with an animal. Sounds interesting right? :) :)
Under Active development please send your suggestions / comments on possiblesofts.com
Animal ABC is an application which will teach kids English Alphabets in a friendly manner. Each letter will relate to an Animal with its real picture and sound, along with this there will an Human voice mentioning the letter and the name of the letter. This would help your child to become familiar with the alphabets, human and their sounds.
Learning English Alphabets would never have been so much fun :)
Here Animals are sequenced in such a way that their names are in the same flow as the alphabets, that is, A to Z. Animal ABC shows the name of the animal with the first character highlighted.
t this age, should be enjoyed learning about letters and numbers. Workbooks can be a lot of time when your child goes to school.When spending time together, letters and numbers when you look at them and point out additional learning and encourage curiosity.
Preschool aged children learn the alphabet letter names and letter recognition, and will practice finding letters in context.
This simple educational game teaches children the alphabet letters to recognize words as they appear. As a result, preschoolers learn the letters of the words are made of.
Keywords: Kids, ABC, ABCs, Letters, Reading, Educational, Children, Games, Preschool, Preschool-aged,alphabet ,game, learning ,teaching apps for kids, baby ,toddler , flashcards, pronunciation, abcd, kid, Child, School, Kindergarten, Phonics, Reading, Animal , Sound, voice
Tags: alphabets for kids , a to z alphabets with pictures for kids , alphabets with pictures for kids , alphabets for children , abcd alphabets with pictures for kids , alphabets for children with pictures , abcd alphabets with pictures , alphabets for kids with pictures , kids learning picture cards
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As we head into Christmas, a few reminders for charitable contributions. It doesn’t matter if you are giving as part of a holiday contribution program or for tax reasons; you need to do it correctly to prevent future problems.
- Make sure that the organization to which you are contributing is an authorized organization. You can check on the IRS web site. If the organization you want to contribute to isn’t listed, check and see if they are working under another tax deductible organization’s umbrella. Not being listed doesn’t mean that they aren’t a good organization doing good work. You just can’t deduct your contributions to them on your tax return.
- All the small gifts you make, like cash into the Salvation Army bucket, won’t be deductible unless you write them a check or get a receipt. You may have the best intentions but there is no deduction without some documentation.
- If you give more than $250, you have to have a contemporary receipt. Your check is not enough to prove your deduction. Also, make sure that your receipt has the correct date and lists any good and services you received as part of the contribution. You are only allowed to deduct the amount of the contribution less the value of the goods and services received. Even if the tax deductible organization doesn’t give you anything in return for your contribution, their receipt must say that in order to be acceptable to the IRS.
- Get the receipt at the time you make the contribution. The IRS won’t accept one written later.
- If you are giving goods, follow the special rules for those. Make of list of everything you are contribution as you put your donation together. Once you know what you are dropping off, you can calculate the value using one of the contribution value lists. And do get a receipt from the receiving organization to document that you did give the goods. Just staple this to your inventory and pricing and put with you tax records. Salvation Army List. Goodwill (downloads).
- There are some non-cash donations, like cars or art, which have special rules. Make sure you follow them. Get independent appraisals for large ticket contributions and anything appreciable.
Helping a charity is a good feeling but if you also want the good feeling of saving on your taxes, you need to follow the IRS’s rules on documentation.
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Thirty years ago this past week, Sire Records released Madonna’s debut album. Although it only created one pop icon, Madonna the album was the culmination of months of effort by diverse artists, photographers, executives and musicians. “The first new wave disco music,” as one of her friends described it, carried plenty in its DNA: bouncy R&B grooves; traces of the last gasps of the pre-AIDS Downtown NYC culture; and, of course, the force of personality of the future Queen of Pop.
In early 1982, Madonna was 23 years old. In the four years since leaving Detroit for New York City, she’d earned her starving-artist bona fides, working at a Dunkin Donuts, sleeping in an abandoned Queens synagogue and rocking studded bracelets, ripped jeans and bleached, cropped hair. She’d traveled as a backup dancer for French disco singer Patrick Hernandez and auditioned for Martin Scorsese’s Last Temptation of Christ. She’d also gone into a Times Square studio with her ex-bandmate (and ex-boyfriend) Steven Bray and recorded a demo of four songs. With her music, she hoped to capture the attention of “the kind of people who might like Grace Jones.” It was that hope, and that demo, that she brought with her one Saturday night to the Danceteria nightclub.
Seymour Stein, founder, Sire Records:
Mark Kamins was the best DJ in New York. I followed him to various clubs – I didn’t dance, but I liked the way he spun. He could mix Portuguse and Indian music with whatever was going on in England at the time. I gave him some work to remix some things for me. One day he said, “I want to be a producer. Let me work with one of your new artists.” I said, “I can’t do that, Mark. You don’t have a track record.” But I said, “Why don’t you bring me an artist. Then the artist is indebted to you.” I gave him $18,000 to record demos for six artists.
Michael Rosenblatt, A&R, Sire Records:
Mark Kamins told me there was this girl who had a demo and was trying to get him to play it over the dance floor. And he was going to have none of that – he didn’t play any demos. But he said she looked amazing, so I was trying to keep an eye peeled for her.
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Do Exercises Work to Increase Bust??
Lay back on a bench holding a couple.
Discover 7 low, medium and high intensity dumbbell chest exercises to create a pec workout routine that suits you.
europareportage.eu › fitness › best-exercises-chest-pectoral.
The problem is that in many cases we do not train it correctly, but to solve this situation we suggest you work on it with this chest routine.
Increase the bust | How to have more chest | LUANCO CLINIC
Chest workouts are preferred by the average gym user. A developed pectoral is the hallmark of a big and strong man.
Many rely on sports and home remedies for breast growth and lift. Although it may seem otherwise, there are chest exercises that allow us to improve their appearance to show off necklines now that the summer season is here. Sport even allows us to modify some of the parts that influence the size and shape of the neckline.
If you suffer from having a small chest, here are a series of exercises to increase your bust naturally that you can incorporate into your routine. How to increase the breasts with exercises to increase the volume of the chest Push-ups: yes, those that we have hated so much during physical education in our time as students are good exercises to increase the volume of the chest.
You can lie horizontally on a mat while the balls of your feet touch the ground and support the weight of the body in the palm of your hands. Bend your arms and lower as far as you can keeping your back straight. Do three sets with 15 reps. Next, bend your elbows and lower your arms so that they are parallel with the ground.
Hold that position for 20 seconds and return to the starting position. You can do 3 sets of 20 reps. You can help yourself with weights or water bottles. Standing Butterflies: While standing, spread your legs shoulder-width apart and slightly bend your knees.
Then slowly raise your arms to chest height. Hold the pose for 10 seconds to return to the starting position. Perform two sets of 20 reps. As in the previous exercise, you can incorporate weights. Weightlifting: Another variation of the above exercise is performed by starting with your legs in the same position while holding the dumbbells with your palms facing down. With the arms stretched and attached to each side of the body, start by raising the right one to chest height.
Raise and lower the dumbbell slightly at that height for five seconds, lower your arm back to its starting position for another five seconds, and repeat. Complete 20 reps for each limb. You can dedicate some time each day, or three times a week, to incorporate these simple gestures into your weekly training. However, the chest is still fat, and the counterpart of exercise is that we can lose weight, so that, together with the reduction of fat in the whole body, that of the bust can also be reduced.
Many women request it when there is imperfect or insufficient growth, or after a pregnancy or after significant breast loss, since this technique allows them to return to their usual shape. And all this with natural and immediate results.
The procedure lasts between one and two hours, and after 5 or 6 days of the intervention you can lead a normal life.
KILLER ARMS – BRUTAL BICEPS AND TRICEPS WORKOUT (Friday) gymtopz
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Polygraph, better known to most peoples as Lie Detectors records continuous progression of physical parameters, mostly the peripheral physiological variables such as blood pressure, pulse rate, respiratory rate, electrical conductivity of the skin of a person during an interview. Today multi channel Computerized Polygraph are mostly used. The terminology “lie detector” is somewhat biased, because Polygraph is merely a technical tool. The recorded responses by Polygraph are not specific to the truth or falsity of the answer given, but only show the current level of alertness and needs a specialist’s (usually a doctor’s) review of the graphs generated by a Polygraph.
Brief Details of Polygraph or Lie Detector
The basic idea of the polygraph machine was thought by psychologist Carl Gustav Jung and Max Wertheimer. The application of a Polygraph instrument ranges from interviewing for a job to the interrogation an accused. CIA, Federal Police (FBI) in the United States, CBI in India use polygraph to assess the reliability of statements described if requested. The Supreme Court of India declared use of narcoanalysis, brain mapping and polygraph tests on suspects as illegal and against the constitution. Article 20(3) of the Indian Constitution-“No person accused of any offence shall be compelled to be a witness against himself.” Polygraph tests are still legal if the defendant requests one, however.
Polygraph tests are based on the assumption when people tell a lie, they gets slightly nervous. This level of nervousness will remain invisible to the opposite person, but the autonomic nervous system creates some involuntary reactions inside the body. This is reflected by change in heart rate and other parameters and appropriate instruments can record them and make visible graphs.
Polygraph is not a lie detector
Polygraph has a big advantage that it adds circumstantial proof. Take that I have killed your great grandson. There is no apparent agenda or rather motive can be found for my killing process and I have successfully hidden the ways to find out me as the killer. As basically everything has a grammar, the motives for the most cases are limited in number. So, instead of a hunch by the detectives, a Polygraph can direct the detective towards the shortest way to find the truth. Take that I am 99 years old and have killed your great grandson as I has extramarital relationship with his aged elder daughter. If I am told some extramarital relationship related stories while Polygraph is running, I might get frightened and some changes in Polygraph recordings will be seen. This is the theory of 1900s when Polygraph invented.
Polygraph probably works better for non-professional criminals, as their mental setup is not like a professional criminal. A Polygraph is not a mind reading machine but for the non-professional criminals, if it is not a self defense (if a person is coming to kill you, you have the right to defend yourself according to the Laws in US and India, in other countries might vary and I am not a Lawyer. Self defense can become a big defense tool for a cool headed murderer so the laws are quite strict.)
Returning to Polygraph, Polygraph is a nice tool to make non-professional criminal scared as they have no idea about the machine, nor have the ability to control the autonomic system. Therefore the Polygraph machine is becoming a scary thing to admit the truth later.
Autonomic system can be controlled by followers to attain high level of spirituality. A saint living on a solitary place at Himalaya will not obviously steal your camera. Forget Polygraph, they can stop their heart beat. Polygraph is not needed for him, logically that is true, but there can be persons who are living within us and do have better control on Autonomic system to fool Polygraph.
Polygraph can be fooled by various methods, at least have to be considered logically. Professional criminals has better control on autonomic systems, its very logical point. Its not easy to murder a person for bucks. Law and medical science is about truth, only truth, nothing but the truth. Apart from these fallacies, Polygraph can pickup false positive due to unrelated phobias.
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What is the Student Organization Resource Center (SORC)?
The SORC is an area dedicated to student organization leaders and members. The SORC is designed to give you access to computers, printing, scanning, copying, faxing, and art supplies. Student organizations can also borrow games and equipment through the SAFC resource supply checkout program.
Where is the SORC located?
The SORC is located on the 2nd floor of the Student Union in the Student Government and Organizations Complex (SGOC) room 212C.
Who can use the SORC?
The SORC is available only to members of a registered UNC Charlotte student organization. We ask that you sign in and out when using the SORC.
What are the hours of the SORC?
The SORC is staffed during the fall and spring semesters:
Monday - Thursday, 9:00a.m. - 9:00p.m.
Friday, 9:00a.m. - 6:00p.m.
Saturday, 1:00p.m. - 5:00p.m.
Sunday, 3:00p.m. - 8:00p.m.
During the summer terms, the SORC is open:
Monday - Friday 9:00a.m. - 5:00p.m.
Saturday 1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Sunday 3:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
What costs are associated with using the supplies/resources?
The art supplies are free. However, we ask that you do not take items/supplies out of the SORC, so that they are available to everyone at all times. You have access to a printer/fax/scanner, laminator, paper cutter and button machine and button supplies. In order to utilize the printer/fax/scanner, you will need to swipe your 49er card. Printing is only free if your organization has received an Operational Funds grant. For additional information on funding, visit funding.
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I arrived just in time to hear the evening call to prayer. As an American, hearing the melodic chants bring a sense of the exotic, which when traveling to Bangladesh for the first time, is a feeling I’d expect regardless. The city of Dhaka at night looks more developed than I had anticipated. The truth will unveil herself in the morning.
PHOTO: Garment worker community children in Gazipur
I am in town to learn about work-place nutrition programs (or lack thereof in many cases) in apparel factories for a project on which I am consulting. Given the fact that the garment sector makes up more than 80% of Bangladesh’s exports, it’s not hard to see the impact of the industry everywhere we go.
As we drive into town for our first meetings I notice all of the people walking to work are men. Yet in the garment sector, 60-65% of all employees are women. This largely breaks out into the categories of workers (women) and management (men) though I found a good representation of both genders when touring the factories. Having visited countless farms to understand how sustainable sourcing can be improved farm to fork, I am excited to see a different origin source in the case of apparel and how conditions affect the way our clothes are made.
The factories are often hidden behind locked doors, though. In some cases the conditions are still quite poor. Luckily we were able to experience how positive change has brought better opportunity for the workers inside the factories we toured. This is especially the case after details emerged from the horrific Rana Plaza disaster of 2013, when a factory collapsed killing more than 1,100 workers. The resulting uproar by labor unions, workers, Bangladesh citizens and brands like led to the Bangladesh Accord, a legal agreement between factories and brands around issues like fire safety and structural improvements. The Accord is under review more than five years later, however, and some brands are walking back on their commitments, according to the Guardian. Other brands are boycotting investments in Bangladesh, moving to source in other countries like Vietnam or Ethiopia, because not enough has been done to advance workers’ rights and safety of infrastructure. The situation is tenable at best.
Our journey to the Gazipur District where a high percentage of factories reside, took about two hours (for a distance of only 35 km) due largely to heavy rains that came in the night before. The roads were flooded and traffic was unbearable. Couple that with very spotty infrastructure to begin with, and it made for a difficult drive. Our factory visits were informative and useful for our research but even more, insightful for me personally as I think about what brands can be doing to improve supply chain impact. I always say a company can improve productivity first and foremost by improving roads and other infrastructure and there is no question that holds in this instance as well. Yet we also learned about clear needs for the workers themselves, including better access to nutritious and safe foods, access to hygiene products like soap, toothpaste and shampoo, and better availability of medicines and feminine products. Vitamins and other basic health care needs are in high demand as well.
Coupled with a community visit, where we learned about the household eating habits of garment workers, a market visit and experiences eating at local restaurants, we gained a good sense of how food is purchased, consumed and valued. The work is hard, living is hard and the beauty is all around in the colors. This country struggles, but is growing. Challenges like unfair wages, gender inequities and climate change don’t make it any easier for the country to advance, but you can tell there are fighters among us here.
There are still big bumps in the road literally and figuratively, however, both for the garment sector and the country as a whole. Our security risk was heightened during our trip due to a botched hijack on a plane from Bangladesh to Dubai the day we arrived. It turns out the hijacker’s gun was a toy gun (how did he bring that through security in the first place?) and yet we were given strict orders about obeying our 8pm curfew and not venturing out of the hotel alone. We had an armed escort back to the airport, both because of the heightened security, and also the local elections scheduled that day. I never once felt scared, however. The people I met and spoke to were so incredibly generous. We were invited into homes and fed meals and snacks. We were treated with kindness at all times.
Being in Bangladesh was an unforgettable experience. I am still processing all I saw and absorbed. I will be reaching out in coming days to colleagues in the garment sector to get their perspectives on what’s attainable in terms of improving the livelihoods and opportunities for the workers in their supply chains. It’s clear there are unmet needs despite the progress made, and I have faith that brands will step up and do their part.
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The LRMH Documentation Center
In the Historical Monuments Research Laboratory (LRMH), the Documentation Center is home to:
• publications relating to research and studies undertaken on monument and artwork conservation and restoration issues
• reports, results from studies and research undertaken by the laboratory’s researchers
• photographs and videos illustrating the reports
• a photographic image library on monument and quarry stone types.
Two databases facilitate utilization of the documentation:
• Castor for written material
• Image for photographic material
Periodicals are referenced in Sudoc (university documentation catalogue) and, for some titles, in Castor.
Eligibility and Access
The LRMH Documentation Center is open to all visitors (art historians, archeologists, architects, scientists, restorers, students, etc.).
By appointment only: Please arrange your visit by telephone, by calling +33 (0)1-6037-7790, or by e-mail.
The Center is open Monday to Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and is located at the following address:
LRMH, 29 rue de Paris, 77420 Champs-sur-Marne, France.
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Gardening Articles: Flowers :: Bulbs
Seaweed for Plants
by Robert Kourik
Long ago, gardeners who lived near the ocean learned that seaweed was good for their plants. Exactly how it works is difficult to pin down, but scientists have found in seaweeds a veritable soup of plant-growth stimulants, vitamins, chelating agents, trace minerals, enzymes, and amino acids, all of which influence the growth of plants in different ways.
Robert Parnes in his classic Organic & Inorganic Fertilizers (Woods End Agricultural Institute, 1986; $40) says, "Perhaps the most important merit of seaweed is its content of assimilable organic materials, in particular the growth hormones."
Seaweeds contain small amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. On a dry-weight basis, seaweeds contain up to 1.2 percent nitrogen, 0.2 to 1.3 percent phosphorus, and 2.8 to 10 percent potassium.
Several university studies have shown that seaweed can produce dramatic results in plants: geraniums produced more flowers per plant; grapes were sweeter; gladiolus corms grew larger; and cucumber yields increased 40 percent and the fruits suffered less often from softening and rotting. Improved yields after seaweed treatments were measured in potatoes, sweet corn, peppers, tomatoes, apples, strawberries, okra, and oranges. Better frost tolerance, increased seed germination, and greater capacity to absorb trace elements were other documented benefits for plants.
Seaweed for Gardeners
When gardeners talk about using seaweed on their plants, they are usually referring to a brown algae, specifically the one known as knotweed or rockweed (Ascophyllum nodosum). It's common off the coast of Norway but also grows along the American coast from northern Maine to Canada and throughout northern seas. The seaweed industry had an early start in Norway where seaweed supply was abundant, hence the "Norway" on the labels of many seaweed products.
The seaweed product that's been around longest (40 years) is Maxicrop. It is normally sold as a concentrated dry powder that you mix with water and apply to plants as a spray. But it is also available as a liquid concentrate, as are most other seaweeds.
Most liquid seaweed fertilizers are extractions manufactured by hydrolysis, and most of the basic research done with seaweeds (by T. L. Senn, formerly of Clemson University) used this form. You might read about liquid seaweed products that are "cold-pressed" or "enzymatically digested", but little research exists regarding these materials. Seaweed is also available as a dry meal intended for adding to soil. Liquid concentrates cost more than the powders, but they are much easier to mix with water.
Another seaweed fertilizer is derived from California bull kelp (Nereocystis luetkeana). It is offered only by Peaceful Valley Farm Supply, whose catalog claims this fertilizer is more potent than ascophyllum-based products, but I haven't seen any research to back up such claims.
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Personal connections, accessibility noted at MSU Billings on 20th anniversary of landmark disabilities act
July 26, 2010
Dan Carter, University Relations, 657-2269
Disability Support Services, Montana Center on Disabilities integral part of university’s culture
MSU BILLINGS NEWS SERVICES — It’s one thing to talk about the personal empowerment gained by social legislation. It’s another to see the benefits up close. And it’s quite another to commit to continued progress.
Jill Stout embodies all three.
And as the Americans with Disabilities Act marked its 20th anniversary on Monday, Stout and some of her colleagues at Montana State University Billings said they look forward to more accessibility gains for the disabled in the coming years.
“It was mostly a huge attitude change,” said Stout, a program assistant with Disabilities Support Services at MSU Billings. “It went from thinking about charity to understanding these people have rights and we have an obligation to provide access to them.”
Stout’s passion for the topic of disability support, services and accessibility is more than professional. It’s intensely personal.
She was an active fourth-grader in Minnesota when the law was passed. Her brother, Aaron, who has limited sight and speech abilities and communicates via sign language, was just four years old at the time. Based on the prevailing attitudes of ability segregation at that time, Stout’s mother worked tirelessly for passage of the law.
“It was a pretty big deal in our house,” she said.
She still remembers a poster from 1980 that embodied the push for social justice for Americans who found themselves living with mobility, hearing or sight disabilities. It showed a man in a wheelchair holding a sign that read “I can’t even get to the back of the bus.”
The impacts of the Americans with Disabilities Act are clear today. The law made possible public restroom grab bars, wheelchair-accessible buildings and parking, sign-language interpreters at speeches, to and anti-discrimination hiring policies possible. Civil rights were extended to an entire group of Americans — 41.3 million at last count — for the first time.
For potential college students, it turned the focus from disabilities to educational opportunities and potential success.
Fast forward to 2010, and Stout brings her understanding of disability issues to work with her every day. She is one of four full-time staff who works at the MSU Billings main campus and the West End College of Technology to bring services to students. More than 160 students were registered for services through DSS last spring semester and more are likely this coming fall.
Many of those students need textbooks translated into audio files or support in addressing learning disabilities.
Eight of those students are hearing impaired and need some accommodations, said Cathy Copeland, the lead sign language interpreter at MSU Billings. Copeland has two other part-time interpreters who worked with her last to provide sign language or captioning services for hard-of-hearing students.
Copeland, who has been associated with MSU Billings for 16 years, said providing captions to video or audio files, is quickly becoming a bigger concern. She and others in the DSS office work to encourage MSUB faculty and staff to think about becoming more inclusive when making curriculum decisions. Including a YouTube video in a class presentation may be an effective teaching tool, Copeland said, but for a student who is hard of hearing, that learning opportunity is lost.
“If captioning is included in every video and it’s not an afterthought, then everybody benefits,” she said.
Copeland and Stout work with DSS Director Trudy Carey and COT Program Coordinator Jennifer Woegens to keep pace with student needs. One of the biggest is making sure those with sight impairments are able to have MP3 files of their textbooks.
Not too many years ago, textbooks that didn’t have an audio component would be read into tape recorders by Copeland and others. Advancements in technology have enabled DSS to electronically scan books computers where software will turn the files into text and then eventually into an audio file. A chart about the size of a coffee shop concert poster shows the audio textbook needs of a host of students enrolled this fall.
It’s a summer project that entails checking history book maps, medical text charts and math equations. That process takes time to edit and review the files, but allows all students access to MSU Billings educational programs regardless of physical abilities.
Seeing beyond disabilities has actually been a part of MSU Billings for more than 50 years.
In 1947, the Montana Center on Disabilities began operating as part of the public service mission of what was then Eastern Montana College. Serving children with Cerebral Palsy and their families, it was known as the Montana Center for Handicapped Children for about 30 years and the role eventually expanded to working children with all types of disabilities.
After children with disabilities were integrated into their neighborhood schools in 1986, the center matured into a service entity to provide education and support for those working to create a fully inclusive society.
Tina Hoagland, an audiologist and MCD project director who has been with the center since 1985, said the changes brought about by the Americans with Disabilities Act have ensured that children and adults with disabilities are not left behind. Among other things, the center provides direct service programs to youth with disabilities that focus on career planning and leadership skills and professional development to educators and service providers.
The goal, Hoagland said, is to make certain all students and adults have equal opportunity to succeed.
For Stout, it all comes back to her brother, whose smiling face peers over her shoulder as she works at her desk.
“It (the ADA) recognized the personhood of someone with disabilities,” she said. “It’s been affirming to be a part of social justice, embracing another form of diversity to accept people as people.”
The next big step in accessibility will be toward “universal design” where the learning environment, living environment and curriculum are accessible to and used by everyone, not just those with disabilities. Curb cuts and ramps installed for wheelchairs are now an embedded part of society. There is no reason that can’t be embodied in every aspect of society, she and Copeland said.
“We’ve made strides,” Copeland said. “But not big enough.”
For more information about Disability Support Services at MSU Billings, call 657-2283.
For more information on the services provided by the Montana Center on Disabilities, call 657-2312 or go to www.msubillings.edu/mtcd/
PHOTOS ABOVE: 1) Cathy Copeland, interpreter, and Jill Stout, program assistant, assist more than 160 students a semester through the Disability Support Services office at Montana State University Billings;. 2) Tina Hoagland has been associated with the Montana Center on Disabilities since 1985. The Montana Center is a public service arm of MSU Billings. www.msubillings.edu/mtcd/
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An arteriovenous malformation (AVM or angioma) is a congenital malformation of the blood vessels and functions like a short circuit between a cranial artery and a cranial vein. The blood flow is increased in the AVM and the walls of the vessels of the AVM are thinner, which results in the risk of a cranial haemorrhage. Patients with an AVM have a risk of haemorrhaging of approximately 4% per year. Symptoms such as epilepsy can occur even if there is no bleeding. In order to prevent (additional) bleeding, the AVM is either surgically removed or collapsed or blocked (embolisation) with the aid of a catheter. If this is not completed successfully or if the treatment risk associated with such a procedure is too great, there is no option to irradiate the AVM using the Gamma Knife . Patients may also be treated with combinations of these three procedures.
If the AVM has been completely remedied after an operation, or is fully blocked after embolisation, there is no longer any risk of bleeding. Following radiosurgical treatment, it can take up to 4 years for the AVM to close off completely. During this time, there is a residual risk of cranial haemorrhage. The probability of complete obliteration (closure of the AVM) after Gamma Knife treatment is around 70% after 2 years and 80%.after 3 years. It is still possible for an AVM to close in the fourth year.
The risk of side-effects is approximately 2-3% and depends on the dose of radiation, the total volume of radiation and the localisation of the AVM.
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Kay McSpadden, in a recent column in The Charlotte Observer, invited her readers to celebrate National Poetry Day on April 30th, by posting a blog, tweeting on Twitter, or by simply sharing a verse or two with a friend.
I immediately thought of my good friend, Linda Phillips, who has been writing poetry for years and frequently uses it in her classroom. She graciously agreed to share the following poem with all of you. The poem received the Caldwell W. Nixon, Jr. Award (Honorable Mention) in the N. C. Poetry Society's 2001 contest.
Whoever said that poetry only belonged in language arts classrooms?
Mother Nature is in the kitchen
cooking up a storm.
She turns the sun onto medium high
and waits 'til it's nice and warm.
She mixes six molecules of carbon dioxide
with six molecules of plain old water.
She folds in a few of her favorite minerals
as Father Time has taught her.
The secret ingredient is chlorophyll.
It soaks up the energy from the sun.
This recipe yields sugar and oxygen.
Isn't cooking fun?
Photosynthesis, NC Poetry Society, Linda Phillips, Kay McSpadden, National Poetry Day, poetry in science class
Congratulations to Donna Earnhardt who won a copy of OOPHAR THE BLUE from last week's blog. Run to the Light “I cried all the ti...
I am honored to share the cover reveal for DRIVE, Joyce Hostetter's newest middle grade book that will be released in September by Calk...
I'm pleased to announce three writing classes beginning in March; one at the Bobby Pearse Community Center in Greenville, and two at th...
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The Computer Science and Information Systems fields are vibrant, exciting fields that are constantly growing and evolving. These are two sold fields that combine with any other subject, there are also many stimulating graduate school opportunities in Computer Science and Information Systems.
The IST program balances a traditional computer science and information systems curriculum with practical experiences both in and outside of the classroom. All students are able to assess their growth through the maintenance of an online portfolio consisting of their work and experiences.
- Demonstrate an understanding of Information Science, and technology concepts and processes - their relationship to one another and to the existing and emerging technologies.
- Gain the confidence and skills to:
- Independently learn and apply technologies and processes
- Solve an unknown problem and efficiently research, learn, and apply an unknown topic of skill to novel problem-solving situations
- Effectively communicate their thoughts and ideas, with peers and future colleagues.
Past Doane students have combined their IST Major or Minor with focuses in:
- Mathematics and Data Analysis
- Business Administration
- Graphic Design
- Media Communication
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Hope you’re either enjoying your holiday or not feeling too poorly about being back at work.
Just a quick couple of reminders of things to be doing in the garden in the heat of summer.
Firstly it’s not only us who are hot and thirsty. The birds, bees and beneficial insects are too. It’s a good idea to set up a water source for them at your place.
By making some water available, the birds won’t peck on your vegetables to extract moisture and the insects will seek out your garden to inhabit.
Speaking of birds and bees, our sunflowers are starting to burst – this variety is Kings Seeds ‘Feed for the Birds and Bees’. I’m really hoping the name is true to its word.
Secondly, it’s time to lay shade cloth over your lettuces and other similar leafy greens. It makes a huge difference to them growing quickly without bitterness and is super easy to do.
We have the first signs of powdery mildew on our pumpkins, so I’ve given all the cucurbits another dousing of liquid seaweed this week. Use a rose on your watering can and make sure you wet all the leaves. Best done first thing in the morning – before the leaves can be burnt and early enough for the leaves to dry out during the day.
Other alternatives are 1 part milk to 10 parts water or 1 teaspoon baking soda to every litre of water.
I’m shaking the seed heads of our sweetcorn to make sure we have evenly ripening kernels. The wind will do most of the job, but it doesn’t harm to give it a hand.
Also it’s a good time to sow or plant another cucumber and zucchini, to keep your supply up.
Otherwise hope you’re enjoying all the lovely fresh produce from your garden. I had a bit of confusion over whether all our tomato seeds had germinated – suspect it was a bit of a mixup in the packaging of the seeds (hand done by Bristol Seeds) and possibly also my labelling when sowing them, but we have representatives of all the seeds I thought I was growing, so I’m happy.
Happy summer gardening!
From Jan and Rob.
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ALMOST 2,000 people have signed a petition to stop plans for an Iranian oil refinery in Algeciras.
Addressed to Spanish MP Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo, green group Destruccion del Medio Ambiente has launched a change.org petition to stop the action.
And just two days after the petition was launched almost 2,000 have already signed up.
“People who live in Algeciras are tired of pollution” the petition reads. “We already have the highest rate of cancer in this country, so is it really work the money to put more people’s lives at risk.
“Enough is enough, let us breath.”
Earlier this week Margallo said talks were ongoing with Iran, after sanctions were lifted on the country last weekend.
He said: “The refinery would create jobs in the Campo de Gibraltar, which was one of my concerns.
“We’ve been ready to do that in the past with Rosneft, but talks with the Russian company were discontinued as a result of sanctions.
“But Iranian investment can fill the void left and create jobs.”
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The judicial system is often slow to react to changes in technology.
But one area where Canadian courts are embracing new ways of allowing the media to report proceedings is by permitting live-tweeting from courtrooms.
So it was heartening to read this week a Canadian Press report out of Nova Scotia, where one of the top judges in that province was applauding use of the new technology.
Chief Justice Joseph Kennedy, of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, told CP that he closely monitored reporters’ tweets from a high-profile Halifax trial shortly after they permitted media to use their smartphones for that purpose.
Kennedy’s verdict: The reporters passed with flying colours.
“I couldn’t get over how well it had worked,” Kennedy told CP.
“I didn’t think it was going to be as accurate as it turned out to be. I have to say that I was very impressed.”
Backhanded compliment aside, it’s good to know that a jurist such as Kennedy found the media to be properly doing its job.
Twitter is a relatively new concept in our society, forcing reporters to become more and more succinct as they try to squeeze as much “news” as possible into a 140-character communiqué.
It also forces journalists to basically do two jobs at once — compose a news report, while still trying to listen to and take notes of court proceedings.
Perhaps that’s what impressed Kennedy the most.
Of course, courts haven’t from the outset embraced the concept of media members live-tweeting criminal proceedings.
In Ontario some judges specifically banned the practice during certain high-profile trials, most notable the “honour killings” trial of three family members in Kingston, Ont.
In that case Justice Robert Maranger barred reporters from using their smartphones in the quadruple murder trial, which ran from October 2011 to January 2012.
(Ontario allowed courtroom tweeting Feb. 1, 2013, while Nova Scotia only began permitting it in May.)
By the time the honour-killings’ trial ended, reporters in Alberta had already been granted permission to file their 140-character tweets from the comfort of the hard, wooden courtroom seats.
Alberta was one of the first, if not the first, provinces to permit the practice when it released its Electronic and Wireless Device Policy in January 2012.
The policy permitted journalists who sign an undertaking with the court not to abuse the privilege, to tweet to their hearts’ content.
And while it leaves the ultimate discretion on whether it is allowed in each and every case with the trial judge, there have been no incidents where a member of the bench has found a need to prohibit it.
Of course, live-tweeting carries with it potential pitfalls, not the least of which is inaccurate information being posted as journalists rush to get the latest news out immediately.
Unlike stories in print, or broadcast, there aren’t a series of eyes scanning the reports before they are distributed to the masses.
And because of the ability for Twitter users to re-tweet instantaneously, an erroneous communiqué can be spread worldwide before its originator has time to even delete it.
But it would appear, based on Justice Kennedy’s findings and the lack of complaints generally, that the Canadian media covering court proceedings has been able to adapt to the new reporting technique.
And that’s a good thing, considering how Twitter reporting could easily devolve into the dissemination of false, or completely inaccurate information.
Moreover, there’s a tendency within the profession of journalism to “self police” what information is sent out.
If one reporter notices an error in another’s tweet, they often, out of professional courtesy, let their competitive colleague know.
Ultimately, the public wins, as courtroom tweeting opens judicial proceedings to Canadians in a whole new way.
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No shiva is not on drugs, and although in the form of Rudra and bhairavar he is depicted as being angry this is really just an expression of his power for destroying demons/asura's. Lord Shiva is a loving God who cares for his devotees like a mother because he is inseprable to his shakti-energy which is Parvathi. Shiva will never be angry at his devotees and will only love them and bring them on the right path. I have not heard of people offering him opium but I know that in some places in northern India he is offered cannibis. Although all mainstream Guru's, Priests, and Devotees believe intoxicating substances are harmful (this is why most hindus dont drink) there are many Sadhus who smoke cannibis daily and being devotees of shiva offer it to him. No shiva doesn't need to have his anger cooled because he is the creator of the Universe even if he did have a temper offerings of opium wouldnt do the trick, these are just gestures of devotion which are meant to show love for the Father! Im posting a link to a beautiful free downloadable book that tells all about shiva and his attributes published by the creators of "hinduism today" magazine.
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In a colostomy, part of the colon is cut and the edges are attached to the skin of the abdomen to form an artificial opening called a stoma. Faeces are expelled through the stoma into a disposable bag. A colostomy is performed following a colectomy and may be either temporary or permanent. If part of the colon has been removed, a temporary colostomy may be carried out to allow the rejoined ends to heal without faeces passing through the site. A permanent colostomy is needed when the rectum and anus are removed with part of the colon.
From the 2010 revision of the Complete Home Medical Guide © Dorling Kindersley Limited.
The subjects, conditions and treatments covered in this encyclopaedia are for information only and may not be covered by your insurance product should you make a claim.
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Host: Saltriver Horsemanship
Written by Heath Stewart – Owner, Saltriver Horsemanship and Performance Horses.
Industry training is really fulfilling as there is a real purpose to it. Mustering cattle on horse back can be exhilarating or incredibly frustrating depending on how well your horse is going. One of my favourite sayings is if you’re doing it the hard way it’s like playing tennis with a cricket bat.
Some people beg their horse and others bully their horse but there is a spot right in the middle that I am trying to get people to find. I now think of “how can I help my horse do this?” rather than just trying to make it do what I want. This approach really pays dividends when the horse realises you are trying to work with it they really come from the other side to help you.
After some catching tips we start with groundwork to begin the (non verbal) dialogue with the horse. We are looking to direct the horse’s feet (especially the hind feet) to become an effective leader. There’s groundwork and there’s quality groundwork, the difference is in the detail. The same goes for riding.
I help people develop good habits in saddling and mounting safely. Safety is a big issue these days with more inexperienced riders coming into the system and more stringent worksafe protocols.
Once riding I explain how to keep my horse out of trouble which keeps me out of trouble. Horses don’t want to buck or bolt or kick they are just trying to stay alive. We work on helping the horse by building confidence and respect. A lot of people work on the respect but forget that a horse requires confidence just as much as we do.
Understanding biomechanics of ourselves and our horses helps us allow them to work at their potential, I want to help them arrange themselves to be able to do their job as athletically as possible.
If we get the chance we work with cattle to put the horsemanship into practice to get us ready for the real job at hand, mustering!
Ray Hunt had one of the greatest sayings “The human has the opinion, the horse has the facts”. I have learnt to drop my ego and be honest about the true feedback from the horse, this has allowed me to learn so much more and teach much better. We hope we get the opportunity to share our learnings with you and thank you for allowing us to be your hosts this week!
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Increasingly frequent reports of violent clashes, deaths of women and children, and subsequent bouts of displacement in southern Sudan must not be ignored or dismissed as unrelated incidents. As the Economist recently noted, these episodes amount to “a sign of a wider breakdown of peace across southern Sudan.”
In early June, an attack by an armed Lou Nuer militia on a World Food Program river convoy carrying U.N. food aid reportedly killed at least 40 of the 150 southern soldiers acting as escorts. While intercommunal violence is not a new phenomenon in the southern Sudan, the attacks in 2009 have been characterized by the indiscriminate killing of women and children, which is a disturbing shift from the historical practices of cattle-raiding and other traditional issues related to land conflict.
So what is behind the recent violence in the South? At present, no news sources or analysts have been able to offer proof that the NCP-led government in Khartoum is arming proxy militias and deliberately attempting to destabilize the South. However, as we noted here yesterday, the NCP has a history of using brutal tactics to sow chaos throughout Sudan’s vast periphery, and one of these strategies is employing proxy militias to incite violence at the local level, from Darfur to the Nuba Mountains.
As a result of the mounting instability in the South, distrust between the NCP and the South’s SPLM-led government has grown.
While the NCP is likely at least partially responsible for the increased violence and security in the South since the beginning of 2009, the Government of Southern Sudan is also not acting under the assumption that the peace through the CPA is possible. A recent report by the Small Arms Survey warned that:
[GoSS] continues to be driven by the belief that a confrontation with the North is likely. This stance has shaped its current security strategy, which focuses on defending the border with the North and other strategic positions, as well as containing spoilers, including possible allies of Khartoum.
With its focus increasingly on these external pressures, the southern government is not devoting adequate attention to serious internal divisions and frequent violent flare-ups throughout the South. As Human Rights Watch noted in its latest report on the South, the attacks that killed more than 1,000 people in Jongeli state in March and April are evidence of the resounding failure of GoSS and the U.N. Mission in Sudan, or UNMIS, to protect civilians from the intercommunal violence threatening to engulf the South.
It is increasingly evident that there is a widespread breakdown of peace in southern Sudan, and that both the North and the South are bracing for war in 2011, regardless of concurrent recommitments to implementation of the faltering Comprehensive Peace Agreement. A major test to the ability of the parties to prevent a return to war will come in just a few weeks. No later than July 23, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague will issue its decision on the dispute over the boundaries of the long-contested, oil-rich area of Abyei at the crossroads of Sudan’s northern and southern regions. The aftermath of the Abyei announcement will be a gauge of the risk of violence in the remainder of the CPA’s interim period, and a bellwether for the prospects of peace when this period ends with the referendum on southern independence in 2011.
Katherine Carson contributed to this post.
Photo: A barge on the Nile flying the flags of both North and South Sudan. Enough/Maggie Fick
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The battle at Grathe Hede October 23rd 1157 was the end of a civil war over the crown, between Svend Grathe 3rd, Knud 5th and Valdemar 1st The Great. In 1146 Sven Grathe became King of Seeland and Skåne and Knud became King of Jutland. Knud attempted in several campaigns to conquer Seeland (1147 and 1150), but was displaced and fled to Germany.
Valdemar, who sided with Svend at first (who had nominated him Duke of Slesvig) changed sides, which he proved by engaging Knuds half-sister Sophie. However, the three candidates for the crown decided to share the reign, so that Valdemar got Jutland, Knud reigned Fionia and Seeland and Svend remained King of Skåne.
They held a reconciliation party in Roskilde on August 9 1157, but Svend had his men assail the other two. Knud was killed and but Valdemar fled to Jutland where he gathered a large army. By the end of September his army was so strong that he dared to fight Svends army and on October 23rd the two armies fought eachother at Grath Hede.
Svend ended up fleeing and when he reached some swamps at the end of Hauge Lake he lost his weapons and armour. He was taken prisoner and killed with the stroke of an ax
Thor Lange raised a stone cross in memorial of the event. The memorial stone also marks the location of The Chapel of Grathe, where Svend Grathe is said to be buried.
Last updated bySilkeborg Turistbureau firstname.lastname@example.org
CoordinatesLongtitude : 9.333676
Latitude : 56.260639
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Wolfson, L. & Willinsky, J. (1998). The situated learning of Information Technology Management. Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 31(1), 96-110.
Larry Wolfson and John Willinsky
University of British Columbia
This paper assesses the degree to which students using new information technologies to provide service to others can be said to be engaged in “situated learning” (Lave & Wenger 1991). The literature on situated learning, under which we group a number of related concepts such as cognitive apprenticeships and situated cognition, provides a framework for analyzing various qualities of learning that relate to how people acquire new skills and become members of communities of practice (Greeno, 1997). We find this emphasis on the situation of learning, and the social practices that support learning, to be particularly salient when assessing the value of students’ work with information technologies, especially when that work entails projects that support the technology needs of the school and community as an instance of “service learning” (Olszewski & Bussler, 1993).
In a previous theory-building paper, we developed the range of parallels between situated and service learning, developing a research framework for assessing the degree to which the elements of situated learning were present in a service learning setting (Wolfson & Willinsky, 1998). This paper represents an application of the combined model (Table 1). It reports on a study of the qualities of learning present in an Information Technology Management (ITM) course conducted within the computer studies program in a high school. The ITM program is the product of a partnership between education and Information Technology professionals, including one of the authors, that has come together to develop a program in which students learn the skills needed to successfully manage IT projects which support the technology needs of members of the school and community.1 In this, the ITM program was felt to work within the intersecting model of service learning and situated learning which holds that students learn best when involved in meaningful, real-life, co-operative, problem-solving, service-oriented work.
Table 1 Situated Learning Criteria in a Service Learning Setting
Learning results from…
A. Situated Contexts
1. Communities of Practice (Brown & Duguid, 1993; Lave & Wenger, 1991)
2. Artifacts as Mediating Devices (Engestrom, 1990; Moll, 1990)
3. Multiple Resources (Goldman, 1992; Lave & Wenger, 1991)
Students form project teams to offer their new technology and project management skills to the local community center where they will interact with, learn from, and utilise the resources of the center and local businesses to help the center achieve its mission.
B. Authentic Contexts
1. Authentic Projects (Engestrom, 1990; Lave & Wenger, 1991)
2. Problem Solving Scenarios (Rogoff, 1990)
3. Intrinsic Motivation and Student Responsibility (Volpert, 1989; Collins, 1994)
4. Dynamic Assessment (Lunt, 1993)
Students engage in development of the community centre’s web page which serves as an educational/ advertising tool for the center. Students design web page representative of the community center and accessible for all. Ongoing monitoring of page’s utilisation and value, while transferring skills to center staff.
C. Collaborative Contexts
1. Small Group Interactions (Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989; Saxe, Gearhart, Note & Paduano, 1993)
2. Skilled Peer Guidance (Rogoff, 1990; Tudge, 1990)
3. Community Expert Guidance (Lave & Wenger, 1991)
Students divide responsibilities among components of the project while working in close consultation with center staff, with community professionals for provide services necessary to achieve success, and other students peers who have related experience in this type of task.
D. Reflective Contexts *
1. Goal Setting (Collins, 1994)
2. Formative Assessment (McLellan, 1993)
3. Teacher Modelling & Scaffolding (Collins, Brown & Newman, 1989)
4. Cognitive Apprenticeship (Brown et al., 1989; Collins, Brown & Holum, 1991)
Students engage in individual and project-team meetings in the classroom with their teachers. They review goal-setting and skill-assessment, while teacher poses critical questions on their work and that of the community center, while preparing them to report on the scope of their learning.
Note: We use “reflective contexts” instead of the related “situated cognition” used by Brown et al. (1989), because not only does this eliminate confusion with “situated learning” but also finds resonance with service learning’s criterion of time for reflection on the meaning and processes of service (National School-To-Work Learning and Information Centre, 1996).
In our earlier paper, we develop the idea that service learning, and in turn the ITM program, would do well to find its theoretical grounding in situated learning to complement both its citizenship and employability components. Our concern had been that while service learning had a strong commitment to reconnecting youth to the community, it did not display a strong notion of learning, outside of placing some importance on reflection (Kinsley, 1993; National School-To-Work Learning and Information Centre, 1996). Situated learning appeared to offer a way of focusing greater attention on the potential learning claims of these programs. Developed from the work of Vygotsky (Moll, 1990), and extended primarily by Lave and Wenger (1991), Engestrom (1990), Brown, Collins, & Duguid (1989), and Billet (1994), situated learning posits learning to be the “product of socioculturally evolved means of mediation and modes of activity” (Vygotsky cited in Harley, 1993, p. 47) in which “cognitive development is dependent upon participation in cultural activities with the guidance of more skilled partners” (Rogoff, 1990, p. 11), and thus is “the product of a collaborative construction of understanding between two individuals that results in it being appropriated by the learner” (Vygotsky cited in Billett, 1994, p. 7). ITM, then, through its emphasis on 1) communities of practice, 2) project authenticity, 3) small group interactions, and 4) cognitive apprenticeship, conforms to the theoretical demands of both situated learning and service learning.
Implicit within these parameters is the desire to decrease the disparity between school and work cultures (with work often conceived in professional non-bureaucratic terms). Thus teachers are encouraged to leave off direct instruction in favor of modeling their learning strategies through authentic activities, by teachers and colleagues supporting students’ task attempts, and through the empowerment of students to continue independently, authentic tasks may be simulated within the confines of the classroom.2 In other words, as it is neither possible to always allow students the full community participation, nor desirable to do so without adequate classroom preparation, advocates of situated learning seek to be provide an appropriate and reliable substitute while also providing a forum for student critical reflection upon their involvement. Consistent with this position, earlier work has established how students’ work with computers allows teachers to become facilitators, encourages greater degree of classroom collegiality, allows students to become experts, decreases teacher-centeredness and facilitates extra school communication (Schofield 1995; Duin, Lammers, Mason & Graves, 1994). The ITM program takes this one step farther by making the focus of the class finding ways of providing service and support for the IT needs of the school and community, thereby placing greater emphasis on student initiative, responsibility, and school-community communications, even as it encourages students to develop their existing skills and learn new ones to meet new situations.
This study examines the performance of a single ITM class to determine the ways in which this program manages to provide situated, authentic, collaborative, and reflective contexts that can be said to support student learning. Our aim here is not to determine what precisely the students have learning, although aspects of this become clear, but to assess the learning environment as a basis of comparison with more traditional programs, as it relates to the claims of the situated learning literature, and as it provides a more complete description than is typically available in the work done on service learning.
The Information Management Technology (ITM) class that participated in this study was located at in a relatively homogeneously Caucasian, mixed blue and white collar, two-income neighborhood in the outlying suburbs of large urban community. The ITM classroom is on the second floor of the relatively new and technology-rich grade 8-12 school that houses fifteen hundred students and seventy-five teachers. The ITM class meets for one hour and 15 minutes, three times a week in a large double room fitted with 24 computers in banks and other computer related technologies like a printer, telephone and modem, and connection to the Internet. The students engaged in year-long projects born of, and developed through a synthesis of student skills and interests, and community (including the school community) needs. This meant that the students were to be found in the offices of one the ITM teachers, or in other parts of the school or out in the community during some or all of class time.
The class is composed of three female and 20 male, grade 11 and 12 students who generally have considerably more interest and experience with computers than has the general student body. Two teachers, one male and one female share responsibility for the class though they are not necessarily in the room at the same time. Formally, Jacqueline “took” the class for the first two-thirds of the year, and Robert was the teacher for the last four months of the year. Only the eight students (two females) who returned their “informed consent” forms were interviewed. Also interviewed were the two ITM teachers, two other teachers in the school who served as resource persons/clients for the Web Page Team, and one community client.
Data was collected through participant observations, individual semi-structured interviews, document reviews, and verbal surveys. During the school year, one of the authors visited the class 15 times where he spent most of my time generally moving around the room, observing and talking to students and Jacqueline, the teacher then handling the class. He also participated, relatively unobtrusively, in a couple of project team meetings with Jacqueline and small groups of students, and was on hand for some relatively formal presentations that different teams gave for their teachers, fellow students, and visitors to the classroom. Interviews were held with eight students, the two class teachers, two teacher-clients, and one community client.
All through the study, observations and interviews were loosely directed by the four well-defined but not always mutually exclusive parameters — (a) situated contexts, (b) authentic contexts, (c) collaborative contexts, and (d) reflective contexts — and the findings of the study are reported under these headings.
(a) Situated Contexts
Here the emphasis is on locating students in “real-life” communities of practice that provide a multiplicity of resources including the artifacts or tools that mediate the relationship between the individual and society as a whole. Resulting from class-focus on the yearlong projects and service contracts, the ITM students are enabled participation two different understandings of communities of practice.3 First, through ongoing project-team dialogue facilitated by student freedom of choice and mobility within and without the school, the ITM class itself has become a community of practice as students talk and act “shared beliefs about what is of interest or import, ways to work, and some consensus about which tools, procedures, and representations are employed" (Goldman, 1992, p. 5). Thus, for example, the discussion among the Computer-Building Team initiated by their project manager with “do you want to know what we are doing?” not only was reminiscent of the stereotypical exchange near the office water cooler, but was as important and genuine as that experienced by any group of adults within a “real” work community.
Second, students became involved with familiar communities in new ways as they gathered information from the teachers in the school English and Science Departments to place on the school web page. Through these interactions with teachers and other staff, students gained enough of an understanding to design and implement a web site that was representative of the school as a whole and each department in particular. In a similar manner, students in the Technology Fair Team, the Computer-Building Team, and the CD ROM Team had to learn about and interact with various members of relevant “real world” and school communities. The Technology Fair Team, which was going to mount a fair for local vendors, developed and mailed out a call-for-presenters form and then followed up with individual responses to personal inquiries; the Computer-Building Team, which sought to build low-cost machines for the school, spent time working in computer stores and pricing computer parts at different venues, and the CD ROM Team, which was looking at a yearbook alternative, negotiated with the science teacher as to the extent of their involvement in the science classes and made a presentation to certain school board members to be allowed to purchase the necessary equipment.
The interviews with students indicated that not only did they consider community involvement a uniquely defining attribute of the course, but also one that heightened their learning and sense of accomplishment. Specifically, tasks such as a presentation for the School Board to “kind of show off our project [and phoning] a bunch of different schools to talk to teachers who made multimedia in the past about tips and stuff” (Sam); “a survey . . . at Fraser Family Services” (Chris), and “having to phone people up from businesses” (Susan) helped to “bring you out into the public eye” (Jeffery) and to “get to know the community more and . . . meet a lot of new people” (Deborah). From a different perspective, Rich suggested that “because teachers might not know what you are looking for, I get answers [from] a library or someone who works in that field.”
Thus, though students were often generally “kind of shy to the concept of trying to approach professionals” (Mitch) and thought that “one of the biggest challenges was getting over that fear of talking to people outside the school environment” (Susan), they seemed appreciative of the opportunity and proud of the results. Mitch, for example was particularly happy that his experience offered the opportunities to counteract the way “the business community and the adults within the business community have kind of viewed . . . youth and teenagers in the community as kind of delinquents [and] to educate the educators around the Lower Mainland.”
Interviews with the classroom teachers yielded similar results. Robert, for instance, cognizant that the students’ need to access a variety of extra-classroom and community resources was at cross purposes with the traditional concept that schooling was something that happened within the walls of the classroom, was quick to mention his newly initiated sign-in system that allowed students to wander the school and community while maintaining teacher accountability. Equally importantly, he also described the process of using his project management expertise to bring together students and clients into groups with common goals that will meet the needs of both the students and community-centered clients: “The client from social services and the students sit down in a meeting with me chairing and guiding the discussion so that it’s productive, and through modelling of effective management skills that I have, the students can gain that experience themselves, and then usually after the initial two or three meetings I step back and say to the client and to the students, this is yours.”
Jacqueline also treated community involvement as a benefit for all concerned. On the one hand, it allows the school to offer the expertise of students to do something back for those organizations “which have been very good to the school,” and on the other, it offers the students an introduction to the world of work and possible job opportunities. She also went on to say that, though not all the students are involved in the larger scale interactions with community institutions, there are those whom through their service contracts are performing services for specific individuals. Thus, while ”the web page team obviously is interacting with the entire school," Mitch’s smaller scale service contract “figuring out how to get the printer in the office to talk to the computer in the counselling centre,” still involved finding out from the Vice Principal the correct process for writing a requisition for service, writing it up, and testing the new cable. Jacqueline also mentioned a newly initiated project for the Holocaust Education Center that she hoped would be the “first of what we hope will be a series of ongoing things we do for [and with] non-profit organizations.”
Meanwhile, my interviews with the ITM clients are in themselves indicative that community involvement is an integral aspect of the course. Thus, while Mr. Richmond of Fraser Family Services, who had contracted to have a survey done, and Rachel Simon of the school’s English Department, who was working on the school’s web-page, were both dissatisfied with the level of service they received, due to communication problems and school time constraints, neither questioned the potential of a greater degree of school-community and student-teacher interactions. Conversely, Roberta Kramer, head of the school’s Science Department, was more than happy with all aspects of her involvement in the web page design and was particularly impressed with the manner in which she and Sean (the student) could integrate both their needs and those of the school as a whole while learning from each other.4 So, too, did she have positive words about a Web Page Team presentation to the Science Department that not only introduced previously unconsidered possibilities but initiated serious reflection and debate.
Concurrently, in a fashion similar to involvement with any community of practice, the ITM students had the opportunity to gain expertise with relevant artifacts or tools that mediate their engagement with society, especially as they demonstrate a valuable expertise with these tools (Engestrom, 1990; Moll, 1990). Specifically, computer technologies formed the basis of all class projects, and became a primary means by which students related to the world around them. Thus, as suggested by the student perceptions that technology allows them “to get information on the stuff I wanted to learn” (Rich), and “contact people” (Chris), and teacher insights that technology is a “way into their psyche” (Robert) and what “keeps them motivated” (Jacqueline), it seems that students are not only continuing to increase their proficiency in the field, but also coming to understand the attributes and parameters of technology (Ihde 1979; Bowers,1988). Still, it was obvious that more could be done to make the situation of technology in people’s lives, in a point of reflection, in a point we return to below.
(b) Authentic Contexts
Advocates of situated learning point to the value of authentic contexts when it comes to learning. That is, practical and applied project-oriented, problem-solving scenarios are seen as more likely to lead to self-motivated and independent engagement in learning, just as this form of learning supports forms of dynamic assessment (by teachers, peers, clients and selves) that focuses on ongoing individual development and project achievement. The ITM program’s involvement of students in school and community service assures a certain level of authenticity to the work, as opposed to teacher-generated activities. This proved an important point for the teachers.
Jacqueline, for example, asserts that as task authenticity “gives them a totally different level of commitment than something I have made up . . . there is never anything done in that class that is not absolutely usable.” Similarly, Robert, with his “whole focus . . . on independence of learning and individual endeavour,” emphasizes that students learn and experience “real accountability” by working for real clients in real world scenarios in which excuses for failure are not accepted. Thus the bottom line, rather than simply being a mark on a report card, becomes attuned to “you have to deliver if you want the job or [want to] keep the job.”
In the Macdonald ITM program, the planning, execution, and evaluation of service contracts and long term projects all appeared to be distinguished by a degree of authenticity, in the sense that hte students continually made references to the consequences of their work outside the classroom and program. Class “lessons,” rather than being determined by the teachers, were an outgrowth of the individual project demands and goals as each student, usually in consultation with his/her team members, first decides how best to allocate his/her time and then proceeds accordingly with the requisite planning, execution, and evaluation. Thus, the class can be seen to resemble a conglomeration of workshops or artists’ studios in which teams “marched to the tune of their own drummer.” Even the class presentations, one of the few instances when students’ attention was diverted from their projects and toward the class as a whole, were treated as practical opportunities for information sharing and peer evaluation
The assessment of students in the ITM program tended to be integrated into learning and project development. The assessment techniques ranged from informal to structured and included 1) self, teacher, and team member assessment and feedback garnered during the project team meetings, 2) negotiations between teachers and individual students, 3) oral and written feedback from clients offered to students and to teachers, and 4) ongoing teacher assessment during all aspects of the class. The client assessment presented another authentic context. Though the topic of evaluation was not a significant topic of conversation in our observations, some students mentioned that “a lot of the time you are evaluating yourself” (Jeffery), the presentations “get some feedback from your peers on how you’re doing and how you could improve and what you should be doing differently” (Chris), and “they like your input” (Rich).
Another indication of authenticity was the students’ satisfaction with the practical value of the course which they saw could be applied in the life to come. Specifically, Jeffery felt that he was “making a couple of good business contacts out of all of that for when I get out of high school”; Chris thought that “these are great experiences that will definitely help me further on in life”; Rich was happy that “things . . . are useful as well, not just doing a project for the sake of it;” Mitch said that “it kind of prepares us for business,” and Deborah pronounced that “I am learning a lot of business management and how to keep a team together and how to present a project.” Sean, on the other hand, “because of my experience in business” thought that he already knew a lot about what the course had to offer and thus was disappointed that he had not learned as much as he would have wished.
Seemingly aware of the relationship between authenticity and themes of individual responsibility and self-motivation, the students emphatically praised the freedom that they felt the course offered. Thus, Chris’s “you almost decide what you want to learn and what you want to do in this course;” Sam’s “it’s quite different because we call the shots here kinda on the project; they don’t tell us how we gotta do it,” and Deborah’s, “in this class you choose what team you want to be in and what you want to learn” were generally representative of all eight interviewees. As a result, whether specifically articulated or not, I think all students would probably agree with Susan that as result of this freedom, the ITM class is a highly productive learning experience: “I think people learn a lot more when they’re doing something that they are really interested in because if you try to make someone learn something by using an example or using a project that they are really not interested in they’re not going to put their all their effort into it.”
One consequence of authenticity was the dissatisfaction of the two clients. They had seen the promise of this program as real and built their expectations accordingly. While the program has built in structures and supports, such as Status Reports to be used as the project progresses, that are intended to avoid or minimize such problems, the students obviously have more to learn about being accountable and responsible. They did better with the challenge of reaching out to these other communities of practice than they did at sustaining that participation. This becomes a point of challenge and caution, which was certainly recognized by Robert, for the teachers in working with the elements of authenticity and independence in this program. Having a structure, such as Status Report templates, is clearly not enough, and why this aspect of self-evaluation did not prevent the failure to deliver will need to be examined as a result of this study.
(c) Collaborative Contexts
The ITM class is marked by through co-operative, small group interactions that often include teachers and community and peer experts. It was the exception for any student to work alone as almost all class activities emphasized group work and co-operation between teachers and students. Teachers applied their interpersonal, project management, and general teaching skills while deferring to student technological expertise while students shared knowledge and proficiency with each other and looked to school and community experts (including those on the Internet) to guide them through the intricacies of novel tasks. Problems tended to be solved through consensus, as students and teachers came to a greater understanding of their environment. This amounted to a synthesis of individualized skills rather than competitiveness among the students.
The teachers took a facilitative rather than expert role in the case of both Jacqueline (“I could not figure out what Rich is doing with that web server, we would take me a very long time to equal his knowledge”), and Robert (“I am a facilitator in here, not a teacher”). Accordingly, as opposed to giving formalized instruction, most of their class time was spent meeting with the small groups, wandering around the class interacting with individuals and small groups, and performing their own teaching related tasks or particular jobs (photocopying, for example) which were requested by specific teams. Thus, it was more common for teachers to ask “is there anything further you need from me?” rather than to give orders.
Both teachers highlighted the co-operative nature of the class. Robert, for example, suggested that it was not uncommon for students to help each other through service contracts and to share expertise regarding different types of software such as 3D Studio or Visual Basic. He also stressed the effects of the co-operative nature of the projects as the student come to realize the “impact upon them when their actions effect the other members of the group because they are working as a team on a project.”
Similarly, Jacqueline, saw the ITM environment as one of co-operation and sharing, though, she elaborates, “one must first get past the largest collection of egos . . . my computer is faster than your computer . . . so it is an ongoing focus to walk around that and try to get them focused on pulling together.” This accomplished however, “there is a lot of sharing that goes on” as students realize that it is usually quicker to learn from one of their colleagues, than from the teacher: “so it very quickly became why are you asking me, ask her she’s the one who has got the answer; if you want the answer ask the expert.” Jacqueline goes on to say, “that is why Robert and I team teach, to model; two people who aren’t alike and don’t agree about some things are still better as a team than we are separately.”
Like the teachers, all the students accentuated the interactive component of the course. Jeffery, for example, suggested that “every class is a group activity,” with the results being, according to Deborah, “you get ideas from everyone instead of just one person [as] you get to work faster and more efficiently; just more ideas come in.” More specifically, Chris thought that as a result of the team work “you learn a lot of group skills like working together, . . . making sure everybody gets whatever their job is assigned done, and coming together and brainstorming ideas and stuff like that,” while Susan added, “I think you learn from working with different people; you learn different things about how other people work; it tends to make you have to change the way you work.” Rich, on the other hand, began with “I don’t really like group work but I think it’s important” and later in the interview went on to state, “I am getting more used to working with a group than working on my own.”
Not unexpectedly, the “teaching” of interactive and co-operative skills seemed to offer a number of special challenges, most noticeable were those related to the community-centered projects. Although the time constraints of the school timetable played a factor, Rachel Simon found her experience with the Web Page Team lacked the degree of collaboration between her and the students she felt was necessary for her to understand the ITM program and what it offered.
The in-class cooperative component also appeared to present special problems. Sometimes, for example, student presentations were less than complete due to “missing” team members or apparent misunderstandings regarding individual expectations. Furthermore, three or four times, individual students indicated to me that they could not proceed with their project as they hoped because other team members were missing or unprepared. Specifically, Sean suggested that one of the reasons that he dropped out of the class was that there were problems with group work such as “things being disorganized, there were certain immaturities.” Perhaps, these feelings were mirrored in Jacqueline’s frustration with the team from which Sean dropped out when she exclaimed “you are not working as a team!”
Collaboration is a given for the team work required to provide service on the scale that requires a project, such as setting up the web pages required for the whole school. Again, the structures are in place to give students experience in this important feature of work today, but more needs to be done in team building strategies and in reviewing team performances. In just this way, this situated learning framework is intended to highlight those areas of real accomplishment and particular challenge.
(d) Reflective Context
Our framework’s final component combines situated learning’s situated cognition with service learning’s time for critical reflection upon the meaning and process of service. Accordingly, project goal setting and ongoing evaluation (including evaluation of the service itself) are interrelated within cognitive apprenticeship’s concepts of expert modelling, scaffolding, support, and empowerment (Brown et al., 1989). In the Macdonald ITM classroom, the reflective context is potentially manifest through four different sets of activities: informal student-teacher discussions, team presentations, student-client interactions, and project team meetings.
Informal student-teacher interactions are the single most common facet of the class. Both Robert and Jacqueline were often available to offer individual help and encouragement. However, as the timing of personal interactions are limited by, and dependent upon, Robert and Jacqueline’s participation in other classes and school activities, this communication often regarded telephone or photocopier availability, and/or task-specific details. Still , the teachers sought opportunities to model such behaviors as teamwork. They also sought to have the learners reflect on their ways of working (for example, when Robert asked a student if in her particular situation there not might be a more appropriate way than e-mail of communicating with a client).5
Student presentations focused on sharing and feedback, which added a reflective context to this element of the program. Yet, despite the fact that a number of students identified developing their presentation skills as one of the most useful aspects of the course, during the presentations there was little or no discussion or reflection on the meaning of projects or how projects might be improved. Certainly, the evaluation forms which class members complete and return to presenters offer an additional reflective potential but it appeared that most students do not take these particularly seriously.
Student-client interactions, another forum for expert guidance and reflection, showed potentially rewarding but generally inconsistent results. In one situation, the student and teacher were able to work together in a manner which benefited both them and the school as whole, while two others were at least partially unsuccessful due to communications problems and time constraints. There appeared to be a real need for discussions of project expectations among students, teachers, and clients, and among the benefits of this sort of discussion would have been the basis it provided for reflecting on the successes and limits of the work.
On the other hand, the ongoing team meetings involving one or more teachers and individual project team provided excellent points for reflection. Scheduled for every two weeks for each team, and run slightly differently depending on whether they were led by Robert or Jacqueline, the purpose of these meetings was to allow teachers to keep track of each team’s progress, and for team member to set goals for themselves. Through the use of leading questions, teacher coaching, modeling, scaffolding, and support giving, and team interactions, each team member articulated what he/she had accomplished over the last two weeks and what he/she hoped to achieve over the coming weeks. Both formative and summative assessment were highlighted as student evaluation was combined with the ongoing appraisal demanded of authentic, real world tasks. However, these ruminations did not appear to respect service learning’s demand that students reflect upon the purposes, meaning and processes of service, nor was there reflection on the impact of information technologies on the school or the people within it. The limits of reflection needs to be addressed in any consideration of the scope of learning within the ITM program. Again there were structures to be found within the program, such as the Think Tank that addressed numerous social issues involving IT, but the focus on service clearly had a tendency to keep the students focused on the immediate situation. Expanding that situation, encouraging a critical regard for the nature of the service and the technology, and enriching the exchange of ideas become features that await development in improving the learning environment afforded by the ITM program.
Assuming that the conceptual framework is a valid and helpful instrument of analysis, there is little doubt that the Macdonald ITM classroom offers a valid illustration of situated learning. For not only are all of the criteria at least minimally met, but the evidence also suggests that many are integral to the course itself. Concomitantly, service learning, too, is generally embodied with only the reflective component being significantly under represented. Classroom productivity and student purposefulness indicated interest and self-motivation, and seven of the eight interviewed students suggested that they had gained a great deal of personally relevant knowledge and expertise. So too, did one student who had dropped out of the class and yet continued to attend regularly, who stated that he thought that there was a lot of learning occurring. Additionally, the scope and maturity of many of the student projects and tasks, including the need to interrelate with school and community members, suggested learning and student recognition far beyond the scope of the “normal” classroom.
At the same time, there are also a number of accompanying caveats that can be used to advance the qualities of learning in this and related service learning program. Most obviously, perhaps, is that specific teacher and student knowledge and expertise seem to be instrumental to successful implementation of the ITM-situated learning model. For, it is imperative that the teacher be prepared and able to relinquish his/her traditional dual expert role in favor of that of facilitator, while the ITM students, if not at least originally self-directed and responsible, must be capable of quickly developing in the appropriate manner. Furthermore, both teachers and students must have not only the inclination and ability, but also the sometimes considerable extra time needed to continue ongoing communication with their school and community clients. Similarly, communities of practice must not only be apprised of the demands of the program but also be sufficiently committed to, and capable of meeting its needs.
We also have concerns about how to encourage greater participation by young women and other students in this program who do not already count themselves among the computer culture. Although the lack of communication with some of the extra-class clients is not particularly surprising considering the already overwhelming demands on teachers’ time, the situation must be rectified to ensure project success and positive community relations. Finally, while there were advantages to having two teachers informally responsible for the class the whole year and formally responsible for portions each, there seemed to be communication and expectation problems which resulted in inconsistencies and lower degree of productivity than might otherwise have been the case.
The ITM program, in the excellent hands of Robert and Jacqueline, goes a long way in achieving a situation for learning that instills a sense of community and individual responsibility and commitment. Not only does this attest to their own personal beliefs and values but also adds to the growing body of research which suggests that, although technology on its own is incapable of engendering significant educational change, when implemented in conjunction with progressive attitudes, results can be profound. We would also hold that utilizing the principles of situated learning in a systematic assessment can provide the basis for improving the quality of learning for this and other service learning programs by focusing attention on features that can actively engage the learner in the positive experience of acquiring a wide range of valuable skills. The work that remains to be done with this convergence of situated and service models is to document the levels and distribution of skill and knowledge acquisition that can be said to result from working in these enhanced contexts.
1. “The Information Technology Management (ITM) program… is focused on making students active contributors to their education through a wide range of technical, presentation, teaching, writing activities, it is equally intent on introducing them to the project management standards used in the service industry and information economy. The ITM program sees its goal to provide students with skills and problem-solving experiences demanded by technology environments in both industry and post-secondary education [best facilitated by combining] technical content, in-school work-experience and an exploration of the social and workplace issues of Information Technology” (Forssman & Willinsky, 1995, p. 5).
2. As described by Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989, and Collins, Brown, & Hollim, 1991, cognitive apprenticeship refers to the process of making thinking visible to facilitate the teaching of thinking skills. Our model adds service learning’s demand for student reflexivity.
3. Service contracts are the shorter duration and less ambitious service-oriented projects carried out by individual class members. Examples include installing a computer program for a teacher or department, and teaching a friend or acquaintance about the Internet.
4. Roberta Kramer stated that “we just think about the audience and about what we should put in there . . . and so he has been doing the work and sort of runs it by me” and “I am actually quite a bit more excited than I was initially about having a web page for the science department . . Sean has learned a little bit about the whole science curricula as defined by the Ministry.”
5. Common statements from the teachers also included, “I have no idea where you are going.” they often modeled, scaffolded, and coached by explaining how they had accomplished something, gave helpful hints on means to attack future tasks, and offered a lot of positive support and feedback.
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Willinsky, J. (1996). Tempering the masculinities of technology: An evaluation of gender and technology in the Information Technology Management (ITM) program. Paper presented at the AERA, New York.
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. As described by Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989, and Collins, Brown, & Hollim, 1991, cognitive apprenticeship refers to the process of making thinking visible to facilitate the teaching of thinking skills. Our model adds service learning’s demand for student reflexivity.
. Service contracts are the shorter duration and less ambitious service-oriented projects carried out by individual class members. Examples include installing a computer program for a teacher or department, and teaching a friend or acquaintance about the Internet
. One project was to build, service, and maintain a web page for the school.
. The technology fair group’s project was to stage a “fair” in the school gym so that a variety of community members involved with different aspects of technology could present their wares.
. The build-a-computer group was attempting to build a basic, low cost computer that could be put to use in the school.
. When students enter the room at the beginning of class, they sign in and indicate where they can be contacted, if not in the classroom.
. For Mr. MacNamara, the students were working on a neighbourhood survey and with Kim Robinson, the English Department aspect of the school web page.
. During my visits to site, I witnessed three sets of class presentations. Generally they involved groups giving a presentation on the content and process of their projects. After each was completed, class members completed evaluation forms which were shared with the presenters and the teachers. Presenters also completed self-evaluation forms
. During the project group meetings, each group met with one or both of the teachers to assess the past two weeks progress and plan for the coming weeks. Student evaluation is based upon the extent to which each student accomplished her or her biweekly tasks.
. Sean had begun the course but had dropped out after a few months because he found some of the other students immature and unproductive in their group projects. Also, as he had experience working in the computer field, he felt he was not learning anything new about business. However, Sean was also in the ITM class during class time working very hard on his own project and often interacting with a number of other students.
. Sue stated that “we just think about the audience and about what we should put in there . . . and so he has been doing the work and sort of runs it by me” and “I am actually quite a bit more excited than I was initially about having a web page for the science department . . Sean has learned a little bit about the whole science curricula as defined by the Ministry.”
. Common statements from the teachers included, “I have no idea where you are going.” they often modeled, scaffolded, and coached by explaining how they had accomplished something, gave helpful hints on means to attack future tasks, and offered a lot of positive support and feedback.
. And certainly to the support of other staff and the principal without whom Jacqueline told me it would not have been possible to either begin or continue the course.
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Trichorhina tormentosa, also known as the Dwarf White Isopod, is one of several dwarf species of isopods used in terrariums. These small, soft bodied, isopods will grow to be a maximum of 1/8’ - 3/16” in length. Making them the ideal choice for poison dart frogs, bio-active setups, and most all terrariums. They will spend most of their time below or at the surface of the soil and will reproduce quickly once established in your setup. Dwarf White isopods, as their name suggests, are white in color but will vary from white to a light yellow or brown coloration depending on the age and diet.
Please read before purchasing!
Due to state regulations pertaining to the sale and movement of these organisms, we cannot ship to the following states;
HI, (VT - Currently under review) & US Territories
Last updated 11.26.2020
A 72 Hour Heat Pack should be added to any order containing perishable, or live, organisms (clean up crew or live plants) going to a location experiencing temperatures below 50 Degrees F.
* We cannot offer any guarantees for organisms shipped without a heat pack during the winter / cold months. Please note that we are located in Ohio and will need to added a heat pack to any order being shipped during the late Fall, winter and, and early spring seasons.
* Any order containing live organisms that does not have a 72 hour heat pack added to order will be contacted before shipping to have a heat pack added to the order; at an additional charge before shipping.
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About weight loss tipsYou may put money into audio publications and preserve Hearing them when you stroll. Hearing audio could also aid.
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Try to eat on lesser plates. Perfectly, here lies the trick – putting slightly amount of meals on a big plate can make you are feeling that you are starving yourself. But exactly the same sum over a scaled-down plate would make you really feel satisfied. It’s pure psychology, my friend. But it works good.
results, when you consider the standard of your food plan, you’re most likely forgetting about each of the harmful foods that also finds its way to the mouth, much too. People have a tendency to exaggerate The great foods they try to eat and undervalue the terrible things, suggests study author, Kentaro Murakami, Ph.D. of Japan’s University of Shiga Prefecture. Even though it’s not automatically intentional, it’s likely certainly one of the reasons why it’s so tough for men and women to shed weight.
Transform your self-converse about your entire body on the good. Don’t throw in the towel even if it feels compelled or artificial. Refrain from “Body fat discuss” with pals and kin, which reinforces overall body dissatisfactions.
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marathons, but it really’s significant you get pleasure from your meals sitting at your kitchen area desk—not in front of the television. Why? Carolyn Brown, MS RD of Foodtrainers explained to us that not merely do the commercials for unhealthy meals and drink maximize our craving for junk but simply because Television is so distracting, it also can make it more challenging to notice how full we’re getting right up until we’ve scarfed down excessive. Science agrees with Brown: A current study from the American Journal of Medical Nutrition
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|crowds ofthousands have greeted 210 former prisoners on Tuesday, 18th of October|
The first stage of the prisoner swap deal has already taken place. As agreed on, 477 Palestinian detainees were set free before an Israeli soldier held in Gaza was delivered by the resistance to the Red Cross to enjoy the full range of freedom.
In Gaza, crowds of thousands have greeted 210 former prisoners — 131 of whom are from Gaza, and another 179 who were deported to Gaza according to Israel’s inhumane stipulations. The release of a total of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners should be completed within two months.
As prisoners have returned to their families, celebrations of freedom have been heard all cross the Gaza Strip, bringing a sense of hope for freedom. However, the road to freedom will remain incomplete even with one Palestinian still suffering inside the Israeli occupation prisons. So what if approximately 6,000 political prisoners are still locked up, including 164 children, in violation of international law?
The deported prisoners
The most painful part of this swap deal is the deported prisoners. They have long waited to be free again to return to their families, but Israel has instead deported them to other places where they have to wait even longer before they can wrap their arms around their loved ones again. The freedom of these deported former prisoners is not true freedom.
My parents recently went to a celebration held in the neighborhood for some released detainees. I was sitting alone when suddenly my phone rang. It was my mother. I could hardly hear her because of celebrations that were going around her. “You should come and see how people are dancing with joy and singing for freedom,” she said. I got so excited that I could no longer stay home and I decided to join them immediately and see for myself the joyous atmosphere there.
I didn’t know the exact address of the festival but I didn’t worry about it as I was certain that the resonance of the songs of freedom would guide my steps. The lights along with the Palestinian flags of all sizes were everywhere, decorating the dark blue sky. The walls were dressed with photos of our heroes who sacrificed precious years for the cause of freedom.
People came from different areas of the Gaza Strip to share with the released detainees the happiness of their freedom. The festival included folk dancing performances, songs of liberation and poetry dedicated to those who were free and to those who are still suffering behind Israeli bars.
|Loai is holding his mother, Rawda, after his release in Gaza City.|
A long-awaited reunion
Near the end of the festival, which lasted for several hours, my father called over me and mom to introduce us to his friends. A woman wearing a beautiful Palestinian traditional dress decorated with threads in the colors of the Palestinian flag — white, red, black and green — was standing beside a blond man.
“Rawda, Yacoub, here is my daughter, Shahd,” my father introduced us. Then the man, Yacoub, stepped forward, kissed my forehead and hugged me and left me surprised and still wondering who he was.
Then Dad continued with a big smile on his face: “This is my friend from Jerusalem who was detained with me in Nafha prison for 15 years, and we were freed together in Ahmad Jibril’s exchange deal. And this is his brother’s wife, Rawda, who was imprisoned for five years as well in the 1970s.”
I then realized that they were here a day ago to see Loai, Rawda’s son, who was freed in the swap deal but deported to Gaza. She was hoping that she would hug her son, Loai, as soon as he was released. She had been waiting for ten years, daydreaming about that day.
Her son was sentenced to 28 years of imprisonment but thanks to the prisoner swap, he only spent ten years behind Israeli bars. However, it was very disappointing for her to find out that he would be deported to Gaza and that he would not return back home.
She did everything she could to tightly hug her son again and for that she traveled with her husband and his brother by bus from Jerusalem to Eilat and then to Egypt and then to Gaza through Rafah crossing. It’s so ironic to know that she had to suffer two days of travelling to enter Gaza when it would take her less than two hours if Israel allowed her to enter though Erez checkpoint.
Shortly after meeting Loai’s mother and uncle, I met him. “Congratulations for your freedom. I’m very glad you’re finally released,” I said, my face expressing happiness and admiration.
After short chat, I discovered that Loai has completed his bachelor degree in sociology. Since the beginning of his imprisonment, he applied for the Israeli Prison Administration to study at Hebrew University. While he must have finished his degree in four years, it took him around 10 years to eventually have it as many times his application to continue his study was rejected for no reason.
After I told him that I am studying English at Al-Azhar University, he replied so enthusiastically, “I’m going to further my studies at Al-Azhar University and you will have to help me and give me so much support as I am new here.” I kept nodding my head, admiring his unbelievable determination and his civility, and replied: “Of course! Any time!”
We soon had to separate, as it was getting late and everyone needed to go back home and rest after long hours of dancing and chanting. On the way back home, my father was expressing how happy he was to meet his friend, Loai’s uncle, again after more than 24 years of separation, as he is denied access to Jerusalem by Israel.
“Can you imagine that his baldness is because of the torment he endured by the Israeli army?” he asked me with an angry voice.
He added, “The Israeli soldiers used to use a thin stick and knock on the top of his head in sensitive places continuously and slowly for long hours as a way of torturing psychologically and physically at the same time. However, this is maybe the least torturing method. Israeli soldiers are very creative at bringing new methods of torment…”
My father left me speechless and thinking of how much our prisoners have endured in Israel’s cruel jails. It’s true that those former prisoners, including Loai, are now out of Israeli prisons, but still their freedom is conditional and incomplete, as they were forced to accept their fate to live in exile far away from their land and families. It makes me sad to think that this beautiful family is now going to be scattered between their home in Jerusalem and Gaza, where their son is forced to live from now on.
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Writing is the key to success, its just many people don't realize it. I have always been able to express myself better in writing. I found writing easier to say what I needed to without hurting any ones feelings. I could use my imagination and not be critisized for it. Writing has helped me get through many troubled situations in life cause the more I wrote the less tension I felt. writing bis more than a career its a hobby for me. I feel myself in the story as I'm writing.Writing is a pleasure to let people hear what I have to say. I can actually come up with some pretty interesting stories some facts some fiction. The things I write about usually come from the heart and my sense of humor is always on the up and up. Writing is the key to many new advenchers.
Candy I feel the same way. Writting makes me feel good too, even though I am not that good at it, I still like to write. Thank you for your honesty.
I agree. I am soooo much better at writing. Face to face Im all..ummm..ahhhh...
Not everyone can do it. Or even needs to. Some people are fine with the sound of thier voices. Put up a hub? It would be cool to get to know you.
Writting is the way that many people have expressed their love, hate, ager, or sadness throught the years. It's only natural that the written word be so captivating.
It's good that you know ho to channel your feelings that way Candy. <3
As you say in your title
"Writng is the Key"
or as the previous commenter says
"Writting is the way . . ."
Well, as for me:
"Me liykes to rite abowt wot mee duz an sumtymes wot mee duz not do, its orl in de mynd anee way, innit? Lyke, ya no wot I meen? “
Never mind the quality feel the width.
Hmm, I seem to remember seeing a hub with that title somewhere on Hubpages . . .
Writing has become my literary therapy. I am a middle aged unemployed man who can no longer work in the blue collar industry because of my disability.
I,also, enjoy reading many books to improve my knowledge in the literary world so that I may use the information as I write to the extreme.
I didn't realise that writing could open up many doors in my imaginary world that is trying to escape from my mind.
The trouble is how to express it in written terms to the public,whether on paper or on the internet, in my own words and be understood.
Write on man.
I could paint you a picture simply made of words . In the most random of way none making any sense . A landscape of letters that's all it would be. But a beautiful sunset by the beach is all that you would see.
I can't imagine myself as someone who had trouble expressing themselves through writing, because I do it without even thinking half the time!
Not that I've never had stories die on me or words just not seem to come as easily as I'd want them to. That happens to everybody who writes. And writer's block hits me aaaalll the time, but I've learned to accept it and wait it out until it goes away, which it always does.
When I write, I'm not always bouncing-in-my-seat-giddy about it, because plenty of my characters or plots give me hella trouble! But when I know what's going to happen, or I understand where a scene is going better than I did yesterday...there is a definite sense of pride and accomplishment, I must admit.
I can't describe how it makes me feel, really...I don't play a string instrument and I never have, but I always get a sense of what I think it must be like for a cellist or someone to pick up their instrument and disappear into music of their own composition. The *feeling* is one of effortlessness, even if the work is anything but.
I like to express myself in writing, it is a therapy for me.
It is good therapy to be sure. I've taken a pen name to protect family and friends, however. But there is great power in writing one's truth. I'm glad to be here among friends. I had such reservations about writing what I do here, and have been warmly welcomed. Thank you, all.
I can't believe how addictive writing has become and how enjoyable and so quickly!
by Peter Owen6 years ago
Why do we write continuously? For enjoyment?To impress?For fame?For money?To communicate our thoughts?Nothing better to do?
by poetvix6 years ago
Which do you feel produces a better piece, writes resulting from real experiences and events from the author’s life though they may be hidden in a cloak of fiction or writes that are purely fiction having no...
by GW Nichols7 years ago
Over the years I've noticed more and more people in published literature following to the conformed style of everyone else. Dry unimaginative, and some of it feels like reading instructions to working on your car. What...
by Baraccuza2 months ago
Many people writing different things. But I and I'm sure that many other people would like to know the potential of hubpages. Thanks for answers.
by Don Bobbitt2 years ago
I am so frustrated right now. Here I am drinking my morning coffee and reading through my HP offerings. And, there they are! Person after person, with names that I have no chance to pronounce, writing articles (usually...
by haj33968 days ago
When God come How many people will be saved that are alive. the bible states only 144,000, that are alive will be save out the whole world. How many dead will be saved, the bible state a number that no man can number.
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Common Django Issues
2011-04-11 12:20:56 | 1 Comment
I am following many programming language and library mailing lists and one of them is the Django group. Since the time I've started following the mailing list, I have seen the same questions flowing around and for that matter, I will write down two simple advices and solutions to common Django issues asked around constantly. Read the Django Documentation ----------- Django docs are one of the best documentations around on the web. Whatever it is you wonder, you need, you stuck is already mentioned in the documentation. Before jumping in and asking questions all the time, make a simple plan for your application, find out what you need or what you might need and read about them. Always start with the basic tutorial in the Django web site. Do not underestimate it because it's a simple application, it will open your eyes. Google Your Problem ---------- Whatever your problem / error / need / question is, it is most likely to be asked and answered already on the web. Before posting to the mailing list(s) or asking in the IRC rooms, just google it. If there is nothing pleasing you then go with the support channels. Long story short, google it! Back to common issues now. Is Django Suitable For X Kind of Web Application? ---------- Yes, it is. You can feel like it's more suitable for a CMS like web application however you are wrong. You can create any kind of web application with Django. You can create an e-commerce application, an ERP application, a CRM application, a simple blog system, a huge news system, anything you can imagine. Django Powered Web Sites ---------- From time to time, I see this question asked on both the mailing list and #django channel. You can just go visit [http://www.djangosites.org/](http://www.djangosites.org/) and browse Django powered web sites. They even have tags you can browse apps by. Django Admin Does Not Work For Me ---------- The reason is most likely that you have forgotten to enable it. Read more about it at [Django tutorial part 2](http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.3/intro/tutorial02/). Make sure you do everything written there. My Static Files Are Not Showing Up ---------- If your static files are not showing up, then you are doing it wrong. Visit the [Managing static files](http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.3/howto/static-files/) page and learn how to do it correctly. My Models Are Not Created ----------- It is because you have not added it to INSTALLED_APPS. I Cannot Access A Page ----------- Make sure you have set a corresponding rule in your `urls.py` and returning the correct response / template. How Do I Access Form Data? ----------- You can do that with `request.POST['field_name']` or `request.GET['field_name']`. In addition, if you are not sure if the field_name exists, accessing the field with `request.POST.get('field_name')` is a lot better. How Do I Deploy Django? ---------- [Deploying Django](http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/howto/deployment/) page in the Django docs will help you. To be continued.
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